Peter Fredin may not be the best bridge player in the world, but he gets my vote for the most exciting. I first became fascinated by the Swedish star years ago when he duped me with an outlandish bluff during a European championship. I quickly learned that the field was littered with his victims. Now there’s a brilliant new book about the man — Master of Bridge Psychology by Jeppe Juhl — which is full of stunning hands and funny stories.
What makes Fredin’s approach to bridge so original is that, again and again, he rejects the correct technical line in favour of a psychological one. As Fredin puts it, opportunities to deceive occur all the time, but the vast majority of players are not ‘wired’ to think that way. Or maybe they just don’t have his nerve: he’s never worried about looking a fool when backing his intuition over the mathematical odds.
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