The perfect stocking filler for lovers of Bridge. When you open this little book, the state secrets of the game of bridge lie in your hands. They cover everything you need to know to go from being a bridge beginner to an international mastermind! The book is split into short, concise and easy-to-follow tips that will help to improve all aspects of your game and strategy. They reveal how to play a good defensive hand, how to devise a bidding system, what you can read from an opponent's play, plus lots more. The beautifully decorated pages and luxury pocket style make this book something a little bit special. With it by your side you'll always come up trumps!

The Fun Way To Serious Bridge is for anyone who wants to learn and understand the fundamentals of the mind-stimulating and challenging game of bridge -- and enjoy every minute of it! Harry Lampert combines his skills as a bridge player and teacher with his artistic talents to bring you a totally new FUN way to learn the game. The magic of his superb cartoons and simple, informative language will help you to absorb the principles of serious contract bridge -- and remember them. You'll laugh and learn every step of the way from opening bids to strip and end plays. Whether novice or seasoned social player, this unique book will make good bridge a simple "trick." You'll learn all about:

* Opening bids, suit bids, response and no trump bids, and how to force bids
* Competition and the reasons and ways behind it
* Big hand bidding such as Blackwood Convention, grand slam force and Gerber Convention
* Patterns of play including how tricks are won, the finesse, establishing a long suit, when to pull and delay trumps and entries.
* Defensive and advanced play -- plus much more!

From the opening bid to much later rounds of bidding, from uncontested sequences to highly competitive auctions, this book will provide the groundwork so that you will know when silence can be golden. Each chapter covers the principles that indicate when bidding is the right course, and then which call to choose, and when passing is the winning action.

The third book in the series featuring the bridge-playing monks of St. Titus, whose humor enhances the bridge deals, which are always of considerable technical interest Terence Reese's and David Bird's sparkling stories about the exploits of the bridge-playing monks of St. Titus continue to delight readers the world over. Their huge success lies not only in their being extremely funny, but also in their being instructional, as they are crammed with gems of bridge bidding and play. Bridge enthusiasts who have not yet encountered the Abbot and his monastic team should make their acquaintance without delay.

For everyone who plays - or is interested in the international phenomenon that is the world of bridge In RIGHT THROUGH THE PACK AGAIN, joint winner of the INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE PRESS ASSOCIATIONS'S 2009 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD, each card tells the story of its importance in a particular deal and in so doing the book pays homage to the original concept in the bridge classic RIGHT THROUGH THE PACK. The Old Master is in a coma and the cards attempt to bring him back to consciousness, to revive him with their tales of derring-do. Not only are the deals themselves entertaining, but they are instructive too. You can test yourself on the problems and then go to the solution later in the book and thus improve your own game.

UNHOLY TRICKS by Terence Reese and David Bird is a further collection of bridge tales involving the eccentric monks of St Titus. In addition to their usual rubber bridge games - and they play for surprisingly high stakes at the monastery - the monks become involved in duplicate matches against nuns, visiting Italians and even the local police.

Are you having a problem at bridge or perhaps a disagreement with your partner? Why not ask the expert? Ron Klinger replies to bridge queries from players around the world. The answers to questions that may have bothered you are also probably in this stimulating book.

Improve your memory, improve your game! The aim is to encourage players to improve their bridge by solving the puzzles This challenging book of puzzles will help you to improve your game by concentrating on defensive play. By the time you have solved the last puzzle, your astonished partners will be well advised to secure copies for themselves. Whatever the situation, this splendid selection of defensive play puzzles will test your skills - and you will learn from the detailed explanation that Ron Klinger gives on the page following each puzzle.

A pocket guide to bridge, written by two internationally regarded writers and players For every bridge player who wants to be sure of the best bid, lead, or play, this book is designed as a quick reference. It includes what players need to know for opening bids, responses, and rebids. There is also guidance on hand evaluation, competitive bidding strategy, opening leads, declarer play, and defense so that the reader will have all the basic essentials of good play within easy reach.

No matter how good your bidding system or your partnership understandings, such advantages will vanish if you fail to make an accurate assessment of the value of your hand. As the bidding proceeds, you need constantly to make adjustments to your initial evaluation. The authors show you how to do that. They provide guides which allow you to judge whether your hand fits well with your partner's, whether the danger of a misfit exists, whether your high cards lie well or badly in relation to the opponents', how high to bid, when to try to outbid the opponents and when to choose to defend. This stimulating book reveals the methods used by the experts to reach a precise appraisal of the partnership assets - here is your chance to do just as well.

Runner-up in the beginner/novice category of the American Bridge Teachers Association 2020 Book of the Year Awards. Bridge is a hugely popular pastime enjoyed by millions, and yet whole books have been written about single aspects of the game, and learning the seemingly complex rules and language can be a daunting idea. So this is the essential guide to beginning your journey and getting in on the fun, covering everything you need to know to get started and progress, from bridge basics, language and no-trump declarer play to analysing hands and working with trump suits. Defence play is then covered before going into bidding essentials and further bidding techniques and conventions. Keeping score and advice on taking things further rounds off this invaluable guide for the beginner. Clear explanations and examples make learning easy, and fresh writing from seasoned expert Mark Horton keeps things interesting, while a glossary of terms is a handy at-a-glance reminder of the meaning of key words and phrases. Suitable for standard playing methods used worldwide.

Winning demands control of the bidding. Before a card is played you must fight for the high ground or hustle your opponents beyond their safe level. Pro-active and fearless but not reckless in this hugely exciting partnership arena, you must judge every last auction nuance and, terrier-like, destroy your opponents' communication and confidence whilst enhancing your own. Dodge their snares, resist their ploys but win the high stakes by forcing them to gamble - yourself delivering their misfortunes - and by your willingness to bet on certainty. Paul is author of companion volumes Bridge for Complete Beginners and The Right Way to Play Bridge, the leading book for the improving player, and bridge correspondent of The Financial Times. He began by winning the National Championships and now writes and lectures worldwide.

Competition brings many benefits - or so all the politicians say. Bridge players certainly subscribe to the theory. These days somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of all auctions see both sides entering the fray. Having a basic knowledge of how to get into or stay in the bidding is therefore a key attribute for success at the bridge table. You will often hear rules quoted such as 'do not double them into the game' or 'leave the five level to the enemy'. This book covers all the rules likely to help you and, as usual in this series, you will find plenty of examples both for and against each one.

Better Bridge with a Better Memory 'goes beyond ... wide-ranging advice ... and investigates one specific technique in detail. The method demonstrated is mnemonics, and the author shows how that approach, already widely in use in naming agreements and providing clues to their details, can be applied to every phase of the game. As is often the case in Klinger productions, many examples used to demonstrate the case at hand have unrelated interesting points, and the discussions thus provide a welcome variety of topics.' - The Bridge World.

An expert bridge coach's guide for beginners who are looking to move their game up to the next level. This book is for readers who have finished their beginner lessons, and are trying to move their game up to the next level. The tips cover all aspects of bridge -- bidding, play and defence. Advice and examples are drawn from material Barbara Seagram has developed for her students over the last twenty years -- it's like having your own personal bridge coach sitting beside you!

The classic first book on declarer play at bridge, covering the topic with clarity, skill and humor. More than fifty years after its first publication, this book has been revised and updated to bring it into line with modern methods of play and bridge education.

This latest edition of an outstanding book contains some new tips which reflect the changes in the game since the original publication in 1987. Learning from bitter experience at the bridge table is a slow, painful and often costly business. The 100 winning tips are designed to cover specific situations in bidding, play and defence - the sort of problems that arise over and over again in everyday play, providing a painless substitute for experience.

Conventions are a vital element of bidding in bridge. Unless they are easily and clearly understood they can be destructively dangerous. This book contains the most common conventions you are likely to encounter at the duplicate table, together with defensive measures you can take, plus countermeasures against each part of the defensive methods. Importantly, however, bridge continues to evolve. The material in the additional chapter covers the most recent developments in bridge bidding and will give you ideas for inclusion in your regular partnerships.

In this book, the pompous and self-important Abbot spots a chance to take part in that Holy Grail of Bridge - the Bermuda Bowl world championships. Casting all ethics aside, he pursues this dream. Partnered by the Parrot, with the Witchdoctor, Mbozi, Mrs Okoku and Miss Nabooba as team-mates, he travels to India's Chennai and faces many of the world's real-life players. Regular followers of David Bird's work will know what to expect - a first-rate mixture of amazing bridge, entertaining characters and sparkling dialogue.

*Fancy yourself as a bridge player? This essential little book will show you how - in just 10 minutes. *Introduces the basic rules and techniques for bidding, declarer play and defence. *Useful bridge-table diagrams and quirky illustrations help the information stick.Bridge can sometimes look incredibly complicated and opaque. But that really isn't the case: it is a very easy game to learn. By the time you've read this invaluable little book, you'll be equipped with all the knowledge you need to take your partner and play your first game. In clear, easy-to-follow text, backed up with useful diagrams and illustrations, the author shows you exactly how bridge works, including bidding, defence, declaring and trumps. The book then goes on to more advanced strategies, including how to use your opponent's bidding to your advantage, and discusses the finer points of etiquette and conduct during a bridge game. Armed with the information in this book, you can go on to become a star bridge player - in double-quick time!

DEADLY DEFENCE covers every important aspect in bridge to make good bridge players into excellent defenders. It deals with opening leads (how to convey maximum information), defensive play when playing second hand, third hand and also when you are first to play to a trick, how to use signals more effectively and how to think on defence like an expert.

This book shows you how to improve your bridge at both a social and competitive level. Clear examples explain the detail of modern Acol bidding. This will enable the reader to plan and reassess their campaign step-by-step and calculate with precision who holds which cards. Guidance is also given on how and when to obstruct or bluff, how to pinpoint the best leads and steal the best contracts, and ways to think strategically under pressure. Unique at-the-table charts - designed to foster partnership understanding used appropriately at home, club or class - summarise key bids.

Regarded as one of the best ever written on the topic of signaling in the game of bridge, this book will help you defend better regardless of your experience or skill level. It explains several ways to describe your holding which are commonly used by experts but not generally known.

It compares new methods with old, including the pros and cons of upside-down versus standard signaling. It explains how to draw inferences, not only from partner's signals, but also from what he fails to do. Even if you are an expert and think there is nothing about defensive signals you don't already know, you will probably see a few situations you haven't thought about and discover how other experts handle them.

Originally published in 1995, this book has been unavailable for more than 20 years.