... It is simply stunning. If I ever needed a reminder of why I play this game, this is it.

The most sublime bridge book ever written is an extensive exploration of a core of intricate themes in card play. Covered are entry squeezes, trump squeezes, entry-shifting squeezes, elopement, throw-ins, dummy reversal, and backwash squeezes. There are also three chapters on a unique subject, squeezes, finesses and throw-ins against cards that do not immediately lead to any material gain, yet are necessary to set up a later trick. In reading these chapters, one feels that universal secrets are being revealed, like observing the birth of stars through some powerful telescope. A life-enriching experience that begs for an annual re-rereading!

This is one book I shall take onto the desert island with me -- at least, I would if I hadn't given away all of my copies to various bridge-playing friends.

I first picked up "Adventures on Card Play" many years ago, at the same time that I was learning about squeezes and throw-ins and other beautiful techniques in card play. Simple squeezes, strip-squeezes, criss-cross squeezes, ... I thought I'd seen it all. After all, how many different ways can there be to play a hand of cards?

Kelsey and Ottlik's wonderful, glorious book showed me just how wrong I was. Each chapter (with delicious chapter headings like "The Fiercer Trump Sqeezes") is a banquet in itself, hand after hand of richly ingenious card-play manoeuvres. It's stunning, exuberant entertainment. Just like Raymond Smullyan in his remarkable "Chess Mysteries" books, Kelsey and Ottlik have the ability to squeeze nectar from a stone. Uncanny.