Start playing a winning system.

Not since the introduction of Precision has a new bidding system created such an immediate impact as Fantunes, the unique methods of Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes, the world's number one ranked pair.

The Italians have several world championship wins to their name, and their system has played a major role in that success. This book delves into the system, explaining how it works and just as importantly, why it works. Two words best describe Fantunes: natural and fun. It is the definitive text for those who would like to try an innovative and proven new bidding system.

Bill Jacobs has won many Australian national championships, the most recent three playing Fantunes, and has twice represented his country at Open level. He regularly provides astute vugraph commentary on Bridge Base Online. For the last ten years, he has been editor of the monthly bulletin of the Victorian Bridge Association.

In 2004, Julian Pottage's 'Play or Defend?' was the IBPA Book of the Year. An unusual problem format, it gave the reader all four hands and challenged them to analyze the deal and decide whether they wanted to play or defend. This sequel comprises 72 problems, presented in the same unique fashion, and will appeal to the same readership.

Twenty years ago, World Bridge Champion Eddie Kantar set about distilling his bridge wisdom into a trilogy of books for the intermediate player, one each on Bidding, Play and Defence. 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%. For this new edition, the bidding tips in the book have now been completely revised and updated by the author in the light of modern developments, and a number of new tips have been added.

A useful convention enabling your partnership to find a four/four major fit after a Notrump opening bid or overcall.

"Bridge Is a Conversation" is a guide to bridge fundamentals for players who already have an understanding of the basics of the game and the desire to improve their competitiveness at the bridge table. The goal is not to teach how bridge systems are built, nor to describe their content, but rather to clarify how to use them the way the best players in the world do and to offer an alternative to simply "playing by the book." You will find the game much more interesting, challenging, and enjoyable than you ever dreamed it could be. The principles in this book are valid regardless of the bidding system used. In sixty years of playing bridge, author Gerard Cohen has observed many games of bridge, and he brings that knowledge to this guide. His observations of how his partners, opponents, and others play that make them outstanding are key to the thoughts included here. He looked for patterns, drew conclusions and developed general concepts that those who haven't reached the top level yet can learn and apply for a chance at competing with the best. Take your bridge game to the next level with "Bridge Is a Conversation."

Bridge Philosopher 3 by James S. Kauder He's back That old curmudgeon, the Bridge Philosopher, is back for a third try at explaining the art of dummy play. He claims that he is losing his memory, but he hasn't lost his ability to reason or to analyze a bridge hand in an instant. And, as usual, he has cogent (often biting) comments to make about the sad state of affairs in the world at large: the rising cost of living; unfunded Social Security liabilities; dysfunctional political parties. He unashamedly (in fact, somewhat proudly) admits to personal weaknesses of one sort or another: diet; neatness; relationship issues; and all around dissatisfaction with the world. Learn a little; laugh a lot. He isn't the only one who isn't getting any younger.

CROSSWORDS WITH A BRIDGE FLAVOR Now bridge players who enjoy crosswords can combine their favorite pastimes! For this book, New York Times and Los Angeles Times crossword constructor Jeff Chen has designed 52 brand-new crosswords with bridge-themed clues and solutions, providing hours of challenge and fun. The puzzles in this book range from Easy (N.Y. Times Monday level) to Challenging (N.Y. Times Thursday level). JEFF CHEN is a children's book writer and a crossword puzzle constructor with 50+ puzzles published in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He's been playing bridge for ten years but still couldn't identify a squeeze or a Deschapelles Coup opportunity even if it came up and bit him on the bottom.

An intermediate-level discussion of declarer play in the game of bridge, this book focuses on the power of the trump suit. Its subjects include trump and situations where you need to unblock in the trump suit or to put a defender on lead with a trump. The reader will learn how to make maximum use of the entries provided by the trump suit, and how to perform a trump safety play or a trump avoidance play. Two other important topics are how to make your contract against a bad trump break and how you can survive a forcing attack on the long-trump holding. Later chapters explain how to play contracts with fewer than eight trumps at your disposal, and also how to conjure extra tricks from the trump suit. Every couple of chapters or so, there is a 9-problem quiz section.

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 those whose ambition is to become better bridge players. They involve the everyday cardplay maneuvers that 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 its theme appears, but spot it the next time it comes up. And if you have a friend who keeps going down in cold contracts, you could not do him/her a better favor than to give them a copy of this book.

THIS 146 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Auction Tactics, by Bryant McCampbell. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417905360.

When God created the No-Goods, which He called Man, He also taught them bridge. You'll watch Him, J.C., Sister Mary (who never draws trump) and Brother Bill (who recites smutty limericks) play out over 50 bridge hands, some of which require divine inspiration if the best play is to be found.

Over-the-shoulder descriptions of hands played at duplicate bridge by a new author. Wry, amusing and thought-provoking, containing plenty of good bridge, good writing and good fun. For improving and intermediate club and congress players.

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 Defence. 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 tips in this book have been completely revised and updated by the author in the light of modern bidding, and a number of new tips have been added.

Canadian expert Roy Hughes' first book, Building a Bidding System (2005; ISBN 9781897106 02 5), has become a must-read for expert pairs looking to develop effective constructive bidding methods. Now Hughes turns to the theory and practice of competitive auctions, a critical component of the modern game. Beginning again by establishing what the bidding system needs to accomplish, Hughes goes on to discuss every type of contested auction, and recommends useful methods and agreements from which the reader can select. This is a state-of-the-art discussion, covering many topics in detail that have at best seen cursory treatment in print up to now.

Whether you're an advanced beginner, an intermediate or an advanced player, this valuable book can help you win more frequently and gain greater personal satisfaction from contract bridge. This is a book on the play of hands, full of wise counsel; it will entertain experts and help them teach others. 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.

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!

LEARN DECLARER PLAY FROM AN EXPERT This classic book, a bestseller for more than forty years, has been updated for this edition by Gail Greenberg, a frequent partner of Dorothy Truscott, and like her a World Champion. Dorothy had a unique ability to make complex bridge concepts simple to understand, and everything here, from the basics to the most complicated squeeze or endplay, is described in an interesting and easy-to-follow way. In addition to the technical material, the reader will also learn when and how to use deceptive tactics to give the opponents a chance to make mistakes. Each chapter has many sample hands to test and challenge the reader. Dorothy Hayden Truscott (1925-2006) was the top-ranked woman bridge player for many years. She won four World titles and twenty-eight National titles including the Life Master Pairs and the Blue Ribbon Pairs. She also came in second in the Bermuda Bowl and placed third in the World Open Pairs, the highest finish ever by a woman. Dorothy was a World Bridge Federation Grand Master, and was elected to the Bridge Hall of Fame in 1998. She is the author of the classic bridge book Bid Better, Play Better, and she co-authored several books with her husband Alan Truscott. Among her contributions to bridge theory are splinter bids and DOPI.

R.U.N.T. - the Really Unusual No Trump Master Point Press author Ken Rexford provides the first authoritative description of the R.U.N.T. Convention. R.U.N.T. is actually a two-way overcalling structure to distinguish a very sound takeout double from a weak three-suited takeout by way of an artificial 1NT overcall - preempting and intervening in the auction safely and effectively. Do you find a 4-3-3-3 hand with three Jacks a reason to sleep, or is this as good a reason to bid as any? You know who you are. Do you secretly enjoy declaring Two Clubs doubled, trying to find a fifth trick before the opponents find their ninth trick, instead of defending a boring 3NT? If you find it amusing to interfere with as many auctions as possible, this book is for you. Rexford introduces you to this effective and proven two-way overcall structure. With more advanced versions of the convention, you can add a very strong option, making the 1NT overcall almost a Multi type of takeout. After all, bridge is supposed to be fun, right?

This is the definitive book on the oldest - and most useful - convention in bridge, the takeout double. Originally published in 1994 (Magnus Books, 978 0963753 31 1), this book quickly became recognized as a 'must-read' for any would-be bridge expert, and has never been out of print. Now, almost twenty years later, the author has revised and updated the text to take into account modern developments in competitive bidding, one of the most rapidly changing parts of the game, not least in the new and varied uses of doubles.

Winning Notrump Leads was a ground-breaking and very well-received book that used the power of computers to determine which opening leads work best against a variety of auctions at notrump. Using enhanced software, the authors now turn their attention to suit contracts. They generate millions of random deals, retaining those that match the chosen auction, for example 1S-2S-4S. By playing these deals automatically against each of the 13 possible opening leads from a given hand, they are able to discover which lead is most likely to beat the contract (also the best lead at matchpoint pairs). The authors provide insightful commentary to each result, answering timeless questions such as: When should I lead a trump? When is a doubleton a good opening lead? Should I lead differently against a partscore? Should I make an aggressive or a passive lead? Should I lead an ace against a small slam? Which leads work best against a grand slam? By using the number-crunching computer power available nowadays, there is no longer any need to rely on general opening-lead guidelines passed down by our ancestors. We think you will be surprised by many of the discoveries made during this investigation! DAVID BIRD (top) and TAF ANTHIAS were contemporaries at Cambridge University, both reading mathematics. They carried out research and development on software systems for over 30 years at IBM's UK Laboratories. In the 1970s they formed a successful bridge partnership, winning a number of national events. David is now one of the world's top bridge writers with 116 books to his name. Taf moved on to the USA, where he became a vice president of Cisco Systems. They have joined forces on this ground-breaking book.

Ken Rexford's first book, Cuebidding at Bridge: A Modern Approach, took on the topic of Italian cuebidding, primarily in the context of a 2/1 Game Force system. However, he noticeably skipped the topic of cuebidding after a strong 2 opening. With this new book, we now know the reason, and his answer to the Big Problem. This book describes an exciting new approach, using TWO strong openings (2 and 2 ) to define PATTERN, in such a way that you can actually describe both opener's and responder's hands effectively, and even cuebid intelligently. In many ways, this approach is even better than Precision! Could you imagine agreeing spades at the two-level after a normal 2 opening? How about having no problems with 4-4-4-1 hands, or hands with both minors? Ken Rexford's method lets you do that and much more, allowing you to use cuebidding, relays and pattern bidding on strong hands as effectively as Precision players, but in the context of what is essentially a normal 2/1 GF or Standard system.

This is not a book for beginners, and will not bore you with rehashing things you already know. Some of the topics are somewhat controversial, and as always Marshall Miles urges his own, often original, point of view. Some of the topics discussed include: Game invitations after a raise of opener's major Fast arrival and picture bids When the opponents double a transfer or Stayman Mini splinters Rubens advances of overcalls Playing in the opponents' suit The Kaplan Interchange, and many more. As he often does, Miles ends the book with an "It's Your Call" bidding quiz, with detailed discussion of options and the rationale for his own choices. Marshall Miles (California), though now in his eighties, is still regarded as one of the world's leading bidding theorists. His long and successful playing career includes a World Senior Teams Championship in 2004, and his book How To Win at Duplicate Bridge is considered among the all-time classics on the game.