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Selecting the best line of play in a bridge hand as declarer is not easy. Most novices know something about basic odds and percentages, and can often find a line that offers a reasonable chance of success. However, the expert will skilfully combine options, so as to take advantage of more than chance. Rather than putting all his eggs in one basket, he will 'stay alive', squeezing out every extra chance. In this book of intermediate problems, Kantar shows the reader how to do this — there is always a line of play that will allow you take all your chances, and bring home your contract.

• Intermediate
• Award Winner

Take All Your Chances at Bridge was published in 2009 and has already been reprinted twice. It won the American Bridge Teachers 2010 Book of the Year Award for best intermediate-level book. In this sequel, Kantar presents another collection of play problems for advancing players. Again, the theme is not just finding a good line of play: the trick is to combine as many possible lines as possible to optimize your chances of making the contract. Full of Kantar’s inimitable humor and extra tips, as well as lots of good bridge, this one is another sure winner.

• Intermediate

Bob Smithers is dead, although few in the tournament bridge scene will shed any tears. Art Fraser, the ambitious police lieutenant assigned to the case, knows the bridge world well. He reckons that should give him the inside track on cracking his first homicide investigation, the one that will bring him the promotion he wants so much. But Smithers made enemies easily, both at the bridge table and away from it, and Art has plenty of potential murderers to investigate. Even his own bridge friends have to be treated as suspects, and he begins to uncover a complex tangle of jealousy, ambition, sex, and deceit amongst people to whom he knows bridge is far more than just a game. Then a second body shows up...

Move over Victor Mollo and David Bird! Fans of the Hideous Hog, the Abbot, and the Rabbi will find a new hero among the halls of Mohican College (the last of the community colleges to be established). Tales out of School is a collection of humorous bridge stories from the witty and satirical pen of David Silver. It will delight readers with the adventures of his alter ego, the hapless Professor Silver, as he struggles towards his own version of excellence despite a malevolent and incompetent administration and a D-grade student body. And as with Mollo and Bird, Silver's selection of fascinating bridge hands makes his stories even more enjoyable. If you enjoyed A Study in Silver, you will love this one too!

A selection of lessons and other teacher materials used for teaching to accompany Jeff Bayone's A Taste of Bridge. Along with the notes come six weeks of free online bridge (bestebridge.com). All an instructor need do is email Honors Bridge Club a list of their students. It's about a $20 value-added feature....about the same price as the book. Contact honorsbridge@gmail.com for more information. About A Taste of Bridge: Jeff Bayone’s Honors Bridge Club in New York is the largest in North America, perhaps in the world. This book is based on their beginners’ course, a series of six lessons that have started thousands of people on the road to enjoying the world’s most popular card game. This book is intended to give the reader a taste of bridge, and whet the appetite for more.

A four-lesson course on declarer play — designed for true beginners. If your students are ready to get more serious about their declarer play, this course is the perfect 'how to' guide. Students will find that it is surprisingly easy to: • Count winning and losing tricks. • Master three basic techniques for eliminating losers. • Manage entries. • Set priorities. What to do first, second, and so on? • Plan the play. This Teacher's Manual will make your job easy. It's a virtual script for the four lessons found in Playing a Bridge Hand: Just the Basics, and includes table-top examples and practice deals for students.

• Beginner

Want to begin teaching bridge, but aren't sure where to start? This comprehensive and easy-to-follow teacher's manual was designed by the authors of We Love the Majors, Mary Ann Dufresne and Marion Ellingsen, to compliment their reader-friendly beginner's book. The teacher's guide contains six complete, detailed lesson plans, including hand diagrams, that teachers can easily customize to suit their students' levels of 'interest and experience'. This guide puts all the information you need to share your love of bridge right at your fingertips!

Looking for a Better Approach to Teaching Declarer Play? This manual is a presentation-ready Teacher's Manual for the first part of the ABTA award-winning book, Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, by Barbara Seagram and David Bird. Six lesson plans are laid out with a word-by-word script, periodic reviews, and two review handouts to give to the class. Teacher preparation is minimal, and the course is fun and rewarding to teach. The course is aimed at novices with some experience, up to and including intermediates who want to solidify their basic declarer play skills and add to their thinking and technical repertoire—in other words, the vast majority of bridge players. This is the course on declarer play that your students are begging for! Your students are about to make significant strides in their knowledge and enjoyment of bridge.

Looking for a Better approach to teaching declarer play? A presentation-ready Teacher’s Manual for the second half of the ABTA award-winning book, Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, by Barbara Seagram and David Bird. This completes the conversion into classroom format begun in Jonathan Shute’s Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, Teacher’s Manual for Part I. Six two-hour lesson plans are laid out with a word-by-word script, a review handout to give to the class and hand records for the set up of full hands. The course is aimed at players with some experience, up to and including intermediates who want to solidify their basic declarer play and add to their thinking and technique repertoire—in other words, the vast majority of bridge players.  This course will help your students learn and practice the concepts surrounding more advanced finesses (such as two way and ruffing finesses), entry management, trump management, keeping the danger hand off lead, hold up plays, combining chances in a hand, and counting the defenders’ hands in order to place crucial cards.

Travel and Teach at Sea If you want to see the world without paying a King's ransom, turn your passion for bridge into teaching on cruise ships. Learn how to break into this wonderful world by following the advice in this little book. It covers everything from how to find an agent and making a lesson plan to packing the right clothes. A must-read for any bridge teacher who wants to teach on cruise ships. Barbara Seagram, author and ABTA Master Teacher I wish I had read this book before I began teaching on cruise ships. It would have answered all my questions. Brenda Montague, ABTA Master Teacher I know how important it is to have a strong Bridge Lecturer on board. Rosemary was the best I ever worked with during my 16 years at sea, so it's great that she is now sharing her success in this excellent book. Alastair Greener (former Cunard Entertainment Director)

Here is a message for bridge teachers from the authors: Teaching Intermediate Bridge Bridge with Bells and Whistles has a lot of great material for intermediate lessons. To get you started, we’re providing six of our favorite intermediate lesson plans. Better than Blackwood -- about control bidding and 1430 Roman Keycard Jacoby Two Notrump: Get to Your Major Suit Slams The Magic of Singletons -- about splinters Major Suit Raises: Bergen with Four Trumps Major Suit Raises: Be Careful with Three Trumps Slam Bidding: Practice Deals Each of the lesson plans includes teacher talking points, student exercises, practice deals and suggested reading and homework. At the end of each plan you’ll find tabletop hand records for quick and easy student assembly of practice deals. You may use the plans for stand-alone lessons or you can mix and match to create four-week courses. For a four-week course on slams, we use: Better than Blackwood The Magic of Singletons Jacoby Two Notrump: Get to Your Major Suit Slams Slam Bidding: Practice Deals For a four-week course on major suit bidding, we use: Major Suit Raises: Bergen with Four Trumps The Magic of Singletons Jacoby Two Notrump: Get to Your Major Suit Slams Major Suit Raises: Be Careful with Three Trumps We love to hear from bridge teachers. With questions, problems or suggestions, email us at whimsey@atlantic.net.

I am a test

Become a better declarer - and Eddie Kantar promises it will be relatively painless! The problems in this book are not for experts — they are, however, for anyone whose ambition is to become a better bridge player. The problems involve the everyday cardplay maneuvers you have to master if you are going to improve as a declarer. As you work through this book, you will encounter more than one example of each theme — endplay, avoidance play, etc. This is intentional — it is important to recognize these situations, and by the end of the book you will be able to do just that. You are making progress if you get a problem wrong the first time a theme appears, but spot it the next time it comes around. And if you have a friend who consistently goes down in cold contracts, you could not do him/her a better favor than to give them a copy of this book.

• Intermediate

NOT IN HEAVEN YET For forty-three years, David Bird's tales of the bridge-crazy monks of St Titus have appeared in magazines around the world. They have been translated into several languages. In this fourteenth collection of stories in book form, the pompous and self-important Abbot wonders for the first time if old age is starting to affect his play. The Mother Superior of St Hilda's Convent forms a contentious partnership with the Abbot on her visit to the monastery. The St Titus monks play a Crockford's Cup match in East London, against a team captained by Angie Brooker, proprietor of the Shoreditch Escort Agency. Hoping to enjoy some excellent cuisine, the Abbot agrees to teach the game to the wealthy order of St Geofric's. A mixed pairs at St Hilda's has the monks partnering a nun or a novice. Brother Jasper rises from his deathbed to request one last game of bridge -- with a surprising outcome. Regular followers of David Bird's work will know what to expect in these tales -- a first-rate mixture of amazing bridge, entertaining characters and sparkling dialog.

Foreword by Jeff MeckstrothDr. Samantha Punch has interviewed many of the world’s top bridge personalities. The players discuss their approach to the game, including subjects such as improving your game, coping with mistakes and emotions, how to become a good partner in a successful partnership, dealing with pressure and coping with loss.This book aims to show aspiring and expert players how they might develop their game and improve their partnership dynamics. It covers the non-technical aspects of the game, helping players and partnerships to become the best they can be. At the top level, these ‘small gains’ can make the difference between winning and losing."Whether you are a top player, or an aspiring bridge player near the start of your journey, or, perhaps even especially, a non-bridge player, you will find Sam and Tim’s insights absolutely fascinating."Andrew Robson"The opportunity to read how so many great players approach different aspects of the game is not only interesting, but highly educational."Roy Welland"Let Samantha show you how to not only win all the postmortems, but how to also be considered a true winner by your partners, teammates and even your opponents."Sabine Auken

Bridge Today Digest recently celebrated its first anniversary (and 100th issue) as an Internet-based "bridge-zine". It is renowned for its practical advice, its wonderful bridge stories, and the wry humor and personal touch of its editors. For this collection, they have selected the very best pieces from their first year, and have come up with a compendium that every bridge player can read, enjoy, and learn from. It includes short pieces from world-renowned writers, questions and comments from readers (and the editors' responses to them!), and a wealth of deals, anecdotes and advice from the editors. A great holiday gift.

• Intermediate
• Advanced

Slam bidding is perhaps the most exciting part of bridge, but at the same time it is the most technically challenging. The rewards for success are high, but so are the penalties for failure. As a launching pad, the author introduces some useful agreements and conventions. After that, he addresses how to decide whether to try for slam, and how to investigate via cuebidding. More direct and advanced techniques, competitive auctions and a final quiz make up the remainder of the book. Studying this book will make for a smooth transition to becoming an effective slam bidder.

• Intermediate

Now in English translation for the first time. The Man Behind the Legend   How did Italy reach the summit of World Bridge and then remain there for more than fifteen years? How did a game that seems so little suited to the Italian temperament end up being the one that Italy dominated for so long? The answers to these questions can be found in this book through the diary of the man who was the whole story and saw it from within.   Carl’Alberto Perroux (1905-1977) was President of the Italian Bridge Federation from 1952 to 1967. During that period he founded the Blue Team, the most successful and best-known team in the history of bridge. As Blue Team Captain he won eight Bermuda Bowls, one World Team Olympiad and three European Championships.   A trial lawyer in private life (he was deemed to be the best criminal lawyer of his time), Perroux was responsible for turning a group of talented individuals into three partnerships and, secondly, a team. He was noted for his tough discipline: players who broke the rules were benched, even if it hurt the team in the short term. He is regarded as the greatest Captain in history: in the words of Victor Mollo, ‘As best captain ever, Perroux has no rivals, nor challengers.’

The Bridge Bum is on everybody's list of the top ten bridge books ever written, and it's not hard to see why. It has everything, history, stories about the great players, Sontag's own fascinating hands, cheating, hustling, gambling and the glamor and grind of the bridge professional's life, and most of all the game itself, which Alan Sontag describes with such vigor and eloquence that it's easy to understand why he loves it so much. This new edition brings back to life a classic that has been out of print for twenty years. It's revised and updated with new stories, new insights and perspectives, and the drama of Sontag's first world title win over the Italians in one of the closest matches of all time.

This is two books in one. You can treat it is an advanced text on declarer play, trying to solve each problem hand as it comes up. Or you can just relax and enjoy finding out more about these Polish stars who have won more international medals than the players from any other country over the last twenty years.

• Advanced

From Tony Forrester's foreword: "It was time to put together a bridge book which is fun to read. Over the years, so few publications could be described as that. I searched high and low to find those articles which had appealed to me when I read them. The outstanding were memorable, because well-written and amusing bridge anecdotes are rare. Using my wife, Diana, as a guinea-pig - she plays very little bridge as such but does know a good story when she sees one - I sifted through thirty years of highly variable material. The result? In my view the best collection of entertaining and informative one-off pieces ever written. Not just fictional, but also many of the key hands and decisions that have shaped bridge history. Plus, for your own game, many tips and quizzes that will sharpen your edge. In short, a jolly good read! Have fun..."

North America's oldest and most prestigious bridge magazine, The Bridge World features a monthly column entitled 'Test your Play', which presents difficult problems in declarer play for readers to solve. This is a collection of some of the best of these from the last twenty years; if you can solve even half of them, you may be one of the best declarers in the world!

• Advanced

A disparate group of travellers meets by chance at a motel while on the way to the Nationals in Canterbury, Florida, and naturally they begin swapping stories. Sound familiar?  Professor Silver returns in a new collection of short stories, in which literary parody is interwoven with Tim Bourke’s brilliant bridge hands.  Murder, mystery, sex and the supernatural – and that’s just in the first three tales.

The BOLS Bridge Tips competition started in 1974, and took place off and on for more than 20 years. During that time, virtually all the world's greatest writers and players contributed their ideas to the series. For the first time ever, the entire collection of BOLS Bridge Tips are gathered here in one volume, edited and organized for easy access by the average player. Included too are biographies and photographs of all the contributors. Not sure what to lead? Can't decide the right bid? Want to make more contracts? Get pointers from the all-time greatest names in bridge -- Reese, Rodwell, Zia, Flint, Goren, Hamman, Wolff, Schenken, Garozzo, Belladonna, Chagas and many more -- they're all represented. All the advice is here in a perfect potpourri for players of every standard.

• Intermediate
• Advanced