Books published by Master Point Press

Drawing on the author's array of personal bridge experiences, this text features a selection of amusing stories that poke fun at top experts, and chronicle the bids and plays the players hoped would never come to light.

Defenders in bridge invariably base their strategy on declarer's bidding. Yet declarers often fail to return the compliment and play without a thought of what the defenders have or have not done. The problems in this book contain situations where a declarer can listen to the bidding, or lack of it, and derive information critical to his success.

These wonderful agreements and gadgets turn your everyday bidding system into something personal, something that fits the exact style that you and your partner want to play. And now you can choose from some seventy expert-level ideas to add to your bidding arsenal, quickly and painlessly. In this book you will find: ''Basic Conventions'' -- the Rest of the Story: find out how top-level players have turbo-charged such standard conventions as Stayman, Jacoby and Texas Transfers, Drury, Weak Jump Shifts, and more. ''Bread and Butter Conventions'': some conventions that are standard with most experts but may not be for you, such as Smolen, Slow Arrival, Italian Cuebids, the best defences to Multi and Bergen Raises, Retransfers, Clarifying Cuebids, and others; ''Defensive and Cardplay Conventions'': learn more about Trump Suit Preference, Obvious Shift carding, the Slam Spade Double, the Lead-directing Pass, and many more. ''Fine Arts Conventions'': not for the faint of heart, some of these ideas will really make you sit up and take notice. Would you enjoy playing Last Train to Clarkesville, Yellow Rose of Texas, Vacant Doubletons, Double Keycard Blackwood, Trent Weak Two-bids, or the XYZ Convention?

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.

Including a foreword by Paul Soloway, a many-times World Bridge Champion, this book teaches streetwise bridge tactics - a poker player's attitude to winning at 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 defensive signalling, this text is short and full of practical examples, and features end-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce the concepts.

134 Probability tables, their uses, simple formulas, applications & 4000 probabilities Originally published in 1940, and revised in 1954, this classic work on mathematics and probability as applied to Bridge first appeared in English translation in 1974, but has been unavailable for many years. This new edition corrects numerical errors found in earlier texts; it revises the previous English translation where needed and corrects a number of textual and typographical errors in the 1974 edition. Tables have been included again in the text, as they were in the original edition. The chapter on Contract and Plafond scoring has been retained as continuing to serve its intended purpose. The chapters on shuffling, although no longer applicable to Duplicate Bridge, are included for the benefit of those interested in the mathematics of all card games. All, it is hoped, without too many new errors being introduced.

Bridge Today Digest recently celebrated its first anniversary (and 100th issue) as an Internet-based 'bridgezine'. It is renowned for its practical advice, its wonderful bridge stories, and the wry humour and personal touch of its editors. For this collection, they have selected the very best pieces from their first year, and come up with a compendium that every bridge player can read, enjoy, and learn from. It includes short pieces from world-renowned writers, questions and comments from readers (and the editors' responses to them!), and a wealth of fascinating hands, anecdotes and advice from the editors.

This text covers the more complex concepts of bridge defence for the modern novice player. Topics covered include drawing inferences, planning strategy, counting, falsecards and deceptive plays, creating defensive trump tricks, and lead-directing doubles.

The ultimate collection of bridge stuff, with something for everyone from the beginner to the expert. Humour, mystery, quizzes, history, biography -- it's all here. Over fifty world-class contributors, including Eddie Kantar, Alfred Sheinwold, Ron Klinger, Phillip Alder, Albert Dormer, and many more. Illustrated throughout, including elegant Fougasse cartoons.

This bridge guide takes the reader through the most common causes of errors on play: mishandling communications, making errors involving trumps, failing to take advantage of chances, and many more. The author explains how to recognize the danger signals, and how to avoid the pitfalls.

Looking for a Better approach to teaching declarer play?A presentation-ready Teacher''s Manual for the second half of the ABTA award-winning book, Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, by Barbara Seagram and David Bird. This completes the conversion into classroom format begun in Jonathan Shute''s Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, Teacher''s Manual for Part I.Six two-hour lesson plans are laid out with a word-by-word script, a review handout to give to the class and hand records for the set up of full hands. The course is aimed at players with some experience, up to and including intermediates who want to solidify their basic declarer play and add to their thinking and technique repertoire-in other words, the vast majority of bridge players. This course will help your students learn and practice the concepts surrounding more advanced finesses (such as two way and ruffing finesses), entry management, trump management, keeping the danger hand off lead, hold up plays, combining chances in a hand, and counting the defenders'' hands in order to place crucial cards.JONATHAN SHUTE (Sackville, NB) is well known in Atlantic Canada as a bridge player (Gold Life Master), teacher, and writer. He believes wholeheartedly that bridge should be a fun game, and strongly supports the concept of Zero Tolerance for impolite behavior. Jonathan has a degree in Psychology from the University of New Hampshire, and an MBA from Dalhousie University in Halifax, and is a retired Business Administrator.

Robert Tischman is just looking for a game of bridge, but when a mysterious woman persuades him to partner her in a two-session event at the Engima Club, he gets much more than that.

Each book in this 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.

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.

Want better results? Try better declarer play!Have you noticed that good bidding doesn't always mean good results? Sometimes you don't make your perfectly-bid contract. Sometimes other declarers make an extra trick or two.If it's time to get serious about better declarer play, this is the perfect 'how to' book. You'll find it's surprisingly easy to:-- Count your winning and losing tricks.-- Master three basic techniques for eliminating losers.-- Manage your entries.-- Set priorities. What to do first, second, and so on?-- Plan the play.You'll work through plenty of practice deals in this simple guide to better declarer play. You'll also find quizzes at the end of every chapter to test your new-found skills. With a little practice, you'll soon be getting the results you deserve!

A comprehensive guide to defensive signalling in bridge.