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Bridge With Brunner: Acol Bidding For Improvers
by Michelle Brunner
£12.99 available from Bridge Plus

Michelle Brunner is a former World Women's champion and a full-time bridge teacher. Although this is her first book, she will be well known to readers of Bridge Magazine for her long-running series of bidding articles for improving players. Of all the expert players today, Michelle is probably unique in that she has played the Acol system throughout her long and very successful career. As such, she can be considered one of the world's leading authorities on this popular bidding system. This book is ideal for players setting out on the road to discover this wonderful and intriguing game. From here they will learn all of the fundamentals of bidding ? not only what a bid or a bidding sequence means, but, most importantly, why. For those a little further along the road, looking to improve their game, this book provides an ideal refresher course.

How often do you come across a bidding sequence that you are sure someone once explained but you cannot quite remember what it meant? Michelle provides a perfect reference guide to which you can refer back in order to jog your memory.

As an experienced teacher who fully understands the way novices think, and the type of things they find difficult to grasp, Michelle provides teachers with an ideal reference book for their own courses. Not only are all of the basics of bidding thoroughly explained, with useful summary tables at the end of each chapter, but there are also plenty of quizzes that can be used to test students' progress.

The layout of this book is easy to follow, starting with what to open, how to handle balanced hands, and how to respond to partner's opening bid. We then move on to opener's rebids and how the auction develops thereafter. In the later chapters, the author addresses topics that are always difficult for beginners and intermediate players: bidding very strong hands, pre-emptive bidding and slam bidding. She then concludes with a look at the most difficult of all bidding subjects ? competitive bidding and how to handle opponents' intervention in your auctions.

Throughout the book, the reader is given numerous 'Rules to follow', Handy Hints', 'Hot Tips' and 'Points to Ponder', each enclosed in a box to set it apart from the rest of the text. My only criticism of this book, if you can call it that, is that the publisher has perhaps crammed too much information into the allotted number of pages. The same material could easily have been spread over an extra 20% more pages but then, of course, it would have cost you more to buy. So, perhaps this is really another plus: excellent value for money.

If you play the Acol system, are learning Acol, or would like to find out more about one of the world's most popular bidding methods, this is the ideal book for you. Highly recommended for anyone from complete beginner up to fairly serious tournament player.

Marc Smith