Frank Stewart's Bridge Club


Book Description

A collection of hands that take the reader through a year at the author's (fictional) bridge club. The characters make all the common errors, so the author manages to instruct while he entertains. For fans of Stewart's enormously popular syndicated bridge column, in which these characters appear regularly.




Becoming a Bridge Expert


Book Description

A compendium of advice for the improving player from one of North America's best-known bridge teachers and writers. Each tip is bite-sized - 3-4 pages in length - so the reader can dip in briefly and still take away an important idea. As well as the usual sections on bidding, play and defense, the author includes much advice on the psychological aspects of the game, including how to be a good partner. Frank Stewart is one of the most distinguished bridge writers and journalists in North America, with over twenty books to his credit. A major contributor to the Official Encyclopedia of Bridge and a regular writer for the ACBL Bulletin, he is perhaps best-known today as the author of the nationally-syndicated 'Daily Bridge Club' daily newspaper column. He lives in Fayette, Alabama.




Tournament Bridge Tips on Defense


Book Description

This book is designed to give a comprehensive view of the rules of play for defense. The book contains rules for how to defend against a long suit, when and how to ruff, how to handle a forcing defense, how to defend against a squeeze play or an endplay, when and how to duck, when to play second hand high or third hand low, how to play from E, when to underlead your ace, how to discard and deceive, how to defend against a notrump contract, how to signal, and how to lead. Under each subject, there are numerous examples illustrating each rule of defense.




Tips on Bridge


Book Description

The book is designed to give a comprehensive view of the rules of play for suit contracts. The various subjects contain rules for timing, how to play the first card, how to ruff, how to set up a long suit, how to finesse, when to spurn the finesse, and how to handle special combinations such as a split A-Q or K-Q. In addition, you will learn when to play for the drop, how to get a count on the hand, when to use the dummy reversal, when to duck, how to deceive an opponent, and how to handle transportation. Under each subject, there are numerous examples to illustrate the rules of play.




Tips on Bridge Defense


Book Description

This book is designed to give a comprehensive view of the rules of play for defense. The book contains rules for how to defend against a long suit, when and how to ruff , how to handle a forcing defense, how to defend against a squeeze play or an endplay, when and how to duck, when to play 2nd hand high or 3rd hand low, how to play from E, when to underlead your Ace, how to discard and deceive, how to defend against a notrump contract, how to signal and how to lead. Under each subject, there are numerous examples illustrating each rule of defense.




Tips on Advanced Bridge & Notrump


Book Description

This book is designed to give a comprehensive view of the rules of play for advanced bridge and for no-trump contracts. The book contains rules for when and how to use the endplay, when and how to squeeze, how to handle a forcing defense, and how to handle a 4-1 trump split. The book also contains rules on no-trump play such as when to hold up, how to finesse, when to spurn a finesse, when to duck, when to endplay opponents, when to squeeze, how to deceive, and how to handle transportation.




Beginning Bridge


Book Description

This book gives a comprehensive view of the various types of hands a beginning player might expect to encounter in a tournament. The various categories of hands presented will teach you how to play the first card, how to ruff, how to set up a long suit, how to avoid the danger hand, how to avoid being ruffed, how to play for the drop, how to get a count on the hand and how to handle special card combinations. In addition, you will learn about finessing up to a lone honor, the ruffing finesse, the backward finesse and other finessing techniques.




The Casey Bridge Bidding System


Book Description

This book incorporates the 2/1 Game Force bidding system whenever the opener bids a major suit. This book is designed to improve your bidding of minor suit openings in 3 steps. The 1st step involves bids to hamper the opponents from finding their 4-4 spade fit. This involves the use of the Casey overcall and the Weak 1NT opening. It also involves the use of the Casey-Jacoby transfer to find a 5-card major in responder’s hand and the use of inverted minors. The 2nd step involves adoption of the strong 2 bid, a bid of 20-21p. This allows the opener to use the Casey Reverse to show a hand of 16-17p by bidding at the 2-level and to show a hand of 18-19p by bidding at the 3-level. The Casey Minor Rebid convention allows the opening to show a 4+ card suit at the 2 or 3-level. The third step involves optimizing your slam bidding with the Casey Trump Queen convention. It also involves the use of the Redwood Kickback convention for minor suit contracts and the use of the Fourth Suit Forcing convention to ascertain whether opener has 5 cards in his 2nd bid minor suit.




The Flaws in Standard American Bridge


Book Description

This book is designed to highlight the flaws in Standard American bidding, i.e. the SAYC system. The book discusses the major failures of SAYC, namely the failure of the ACBL to adopt the Bergen point-count system, the failure to simplify reverses, the failure to find a 20-21p bid for all hands, and the failure to adopt the Casey-Jacoby Transfer convention and the Casey Rebid convention. In addition, the book points out numerous minor failures such as the failure to find a means of bidding a direct game, the failure of SAYC to require takeout doubles to have a four-card major, and the failure to adopt Minorwood, a six-keycard kickback convention. The book also points out the ACBL’s failure to clarify certain issues, such as the failure to clarify O’s reply to R’s two-level response, the failure to clarify cuebids, and the failure to clarify Stopper-Ask bids. The book provides a solution for all these problems in a new system called Precision Diamond.




The Precision Diamond Bridge Bidding System


Book Description

The Precision Diamond system provides a solution to the flaws in the Standard American bidding convention (SAYC). There are 6 notable features of my bidding system. The 1st feature is the ability of the responder to show his 5-card major suit immediately using the Casey-Jacoby Transfer. The 2nd feature is that Precision Diamond permits the opener to show his points within a 2p range from 16-21 points using the Casey Shift and the Strong 2 opening. The 3rd feature is the ability of the overcaller to show his 4-card major suit immediately by assigning 1NT to show 4s. The 4th feature of Precision Diamond is the ability of the Keycard-Asker in a slam contract to ascertain whether the opener has the trump queen using the Casey RKC method. The 5th feature is the ability of the opener to show keycards, including the trump queen, at the 4-level in the case of a minor suit slam attempt using Minorwood. The 6th feature is the ability of the opener to find a slam with a minor suit fit using the Casey Minor Rebid convention.