BOOKS ABOUT BRIDGE

This section is designed to give visitors a guide to some of the best writing about bridge. All the books mentioned here were included on the list of all-time best bridge books, as chosen in a poll conducted by the American Contract Bridge League in the early 1990s. The descriptions and classifications that follow are mine, not those of the publishers. Many of these titles are still in print. The titles do however cover a wide range of ability. While some titles are suitable for the beginner, others (marked with an asterisk) are explicitly aimed at the more experienced or expert player. See the Useful Links page on this site for some bookshops that specialise in bridge books.

Jonathan Davis

BOOKS ON THE ACBL LIST OF ALL-TIME GREATS

GENERAL

S.J.Simon: Why You Lose At Bridge

One of the most popular bridge books of all time, this highly readable classic describes many of the most common mistakes that the ordinary player is prone to make. Includes an entertaining illustrative rubber that features some of the most famous characters in bridge literature, among them the dreaded Mrs Guggenheim. S.J.Simon, universally known as ‘Skid’, was one of the creators of the Acol bidding system in England and also wrote a series of musicals with the lyricist Carol Brahms.

Robert Darvas: Right Through The Pack

Another classic title, this evergreen classic consists of 52 hands, each one told by a different card in the pack. There are squeezes, trump coups and any number of ploys. Elegantly written and surprisingly advanced for its time. It underlines that while bidding has advanced by leaps and bounds in sophistication over the past 50 years, declarer play of the highest standard was very much in evidence half a century ago. 

Victor Mollo: Bridge In The Menagerie

First of the famous series of humorous tales featuring the cast of characters invented by the prolific bridge author Victor Mollo. The stories revolve around bridge at the Griffins Club, and feature the doings of the hapless but fortunate Rueful Rabbit, Papa the Greek and his permanent nemesis, the odious but brilliant Hideous Hog. Still funny and instructive 40 years after its first publication.

Terence Reese: Play Bridge With Reese

One of a series of “over the shoulder” books in which Terence Reese, whom many would still regard as the most incisive bridge author of all time, describes his thinking as he bids and plays a succession of hands. Will open the eyes of any player who is looking to progress from the status of average to more advanced player. Recently reissued in a new edition.

Pietro Forquet: Bridge With The Blue Team *

One of the members of the famous Italian Blue Team that monopolized championship bridge in the 1960s and early 1970s, winning a succession of World Championships and Olympiads, Pietro Forquet recalls more than140 different hands, many of them featuring brilliancies in bidding and declarer play of the highest standard. Also includes a summary of the Blue Club system that helped the Italians to dominate bridge as they did for so many years.

Kit Woolsey: Matchpoints *

Playing match point pairs is a quite different game from playing rubber bridge or playing teams. Kit Woolsey’s book, the best of its kind, goes deeply into the tactics that successful pairs players need to adopt if they are to succeed at this version of the game, where the scoring is based not on how many more points you score than your opponents, but on how many other pairs playing the same cards you outscore. 

LEARNING BRIDGE

Alfred Sheinwold: Five Weeks to Winning Bridge

For many years this was the most successful introductory book about bridge on the market. Alongside Charles Goren, Alfred Scheinwold was instrumental in popularizing the game in North America. Covers all the important aspects of bidding and play, though clearly does not include many popular bidding conventions of today.

BIDDING

Larry Cohen: To Bid Or Not To Bid

This book, written by one of the players competing in the Warren Buffett Cup, explains the so-called Law of Total Tricks and how applying this relatively simple formula can help you improve your competitive bidding. The Law of Total Tricks states that the total number of tricks that can be won by both sides in a hand of bridge is related to the number of cards each side holds in their preferred trump suit.

DEFENCE

Hugh Kelsey: Killing Defence

When this book first appeared in the 1960s, it was instantly recognized as a breakthrough in our understanding of how to defend a bridge hand. Hugh Kelsey was a Scottish player who produced a string of outstanding bridge books over a number of years. Defence is usually regarded as the hardest part of the game, which is why Killing Defence made such an impact when it was first published. The book is written as a series of problem hands, which the reader is invited to solve before turning the page to read Kelsey’s analysis.

PLAY OF THE CARDS

Terence Reese: Reese On Play

This was the book that helped to establish Terence Reese as one of the most respected bridge authors of all time. Appearing shortly after the end of the Second World War, it opens with this sentence: “Good players differ from average players mostly in this: that the good player tries to play all fifty-two cards, and the average player plays on the twenty-six which he can see”. The remainder of the book is devoted to explaining some of the stratagems that better players employ as a matter of routine, among them eliminations, throw-ins, squeezes, safety plays and deceptive manouevrres.

Terence Reese: The Expert Game *

The successor to Reese on Play, The Expert Game takes the reader further into the byways of advanced play. Among other sections, it features one of the first expositions of the Principle of Restricted Choice, the counterintuitive notion that the odds in certain suit combinations can change dramatically if a player plays a touching card from two honours.  Like all Reese’s books, it can be read and reread for profit.  

Nico Gardener and Victor Mollo: Card Play Technique

This was one of the first books to explore in depth the secrets of declarer play. Written by the founder of the London School of Bridge and the prolific author Victor Mollo, it is a clear and lucid guide to the main principles of card play. By definition card play technique hardly dates, so the book is as valid today as it was when it first appeared in the late 1950s. Often mentioned as an influential source of inspiration by leading European players in the 1960s and 1970s.

Geza Ottlik and Hugh Kelsey: Adventures in Card Play *

This book is a delightful discussion of some of the most advanced and improbable subtleties that can arise in the play of a hand at bridge. Although too dense for beginners, it nevertheless remains a classic text for the serious student of bridge at the highest level. Ottlik was a novelist who uses his descriptive powers to describe a range of complex and bewildering hands that in many cases can only be solved after the event. The analysis required would be too difficult in real play. Kelsey provides the analytical rigour.

Mike Lawrence: How To Read Your Opponents' Cards

This book, pioneering at the time of its original publication in the 1973, instructs both declarers and defenders on the art of placing the cards in opponents' hands, in both cases drawing inferences from the bidding and the fall of the cards during the play. Mike Lawrence, a two times World champion, shows how often a comprehensive picture of the opposing cards can be built up through careful analysis. HIghly recommended. 

BOOKS NOT DESCRIBED IN DETAIL

Dorothy Hayden Truscott: Bid Better, Play Better

Henry G Francis: The Bridge Encyclopedia

Marshall Miles: All 52 Cards

Louis H Watson: Play of the Hand

Clyde Elton Love: Bridge Squeezes Complete

Edwin Kantar: Defensive Bridge Play Complete