The biggest difference between the average bridge player and the expert is play of the cards. The bidding tools now used by the average player are quite sophisticated and allow a partnership to reach the best contract most of the time. Card play is not as amenable to rules and regulations. There are far too many card combinations and permutations to allow easy classification. However, there are fundamentals that every player can and should learn.

Marty Bergen has written two excellent books on declarer play. The first, Declarer Play the Bergen Way, was the 2005 Bridge Book of the Year. The sequel, More Declarer Play the Bergen Way, introduces additional topics as well as expanding on the topics introduced in the first book. If you read these books, you will certainly learn the fundamentals that every declarer should know. Additionally, Marty also presents, in his usual easy to understand style, some sophisticated techniques such as end plays and squeezes, that perhaps you only thought an expert could pull off.

Starting in the summer of 2009, I am planning to do lessons on declarer play, based on the material in these books. Click here for the lesson schedule.

As a special service for my students, I have made arrangments with Marty to allow you to order these books from my web site. Marty will autograph each book you order with a personal message of your choice. With your order, you will also receive a free copy of Bergen's Best Bridge Quizzes. Shipping to US customers is free. If you order both books, or 2 copies of one book, you will get a $10 discount over ordering each book separately; in addition, as a special thank you for ordering two or more books, Marty will send you additional materials from his personal lessons and his custom pens.

The following information is available on this page:

	Purchase Marty's Books
	Excerpt from the Chapter on Squeezes
	Table of Contents for Declarer Play the Bergen Way
	Table of Contents for More Declarer Play the Bergen Way
	Table of Contents for Bergen's Best Bridge Quizzes

You can place your order here for Declarer Play the Bergen Way and More Declarer Play the Bergen Way.

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When should a squeeze be attempted?

When there is no other way to get rid of a loser. The outlook is bleak, so you have nothing to lose by attempting a squeeze.

Opportunities for squeezes occur quite often. Suit contracts and notrump are both fair game. You should try for a squeeze whether the hoped-for extra trick fulfills the contract or produces an overtrick.

What do you need to do?

Take all your winners in the irrelevant suits, and hope. That'’s basically it!

What are you hoping for?

If one (or both) defenders threw away the wrong cards, it would not bother you at all. Discarding is often difficult, tedious, and annoying. The more discards you squeeze out of your opponents, the greater the chance for a mistake. If you make the hand because of a discarding error, it is referred to as a pseudo-squeeze.

However, you don’t need to depend on an enemy error to gain a trick when you attempt a squeeze. When you cash your last winner in the irrelevant suit(s), you are hoping that one opponent has two suits to guard. He will then be forced to discard a winner from one of the relevant suits. These are legitimate squeezes and can operate even against perfect defense.

What else should you know in order to execute a squeeze?

Squeezes function most efficiently when declarer has already lost all of the losers he can afford to lose. So, in order to set up a squeeze, on some hands, declarer should make sure to "lose his losers early." When you're discussing squeezes, this technique is referred to as rectifying the count.