Some books that helped me a lot that we not mentioned were Opening Leads By Ewen and Eddie Kantar on Defense (2 Volumes) and Hand Evaluation by Mike Lawrence and Develop Your Bidding Judgement by Terence Reese. This last is from 1962 so the bidding is old style -but the thinking described by Reese is eternally valuable.
The first bridge book I've picked up, and am nearly finished at the moment is the one everyone recommended which is the rodwell files! I was apprehensive to read bridge books before but this one is just so amazing and now I can't put it down! Really glad you recommended it
One of my favorite books is Squeeze Play Made Easy by Terrence Reese--very clear. Another one I'm surprised you did not mention was the classic "Watson's Classic Book on The Play of the Hand at Bridge" by Louis H. Watson--very comprehensive, although of course, bidding has changed since it was written. But the very best bridge book of all time is "Tournament Bridge, an Uncensored Memoir" by Jerome S. Machlin, past ACBL Chief Tournament Director. It is not a teaching book, it is a book of wonderful anecdotes. It is out of print and hard to find, but it's priceless!
Nice list. I’ve read 11 or 12 of them (I don’t recall if I’ve read Card Play Technique!). A couple of books I would recommend for intermediates to advanced are “Countdown to Winning Bridge” by Marc Smith and Tim Bourke, and “Step-by-Step Discarding” by Danny Roth. The latter covers a topic which is not really discussed in detail in most other books on defence, and I would say it’s the only book I’ve read where I noticed an *immediate* improvement in my bridge.
The fact is that there are a lot of good bridge books out there. It's hard to go wrong. Even objectively bad books like Washington Bridge Standard (Steve Robinson) and 100 Bridge Problems (Mike Cappelletti) have something to offer because they get you to think about things in a different way. (I bring these up because the writers are both locals so I know/knew them well.)
Awesome list and a great video! Thank you for it! Some remarks: The Unlucky Expert is not in the 'Bridge in the Menagerie' but in 'Why you lose at bridge' (and 'Cut for Partner, its sequel). (By the way Julian Pottage wrote the 21st century sequel 'Why you STILL loose at bridge. The key figures are noted as 'The Big Four'.) Larry Cohen's 'To bid or not to bid' is a very impressive reading, but there are master players who disgree with him. Not lesser player and writer than Mike Lawrence wrote a book 'I Fought the Law of Total Tricks'. The foreword is written by Eric Kokish. I think Geza Ottik's 'Advantures' is a fantastic book but only few people understand it in its entirely. IMHO it is a waste of time for a parctical player. My personal favorites on the list are: Kelsey's 'Killing Defence' Mike Lawrence's 'How to read...' 'Card Play Technique' by Mollo - Gardiner Simon's 'Why you lose...' Kelsey's 'Odds for practical players' On squeezes I find more useful 'Kelsey on Squeeze Play' and Reese's 'Squeeze Play is Easy'. The newest and IMHO one of the bests in the topic is 'A Bridge to Simple Squeezes' by Julian Laderman. Terence Reese's all time classics are not mentioned e. g. 'Reese on Play', 'Play Bridge with Reese' and 'The 'Expert Game'.
As only a “sub-intermediate” I learnt a lot from the over the shoulder approach of Terence Reese in “Play Bridge with Reese”, despite its age. Also amusng for those with a dry sense of humour! I find your bridge hand analyses tremendous. Keen follower of both your videos and those on Wolpert bridge channel
I had one person recommend two of the Reese books "Two classics from the master player of his time that teach the practical aspects of making as many tricks as possible when playing the hand." Also one person give an anti recommendation for them "dated, particularly his views on bidding"
Yes a great list, I agree with most of it, just adding my comments for others to back it up. Adventures in card play, definitely the most intriguing book for any advancing or expert player. Only very few will actually learn from it as the topics covered are complicated and do not occur that frequently, but is does raise some level of awareness in play. Bridge in the Menagerie (and other volumes in the series) the best in humor about bridge indeed, and great hands. i would add the recommendation to read Mollo's (and Gardener's) Card Play Technique for any beginner, intermediate and advancing player that might have missed out on some of the basics. IMHO the best book on card play basics. Bridge odds for practical players; I do agree it is a great book on understanding odds with some guidelines that really help assess odds when a hand presents options. However the method described IMHO is not the most practical. I would recommend "Countdown to winning Bridge" (Bourke e.a.) on similar topics more, it has explained me counting to 3 rather then memorizing 52 cards is enough on a lot of hands, which is of even more of a practical skill. Best to study both though. Bridge squeezes complete, agreed the best book on squeeze, not an easy read but presented in a way to memorize the technique. I've studies it like 5 times and now decades later still feel I find all double squeezes available for instance (a strength of my game, i do have weaknesses too) the title is misleading, it's certainly not covering all squeezes (see adventures in card play) There is a series on squeeze play by Kelsey too, an easier read but less suitable to actually internalize the play, but good too. Bridge with the blue team, yes a good read, cool hands. Card play technique, so yes, agreed, wrote the comment earlier when you talked about the menagerie. The complete book on overcalls is like a study of everything possible to agree upon in partnerships. I found a significant amount of what is suggested ill advised, but that is just an opinion. It is a good book, but you need to handle with care and within the agreed partnership style. There is no real point to this book if you read it on your own. How to read your opponents cards, the best book for anyone to start understanding what is possible here, by no means complete but it covers some very useful topics indeed., a great start on the topic. Masterclass, yes great read. Match points my personal favorite, first of all it taught me to appreciate match points more (I've always favored teams/imps and still do, but I don;t look down on matchpoints like i used to). It IS however also useful to have studied the book for teams players as it provides an understanding of strategies. Right through the pack, a classic, great concept, great hands. To bid or not to bid, the first i (Partially) disagree with. The book helps to provide an understanding of hand evaluation, but it has a danger for people that actually read it and apply the mechanism described, I noticed all of the pairs that do this slow down their advance, it's not actually a great approach to bidding overall, just for the odd borderline decision. How experts win at bridge, My favorite 52, Why you loose at bridge, killing defense, the Rodwell files, not familiar with them, thanks for the suggestion, maybe I will get them. A couple of other suggestions to add to the list; I would add another Kelsey book, of which i actually forgot the title. It is on declare play, but unlike most other authors do it does not focus on the "best" play at any moment, but more on what success of not following the double dummy best play may bring. Which is good as not all hands are double dummy 😞 The complete book on opening leads (Blackwood) Partnership Bidding (Robson) a great book on fit bids, fascinating possibilities, even if you don't want to play all or any of it, it will help evaluate hands anyway. The Bridge Bum (Sontag), a great and fascinating read on his career. I could not stop reading until I finished it. Bridge, Zia and me (Rosenberg) another career book, but this is one that you can actually learn things from Notrump bidding the scanian way. Even if you don't want to learn the system described it still makes it obvious "Stayman/Transfers" is NOT the best approach after a 1NT opening, if only as it does at times lead to an embarrassing 3NT with two opposing small doubletons. A partnership book though. And finally what I consider to be a curiosity, "I shot my Bridge Partner" A novel, with some bridge hands interwoven into the story. Not the best of Novels, but for any Bridge book enthusiast a must have...
Some really good books in there, one I would add for partnerships is Robson & Segals Partnership Bidding at Bridge which I found to be fantastic. If you and your regular partner both read this and get on the same page with the things it covers, your results should really improve.
bridge my way is another great book but my favourite is winning bridge by john brown who was from my town grimsby england and a great old player he also wrote winning defense
Hi Pete - thanks for the nice book reviews. I'm sure this will help intermediate players to get through the barriers. However, I want to mention here that there's 1 book, not much discussed though, if you read it you'll just be amazed !! I was expecting that name in your list here and was sort of surprised when it didn't show up. The book is - "Dormer on Deduction" by Albert Dormer. I know you chose books based on people's recommendations but please go through it, if you haven't already, and let us know your opinion. This book can change the entire view on how to play bridge and will help you become a sniffer dog at the bridge table.
Having read all but one on the list they are all great reads but I will say that if you are like me the average club player many of these books will not improve your weekly % at the club. Forget squeezes and exotic plays like "adventures in card play" and go for killing defence any book by Mike Laurence and Skid Simon. Practical everyday problems we all make. And don't forget to give a copy to your partner
The reason I went into videos of bridge rather then writing bridge lessons is my writing skills are terrible. Teachers would write in full caps across the top of the page "GRAMMAR". I'm not sure any amount of lessons will help.
You went through a bunch of esoteric, though excellent books, but not a single mention of Eddie Kantar’s books is a serious error. You might rethink this.
I have collected bridge books for years, now stopped with it. I have hundreds and read almost all of them. This overview is NOT an advert. It is an accurate observation to which anyone that read a lot more then this list will largely agree. Apart from that, a significant number of this list will be out of print.
I would have liked to see a few more books for the Intermediates, who probably make up the majority of your suscribers. Perhaps "Take All Your Chances " volumes 1&2, by the great Eddie Kantar? I especially like the simple but very clear way these two books are laid out to challenge you to find the best line of Declarer play on 100 hands (in each volume, 200 in total), with several key themes randomly repeated until you begin to see the patterns. If I'm not mistaken, both were voted as one of the Books of the Year by the ABTA in the years they came out.
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Card Play Technique: Or the Art of Being Lucky is my favourite one of the bunch. Good memories reading that one when I was coming into the game.
Some books that helped me a lot that we not mentioned were Opening Leads By Ewen and Eddie Kantar on Defense (2 Volumes) and Hand Evaluation by Mike Lawrence and Develop Your Bidding Judgement by Terence Reese. This last is from 1962 so the bidding is old style -but the thinking described by Reese is eternally valuable.
RIP Eddie Kantar. I'm just getting into Bridge, but will definitely get some of his books.
The first bridge book I've picked up, and am nearly finished at the moment is the one everyone recommended which is the rodwell files! I was apprehensive to read bridge books before but this one is just so amazing and now I can't put it down! Really glad you recommended it
One of my favorite books is Squeeze Play Made Easy by Terrence Reese--very clear. Another one I'm surprised you did not mention was the classic "Watson's Classic Book on The Play of the Hand at Bridge" by Louis H. Watson--very comprehensive, although of course, bidding has changed since it was written. But the very best bridge book of all time is "Tournament Bridge, an Uncensored Memoir" by Jerome S. Machlin, past ACBL Chief Tournament Director. It is not a teaching book, it is a book of wonderful anecdotes. It is out of print and hard to find, but it's priceless!
Superb list - thank you very much for this.
I’m a candidate master at chess thinking of taking up bridge sounds fascinating.
Nice list. I’ve read 11 or 12 of them (I don’t recall if I’ve read Card Play Technique!).
A couple of books I would recommend for intermediates to advanced are “Countdown to Winning Bridge” by Marc Smith and Tim Bourke, and “Step-by-Step Discarding” by Danny Roth. The latter covers a topic which is not really discussed in detail in most other books on defence, and I would say it’s the only book I’ve read where I noticed an *immediate* improvement in my bridge.
The fact is that there are a lot of good bridge books out there. It's hard to go wrong. Even objectively bad books like Washington Bridge Standard (Steve Robinson) and 100 Bridge Problems (Mike Cappelletti) have something to offer because they get you to think about things in a different way. (I bring these up because the writers are both locals so I know/knew them well.)
Awesome list and a great video! Thank you for it!
Some remarks: The Unlucky Expert is not in the 'Bridge in the Menagerie' but in 'Why you lose at bridge' (and 'Cut for Partner, its sequel). (By the way Julian Pottage wrote the 21st century sequel 'Why you STILL loose at bridge. The key figures are noted as 'The Big Four'.)
Larry Cohen's 'To bid or not to bid' is a very impressive reading, but there are master players who disgree with him. Not lesser player and writer than Mike Lawrence wrote a book 'I Fought the Law of Total Tricks'. The foreword is written by Eric Kokish.
I think Geza Ottik's 'Advantures' is a fantastic book but only few people understand it in its entirely. IMHO it is a waste of time for a parctical player.
My personal favorites on the list are:
Kelsey's 'Killing Defence'
Mike Lawrence's 'How to read...'
'Card Play Technique' by Mollo - Gardiner
Simon's 'Why you lose...'
Kelsey's 'Odds for practical players'
On squeezes I find more useful 'Kelsey on Squeeze Play' and Reese's 'Squeeze Play is Easy'. The newest and IMHO one of the bests in the topic is 'A Bridge to Simple Squeezes' by Julian Laderman.
Terence Reese's all time classics are not mentioned e. g. 'Reese on Play', 'Play Bridge with Reese' and 'The 'Expert Game'.
Hugh Kelsey wrote 3 of the books recommended. Pretty impressive
He wrote heaps of really good technical books.
As only a “sub-intermediate” I learnt a lot from the over the shoulder approach of Terence Reese in “Play Bridge with Reese”, despite its age. Also amusng for those with a dry sense of humour! I find your bridge hand analyses tremendous. Keen follower of both your videos and those on Wolpert bridge channel
I had one person recommend two of the Reese books "Two classics from the master player of his time that teach the practical aspects of making as many tricks as possible when playing the hand." Also one person give an anti recommendation for them "dated, particularly his views on bidding"
Yes a great list, I agree with most of it, just adding my comments for others to back it up.
Adventures in card play, definitely the most intriguing book for any advancing or expert player. Only very few will actually learn from it as the topics covered are complicated and do not occur that frequently, but is does raise some level of awareness in play.
Bridge in the Menagerie (and other volumes in the series) the best in humor about bridge indeed, and great hands. i would add the recommendation to read Mollo's (and Gardener's) Card Play Technique for any beginner, intermediate and advancing player that might have missed out on some of the basics. IMHO the best book on card play basics.
Bridge odds for practical players; I do agree it is a great book on understanding odds with some guidelines that really help assess odds when a hand presents options. However the method described IMHO is not the most practical. I would recommend "Countdown to winning Bridge" (Bourke e.a.) on similar topics more, it has explained me counting to 3 rather then memorizing 52 cards is enough on a lot of hands, which is of even more of a practical skill. Best to study both though.
Bridge squeezes complete, agreed the best book on squeeze, not an easy read but presented in a way to memorize the technique. I've studies it like 5 times and now decades later still feel I find all double squeezes available for instance (a strength of my game, i do have weaknesses too) the title is misleading, it's certainly not covering all squeezes (see adventures in card play) There is a series on squeeze play by Kelsey too, an easier read but less suitable to actually internalize the play, but good too.
Bridge with the blue team, yes a good read, cool hands.
Card play technique, so yes, agreed, wrote the comment earlier when you talked about the menagerie.
The complete book on overcalls is like a study of everything possible to agree upon in partnerships. I found a significant amount of what is suggested ill advised, but that is just an opinion. It is a good book, but you need to handle with care and within the agreed partnership style. There is no real point to this book if you read it on your own.
How to read your opponents cards, the best book for anyone to start understanding what is possible here, by no means complete but it covers some very useful topics indeed., a great start on the topic.
Masterclass, yes great read.
Match points my personal favorite, first of all it taught me to appreciate match points more (I've always favored teams/imps and still do, but I don;t look down on matchpoints like i used to). It IS however also useful to have studied the book for teams players as it provides an understanding of strategies.
Right through the pack, a classic, great concept, great hands.
To bid or not to bid, the first i (Partially) disagree with. The book helps to provide an understanding of hand evaluation, but it has a danger for people that actually read it and apply the mechanism described, I noticed all of the pairs that do this slow down their advance, it's not actually a great approach to bidding overall, just for the odd borderline decision.
How experts win at bridge, My favorite 52, Why you loose at bridge, killing defense, the Rodwell files, not familiar with them, thanks for the suggestion, maybe I will get them.
A couple of other suggestions to add to the list;
I would add another Kelsey book, of which i actually forgot the title. It is on declare play, but unlike most other authors do it does not focus on the "best" play at any moment, but more on what success of not following the double dummy best play may bring. Which is good as not all hands are double dummy 😞
The complete book on opening leads (Blackwood)
Partnership Bidding (Robson) a great book on fit bids, fascinating possibilities, even if you don't want to play all or any of it, it will help evaluate hands anyway.
The Bridge Bum (Sontag), a great and fascinating read on his career. I could not stop reading until I finished it.
Bridge, Zia and me (Rosenberg) another career book, but this is one that you can actually learn things from
Notrump bidding the scanian way. Even if you don't want to learn the system described it still makes it obvious "Stayman/Transfers" is NOT the best approach after a 1NT opening, if only as it does at times lead to an embarrassing 3NT with two opposing small doubletons. A partnership book though.
And finally what I consider to be a curiosity, "I shot my Bridge Partner" A novel, with some bridge hands interwoven into the story. Not the best of Novels, but for any Bridge book enthusiast a must have...
Great list as I have read most of them. Eddie Kantar Advance Bridge Defense is one to add. Also book Mike Lawrence Complete book on balancing.
Was not expecting bridge with the blue team O _ O
Some really good books in there, one I would add for partnerships is Robson & Segals Partnership Bidding at Bridge which I found to be fantastic. If you and your regular partner both read this and get on the same page with the things it covers, your results should really improve.
Good book, a pdf of it can be found here: bridge.mgoetze.net/robson-segal.pdf
bridge my way is another great book but my favourite is winning bridge by john brown who was from my town grimsby england and a great old player he also wrote winning defense
Hi Pete - thanks for the nice book reviews. I'm sure this will help intermediate players to get through the barriers. However, I want to mention here that there's 1 book, not much discussed though, if you read it you'll just be amazed !! I was expecting that name in your list here and was sort of surprised when it didn't show up. The book is - "Dormer on Deduction" by Albert Dormer. I know you chose books based on people's recommendations but please go through it, if you haven't already, and let us know your opinion. This book can change the entire view on how to play bridge and will help you become a sniffer dog at the bridge table.
That book did make the recommendations once. It is a great book also.
Having read all but one on the list they are all great reads but I will say that if you are like me the average club player many of these books will not improve your weekly % at the club.
Forget squeezes and exotic plays like "adventures in card play" and go for killing defence any book by Mike Laurence and Skid Simon. Practical everyday problems we all make. And don't forget to give a copy to your partner
Have you considered bursting into print?
I'm not a good writer.
@@BridgeWithPete Pity because you are a great teacher.
@@benthomas3395 I second that - get an editor
Why none of the books from Terence Reese? 😥
I think there are lots of great books. Terence Reese did get suggested once.
How about Watson's Play of the Hand?
Swap you bridge lesson for one on use of apostrophes?
The reason I went into videos of bridge rather then writing bridge lessons is my writing skills are terrible. Teachers would write in full caps across the top of the page "GRAMMAR". I'm not sure any amount of lessons will help.
You went through a bunch of esoteric, though excellent books, but not a single mention of Eddie Kantar’s books is a serious error. You might rethink this.
Ha ha, you: “I can’t recommend this … “ADVERT “… enough.”
I'm just trying to highlight some good books for people.
I have collected bridge books for years, now stopped with it. I have hundreds and read almost all of them. This overview is NOT an advert. It is an accurate observation to which anyone that read a lot more then this list will largely agree. Apart from that, a significant number of this list will be out of print.
@@endthisnonsense7202 I'm pretty sure the poster meant that he coincidentally got a TH-cam advert in that moment
@@YCLP That would be pretty funny if that happened. I wonder what I was recommending.
I would have liked to see a few more books for the Intermediates, who probably make up the majority of your suscribers. Perhaps "Take All Your Chances " volumes 1&2, by the great Eddie Kantar? I especially like the simple but very clear way these two books are laid out to challenge you to find the best line of Declarer play on 100 hands (in each volume, 200 in total), with several key themes randomly repeated until you begin to see the patterns. If I'm not mistaken, both were voted as one of the Books of the Year by the ABTA in the years they came out.
Can't go wrong with a Kantar book...