This book addresses the thought processes that novice declarers must develop and practice. The carefully chosen examples here will help advancing players to recognize the key features of a bridge hand and take appropriate action.

At one time the game was even bigger than baseball. Today bridge is played by more than twenty-five million people in the United States alone, with Bill Gates, a sitting Supreme Court justice, and the guys from Radiohead among its devotees. In this spirited homage, Edward McPherson recounts the colorful history of the game and his attempts to master its mysteries in time to compete at the North American Bridge Championships--despite being barely able to shuffle cards, let alone play competitively. Insightful, funny, and steeped in respect, "The Backwash Squeeze" is an affectionate view of a grand game by an outsider trying to make his way into the inner circle.

The stories and anecdotes in this collection have one thing in common: in every case, the contract is 6NT! The first half of the book features the world's finest players at work, tackling all manner of 6NT contracts - some commendable, some truly awful. You will have a chance to plan your play in these contracts yourself before seeing what fate befell the original declarer. The second half of the book contains humorous short stories, featuring many of David Bird's well-loved characters: the bridge-crazy monks of St. Titus Monastery, the nuns of St. Hilda's Convent, and the Rabbi and his entourage. There is further action from Cholmeley School, from the missionaries whose main task in life is to convert the Bozwambi tribe to the Acol bidding system, and even some tales involving Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the much-maligned Sir Guy of Gisburne. Although some of these stories have been published in bridge magazines around the world, none of them have previously appeared in book form.

Prison life has a silver lining for Tim - bridge. An expert player, he finds that his ability earns him unlooked-for respect amongst his fellow-prisoners. This is a bridge novel filled with unusual characters and great deals - and a bridge game that gives new meaning to the term 'cut-throat'!

1927. In this volume, Milton C. Work, Member of the Committee on Bridge Laws of the American Whist League; a member of the Card Committee of the Whist Club, New York, The Racquet Club, Philadelphia, The Cavendish Club, New York; Editor, Auction Bridge Magazine, shortens the road to winning bridge and aids new players in quickly grasping the essentials of Auction Bridge, and serves as a concise and dependable guide for experts.

This is the fifth (and according to the author, the very last - but don't hold your breath!) edition of what is acknowledged to be the definitive book on a convention that every serious player uses. Completely revised and updated from the previous version, this newest version contains even more leading-edge ideas, and is full of examples, quizzes and practice hands. A must for the tournament player. Includes, among many other features: - Why you should play 1430 and 3014 RKB responses, and when - The extensions of RKB: the queen ask, the specific king ask, and more - How to handle voids, as asker or responder - RKB in minor-suit auctions - 60 practice hands for you to bid with your favorite partner This is the only book that explains every facet of one of the most popular conventions in modern bridge. 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.

"I had just learned standard bridge bidding and was trying to learn 2/1. Every person that I played with had their own style and followed their interpretation of standard bidding. Then I met Bob Gish and he introduced me to his bidding system: The New Awakening. I could not believe how this system has helped me. I make better bids and get to good contracts."

Manish Dixit

Life Master

This is an author who has been there and seen it all. As a multiple world champion, and former president of the World Bridge Federation, no one is better placed to discuss the big issues that face the game today. He can talk authoritatively about cheating at the top levels of the game, destructive bidding systems, sponsorship, professional players, and the other big issues - and he does. He opens the closets of the bridge world, and shows us the skeletons inside that no one wants to talk about. Wolff names names: as the title implies, he has always been prepared to call a spade and let the chips fall where they may. Wolff describes his own life and career in bridge with a brutally honest and emotional appraisal. This book will receive major review attention, and will be as controversial as one would expect a book from this author to be.

This book gives the reader a chance to watch an expert play a number of hands, either as declarer or defender. Most of the hands come from the author's own experience in top-level play. As usual in this type of presentation, the reader is offered the opportunity to make his own decisions at critical points in the play, and will be able to learn from situations where an expert took a different line of play - rightly or wrongly! It is aimed at advanced skill levels.

Unique in the literature of the game, this book describes and classifies hundreds of tactics, stratagems and coups used during the play of the hand at bridge. Each technique is illustrated with an example deal, and its application fully explained. The topics run the gamut from the simplest finesses to the most complex squeeze positions, and cover literally everything in between. This book will be an essential component of any bridge library.

The late Terence Reese, perhaps the greatest bridge writer of all time, introduce the "over-the-shoulder" style of bridge writing in his classic "Play These Hands With Me." In this wry homage to the master, Horton leads the reader through a plausibly logical line of play on each instructive deal, but usually a line that ends in failure. In each post-mortem, the "expert" realizes how he could have improved on his play, and (usually) made his contract. The deals are all from top-class events, which prove to be a remarkably fertile source of such material. A book filled with subtle humor and great bridge.

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 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 has written two books that have won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year Award. His first book A Bridge to Simple Squeezes won in 2006 and A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play won in 2009. For many years he wrote the bridge column for The Bronx Journal.

Endplays are an aspect of bridge declarer play that many intermediate players think are beyond them. Yet while they can be extremely complex, the basic principles are not. Five years ago, David Bird wrote "Bridge Squeezes for Everyone," a book about an even more complex topic that has become a modern classic. Using the same straightforward, conversational style with recaps and quizzes that characterized the earlier book, this new title will make endplays understandable to many readers who have been afraid to attempt to learn them.

Why aren't you an expert bridge player? What makes a bridge expert, and why does he or she always come out on top compared to the average club player? No, it's not the ability to execute esoteric squeezes and endplays - they simply don't come up enough to account for the way the experts consistently win against weaker opposition. It's much more basic than that. This book contains a collection of deals that illustrate the difference between the expert player and the would-be expert. These illustrate the kinds of decisions that will come up in every club game, situations in bidding, play and defense where the amateur will often go wrong, but the expert never will. A study of the concepts in this book will take the reader a long way from amateur status towards actually becoming an expert player.

Julian Pottage worked on a number of books with the late Terence Reese, and this one pays homage to a man who was certainly the best bridge writer of his time. One of Reese's classics "Play These Hands With Me" pioneered the 'over-the-shoulder' style of bridge writing. What that book did for declarer play, this present one will do for defence: the reader can follow the thinking of an expert player, stopping at critical points in the play to make their own decisions about how to continue...This is both a tribute and a sequel to one of the most famous bridge books ever published: "Play These Hands With Me" by Terence Reese. It is intended for intermediate to advanced skill levels (for serious club and tournament players).

In bridge, the 'declarer' is the one who nominates which suit is trumps; his/her partner's hand becomes the 'dummy'. Every intermediate bridge player is familiar with the routine techniques of dummy play. What this book describes are less well-known stratagems that may save the day in non-routine situations.

Learn Bridge in One Hour by Samir Riad will show you a new way to learn a complex game in ten easy steps. The key to success is learning while you play. You don't have to memorize anything at first, just use the reference tables provided in each section to guide you through bidding, scoring, and playing the hand. You'll quickly learn the basics of the game. George Washington played bridge and now you can, too. Appropriate for all ages, the author hopes to induct a whole new generation of players into the fun game of bridge.

Chthonic, the bridge-playing computer is back! This time he is attempting to teach humans a little about the game of bridge - not in order to turn them into competent players, because he knows that is impossible. But he thinks he may be able to get the reader to the point where his mobile phone won't laugh at him behind his back (it does, you know). Each chapter of this wickedly funny book highlights a different 'human bridge error', and points out why and how it should be avoided. Chthonic Chthonic, the irascible bridge-playing computer, modestly describes himself as the world's best bridge player. Danny Kleinman Danny Kleinman of Los Angeles is a prolific bridge writer, theorist, professional player, and teacher, who is a regular contributor to several bridge magazines. He is a Contributing Editor of The Bridge World, and is one of the moderators of 'The Master Solvers' Club' in that magazine. He also writes about backgammon, another game which he plays at an expert level. Nick Straguzzi Nick Straguzzi of Mullica Hill, NJ, is a software analyst specializing in artificial intelligence and knowledge management. Nick has researched ways in which computer game theory could be applied to bridge, but concluded that it would be far easier to write about a perfect bridge-playing computer than to actually build one.

Professor Silver is back! The hero of "Tales out of School", "A Study in Silver", and "Bridge the Silver Way" takes on new opponents as the author finds fresh literary targets to lampoon. Yes, the man who brought us the Silver Certainty Principle, the Eastwood convention ("Do you feel lucky, partner?") and the concept of the supremacy of the heart suit in bridge now takes aim at (among many others): "The Matrix" ("Will you cut the red cards or the blue?"); "The Three Musketeers" ("All for one, all for me"); "All Quiet on the Western Front" ("Have you heard of the Geneva Convention?"). This new collection will keep Silver aficionados laughing all the way through the Christmas holiday season.

Defenders in bridge invariably base their strategy on declarer's bidding. Yet declarers often fail to return the compliment. They play without a thought of what the defenders have or have not done. Just one bid from an opponent may tip off declarer to the winning play - perhaps warning of a bad break or that a finesse is doomed. When the defenders have made several bids the declarer may be able to make spectacular double-dummy plays. The problems in this book contain situations where an astute declarer can listen to the bidding, or lack of it, and derive information critical to the success of his contract. This book was originally published in 1985, and in this new edition it is substantially revised and expanded. Julian Pottage is a British bridge expert who is well-known for his problem books. His previous titles include "Play or Defend?" and "Bridge Problems for a New Millennium".

Most bridge books ignore the fact that bridge is a game between opponents. Instead, they teach players how to strive for theoretical perfection in bidding and play. Dan Romm isn't interested in that - he's interested in winning, which is something he has done for more than forty years against the best players around. Romm also isn't very interested in tournaments - mostly he plays for money; he plays with and against world champions, and is a consistent winner. The way he accomplishes this, the art of treating bridge as a four-person competition, not as a one or two-person mathematical exercise, is the subject of this book. Psychology, deception, and misdirection are among a host of (legal!) tactics that the reader can learn to use himself, on the way to winning more often. This work includes a foreword by Paul Soloway, a many-times World Bridge Champion. It teaches streetwise bridge tactics - a poker player's attitude to winning at bridge.

Originally published in 1935, this is a detailed manual of Bridge technique, 'As Used by the Leading Contract Bridge Tournament Players, with Examples of Expert Bidding and Expert Play'. Contents Include: Part 1 Expert Bidding What Every Expert Knows Valuing the Hand The Opening Bid of One Responses to Opening Bids of One Rebidding Specialized Opening Bids and Responses Defensive Bidding Penalty Doubles and Sacrifice Bids Slam Bidding Psychic Bidding Examples and Drills Part Two General Principles Declarer's Play Defensive Play Advanced Play A Series of Fine Hands

Everyone knows that control-showing bids are the expert route to slam, but it is remarkably hard to find a comprehensive treatment of this vital area of the game. Until now, that is. This is an exhaustive work, covering a lot of territory. The average reader won't want to use everything they read about here - and it would be a mammoth undertaking to try to adopt it all - but it will get them thinking about their bidding and offer many ways to improve it. After all, bridge is the ultimate game for thinkers. This book fills an important gap in the literature of bridge for serious players. Foreword is by Brent Manley, editor of the "ACBL Bulletin".