Books by David Bird

(new edition) Learn how to play the classic game with full step-by-step instructions, techniques and tactics for players of all ages, skills and experience.

This superb instructional book will tell you everything you need to know about chess and bridge, from the fascinating histories of the games to how to play and master strategies to win.

Learn from their MistakesAfter a hard-fought match or perhaps a week-end of matchpoint play, it is well worth the effort to look at all your bad boards and see if any lessons can be learned.In this book you will have the chance to learn from other players’ mistakes. We will look at over 150 big swings from international play. The nett swings will average over 18 IMPs per deal, with some of more than 30 IMPs. Every deal will illustrate at least one important point of bidding, play or defense. By analyzing how and why the great stars of the game went wrong, you will have the chance to put your own game in order.To get the maximum benefit from the book, you should ask yourself: ‘Would I have made that mistake?’ or perhaps ‘Why was West’s 5S bid wrong?’ Don’t just accept the writer’s verdict as to who was at fault. Bridge is a game of opinions. Sometimes a player’s action is clearly right or wrong. When it’s a close decision, even expert opinions may vary.The purpose of the book is not solely to improve your game. The deals are entertaining in their own right. We all make mistakes, occasionally horrific ones, and it’s reassuring to see that even the greatest players occasionally do the same!

A collection of bridge problems which provide a fun way to practice an important play technique. This is part of a twelve book series that will add an extra dimension to the Bridge Technique series (Bird & Smith), which won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year award in 2002.

A collection of bridge problems which provide a fun way to practice an important play technique. This is part of a twelve book series that will add an extra dimension to the Bridge Technique series (Bird & Smith), which won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year award in 2002.

Each book in the Test Your Bridge Technique is a collection of bridge problems which provide a fun way to practice and develop your skill in an important cardplay technique at bridge. These books are designed to add an extra dimension to the detailed instruction contained in Bridge Technique series (Bird & Smith), which won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year award in 2002.

David Bird''s third book of Robin Hood bridge stories provides a feast of entertainment for his fans. The 27 stories contain 113 splendid deals and provide the laugh-aloud humor and painless instruction for which the author is renowned.With a cast list featuring Robin Hood, Maid Marian and the Outlaws - also their arch-enemies, the Sheriff of Nottingham and his hapless side-kick, Sir Guy of Gisborne - not to mention a host of nuns, priests, soldiers, ill-smelling serfs, horse traders, bishops, barmaids, young girls and ladies of the court to join in the fun - the deals played are ingenious and the adventures hilarious.Illustrator Marguerite Lihou is well known for her humorous touch and attention to detail. This is David''s first book of stories to be illustrated.David Bird (England) has written over 130 bridge books, a record number, including over 50 for Master Point Press. He is well known for his humorous bridge fiction, including the Abbot series, which has run for nearly 40 years.Marguerite Lihou is an illustrator based in Bristol, UK and is also a bridge player. In her work she aims to capture the foibles of human nature with gentle humour and affection.

52 COMMON BRIDGE MISTAKESWhy are the world''s top players so successful? They make very few basic mistakes! Players at a less exalted level often make the same mistakes over and over again throughout their bridge careers. In this book you will see 52 of the most frequent mistakes - in bidding, play and defense. The chapter on each mistake will contain several deals where the original player went wrong. It will end with some tips, to help you avoid making such errors yourself.In the first section, Mistakes in the Bidding, the author has used deals from high-level tournament play, including world championships. The cardplay and the defense in such events are usually excellent but it''s amazing how often experts surprise the kibitzers with a bid or call that seems to be a clear mistake. Experts make such errors less often than the rest of us but you will find it instructive to look at these wayward decisions. Try to analyze why the bid was wrong before reading the author''s thoughts on the matter. When it comes to declarer play and defense, expert mistakes are rarer. These errors will be illustrated with constructed deals, or examples from a lower level of play.Every time you eradicate one of these 52 common mistakes from your game, your results will improve. Avoid all of them and... who knows what may happen?DAVID BIRD (Southampton, UK) is the world''s most prolific bridge writer, with more than 125 books to his name. The present title is his 50th to be published by Master Point Press. David has regular columns in the London Evening Standard, the ACBL Bridge Bulletin, BRIDGE Magazine, English Bridge and other periodicals around the world. He is married with a daughter, a son and two grandchildren.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on defensive signalling, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Each book in the Test Your Bridge Technique series is a collection of bridge problems which provide a fun way to practice and develop your skill in an important cardplay technique at bridge. These books are designed to add an extra dimension to the detailed instruction contained in Bridge Technique series (Bird & Smith), which won the American Bridge Teachers' Association Book of the Year award in 2002.

A comprehensive guide to defensive signalling in bridge.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on safety plays, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on entry management, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on deceptive card play, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on eliminations and throw-ins, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on planning the play in notrump, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on planning in suit contracts, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Intended for intermediate bridge players, the books in this series take the reader through the most important aspects of card-play technique. Focusing on tricks with trumps, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

Tensions in the Church between New Rite and Old Rite, new church and old church, demand a fresh and healing insight. Dom David is convinced of the rightness of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II while still valuing the tried and true insights of the past. He calls for a constructive reassessment of Sacrosanctum Concilium inspired by a truly catholic understanding of the Faith - both Eastern and Western (including a selective Anglican input) - and underlines the complementarity of Eastern and Western Eucharistic theologies. Whatever way the Eucharist is celebrated, the emphasis should be on our outward communal participation precisely because it is the expression of our sharing together as one body in the death and resurrection of Christ in the presence of the Father. The great error which so many made in the wake of Vatican II was to confuse the fruit of good liturgy with the way it is performed, but Dom David points out the liturgical paradox: that if we make human warmth and understanding our goal in the way we celebrate the liturgy, we will lose the reverence and awe which properly lead us to that warmth and understanding. The liturgical texts have properly stressed the relationship between people and God: in practice, however, the emphasis has too often been on the horizontal relationship between priest and people. The complementarity of individual and communal devotion also appears both in the exercise of lectio divina and in devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.This book, Dom David's third, is the fruit of fifty years' monastic life in Europe and Latin America . . . He shares his experiences with his readers, distilled, as it were, through the eyes and heart of a monk, a scholar and a contemplative, for Fr David is truly a man of God. Dom Paul Stonham, Abbot of Belmont.