1 APRIL 1905, Page 21

The Complete Bridge - Player. By " Cut Cavendish." (T. Wernet Laurie. 2s.

6d. net.)—There is much to be learntfrom this book. Doctors, of course, disagree about bridge as about everything else; but "Cut Cavendish's" counsels appear to be well considered and judicious. The chapter on "Black Declarations" seems to us to be one of the most instructive. The advice to declare spades when the dealer has a hopeless hand in preference to leaving the declaration to dummy will strike many players as questionable. Still, there is force in the reasoning that if the dealer cannot see a single trick in his own hand, he has no right to expect that dummy, with the considerablb disadvantage of being dummy, will make seven. Of course all counsels are more or less modified by the state of the score. It would assist in im- pressing the importance of this consideration on the ordinary player if we could have statistics to show the advantage given by the privilege of declaration.