Complete Book on Overcalls at Contract Bridge: A Mike Lawrence Classic (Revised, Updated)

When I first read Mike Lawrence's books, including the first edition of this book on overcalls, I found them frustrating. They are short on rules; instead, he teaches by example. But over the years I have come to realize that my earlier frustration was due simply to my relative inexperience at bridge, because the things that Lawrence teaches are matters more of judgment than of rules, and to the extent judgment can be taught, it must necessarily be taught by example, not rule.I therefore recommend nearly all of Lawrence's books, with the caveat that a beginner is likely to get little out of them because of their lack of "rules."That said, I have a couple of serious reservations about this particular book. The first has to do with a probability error that Lawrence makes repeatedly. This first comes up in his discussion of overcalls on 4-card suits, which he recommends in some circumstances. He begins with this example:32AQT7T7654AQYour RHO opens 1D, and Lawrence recommends a 1H overcall, saying "If the possession of five cards in the suit opened bothers you, forget it. Your length in diamonds plus opener's length assures you that there are not a lot of diamonds for your partner and LHO. This means your partner is likely to have heart support. The length in diamonds therefore is not a minus, but rather an asset."Here's Lawrence's next hand:KQJ9A2J3J8743RHO's bid is still 1D. Lawrence still recommends bidding 1S, but he's nervous about it:"This hand may appear similar to the prior hand, but in fact it is quite different. There is a rather subtle difference. The points are the same. The distribution is the same. The hand contains a good four-card suit and a crummy five-card suit. Neither hand contains a singleton. The difference? It is in the auction. In the previous hand the opening bid was in your weak five-card suit. This had the effect of implying that your partner could have substantial distributional support for your four-card suit. Even if you found partner with no high cars at all, you were assured of some kind of fit."In this hand, however, the opening bid was in one of your doubletons. Therefore, even though it's correct to bid 1S you do so in the hope, rather than the expectation, that partner can provide some sort of fit."This is hooey. The analysis is the same with either hand. Here's how you can prove it to yourself. Take a deck of cards and lay out the first example hand in front of you. Now take four diamonds from the remaining cards and put them to your right, representing RHO's opening diamond bid. (You can try this again with five or six diamonds - the exact number doesn't affect the analysis, but for now let's put four over in RHO's hand.) Now look at the cards remaining in the deck - the cards that will be distributed in the 13 "spaces" in partner's hand, the 13 in LHO's hand, and the 9 remaining spaces in opener's hand. The rest of the deck consists of 35 cards, 9 of which are hearts, the suit you're hoping partner has length in.Now, still sticking with the first of these example hands, pick up the diamonds you have given RHO for his opening diamond bid and give him the same number of clubs instead - representing a hypothetical club opening bid by RHO, instead of the diamond bid he makes in the Lawrence example. You'll find that you still have remaining, to be distributed among the "empty spaces" in the hands, 35 cards, 9 of which are the hearts of which you hope partner has a few.In short, it doesn't matter whether you have length in RHO's suit or not. In either case there will be 9 cards of your suit among the 35 unknown cards - no more and no less. And there will therefore be exactly the same expectation (or hope) of length in your suit in partner's hand.Now I don't deny that length in RHO's suit would make me more inclined to make the 4-card overcall. But that's because I would know that (if partner does have support for me) I could ruff in dummy without fear of being overruffed by RHO. But Lawrence isn't talking about that; he's talking only about the "greater likelihood" that partner will have length in your suit if you have length in opener's suit. Nonsense!Lawrence's mathematical fallacy shows up first in his discussion of overcalls on 4-card suits, but it crops up again in his analyses of other overcall situations, and therefore undermines those analyses. This misanalysis appeared in the first edition, and it's surprising to me that no one has pointed it out to Lawrence in the intervening 30 years.So much (whew!) for my first reservation about this book. My second reservation is that, while the second edition of this book does address a lot of approaches and techniques that have arisen since the publication of the first edition, there is nothing at all about transfer advances. Surely that is an area that needs to be covered in any thorough treatment of overcalling today.To summarize: a very good book marred by two serious flaws.

Mike Lawrence is one of my three favorite bridge authors, the other three being Larry Cohen, Eddie Kantar and Marty Bergen. These are the guys to read if you want to know what the experts are playing, and if you want to emulate them to the best of your own ability.This particular volume is devoted to overcalls, and is an update to Mike Lawrence's earlier edition writing nearly 20 years ago. As he says, he has incorporated quite a bit of new material and abandoned a few of his earlier views.I like his writing, it is honest and forthright, always reminding you that bridge is both a game of skill AND luck, so that nothing he recommends will work every time and some hands simply defy any prescriptive bid.If you take the time to master the material in this book, your bridge is bound to improve because you will have tools and concepts available that the average club player is unaware of.I subtract one star because Mike does not offer indexes in his books, relying on the table of contents. Quite how one could organise an index isn't very clear, which no doubt is why one isn't offered.

This classic book was long out of print, but has now been updated. And of course: it is a very good book. It is written in the typical Lawrence-style: not giving simple rules (overcall with 7-17 HCP and a 5card), but giving many example hands. At first this seems confusing, but you will learn that hand evaluation is much more than counting HCP.Although Lawrence is very extensive, he is also pretty chaotic. For instance, the Michaels cuebid can found in a chapter on the overcaller's rebid. And the new updates have not been well integrated in the old text, but simply an extra chapter on modern methods has been added. And he is not complete: the weak jump overcall is not discussed, the takeout double is only somewhat discussed.But is it a bad book? No, certainly not. You can read this book many times, and every time you will learn new things, which you will not have understood the first time. But if you are looking for a book that will introduce you to competetive bidding, you should better buy a book like '25 Ways to compete in the Bidding' by Seagram.

Mike Lawrence is a very experienced author on duplicate bridge. He simplifies everything so that you can understand it. There is so much material on the subject matter but the key chapter is the chapter where he has updated the material to make it more conducive to today's bridge. I enjoyed this book very much but it is not one that you can read one time and put it away. You will be going over it for years to come!!

This is one of the best bridge books I have read. I had purchased the previous edition printed about 25 years ago and it fell apart in just a few days. I purchased this latest edition a couple of years ago not just for the revisions and updates but also with the hope that its physical construction would be better. This latest version also started falling apart in just a few days. If another edition or printing is made, the publisher should improve its quality to make the book last physically. I know other people who have had the same experience.

Mike Lawrence has always been right on with his books and this one is no exception. Even though it is a little older book it is still right on. Highly recommend.

SO this is how it's done. Mike Lawrence recommends several treatments that -- if they're not unique to him - are very useful.I don't know how widespread the use of his approach is, but it is a very good one.One thing he recommends is the use of overcalls in four cards suits at the one level when appropriate. At one point he says "If you don't get into the bidding (in this four card suit) at the one level, you may well be shut out forever (on this deal)"

Mike Lawrence is easily my favourite bridge writer. He has written a stream of information-packed books.Previous reviewers have given views of this book with which I whole-heartedly agree.As always, Mike's writing is forensic, realistic, crystal-clear, and uncluttered by irrelevances.Forensic? Sitting fourth, he gives you about ten different things to think about whilst considering making an overcall. I didn't think there were anything like that many.As in all his books, Mike doesn't tell you what to do; he doesn't give you a formula to work from; he doesn't bother counting his points. He doesn't give you a mantra that you can recite before each hand. Instead, he tells you all of the things you should be considering, how they interact, and how to apply them. I think he says something like "overcalling is too complex to have a system". You might scoff, but he clearly demonstrates why. There are so many clues you can pick up and process!Whilst many bridge books are like learning a foreign language from a school text book, Mike's teach you as though you're living and breathing the language - right there in the country where the language is the native tongue. The country populated by bridge professionals.You begin to think in the new language.This might not be for you if you go to the club and play by auto-pilot. It gives you lots to THINK about whilst playing. It could radically change your game.

Mike Lawrence must be a big fan of Sherlock Holmes! He uses every scrap of information available on any particular hand/auction, and uses these to arrive at the best bid to make. And it is because of this attention to detail that this (and his other books) are intended for those in the strong intermediate or advanced category.Interesting to place this book's approach alongside more modern bridge textbooks. Take the likes of Cohen's 'Law of Total Tricks'. It expounds the 'Law' and then illustrates how a player should use it via a modest selection of example hands. By contrast, Mike Lawrence bombards the reader with every conceivable hand and explains (albeit in logical order) how you should be thinking about these along the way.This hardly SEEMS a sound teaching approach: the type is small, there is loads of repetition (Lawrence admits it), and the 'quizzes' at the end of each section are not organised in a 'reader-friendly' way.But where this book succeeds and some modern books fail, is curiously in its insistence upon looking at each hand in a strictly individual way, as opposed to selling out to easy mnemonics or rules.While more modern books (take one of Eddie Kantar's books on defence, which I also think are excellent) are nicely presented, contain witty 'after-dinner' asides, and have an interactive feel, their neatness sometimes makes me feel that bridge is all clearcut rules and decisions, hard for the beginner, easy for the expert.But Mike Lawrence seems to be experiencing real pain on many of his example deals. You will frequently see him write, 'I don't know what to do with this hand', not because he's not a good player, but because he understands the difference, for a bridge player, between 'knowing the path' and 'walking the path'.The writer of this book won't sit on his pedestal and lecture you with rules, he will walk the path WITH you. If you will take the time to let him lead you, it should prove time well spent.

I was told i had bought a dated book. Instead, i have a very very good book on bridge, timeless.I recomended it to any aspiring player.Great presentation, grest design, excelent examples and excelent presentation by world champion M Lawrence.One negative point is you cant find a word about how to overcall over a preempt

Read the Revised Edition.Mike’s suggestions are simply wonderful, concise and easy to remember and implement on the Bridge Table.

オーバーコールとアドバンサーのコールについて、やたら細かく書かれた本。同じハンドでも、様々なシークエンスにおいて、望ましいコールが説明されている。この程度ではＯＣして、この程度ではパスのほうが…という内容なので、どう取り決めするかという以前の段階のまさに基本が書かれてある。貴重だと思う。後半は、レスポンシブダブルなどの使い方も、オーバーコールと似たような感じで載ってる。使われてる取り決めはやや古い気もする。基本だからというのもあるけど、たとえばアドバンサーのジャンプレイズはＷＫになってないとか。ジャンプキューはＵＮＢＡＬサポートのＩＮＶとなっているけど、実際は（日本では？）ミクストレイズのほうがよく見かけますね。そのへんは自分らのシステムにあわせて修正すればいいかと。