All titles available from Master Point Press

"If you are a student of game theory, statistics, and math, The Cutting Edge is a great read. Dave applies the nuances of these strategies to the game we all love. The text is highly analytical."Ralph Katz, Bermuda Bowl Champion"I enjoyed this a lot. I expect something will be new to most readers, and it’s a nice collection of related ideas in one place."Franco Baseggio, hedge fund statistical arbitrage specialist"[The book] presents bridge situations in a way that bridge players would understand them. It is much more important to be interested in thinking about things mathematically than to have previous knowledge."Greg Lawler, mathematics professor, University of Chicago"I enjoyed the hands and analysis. Following the equilibrium mixed strategy is safe in a sense, but in practice you’re only exploitable if the opponent knows you deviate and in which direction."Jonathan Weinstein, economics professor, University of Washington in St. LouisProfits from the sale of this book will be donated to the USBF Junior Program

• Advanced

BRIDGE'S FIRST HIPPIE Book 1 - The first 40 Years Peter Weichsel has won five world bridge championships, and twenty-seven North American titles, and became a member of the Bridge Hall of Fame in 2004. He has been part of great teams (C.C. Wei’s Precision Team in the 1970s, and the Aces later on), and has won everything it is possible to win in the game. But that’s just his bridge career. This fascinating autobiography tells the story of the man behind those accomplishments. Weichsel has always marched to his own drummer, from his early years as part of a Jewish immigrant family in New York, through his time in the US Navy during the Vietnam war, then experiencing the 60s counter-culture in San Francisco (and bringing that sensibility and dress style to the staid bridge scene), and living through periods as a sports betting baron, a pool shark, and even a mob hit target. There’s great bridge in here, of course – lots of it – and plenty of tips for readers to learn from. This is a man who has spent almost sixty years playing with and against the best in the world, and he pulls no punches when it comes to partners and opponents – or, indeed, his own failings. Book 1 covers Weichsel’s life up to his first Bermuda Bowl win in 1983.

The Next Forty Years...Peter Weichsel has won five world bridge championships, including two coveted Bermuda Bowls, and twenty-seven North American titles. He became a member of the Bridge Hall of Fame in 2004. He has been part of great teams (C.C. Wei’s Precision Team in the 1970s, and the Aces later on), and has won everything it is possible to win in the game. But that’s just his bridge career. This fascinating autobiography tells the story of the man behind those accomplishments.This is the second volume in a two-part autobiography (Book 1 was published in 2023). Book 2 covers the forty years from the author’s first Bermuda Bowl win in 1983 to the 2023 World Championships in Marrakesh. Peter’s regular partners during this period have included Bobby Levin, Mike Lawrence, Alan Sontag (again) and most recently, Bob Hamman. The chapter on cheating at bridge, at the very top levels, will be of particular interest in view of the upheaval in the world game that this problem continues to cause.

• Intermediate
• Advanced

This is a rare account of the horrors of the WW2 death camps from someone who experienced them. Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Prague, Hoffman lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Fourteen-year-old Martin Hoffman escapes immediate death on arrival at Auschwitz by claiming to be eighteen. Through a combination of chutzpah and luck, he first survives a year at Auschwitz, then the Death March to Buchenwald, and stays alive until the camp is liberated by American troops. After relocating to England, Hoffman is tortured by survivor’s guilt, which leads to episodes of deep depression. He learns a trade (diamond-cutting), but eventually discovers two things: a talent for bridge, and a fascination with gambling. As he finds success with the first, becoming a world-class professional player, the second almost destroys him. It is only later in life, with the help of his wife Audrey, that Hoffman is able to overcome his dark memories, conquer his addiction to gambling, and finally find contentment in a new life in Florida.

This book discusses the theory of bridge bidding for advanced players, with emphasis on the principles behind an effective bidding system. These include the concepts of Useful Space, Relays, Transfers and Dialogue Bidding, as well as creative ideas about Slam Bidding and Deception. The book addresses the conflicting requirements for a system that is at the same time robust and antagonistic, but also accurate.

• Award Winner

The origins of the game of bridge have been shrouded in mystery... but no longer.  Tracing the development of the game and the fascinating characters who played it from whist through to auction bridge and eventually contract, the author reveals the missing link, and demonstrates how the world's most popular card game came into being. Additional Material From Bumblepuppy Days available at ebooksbridge.com Mr Ely Culbertson 1932 Bridge player Ely Culbertson talks about the game. The Bridge "Battle" 1930-1931 Bridge game between people showing rival systems for bidding.

• Beginner
• Novice
• Intermediate
• Advanced
• Award Winner

We asked Cam French to select his five all-time favorite bridge books from Master Point Press and here is what he had to say: Canada's Bridge Warriors by Roy Hughes. I bought two and gave one to my dad after I got it autographed by the author, Sami and Eric. He is crazy about it and so am I. Great hands, interesting dialogue. North of the Master Solvers' Club by Frank Vine I have always been fond of bridge humour and no one does it better. I recall Frank announcing as he was stepping down from the podium having been awarded Bols Bridge Tip of the Decade ... "before you claim, draw one more round of trumps." Priceless. Classic Kantar by Eddie Kantar Humour as only Eddie can. He forces you to laugh at his stories. Always a treat to re-read. I love This Game by Sabine Auken Great hands, great player. A unique insight to bridge at the top. Northern Lights edited by Ray and Linda Lee I like this so much as I recognize and know many of the contributors. From the Shoe, to Professor Silver, Gowdy, Ray and Linda. A broad range of essays/stories designed to entertain and enlighten. All five eBooks mentioned above are included in this set of downloads.

Test your bridge skills. Would you have made the team? In quiz format, this book presents bidding, declarer play and defensive problems taken from the deals that occurred during the final of the 2013 USBC Team Trials. Compare your solutions to the plays and bids actually made, and see how you would have scored if you had been playing. In-depth analysis of each deal is given. The analyses include discussion of several advanced topics such as counting combinations in defensive problems, third-level thinking, balancing in guessing situations, as well as some rare advanced play positions. This book will enhance your understanding of deductive processes, foreseeing possible end positions and applying math to real-world bridge problems. MATTHIAS FELMY (Oldenburg) is a German international player. His bridge successes include the European Schools Champioinships, three German national championships, wins in Austria's most important team and pair events as wel

• Advanced

When the going gets tough... "You never really beat Murray and Kehela - you were just temporarily ahead of them." - Bob Hamman, many times world champion Eric Murray and Sami Kehela, despite very different personalities, were the most successful bridge pair Canada has ever produced. There were times when they were considered the best pair in the world. The closer and harder the match the tougher they became. And they never gave up. This book, for the first time, tells the story of more than 30 years of triumphs, near-triumphs, and might-have-beens. This was bridge in a different era, an era when Canadians had to beat out the top U.S. players in grueling North American pairs trials. Perhaps the bidding was less sophisticated than it is today, but as the deals in this book will confirm, the standard of card play was every bit as good.

• Award Winner

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 of 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!

• Advanced

First published in 1955, this comprehensive survey of declarer play and defense has been very hard to find for the last decade. It is perhaps the single most-requested out of print bridge book, and is widely regarded as the best intermediate-level book on card play ever written. Gardener’s technical expertise and Mollo’s witty writing style combine to provide a unique instructional experience.   This new edition has been updated and modernized by Bridge Magazine editor Mark Horton, and also includes a new foreword by Gardener’s daughter, Nicola Smith, herself a multiple world champion.

• Intermediate

In this quiz book, the well-known author, Danny Roth, has compiled a set of challenges that will test readers' ability as a declarer, and at the same time, introduce some stratagems that may be unfamiliar. The hands are tougher than those in Focus on Declarer Play, and they are not presented in the same teaching mode, rather, they are in a random order as one might encounter them at the bridge table.

• Intermediate
• Advanced

Eddie Kantar is not only one of today's best bridge writers, he's also one of the funniest. His two previous collections, Bridge Humor and The Best of Eddie Kantar, have been out of print for some years, and are still much sought after. For Classic Kantar, Eddie has selected the very best stories from the two previous books, and has added many new ones. As always, he pokes fun at the top experts, and chronicles some of the bids and plays they hoped would never come to light (typically, though, there are more of his disasters in here than anyone else's). His misadventures as a 'world traveler' are legendary. And appearing here for the first time in book form are all the stories from Eddie's notorious and hilarious Home Game.

An intermediate-level discussion of declarer play, this book focuses on the power of the trump suit. Its subjects include trump timing – should you draw all the defenders’ trumps straight away, some of their trumps, or perhaps perform some other vital task first? – and situations where you need to unblock in the trump suit or to put a defender on lead with a trump. The reader will learn how to make maximum use of the entries provided by the trump suit, and how to perform a trump safety play or a trump avoidance play. Two other important topics are how to make your contract against a bad trump break and how you can survive a forcing attack on the long-trump holding. Later chapters explain how to play contracts with fewer than eight trumps at your disposal, and also how to conjure extra tricks from the trump suit. Every couple of chapters or so, there is a 9-problem quiz section.

• Intermediate

Close Encounters is a two-book series that describes some of the most memorable bridge matches of the last fifty years. It features titanic struggles for World and National titles, involving the greatest players from North America and Europe. There are amazing comebacks, down to the wire finishes, overtime victories, and an insight into how the game has changed over the last half century. Book 1 starts with Italy's asserting its supremacy over Great Britain in 1964, and ends with Germany's dramatic Venice Cup win over France in Paris, in 2001. Review: Close Encounters: Bridge’s Greatest Matches Books 1 & 2 "These books are good. Packed full of interesting hands, dramatic matches and revealing insights into bridge at the highest level. "It would have been possible to write perfectly interesting books about these eleven tight matches by just analyzing the hands and detailing the ups and downs of the score. But there is much more to these books than that. The authors' personal involvement lends an intimate feel to the accounts, and the many individual and group photos from the time add to this. As do the human touches like this one from the first book: “Diamond gives a lot of thought to his lead against the excellent 6 clubs. To relieve the tension, he says, with a straight face: ‘Brian, you could be coughing over there or something, to help me out!’” "At many crucial moments we are given insights into the thought processes of the players, often based on discussion with the players themselves. Where players have made bad decisions, any criticism is usually tempered by an explanation of the reasoning behind the decision, including strategic thinking about the state of the match and what might be happening at the other table, lending veracity to the axiom that experts make misjudgments while we mortals make mistakes. " The coaching expertise comes out in a series of interesting disquisitions on areas not often discussed: the undervalued significance of 1 or 2 IMP swings; swing strategy when substantially behind in a match; the tendency when reviewing a session to skip over push boards, though there might be valuable lessons in them; the importance of intangibles like tiredness and emotional engagement; Board a Match tactics (a difficult and not much written about subject). " -- A New Bridge Magazine, November 2018

• Intermediate

Close Encounters is a two-book series that describes some of the most memorable bridge matches of the last fifty years. It features titanic struggles for World and National titles, involving the greatest players from North America and Europe. There are amazing comebacks, down to the wire finishes, overtime victories, and an insight into how the game has changed over the last half century. Book 2 starts with Italy’s losing a world title in bizarre fashion on the final board, and ends with the USA’s nail-biting 2-IMP victory over France in Lyon in 2017. Review: Close Encounters: Bridge’s Greatest Matches Books 1 & 2 "These books are good. Packed full of interesting hands, dramatic matches and revealing insights into bridge at the highest level. "It would have been possible to write perfectly interesting books about these eleven tight matches by just analyzing the hands and detailing the ups and downs of the score. But there is much more to these books than that. The authors' personal involvement lends an intimate feel to the accounts, and the many individual and group photos from the time add to this. As do the human touches like this one from the first book: “Diamond gives a lot of thought to his lead against the excellent 6 clubs. To relieve the tension, he says, with a straight face: ‘Brian, you could be coughing over there or something, to help me out!’” "At many crucial moments we are given insights into the thought processes of the players, often based on discussion with the players themselves. Where players have made bad decisions, any criticism is usually tempered by an explanation of the reasoning behind the decision, including strategic thinking about the state of the match and what might be happening at the other table, lending veracity to the axiom that experts make misjudgments while we mortals make mistakes. "The coaching expertise comes out in a series of interesting disquisitions on areas not often discussed: the undervalued significance of 1 or 2 IMP swings; swing strategy when substantially behind in a match; the tendency when reviewing a session to skip over push boards, though there might be valuable lessons in them; the importance of intangibles like tiredness and emotional engagement; Board a Match tactics (a difficult and not much written about subject). " -- A New Bridge Magazine, November 2018

• Intermediate

Defenders invariably base their strategy on declarer's bidding. Yet so often declarers fail to return the compliment: they flail away 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 all contains 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 1990, and in this new edition is substantially revised and expanded.

• Intermediate
• Advanced

The first book in Danny Roth's new intermediate-level series on declarer play, this book covers topics that, once mastered, will bring any intermediate player an immediate improvement in their scores. Topics include: to finesse or play for the drop (why not both?), loser-on-loser plays, entries, disposing of losers, and much more. The overall theme is, 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket -- instead, choose a line of play that gives you more than one chance of success.' As always, the author's clear exposition of his points is followed by a large collection of problems where the reader can test his understanding of this new-found knowledge.

• Intermediate

Has it been a long time since you played bridge? Bridge is a game that people often decide to learn as empty-nesters. There are also those who learned the game when they were younger -- but while they would like to start playing again, they are nervous about how much the game may have changed. There are new ways of bidding, new conventions, and other things they will need to know before they are confident about playing even with friends. That's exactly the audience for this book -- those who are 'coming back to bridge'. It summarizes the key changes that someone who has not played for many years will encounter, and explains simply and clearly what they will need to know to be comfortable in the modern game.

• Novice
• Intermediate

Competitive Bidding The Winning Bridge Conventions Series An Honors eBook Bridge students quickly discover that basic bidding will only get them so far. To improve it is necessary to master a certain number of bidding conventions, and be prepared both to play them and to play against them. Each of the books in this series covers a number of useful conventions, explaining them carefully along with numerous examples and quizzes to help the reader understand what is being learned. Included in this ebook: Weak Two Bids Preemptive Bidding Michaels Cuebid Unusual 2NT Sandwich NT Unusual vs. Unusual Cuebidding in Competitive Auctions Good/Bad 2NT More titles in the Winning Bridge Conventions Series Competitive Doubles Conventions after a Notrump Opening Conventions after a Major Suit Opening Conventions Useful with Strong Hands Conventions Useful with 2/1 Slam Bidding Conventions Defensive Carding & Opening Leads

• Beginner
• Novice

In this book, written for serious tournament players, Miles addresses the the complex arena of competitive bidding methods. Miles discusses current thinking, and recommends methods which will continue to be playable as bridge enters the 21st century. This book will appeal to more serious readers but can be enjoyed thoroughly by the advancing player.

• Advanced

Competitive Doubles The Winning Bridge Conventions Series An Honors eBook Bridge students quickly discover that basic bidding will only get them so far. To improve it is necessary to master a certain number of bidding conventions, and be prepared both to play them and to play against them. Each of the books in this series covers a number of useful conventions, explaining them carefully along with numerous examples and quizzes to help the reader understand what is being learned. Included in this ebook: Takeout Doubles Negative Doubles Responsive Doubles Snapdragon Doubles Balancing Doubles Re-opening Doubles Support Doubles Maximal Doubles Common Misconceptions Practice Hands More titles in the Winning Bridge Conventions Series Conventions after a Notrump Opening Conventions after a Major Suit Opening Competitive Bidding Conventions Useful with Strong Hands Conventions Useful with 2/1 Slam Bidding Conventions Defensive Carding & Opening Leads

• Beginner
• Novice

LIFE IN THE FAST LANEJoey Silver and John Carruthers (JC) have been top Canadian bridge players for over fifty years. As a partnership and as friends, they go back twenty-five years, and have a silver medal in World Championship play to their credit, as well as numerous Canadian Championships.This book continues Joey’s popular ‘Confessions of a Bridge Addict’ column, begun on Bridge Winners during COVID. The confessions showcase Joey’s successes and failures both at the bridge table and in life. Interspersed throughout are stories of his exploits as a lawyer in the Québec court system, in which he meets an array of personalities and finds his passon for competition. The lessons learned as a public defender mirror those learned at the bridge table, lessons he shares with his reader.Joey agreed to write this book on the condition that JC would be his co-author and editor. The result of this collaboration delivers to readers an insightful book on the game, with many interesting characters.

Constructive Bidding 401 is the first of two books that provides advancing partnerships a complete and consistent framework in the form of a bidding system for competition in stratified tournaments at higher levels. This first book emphasizes the importance of working with your partner. Concepts of teamwork from the business world are presented in a bridge context with a number of partnership development exercises. The book moves on to hand evaluation and follows with a complete range of opening bids from 1♣ to 4♠ in all seat positions. Finally, it deals with responses to an opening bid. This convention-rich system can be simplified to suit the requirements of individual partnerships at any level. Developing partnerships can start with the basic system and then add to it with the understanding that everything will work seamlessly together. The system's bidding philosophy is to aggressively locate and bid game contracts. Bidding structures derived from that approach depend upon shape and high-card points to differentiate between types of bids. Patterned after a college textbook, concepts are presented, explained and then detailed in a tabular format. A summary and quiz following each major section develops the reader's understanding. The quizzes in both books contain more than 450 question and answers.

• Intermediate
• Advanced