Bridge Magazine, the game's oldest publication, has been appearing since May 1926. However, The Bridge World, which began in October 1929, has produced more editions because it continued throughout World War II.

Bridge Magazine is aimed primarily at tournament players, but it has a lot of instructional material and two prize competitions for subscribers.

One of these contests is run by Patrick Jourdain. He presents two declarer-play problems, one for a prize and one for fun, where the reader tries to match the line found by a well-known player. In this example, the declarer was Edgar Kaplan, for many years editor and publisher of The Bridge World. Kaplan, South in four spades, received a trump lead from West. What did he do?

North sensibly responded four spades over West's takeout double. His side was unlikely to have a slam, and the bid had excellent pre-emptive power.

West led a trump because everything else was too dangerous.

Kaplan, given that West surely had the diamond ace, saw four "unavoidable" losers: two hearts, one diamond and one club. But perhaps West could be dissuaded from shifting to hearts.

Declarer won the first trick in the dummy and played a diamond to his seven.

West won and understandably continued with his second trump.

South won in his hand and led the diamond king, covered by West's ace and ruffed in the dummy. Declarer returned to his hand with a trump and discarded two hearts from the dummy on his high diamonds, losing only one heart, one diamond and one club. Details are available at www.bridgeshop.com.

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