Book review: How You Can Play Like an Expert (without Having to be one) by Mel Cochamiro

Book:  How You Can Play Like an Expert without Having to be one
Author: Mel Cochamiro
Year published: 2007
Rating: 8/10 

Review:
Some people are expert bridge players. How You Can Play like an Expert is not for them. Some bridge players are just starting out and How You Can Play like an Expert is not for them, either. Mel Cochamiro has written a good book for the vast group of people who play bridge at an intermediate level. Mel Cochamiro is an expert bridge player and teacher; in How You Can Play like an Expert he has distilled much of what he has learned about playing bridge into a set of rules. However, the book might be better titled "How to Bid Like an Expert" since most of it is about bidding (although there is some material on play and defense).

Like many books on bridge, How You Can Play like an Expert is not really one to read and then put away. It is a book to look at repeatedly over time, preferably going over the rules one or a few at a time with each partner that you play with regularly. Bridge is, after all, a partnership game.

Each rule is in a separate chapter and each is given about 10 pages. The problem is remembering all the rules and when they apply. That is another reason that this book should be read in intervals and repeatedly. How to Play like an Expert also features some of Mel Cochamiro's sense of humor and a few of his stories. I found these less than wonderful, but they leaven the rules.

There are rules about when to open, how to respond to a preempt, when to double and so on. About 200 of the books' 276 pages are devoted to bidding, about 40 to play and defense and the rest to introductory material and an appendix.

About the Author: Mel Cochamiro is an expert bridge player and teacher. He lives on Long Island in New York.