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.

Chess and bridge have been two of the world's most popular games for centuries, and this superb instructional book will tell you everything you need to know about them, from their intriguing histories to how to play and win. Biographies of the most well-known players are included, from famous bridge players such as Terence Reese and Omar Sharif to world-class chess players such as Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov.With stepby-step guidance and over 1200 photographs and illustrations, this easy-to-follow book will show players how to play and increase their enjoyment of two of the most tactical and complex games around today.

This work is about bidding at duplicate bridge. An effort has been made to be certain that the concepts, the conventions, and the treatments used are not only written clearly but are backed up by bidding examples and an extensive glossary. The target of this work is the moderately experienced player who, along with a partner, wishes to elevate thier level of bidding. Playing this system a partnership is not likely to feel that their bidding system is inferior compared the the systems of whoever their opponents may be. The conventions and treatments presented conform to the ACBL's General Convention Chart.

This is a newly updated and revised edition of "Bridge Over Troubled Bidding" which was published in 2000. The American Contract Bridge League has made some important changes to basic bridge bidding. Because a solid foundation in basic bidding is the bridge player's most important asset, it is necessary to keep up with the times. Although written with the novice player in mind, experienced players wishing to update their bidding skills to the "new bridge" will find it very beneficial. It is a step by step self teaching tool that is very easy to understand as it is written in plain English. The first edition covered only basic bidding but two conventions have now been added. These conventions are used in Notrump bidding and are the Stayman Convention and Jacoby Transfers.

Getting to good games, slams, and staying out of poor contracts is an important aspect of bridge. The best way to improve your bidding is not to add a new convention but to improve your hand evaluation skills.

In Mastering Hand Evaluation: Understanding the Principles of Partnership Bidding you will learn about the science of hand evaluation, going far beyond 4-3-2-1 high card points. Enhance your ability to recognize good cards and discover the magic of the 30-point deck. Popular point count and losing trick count methods are examined and tested with a database of over 121,000 hands from championship play as well as practice matches with at least one world champion at the table. Improvements to the best methods are introduced based on the results.

When should you invite on the way to 3NT? When there is a known fit, how many losers does partner have for his 1NT opening? Based on the modified New Losing Trick Count, how many losers do you need to start a slam investigation if partner may have more than minimum values? When you learn the answers to these questions and apply the techniques, your partnership communication skills will improve dramatically.

Hand evaluation is not simply a personal skill. If you and your partner study these techniques together, you will both be on the same wavelength. Your new-found ability to have an intelligent conversation during the auction will lead to better bridge results.

Lawrence Diamond is a Gold Life Master with multiple Bracket 1 and Flight A wins. In 2014, he ranked 265th on the Barry Crane Top 500 list.