Bridge books reviewed - 33

"Kantar Lessons" by Eddie Kantar. Book 1 contains lessons 1-20: ABTA Book of the Year 1996

1. The Weak Two Bid
2. Long Suit Establishment
3. Counting the Hand
4. Placing the Opponent’s Honors
5. Discarding
6. Responding to a Takeout Double
7. Common Errors in Bidding, Play & Defense
8. Defense - Counting the Opponent’s Tricks
9. Signaling vs. Suit Contracts
10. Modern Techniques of Finessing
11. Deception (by Declarer)
12. Opening Leads vs. Suit Contracts
13. To Finesse or Not
14. More Techniques of Finessing
15. Leads vs. Notrump Contracts
16. Slam Bidding at Suit Contracts
17. Slam Bidding at Notrump Contracts
18. Planning a Strip and End Play
19. Third Hand High
20. Jacoby Transfer

"Kantar Lessons II ". Book 2 contains lessons 21-35:

21. The Negative Double
22. Entries
23. Loser on Loser Plays
24. The Avoidance Play
25. Planning the Defense
26. Defensive Techniques
27. Card Combinations
28. Ducking Plays at Suit Contracts
29. Proper Care & Handling of Fourth Round Losers
30. Overcall or Double?
31. Counting Losers at Suit Contracts
32. Hand Evaluation
33. Major Suit Raises
34. Passed Hand Bidding
35. The Simple Squeeze

"Bridge Is a Partnership Game: The Roth-Stone System" by Alvin Roth defines the Roth-Stone bidding system. Designed for both the average player and the expert; it promises that bridge will become an entirely new and exhilarating experience for everyone.

"How to Improve your Bridge: An Expert's Guide to Better Bidding" by Alfred Sheinwold contains over 600 hands used to help you lift you past the adding-machine stage of your bidding to the rarified heights of expert judgement. Take your time read only a little at a time and apply what you learn.

In "Over Your Shoulder: Learn From the Experts" by Tony Forrester and Brian Senior, the authors, describe 24 deals as they were actually played in a local bridge club . They analyse the actions of all four players in turn and suggests improvements. Every deal culminates in a useful tip.

"On Bidding" by Alan Truscott and Philip Alder is a revised and modernized update of Albert H. Morehead's classic work 'Morehead on Bidding' on the principles of Bridge judgement. It Explains the principles of Standard American bidding, and discusses point-count valuation, openings, responses, conventions and overcalling strategy.

"Advanced Play at Bridge" by Hugh Kelsey includes 139 hands which are presented to the reader in the form of a quiz, with detailed answers. Chapters include counting, card-placing, percentage breaks, camouflage, communications, squeezes, match-point play, and percentages.

"Improve Your Bridge The Lederer Way " by Rhoda Lederer is a classic book for bridge students and players just out of the beginners' stage that has been revised (2002) and updated. With this book, readers become reliable partners and challenging opponents with the confidence to play at any table.

Every Bridge player has heard the cliche that 'bridge is a partnership game'. What does that actually mean? What is expected of you? Or put more strongly, what are your responsibilities from the very simple to the more difficult, across a myriad of common bidding and defensive positions? "Captaincy for Advancing Bridge Players: The Art of Doing Your Fair Share " by Denis Klein seeks to put the under-organized and under-discussed area of captaincy squarely under the 'X' that marks the spot on your favorite pirate's map. There is plenty of bounty to be had for the players that find the timely ways of how to provide or seek information, and know just when it is time to make a critical decision for the partnership. General concepts are laid out and related theory is discussed, that provide the foundation for advancing players to learn how to cross-reference across many different looking but related bridge circumstances. Numerous example hands then progressively allow you to quiz yourself. These hands are then analyzed in detail so that as you experience the repeated application of these fundamental captaincy concepts, your bridge skills are gradually both broadened and deepened. Having quiz hands is a challenging and fun way to help you improve your game.

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'Everyone was against me,' writes Easly Blackwood, 'except the people.' Shunned by the experts when it was first published, the Blackwood Convention spread by word-of-mouth and is used by every bridge player from the newest to the top pros. First published in 1949, the convention is now an every day word. "Bridge Humanics: How to Play People as Well as the Cards" may be 60 years old, but it has just been reprinted (2008) and it reads like it's 60 years ahead in game theory. Without having to increase your technical ability, you WILL win more hands, more often, just by listening and understanding 'your friends, the opponents.' If you find youself thinking, 'What would the expert do in this situation?' STOP IT. Forget the expert. He or she isn't up against the people you are. Buy this book and make, not the right move, but the winning move.

Frank Vine (1927-1987) had an acid wit along with a talent for putting pen to paper. A resident of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and a lawyer by profession, he was also an expert bridge player who won the North American Men's Pairs (arguably in those days the strongest pairs event of the year) in 1969. His trenchant commentaries on the game, often disguised as fiction, appeared regularly in The Bridge World and other magazines in the 1970s and 1980s. Readers familiar with Vine's writings will be delighted to see them once more available, this time in a comprehensive collection titled "North of the Master Solver's Club". Those who haven't discovered Frank Vine's work before are in for a rare treat.

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Dorothy Rosencrans, author of "Playing Around: My Adventures on the Zone.com" says: - Discover a new world, where you can bridge the gap from virtual to reality. The world of Internet Bridge. You will meet people from all over the world. Get to know them and their cultural differences. You will find they are nice, intelligent, interesting, and very humorous men and women who have enriched my life. Bridge brought us together, and many have become my friends. My partners have ranged in age from 14 to 94. I have played with doctors, lawyers, and an Indian Chief. There have also been teachers, writers, engineers, miners, ranchers, and scientists in every field. I have played with Bill Gates. People I would never have met within the boundaries of my real life. This is not an all-inclusive list. This is a book for bridge players and everyone else. Internet Bridge has some different rules, which are quickly explained, as are basic facts about the game. However, my focus is on the people. You will find yourself smiling, laughing, and touched by their stories. Variety is the spice of life and you will find it here.

It was in the late sixties that Jeremy Flint and Freddie North decided to collaborate on a book to be called Tiger Bridge. Flint had just returned from his record breaking tour of America and had the task of writing a book that was to cover many different aspects of the game. Judgment, inference and deduction, technique, the killer instinct - it was all to be included, embracing both rubber bridge and the tournament world; the Flint-Pender system, many new ideas and, of course, Jeremy's first hand account of the 1965 Bridge Scandal in Buenos Aires. As the years rolled by, Tiger Bridge gradually went out of print, but because the original book had been such a success the authors decided that they should revamp it, naming the revised book "Tiger Bridge Revisited"; retaining the sections that would still be valid today (1992) while replacing the out-dated chapters with a description of the most popular gadgets and conventional aids used in modern bridge.

"What's New in Bridge" by Oswald Jacoby is a classic for intermediate players who play contract bridge and want to keep up with 'what is new' (1954!) in the game. The bridge table is a battlefield of theories. New ideas on how to confuse the opposition and inform your partner are constantly joining the ranks of bridge conventions. In this concise and lucid handbook on contract bridge, Oswald Jacoby, inventer of Jacoby Transfers and the Jacoby 2NT conventions, describes the 'latest' tactics in expert bidding and - more important - how to play against them. Rich in illustrative cases and the wisdom that comes from much experience, this is a book that no bridge player can afford to miss. Not only does it tell you what the experts are doing; it shows you how to beat them at their own game. If you are the average enthusiastic bridge player, this book will carry you out of the 'average' into the 'expert' class. It should mean a difference of thousands of points on your score every time you play bridge. A few such sessions, and you'll find that your opponents have paid for this book.

There is no better way of improving your bridge than by studying the problems set by an acknowledged expert. The composer of "First Pocket Book of Bridge Problems", a book of problems on the play of the cards at bridge, is Ewart Kempson, whose name is known wherever the game is played. He played for Great Britain and England with great distinction and was recognized as one of the best writers on bridge in the world. He was the editor of Bridge Magazine. The book is arranged in two parts. In the first part the problems are presented in the form of declarer and dummy hands only, the reader being invited to plan the play after he has studied the bidding and - in some cases - the first few tricks. In the second part the problems, seventy in all, are reproduced, but this time all four hands are given, together with details of how the problems should be tackled and why the particular line of play was chosen. The sequel to this book, The Second book of Bridge Problems by Ewart Kempson and Paul Lukacs is a selection of single dummy plays (or buy from Amazon.co.uk)

"Improve Your Dummy Play: Book of Problems" is the third book in this popular series of problems on the play of the cards at bridge. The series was first started by the late Ewart Kempson and continued by him in collaboration with Paul Lukacs. This third volume by Eric Charles Milnes and Paul Lucacs loses nothing by comparison with its forerunners. As before, there are two parts to the book. In the first part the problems are presented in the form of declarer and dummy hands only, the reader being invited to plan the play after he has studied the bidding and - in some cases - the first few tricks. In the second part the problems are reproduced but this time all four hands are given, together with details of how the problems should be tackled and why the particular line of play has been chosen.