How to Defend a Bridge Hand

Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive study of defense at contract bridge
Review: A major contribution to bridge literature. Deals comprehensively with the subject. Written on exactly the right level. 1994 Bridge Book of the Year.

Rating:
Summary: Defend with Root
Review: Bill Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand" is an excellent book that teaches one to learn the foundamentals of defence in bridge. It covers all the important facets of the defence. The quiz after each chapter and the 36 random quiz are useful for one to review the materials covered in the book. No doubt one will benefit a lot from reading this book. The only concern for me is that the problems presented in the book and quiz are all with the goal preset: you need to defeat the contract by "exactly" one trick. I would like to see the book include problems involving, e.g., matchpoint considerations and judgement on when to take the tricks (sometimes setting the contract is not the goal of the hand)

Rating:
Summary: Thorough but uninspired
Review: There's no question that William Root knows what he's writing about, but I found this book rather dry and uninspiring. Still, it's well organized and formatted with lots of example hands and reading it would certainly be of some value to the improving player.

I'd recommend "Card Play Technique" by Victor Mollo instead.