Bridge Is a Conversation by Gerard Cohen. Though newer than most of the books on my list, this bids fair to become a classic. Gerard's writing, like his bidding, dummy play, post mortems and defense, is consistently entertaining and even instructive, in a weird sort of way. Most of this book is over my head, but believing as I do that muddy waters are deep waters, I feel obliged to present actual quotes and let you, the reader, decide. The more charitable among you might want to remember that English is his second language. All items guaranteed sic.

A conversation between partners in bridge always starts with a statement that means either I have no values in my hand or I have some point values in a long suit or I have an unusual hand with some point values and more than one long suit or I have a huge hand.

Like in any communication between people, people and machines and machines and machines, there need to be a protocol, and so far, no one has identified bridge's mysterious communication protocol.

All great players, teachers, super-experts uses it every time he bids, but none has articulated it.

Call it what you want, Gerard's Principle or some other name, but it governs all bridge conversations. That's what this book is all about.

Some people talk for nothing. They don't have anything specific to say but they say it anyway. They hope to grab someone's attention and start a conversation. The reason is that they want to have the feeling they are "somebody". I'll leave it to the psychologists to analyze their deep motivations. The bottom line is that even for these people, there is a reason and a goal for trying to communicate. There is always a goal for conversation, and that is either to better oneself or better the other guy.

At the end of the game, there is a winner and a looser.

Both teams engage in one board at a time intellectual confrontation at the end of which one will have the pleasure of playing the contract and the other will have the misfortune of having to defend it.

Without competition, and with hands that are fairly standard, a team formed by decent players can find the right contract.

The players in 3rd and 4th seats are always the responders, regardless of what you may have heard through the grapevine, even if the players in 1st and 2nd seat have passed.

For an auction to exist, at least one of the team's has to enter it by placing at last one bid. If both teams shy away from making a bid other than Pass, there is no auction and the hand is not being played. Usually at least one team will enter the auction, if not both.

The captain releases his/her captainship when he/she makes a closing statement, converts his/her partner last answer into a contract to play or makes an invitation.

If the auctions continue passed [sic] that point, the crew becomes the captain and the process restarts with reversed roles.

I personally do not care for invitational raises altogether, because they force the partner to make a decision without really knowing with certainty the contents of the captain's hand.

The NT bid used as an acceptance to an invitation by the captain, is a negative answer and does not necessarily reflects the possession of a balanced hand nor a stopper in all the unbid suits named by the team.

Gerard's tip of the night: DECLARER PLAY: Each declarer play is like a battle. Prepare for battle. Count your winning tricks, your loosing tricks. Make a plan of attack to better your chances of winning the remaining ones.

Any bid naming a new suit by the captain after an active opening bid or a reactive opening overcall has been made and that does not imply a weak hand is a question that must be answered.

A game force bid is not necessary to reach game. It can be replaced by a cascade of 1 round forcing bid, at the expense of purity of the auction.

A new breed of highly gifted players is actually able to play 3nt with 24 pts, 4 in a major with 25 points, 5 in a minor with 27 points, a small slam with 30 points and a grand slam with 34 points with a good chance of success.

Gerard's tip of the night. PLAY LIKE THE EXPERTS: When making an opening lead against a slam, lead your ace unless there is a compelling reason not to.

All conventions have the same purpose: helping find a suit fit if any can be found and delimiting with as much precision as possible the point count in the combination of both partners hand.

Some players seem to think that making a negative double with a 5 card major is right. It is not, regardless of the cards held in that suit.

Now that you have acquired the panoply of the perfect bridge player, let's review it in a more global way, the strategies you may use to reach your contracts, or force the opponents to miss theirs.

For the other team, altogether, the minimum for the opposing team has a point spread of 19 to 40 minus whatever each opponent counts in his own hand. I'll let you figure the mathematics of it.

Gerard's tip of the night: ABOUT LEADS: Non-standard leads usually show non-standard hands. Use non-standard leads with extreme caution.

Experts of the game know how to manage gracefully such the situation they create, most other players don't.

Gerard's tip of the night: LUCK IN BRIDGE: Luck is when your opponents make a mistake and you don't make one yourself.

Again, as much as the answers to give to the captain's questions are precise, the captain's questions do not have for feed you with information about his/her hand, though it is preferance incase captainship is picked by the crew, you in our case.

I am always surprised, when playing on the Internet where dozens of spectators may come and watch games in progress, that I attract so many of them. I put this on the account that, without understanding motivations for performing some of my bids, they are intrigued by them and the results they generate. Sometimes I can hear someone say: "Well, that's a Gerard bid!" but it's all right. Those who understand what the thought process is behind these seemingly strange bids, stop making such a statement.