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A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play
This book addresses the thought processes that novice declarers must develop and practice. What features of a bridge hand lead an expert to select the correct line of play from all those available? The carefully chosen examples in this book will help advancing players to recognize those features and take action accordingly. Praise for Julian Laderman's first book, A Bridge to Simple Squeezes: "As you may deduce from the ABTA award, the book is easy to read and easy to follow. If you have hitherto thought of squeezes as too difficult, perhaps now is the time to think again." — Julian Pottage "(The) focus is on making simple squeezes accessible, and in this (the author) succeeds admirably. Just follow the clear explantions and gradually more-challenging presentation." — The Bridge World
Dr. Julian Laderman is a retired mathematics and computer science professor (Lehman College, City University of New York). He is a two-time winner of the American Bridge Teachers’ Association Book of the Year Award, winning for A Bridge to Simple Squeezes in 2006 and A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play in 2009. His book on the history of bridge, Bumblepuppy Days, received the Alan Truscott Memorial Award from the International Bridge Press Association in 2016. For many years he wrote the bridge column for The Bronx Journal.
A Bridge to Simple Squeezes (Second Edition)
What do you see? DUMMY ♠ 4 3 DECLARER ♠ A K Q 2 If your answer is 'Three top spade winners,' your vision can be improved! You should see 'Three top spade winners and squeeze possibilities using the ♠2 as a threat card.' Just this one rather ordinary suit should start you dreaming about squeezes. In this book, learning to recognize and appreciate threat cards plays a central role as you begin to understand how squeeze play operates. It won't be long before you can look at a layout like this one and begin to imagine how the East-West cards will need to lie in order for your squeeze to be successful. Very soon, you will get to the point where simple squeezes are a part of your regular bridge arsenal. The first edition of this book was named Book of the Year in 2006 by the American Bridge Teachers Association.
Dr. Julian Laderman is a retired mathematics and computer science professor (Lehman College, City University of New York). He is a two-time winner of the American Bridge Teachers’ Association Book of the Year Award, winning for A Bridge to Simple Squeezes in 2006 and A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play in 2009. His book on the history of bridge, Bumblepuppy Days, received the Alan Truscott Memorial Award from the International Bridge Press Association in 2016. For many years he wrote the bridge column for The Bronx Journal.
A Compendium of Double Dummy Problems
Almost 1000 double dummy problems, ranging from 'very easy' to 'fiendishly difficult', collected by the acknowledged expert in the field. Double dummy problems are to bridge players what chess problems are to lovers of that game: exercises in ingenuity, unexpected maneuvers, art and beauty. Some of the problems in this book were created before bridge -- they come from its precursor, whist, but the principles are the same. The most recent ones come from the author's fifty-odd years of contributions to various UK bridge magazines. Any puzzle fan will find hundreds of hours of entertainment in these pages.
Hugh Darwen (UK) ran monthly double dummy contests for the last fifty years in numerous magazines, including Bridge magazine, International Popular Bridge Monthly, and Bridge Plus. These have continued, informally, at his website www.doubledummy.net.
A Complete System for the Tournament Bridge Player
This book is designed as a ready-made complete system for the tournament player. The system framework is 2/1, which is laid bare in the first part of the book. Then comes the author’s choice of conventions and methods to cover all practical aspects of bidding and carding, taking each part of the convention card in turn. Some of the conventions suggested are outside the mainstream such as Muiderberg, Rubensohl and Questem, to name a few. Included are the author’s own version of transfer responses to 1♣ and his structure for overcalling opponents’ 1NT opener. There are also many user-friendly smaller gadgets for competitive bidding situations. The book comes with ready-made convention cards (WBF, ACBL and EBU versions) together with 20-page supplementary notes which serve as a handy summary of the entire system discussed in the book. A complete approach indeed!
TUĞRUL KABAN, originally from Turkey, has lived in the UK since the age of 18. He is a familiar if infrequent face in the English bridge scene, occasionally also venturing further afield in Europe. He is easily distinguished at tournaments by the booklet he tables for a convention card. Many a copy has been provided to interested players, who can now do even better with his book.
A First Book of Bridge Problems
This Interactive CD-ROM is based on the best-selling book, A First Book of Bridge Problems, that was named 2012 Beginner Book of the Year by the American Bridge Teachers' Association. Practice your declarer play with a top-class teacher giving you advice and feedback every step of the way – and with no opponents waiting impatiently for you to play a card! Animated diagrams make following the play a snap – and you can repeat an example as many times as you like! System requirements: PC or Mac running in Windows mode (Mac computers must have a Windows partition available).
Patrick O’Connor (Sydney, Australia) is a retired IT consultant who now teaches beginning bridge classes.
A First Book of Bridge Problems
A First Book of Bridge Problems comprises fifty problems in declarer play and defense for the beginning player, presented in approximate order of difficulty, with emphasis on planning the play at the first trick. The hands are presented to the reader as they would encounter them playing at the table. Unlike in a textbook, where topics are introduced systematically, there is no clue as to what type of play is required. Experienced players recognize certain standard situations without having to work them out. This does not apply to novices, who spend a lot of mental effort on them. The book will help the novice player to develop their recognition of these situations. Winner of the 2012 ABTA Book of the Year of the Award!
Patrick O’Connor (Sydney, Australia) is a retired IT consultant who now teaches beginning bridge classes.
A Great Deal of Bridge Problems
Winner of the IBPA Book of the Year award, this collection of nearly 200 problems is divided into categories such as Sensational Slams, Trump Teasers, Notrump Niceties and Crafty Continuations, among others. This is the greatest bridge problem collection, ever! Any questions? — Ron Garber I enjoyed this book immensely. Julian Pottage writes well and the problems are well chosen, practical problems rather than being highly technical. It is a book to be dipped into, trying a few problems at a time. It certainly widens one's awareness of possibilities at the table. I recommend it unreservedly. — L Roy Griffin An excellent collection of problems. — David Bird
Wales) is best known as a bridge problem constructor, and his many awards include IBPA Book of the Year. His most recent book for MPP was <em>Defend or Declare?</em>
A Modern Approach to Two-Over-One
Get Out of the Stone Age For those of you who wish to expand your horizons, this book may be the answer you have been looking for. A Modern Approach to Two-Over-One was written for the player who already uses a basic two-over-one approach, but is looking for more comprehensive methods to “glue” his system together. Special modern treatments and conventions are introduced to help cover the outer edges of the bell curve, allowing you to intelligently explore those “hard to reach” places. We can no longer live in the past with limited tools. If you want to be competitive in this modern age of bidding, get out of the stone age and enter the twenty-first century!
Ken Eichenbaum (Ohio) has been playing duplicate bridge since 1968 and has won numerous regional titles, including the 1987 State of Ohio pairs championship. He has been a guest lecturer at many regionals. Previous works include <em>Bridge Without a Partner</em>, <em>Keys to Winning Defense</em>, and two stage plays, <em>The Wizard of Odds</em> and <em>Annie Count Your Trumps</em>, both of which have been performed at Bridge Week in Pasadena.
A Second Book of Bridge Problems
Like the author's first book (A First Book of Bridge Problems, named Book of the Year for 2012 by the American Bridge Teachers Association), this sequel comprises fifty problems in declarer play and defense for the beginning or near-beginning player, presented in approximate order of difficulty. The problems are slightly more advanced than those in the first book. Experienced players recognize certain standard situations without having to work them out. This does not apply to novices, who spend a lot of mental effort on them. The aim of the book is to get novices to develop their recognition of these situations. The idea is to present bridge hands as the reader would encounter them playing at the table. Unlike in a textbook, where topics are introduced systematically, there is no clue as to what type of play is required. Winner of the 2014 ABTA Book of the Year of the Award in the Beginner/Novice category!
Patrick O’Connor (Sydney, Australia) is a retired IT consultant who now teaches beginning bridge classes.
A Simpler Blue Club - Mississauga Style
Keep it Simple Strong club bidding systems dominated the world of bridge until a few decades ago. The reason? The system thinks for you, the experts say. The experts are right: if you stick to the rules, the system leads you effortlessly to the right decision. The drawback? It is complicated. This book presents a simplified and modernized version of one of the most successful bidding systems of all times, the Blue Club. One of the main modifications is the use of both high card and distribution points in the evaluation of hand strength. Benito Garozzo, the creator of the original Blue Club system, says in his foreword: The simplifications and the introduction of some standard bidding make it easier to learn the system, to remember it and use it, but still keep it precise... I believe the way in which the book presents the system is the best way, logical and well-structured. Thus, the book is excellent for bridge players who want to learn about and try a ‘strong club’ system to become more competitive.
DAN BERKLEY is a Canadian professional consulting engineer who found a passion for bridge in the late 1960s. He made time to run bridge clubs, play and teach bridge both online and offline. He is an ACBL accredited bridge teacher and an accredited Learn Bridge in One Day? instructor, teaching Standard American and his simplified and modernized version of Blue Club. His previous book, Bridge - A Beginner’s Guide, was reviewed as the best eBook for beginners by the Learning Bridge website. Find Dan online at: http://www.bridgelessons.ca.
A Study in Silver
This is a second collection of humorous bridge stories from the author of Tales out of School. This time Silver turns his satirical eye on the classics of film and literature: Sherlock Holmes, Moby Dick, and even Dracula cannot escape involvement in Professor Silver's adventures. As always, a wide selection of fascinating bridge hands makes the stories even more enjoyable.
David Silver (1935-2017) is known for his hilarious tales of life as an educator, and for literary classics retold in a bridge setting. For more than twenty years, his wickedly witty bridge writings have appeared in the page of such publications as The New York Times, the ACBL Bulletin, The Kibitzer, and Canadian Master Point.
A Swiss Teams Challenge
In this book, you are in the hot seat for a two-day Swiss Teams tournament, consisting of 8 rounds of 7 board matches each day. Your first goal is to finish in the top half of the field at the end of day one, so that you qualify to the final on day two. After that, you don’t have unrealistic ambitions, but would really like to play well enough to achieve a top ten finish. Can you manage that? Of course, you will face many more decisions per match than you would in a typical tournament — indeed, you have to make a decision on every board. The hands are presented in quiz format, followed by a discussion of the various considerations that are relevant to doing well in team games. Some of these include: agreements about pre-emptive bidding pushing for game bidding to the right slam playing to avoid trouble looking for the setting trick. The great majority of the problems come from real tournament play and are almost equally distributed between constructive bidding, competitive bidding, declarer play and defense.
RAKESH K KUMAR (Mittagong, Australia) has been playing tournaments since the early 1980s and, for over 20 years, has also been writing about them for the New South Wales Bridge Association (based in Sydney). His previous books for Master Point Press were Swing Deals and Winning IMPs.
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. Download the FREE Teacher Resource Material for A Taste of Bridge: a selection of lessons and other teacher materials used for teaching to accompany Jeff Bayone's A Taste of Bridge.
Jeff Bayone (New York) is the owner of Honors Bridge Club, which may be the world's biggest club. He has been teaching bridge for more than 40 years.
A Treasury of Bidding Tips
Second edition, revised and updated. Twenty years ago, Kantar set about distilling his bridge wisdom into a trilogy of books for the intermediate player, one each on Bidding, Play and Defense. Each consisted of several hundred short Tips, and the author believes that any reader who absorbs even a fraction of them will improve his or her game by at least 25%. The bidding tips in this book have been completely revised and updated by the author in the light of modern developments, and a number of new tips have been added.
Eddie Kantar (Santa Monica, CA) is one of the most popular and prolific bridge writers in the world. A winner of two World Championships, and a member of the Bridge Hall of Fame, his many books include Modern Bridge Defense, Advanced Bridge Defense, the hilarious Kantar on Kontract, and of course, Roman Keycard Blackwood. His work appears regularly in many bridge magazines around the world.
Accurate Cardplay
In the 1970s, two of the best bridge writers of all time collaborated on a series of eight small books on aspects of card play at bridge. These books have long been out of print, and are being republished now in two combined volumes, edited and updated by BRIDGE magazine editor Mark Horton. Accurate Cardplay is the first of these two books, and comprises the following titles from the original series: Safety Plays in Bridge; Blocking and Unblocking Plays in Bridge; Elimination Play in Bridge; When to Duck and When to Win in Bridge.
Terence Reese (August 28, 1913 — January 29, 1996) was a British bridge player and writer and was regarded as one of the finest of all time in both fields. He was born in Epsom to middle-class parents and was educated at Bradfield College and New College, Oxford. As a bridge player, Reese won every honour in the game, including the European Championship four times (1948, 1949, 1954, 1963) and the Bermuda Bowl in 1955. He was World Pair champion in 1961 and placed second in the World Teams Olympiad in 1960 and the World Open Pairs in 1962. He also represented Britain in the 1960 Olympiad, the Bermuda Bowl of 1965, and in five other European Championships. He won the Gold Cup, the premier British domestic competition, on eight occasions. Reese last played international bridge in the 1970 European Championship, but his career as a bridge writer continued unabated.
Additional Material from Bumblepuppy Days
Additional material from Bumblepuppy Days by Julian Laderman. Download 1: Pseudonyms and Bibliography Download 2: Bumblepuppy Bridge About the book Bumblepuppy Days: The origins of the game of bridge have been shrouded in mystery... but no longer. Tracing the development of the game and the fascinating characters who played it from whist through to auction bridge and eventually contract, the author reveals the missing link, and demonstrates how the world's most popular card game came into being.
Dr. Julian Laderman is a retired mathematics and computer science professor (Lehman College, City University of New York). He is a two-time winner of the American Bridge Teachers’ Association Book of the Year Award, winning for A Bridge to Simple Squeezes in 2006 and A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play in 2009. His book on the history of bridge, Bumblepuppy Days, received the Alan Truscott Memorial Award from the International Bridge Press Association in 2016. For many years he wrote the bridge column for The Bronx Journal.
Arrow Through the Heart
David Bird’s third book of Robin Hood bridge stories provides a feast of entertainment for his fans. The 27 stories contain 113 splendid deals and provide the laugh-aloud humor and painless instruction for which the author is renowned. The cast list features Robin Hood, Maid Marian and the Outlaws — also their arch-enemies, the Sheriff of Nottingham and his hapless side-kick, Sir Guy of Gisborne — not to mention a host of nuns, priests, soldiers, ill-smelling serfs, horse traders, bishops, barmaids, young girls and ladies of the court to join in the fun. The deals played are ingenious and the adventures hilarious. Illustrator Marguerite Lihou is well known for her humorous touch and attention to detail. This is David’s first book of stories to be illustrated.
David Bird (Southampton, UK) is the world's most prolific bridge writer, with 150 bridge books to his name. Known for the clarity of his writing and explanations, he has won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year Award a record nine times. His celebrated humorous fiction series, featuring the cantankerous Abbot, has run for over 45 years.
Avoidance Play
Test your avoidance play! This book is designed to accompany the Bridge Technique series. The term "avoidance play" may seem intimidating, but in fact it means no more than preventing a particular defender from gaining the lead. You may think there is nothing particularly difficult about this, but of course, everything seems easy once you understand it yourself. There are plenty of players who would fail to make the majority of the contracts featured in this book. The basic principles of avoidance play are straightforward, but applying them is not always so easy. Rest assured that some serious challenges await you in these pages!
David Bird (Southampton, UK) is the world's most prolific bridge writer, with 150 bridge books to his name. Known for the clarity of his writing and explanations, he has won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year Award a record nine times. His celebrated humorous fiction series, featuring the cantankerous Abbot, has run for over 45 years.