Rules are made to be broken, and the world of bridge is no exception. This is the first of a planned four-book series on cardplay. It deals with situations where the player who is on lead - defender or declarer, at the start of the deal or in the middle - needs to do something that involves ostensibly 'breaking the rules'. Not, obviously, the rules of bridge itself, but the well-tried adages that every player needs to be taught - the rules of thumbA that work in a lot of cases. Knowing when to break those rules is one of the marks of an expert player.