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| The Lebensohl Convention Complete | |||
| Ron Andersen | |||
| Thorough coverage of all three common uses of Lebensohl: after a 1NT opening, after opponents' weak two-bids, and after partner's reverse. Many example hands shown. Have your partner read this book and never have another expensive Lebensohl misunderstanding! One of the very few books on a specific convention to ever make it onto my "Recommended" list. | |||
| $8.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Better Bidding with Bergen | |||
| Marty Bergen | |||
| The ins and out of Bergen Raises right from the horse's mouth, plus much more, from rebids after 1NT Forcing to advanced slam-finding techniques. | |||
| $11.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Better Bidding with Bergen, v.2: the Contested Auction | ||
| Marty Bergen | |||
| Get the full story on tools like Support Doubles and Good/Bad 2NT in the inventor's own words. A comprehensive look at conventions to help you handle auctions when both sides are in the bidding. | |||
| $11.95 | By special order only | ||
| Better Rebidding with Bergen | ||
| Marty Bergen | |||
| Starts out with general guidance for opener's and responder's second bids, then tackles special topics like reverses. Then there are ten chapters, one for every possible combination of 1-level openings and responses, looking at the second round continuations in detail. | |||
| $7.95 | By special order only | ||
| Hand Evaluation: Points Schmoints!: Guaranteed to Make You a Better Bidder | ||
| Marty Bergen | |||
| All of Bergen's hand evaluation advice gathered together in one place: why quick tricks matter; why not all queens are created equal; how to to count playing tricks when preempting, and more. Autographed. | |||
| $7.95 | By special order only | ||
| Introduction to Negative Doubles | ||
| Marty Bergen | |||
|
Everybody knows that a negative double is "a takeout double after your partner has opened the bidding." But have you ever thought about whether you double or bid after 1C-1D when you have only one 4-card major? What about after 1D-2C? (Hint: the answers aren't the same!) After the general principles are presented, the special quirks of each possible negative double situation from the one level upwards are covered in turn. Autographed. | |||
| $6.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| To Open or Not to Open | ||
| Marty Bergen | |||
| Refine your bidding judgment by seeing what borderline hands an expert would open and which ones he wouldn't, and why. | |||
| $6.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 2/1 in a Nutshell - Teacher's Manual | |||
| Dee Berry | |||
| Spiral-bound manual with much more detailed material than the small pocket information in "2/1 in a Nutshell." Intended as a set of lesson plans for a bridge teacher presenting a 2/1 Game Forcing course. Those desiring a more detailed presentation of the system might want this book too for their own reference. | |||
| $20.00 | By special order only | ||
| Three Notrump in Depth | ||
| Augie Boehm | |||
| The Professor and Sally Fourth tackle "everyone's favorite contract," 3NT. The first half of the book is about bidding judgment -- whether to bid 3NT or four of a major, how to ask for stoppers and half-stoppers, when you can bid 3NT with a long running suit and less than 26HCP. The second half tackles planning the play. | |||
| $13.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Demon Defense and Demon Doubling | ||
| Augie Boehm | |||
| Watch over the shoulder as the Professor's timid student Sally Fourth learns to become an agressive defender who can't be pushed around by her opponents. In the same conversational style as Augie's monthly columns in the Bridge Bulletin. | |||
| $13.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Following the Law | ||
| Larry Cohen | |||
| The sequel to "To Bid or Not to Bid." In this volume, we see more examples of the Law in action, more discussion of how to refine your bidding judgment with adjustments to the basic Law, and coverage of several space-age conventions that make it easier for you to make use of the Law in your competitive auctions. | |||
| $15.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| To Bid or Not to Bid: the Law of Total Tricks | ||
| Larry Cohen | |||
|
Perhaps the single most influential bridge book of the 1990s!
The "Law of Total Tricks" is based on the simple fact that an extra small card in a long suit is worth an extra trick if your suit is trump and nothing if it is not. The more trumps you have the higher you can afford to bid, even on hands without much high-card strength. In this book, Cohen covers the most common situations in competitive auctions and gives good rules of thumb for whether to bid on or defend. Your bidding judgment will improve overnight when you start following the Law! | |||
| $17.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Standard Bidding with SAYC | ||
| Ned Downey and Ellen Pomer | |||
|
Limited time offer, regular price $17.95! Every checkbox and convention on the Standard American Yellow Card explained by two of the Internet's leading bridge teachers. The most comprehensive guide to standard bidding since Bill Root's Commonsense Bidding. Do you really know what you are agreeing to when you sit down with a stranger and ask "SAYC, pd?" After you read this book you will! | |||
| $15.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Flannery 2D Opening | |||
| Bill Flannery | |||
| The inventor of the Flannery convention talks about what purpose the convention serves, what hands it is best suited for, and covers the possible responses and rebids in detail. | |||
| $7.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Conventions at a Glance | |||
| Matthew Granovetter | |||
|
Brief summaries of dozens of the most popular conventions, in a pocket-size format. Handy as a quick reference to take with you to a tournament without weighing down your luggage. A supplement to, not a replacement for, a thorough convention reference for serious study. Revised and expanded edition,30 new conventions added. | |||
| $9.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Commonly Used Conventions | ||
| Audrey Grant | |||
|
a.k.a. "the Spade Series."
A textbook for introducing social bridge players to duplicate and teaching them the most common and popular bidding conventions such as Jacoby Transfers and Weak Twos. | |||
| $14.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| More Commonly Used Conventions | ||
| Audrey Grant | |||
|
Textbook for new duplicate players wishing to learn more of the common conventions used in tournament play. Teachers, inquire about bulk discounts.
Earlier edition published as "the Notrump series." | |||
| $14.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Advanced Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century | ||
| Max Hardy | |||
| All the bells and whistles of modern 2/1 as played and taught by Max right up to the time of his death in 2002. This was his last book. Additional bidding tools to complement the material in "Standard Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century." | |||
| $20.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Standard Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century | ||
| Max Hardy | |||
|
Max Hardy believed that modern 2/1 was "the new Standard American" and was what all bridge players in the 21st century should learn. He may have overestimated the popularity of 2/1 a little bit -- but he wrote a terrific introduction to the principles of 2/1 that anyone planning to play tournament bridge today shouldn't be without. This book concentrates on the bread-and-butter sequences of 2/1: establishing a game force, setting trumps at a low level to save room for slam exploration, making full use of tools like the splinter bid to evaluate how well your hands fit together. | |||
| $20.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Building a Bidding System | ||
| Roy Hughes | |||
| The theory behind why some conventions are good and others are bad: why lower bids should show a broader range of hands that higher bids - and how much broader that should be; how to construct a relay system; and other advice for the serious tinkerer with systems. | |||
| $17.95 | By special order only | ||
| Roman Keycard Blackwood: Slam Bidding for the 21st Century | ||
| Eddie Kantar | |||
|
Go beyond "5 clubs shows 0 or 3." This book covers every facet of RKC: how do you ask for the queen of trumps after a 5C or 5D response? Should you show the number of kings or specific kings? 0314 or 1430? When, if ever, does RKC not apply? What suit is trump in ambiguous auctions? Excellent resource for serious partnerships wanting to milk the most out of their ace-asking. | |||
| $18.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Notrump Zone | ||
| Danny Kleinman | |||
| When should you exercise your judgment to open 1NT on a semibalanced hand? Are some point ranges better than others? It's all in here. Which conventions beyond Stayman and Jacoby Transfers should you use? He gives three separate answers to this one, depending on whether you and your partner want a simple but functional system or the "most detailed system money can buy." | |||
| $18.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 20 Great Conventions Flipper | ||
| Ron Klinger | |||
| A pocket-size quick reference covering 20 of Mr. Klinger's favorite conventions, ranging from essentials like splinter bids, Roman Keycard Blackwood, and the Unusual notrump overcall to special-purpose tools to avoid revealing anything opener's hand after 1NT in Stayman auctions. | |||
| $8.99 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Cue Bidding to Slams | ||
| Ron Klinger | |||
| A whole book specifically about control-showing bids -- a vastly more powerful slam exploration technique than Blackwood, but one overlooked by many new bridge players. Emphasizes the traditional ("aces first") style; for the Italian style (either aces or kings first), see Ken Rexford's Cuebidding: a Modern Approach. | |||
| $16.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Modern Losing Trick Count | ||
| Ron Klinger | |||
|
List price $20! If you are ready to look beyond the high-card point and refine your bidding judgment, this is the book for you. One of the great books on hand evaluation. The Losing Trick Count is a simple yet surprisingly accurate hand evaluation method, known in the 1930s but temporarily forgotten in the enthusiasm for point count bidding in the 40s and 50s. It has several advantages over HCP: it accounts naturally for the importance of having fitting rather than scattered honors; and because it forces you to think about counting tricks rather than points, it makes adjustments to the raw count simple -- instead of memorizing rules like subtracting a point for an unguarded face card, you simply count a card that the bidding tells you is unlikely to win a trick as a loser and vice versa! | |||
| $16.99 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Modern Losing Trick Count Flipper | |||
| Ron Klinger | |||
| Pocket-size spiral bound summary of how the Losing Trick Count works and how to apply it to common bidding situations. Functions as a summary of Standard American bidding too. | |||
| $8.99 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Power of Shape | ||
| Ron Klinger | |||
| Understand how your distribution impacts the value of your face cards. General theory, advice on when it is right to over- or under-bid, and chapters on how to handle modern bidding tools like the splinter bid. | |||
| $16.99 | New shipment expected soon | ||
| Understanding the Contested Auction | ||
| Ron Klinger and Andrew Kambites | |||
| Sixteen chapters, covering everything from the negative double to two-suited overcalls to special matchpoint pairs competitive decisions. | |||
| $16.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| When to Bid, When to Pass | ||
| Ron Klinger | |||
| Refine your bidding judgment by seeing how the value of a hand changes depending on which suits the high-card strength are in and how the previous auction has gone. He starts out with a few rules of thumb and then considers a dozen different common types of auctions. | |||
| $19.99 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Complete Book on Balancing in Contract Bridge | ||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
|
IN some auctions it is safe to balance with a 4-card suit and a weak hand; in others you should have six or a fairly strong hand! This book helps you know how agressive to be in various balancing situations. Separate chapters for reopening the bidding when an opening bid is passed around, when the opponents find a sit but stop low, when they bid notrump, and when they are in a misfit auction. | |||
| $11.95 | By special order only | ||
| Disturbing Opponents' Notrump | ||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
|
An expert's exposition on when and how to use DONT, one of the most popular conventions for overcalling after a 1NT opening. (Yes, there really IS one convention that Larry Cohen/Marty Bergen and Mike Lawrence BOTH agree is valuable. Amazing!) In Mike's own words, "don't be a mouse, be a rat and get into their bidding. They will not appreciate you at all which is the goal of bridge players everywhere." | |||
| $5.00 | By special order only | ||
| Double: New Meanings for an Old Bid | |||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
| A catalog of all the conventional uses of Double, from the simple takeout double, through familiar Lightner and negative doubles, on to new things like support doubles and some toys you've never even heard of lilke the "Thrump double." Pick and choose which ones are right for you and your partner! | |||
| $17.95 | By special order only | ||
| The Devyn Press Handbook of Partnership Understandings | ||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
| Not a book to sit down and read by yourself -- a blueprint for a series of discussions with your partner. A detailed series of questions to make you examine almost every aspect of your partnership bidding system and style. Almost like filling out a 64-page-long convention card! You'll save yourselves a lot of bottoms by finding what questions you and your partner don't answer the same way before that particular situation comes up at the table. | |||
| $5.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Complete Book on Hand Evaluation at Contract Bridge | ||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
| [needed] | |||
| $11.95 | By special order only | ||
| I Fought the Law of Total Tricks | ||
| Mike Lawrence and Anders Wirgren | |||
| Larry Cohen's Law of Total Tricks books were among the most influential bridge writings of the 1990s. But the law is not absolutely perfect - an extra trump isn't ALWAYS an extra winner for your side - and Lawrence and Wirgren discuss an alternative way to evaluate your playing strength, a modified point-count method. | |||
| $17.95 | By special order only | ||
| Judgment at Bridge | |||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
|
A book about style, rather than system. Should you open 1C or 1D when you have 4 of each? Should you open 1NT with a 4-card major? Should you raise your partner's hearts or show your spade suit? Full of examples of everyday decisions both in bidding and play, to help you improve your own judgment when your hand meets the textbook definition of more than one action. | |||
| $11.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Complete Book on Overcalls in Contract Bridge | ||
| Mike Lawrence | |||
| [needed] | |||
| $11.95 | By special order only | ||
| How I Became a Life Master Playing the Weak Notrump | ||
| Eric von der Luft | |||
| A thorough guide to how to incorporate a weak notrump opening into Standard American bidding. Chapters on how your suit openings are effected; on the merits of each notrump range; on responses to the weak notrump, including how to escape with weak misfits. A complete overview of standard bidding along the way, too. | |||
| $16.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Competitive Bidding in the 21st Century | ||
| Marshall Miles | |||
| $16.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Modern Constructive Bidding | ||
| Marshall Miles | |||
| An expert gives his opinion on which modern conventions are useful and which aren't. All the popular conventions and system choices are covered: 2/1 Game forcing or not? 1NT forcing or semi-forcing? Fourth suit forcing one round or to game? You may not agree with all of Miles's opinions but he will provide you with food for thought to help you make your own system decisions. One of the very few sources in print to cover some modern conventions like XYZ and Bart. | |||
| $18.95 | By special order only | ||
| My System: The Unbalanced Diamond | ||
| Marshall Miles | |||
| Marshall Miles describes his own preferred bidding system, featuring a 1D opening that promises a minimum opening and an unbalanced hand without a 5-card major, limited 1H and 1S openings limited to 15 HCP, a weak 1NT opener, and an artificial 1C opening covering 15-20 point hands, with a Standard-American-like 2C opening. Halfway between Standard and a club system, like nothing else you've played against, but all General Convention Chart-legal and playable in ACBL tournaments. | |||
| $18.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Cuebidding at Bridge: a Modern Approach | ||
| Ken Rexford | |||
|
The most detailed coverage of modern "Italian style" cuebidding in print. Rexford has some innovative ideas about using the space between 2 and 3 of your major for cuebidding after an auction like 1H-2C-2D-2H if you use the 2/1GF system. If you prefer the traditional "aces first" style of cuebids, I recommend Ron Klinger's Cuebidding to Slams. | |||
| $19.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Commonsense Bidding | ||
| Bill Root | |||
|
The single best book on the market today about good old-fashioned Standard American bidding. Literally every common bidding situation (and a lot of uncommon ones!) that doesn't involve any conventions fancier than Stayman and Blackwood is in here. This book is my first recommendation to new bridge players after they finish their first course of lessons. A solid grounding in natural bidding principles is essential to know what conventions are worth learning and when to use them.
Also ideal for the serious rubber bridge player who needs to be able to bid effectively with unfamiliar partners without time for a long discussion about partnership methods. | |||
| $16.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Modern Bridge Conventions | ||
| Bill Root and Richard Pavlicek | |||
|
More than "just" a description of how the 50 or so most popular bidding conventions work. It also goes into great detail about how the second and third rounds of bidding unfold after each convention is used; how different conventions interact with each other; and how to cope with the loss of the natural bid you had to give up to adopt the convention.
Every convention in the book is rated as a "one-, two-," or "three-star convention" according to how complex it is, making it easier for new players to decide which conventions are worth their effort to learn. An appendix shows how to mark each convention on the ACBL convention card. There are several newer conventions books on the market today, but this one had stood the test of time. Exceptionally well-written and thorough, it is still my top pick in this category. | |||
| $16.00 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Marc Smith | |||
| Twenty-five chapters, one on each of the most commonly used conventions in tournament bridge today. | |||
| $18.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 25 More Bridge Conventions You Should Know | ||
| Barbara Seagram and David Bird | |||
| A chapter on each of 25 conventions used by the pros, making them accessible to serious club players eager to improve their games. | |||
| $16.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 25 Ways to Compete in the Bidding | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Marc Smith | |||
| [needed] | |||
| $16.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Four-Suit Transfers | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Andy Stark | |||
| [needed] | |||
| $7.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Jacoby 2NT | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Linda Lee | |||
| A concise introduction to how the widely played Jacoby 2NT convention - a forcing raise of opener's 1H or 1S opening - works. Practice Your Bidding series. | |||
| $6.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Jacoby Transfers | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Andy Stark | |||
| Practice Your Bidding series. | |||
| $7.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Roman Keycard Blackwood | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Linda Lee | |||
|
A simple, straightforward introduction to the basics of RKC. Practice Your Bidding series.
For experienced partnerships wanting to explore all the nuances of the second and third rounds of bidding after 4NT, see Eddie Kantar's Roman Keycard Blackwood. | |||
| $6.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Splinter Bids | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Linda Lee | |||
|
An introduction to how splinter bids work, when to use them and when not to use them. Particularly insightful is the advice on how to handle hands with a singleton honour. Many examples and practice hands, as with all of the books in the Seagram and Lee "Practice Your Bidding" series. | |||
| $6.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Stayman Auctions | ||
| Barbara Seagram and Linda Lee | |||
| Practice Your Bidding series. | |||
| $7.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| The Weak Notrump: How to Play It, How to Play Against It | ||
| Andy Stark | |||
| The complete guide to the 12-14 notrump opening. "How to Play It" covers transfer-style responses, two-way stayman, adjustments to the rest of your bidding system, coping with interference, and more: "How To Play Against It" discusses reasons why you should defend differently vs. strong and weak notrumps, and offers both a simple and a scientific defense to try. | |||
| $18.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| 25 Steps to Learning 2/1 | ||
| Paul Thurston | |||
| Transition from Standard American to 2/1 Game Forcing bidding one convention at a time as you work your way through this book with your partner. | |||
| $16.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
| Pocket Guide to 2/1 | ||
| Paul Thurston | |||
| Compact spiral-bound summary of the 2/1 bidding system. | |||
| $7.95 | Available now and ready to ship | ||
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