Complete Book on Overcalls

First the downside: Its a bit of work going through this book. This is not some light read, with lots of jokes. Expect to spend a lot of time thinking aabout whats going on given a bidding sequence, and your hand. You want to improve? You have to work at it! The upside: This will really help you to understand not just overcalls, but hand evaluation, bidding, opening leads, defense, and what in general is going on. Who holds what, etc. Its a study of whats going on in all 4 players hands, given the information of a single bid, or one round of bidding. Why, with the exact same hand, you can overcall with one sequence, and pass with the other. I spent a few weeks reading this, going over the hundreds of sequences and hands. I'm now more aware of certain lurking dangers, and what to look out for.

Mike Lawrence must be a direct descendant 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 players in the 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.

This book is probably the best book on bridge ever written. There is so much insight in this book that you will have to re-read it time and time again each time adding to your own insight in not only overcalling but the game as a whole. The style is lucid sometimes nonchalant; Lawrence gives insight into his own considerations when making bidding decisions and makes it clear that many decisions are not absolute. But following the logic and type of arguments he presents you will get more and more decisions right. I strongly recommend this book to every bridge player who aspires to improve his or her game.

This comprehensive work on overcalls actually transcends the subject and gets near to the inner essence of bridge, as few other books do (Kelsey and Ottlik's Adventures in Card Play is another). The principles of what makes a good overcall vs bad ones are laid out in clear and linear fashion, such that the information can be put to IMMEDIATE use by the reader. Your game cannot fail to improve. Best of all, the author does not gild his ideas with contrived example hands constructed only to validate them. He honestly presents each recommendation in its best and worst light. Please buy this book! (and read it twice).

This book presents a superb, complete, and clear explanation of principles of overcalling and responding to overcalls. Lawrence provides many tabulations of slightly different hands and shows how to distinguish them to partner. Thorough discussion of differences between match-point and IMP strategy is included. Responsive doubles are explained clearly, and examples clarify the inferences available from NOT making a negative double. Complete explanations of when, why, how, and how high to preempt are provided. This book is addressed to players already competent, and will help raise their competitive bidding to expert level. Buy 2 copies and give your partner one. DON'T LET YOUR OPPONENTS READ IT!