Bridge, or more formally contract bridge , is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance played by four players. This article consists of lists of bridge books deemed significant by various authors and organizations.
Books on bridge and its predecessor games have spanned centuries with the earliest known popular book on the subject of Whist having been published by Edmond Hoyle in 1742 [1] or 1743. [2]
The timelines in the evolutionary path to modern contract bridge books are generally as follows:
The following are books on the various precursor games to modern contract bridge; the first books on contract bridge appeared in 1927. [6]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) / 8th Edition, 1868, 120 pages; 9th Edition, 1872, 120 pages; 11th Edition, 1876, 268 pages; 12th Edition, 1879, 268 pages; 13th Edition, 1881, 268 pages; 15th Edition, 1885, 272 pages; 20th Edition, 1892, 303 pages; 21st Edition, 1893, 320 pages; 22nd Edition (The Seventy-fifth Thousand), 1895, 306 pages; 23rd Edition (The Eighty-sixth Thousand), 1898, 306 pages; 24th Edition (Containing the New Code of Laws Revised in 1900), 1901, 306 pages. American Editions published by: John Wurtele Lovell (New York), 1880 from the 12th English Edition, 257 pages; John Wurtele Lovell (New York), 1881 from the 12th English Edition, 257 pages; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899 from the 23rd English Edition, 348 pages.The following books provide insights into the people and culture of contract bridge and while they may contain occasional references to certain technical aspects of the game, they are generally not instructional in theme. Fictional novels with a bridge theme are listed separately.
The following are listed chronologically:
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has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) 477 pages.Each year since 1982, [7] ABTA has recognized one or more books as contributing significantly to the teaching of contract bridge. The following are the award recipients: [8]
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: CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: postscript (link)Annually since 2004, the IBPA [10] has chosen one bridge-related title of exceptional merit as follows:
The ACBL has conducted the following surveys:
The ACBL survey of 1994 was a poll of well-known players and writers only [13] and resulted in the following list of the 20 best books of all time:
The ACBL survey of 2007 resulted in two lists of favourite books [14] as follows:
The 7th edition of the Encyclopedia recommended [15] the following books with the caveat that the "list on this page is by no means definitive. It was influenced to a degree by surveys published in 1994 and 2007 in the Bridge Bulletin", published by the American Contract Bridge League. Listed alphabetically by first author surname.
In his 1999 book, The Mammoth Book of Bridge, [16] Mark Horton lists his recommendations for "Bridge Books You Should Read", grouped as follows:
General
Bidding
Declarer Play
Defender's Play
Entertainment
General
Bidding
Declarer Play
Defender's Play
General
Bidding
Declarer Play
Defender's Play
General
Bidding
Declarer Play
Defender's Play
The British Bridge Almanack [17] reported on a survey of leading British bridge personalities. The survey presented a chronological list of 16 books by British authors deemed to have made a significant contribution to the development of the game. It asked the personalities to add as many as three titles of their choosing and then to identify their top five. Of the 24 reported respondents, 19 identified one or more titles.
These additional titles were nominated by respondents.
These were the leaders by number of selections (as many as five per respondent).
No other title received more than three mentions.
Several encyclopedias on the subject of bridge have provided bibliographies of bridge related publications.
The Encyclopedia of Bridge
The Encyclopedia of Bridge of 1935 acknowledges certain authors' publications in their brief biographies but no summary tabulation or categorization of bridge literature or evaluative commentary is provided.
The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge
The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (OEB) is a publication of the American Contract Bridge League first published in 1964 with the 7th edition published in 2011. Up to the 6th, each OEB edition contains a bibliography of bridge related publications grouped by subject (history, bidding, play, reference, etc.) and rates selected publications as: (a) having made a significant contribution to the technical development of the game; (b) being mandatory for inclusion in a modern technical library; (c) being optional for inclusion in a modern technical library; or (d) none of the foregoing. Subject categories and ratings for a publication may vary between editions of the OEB. The 1st edition bibliography spans 8 pages and lists about 400 titles; the 6th edition bibliography, prepared by Tim Bourke, spans 60 pages and lists approximately 4,100 titles; Up to the 6th, each edition of The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge contains a bibliography of bridge and bridge related books; the following is a summary of their contents.
OEB Edition | Year | Page Range | Number of Pages | Number of Categories | Number of Entries |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1964 | 684-691 | 8 | 15 | |
2 | 1971 | 783-793 | 11 | 15 | |
3 | 1976 | 849-858 | 10 | 15 | |
4 | 1984 | 902-922 | 21 | 17 | |
5 | 1994 | Not numbered | 38 | ||
6 | 2001 | Not numbered | 60 | 29 | 4096 |
7 | 2011 | Not included | NA | NA | NA |
The Bridge Players' Encyclopedia
The Bridge Players Encyclopedia (BPE) was published in 1967 by Paul Hamlyn (London) and is an International Edition based on The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge of 1964 but geared to the needs of British and European players. The edition modified American spellings, "translated" bidding structures to the more widely used Acol system, omitted biographical notes on some lesser known Americans and added biographical notes on some British and European players. Although content differs from the 1964 OEB, the publication contains a 9-page bibliography of approximately 500 titles with subject categorization and rating schemes similar to those of the previous OEB editions.[ clarification needed ]
Following are details about books referenced in preceding sections, listed by first named author's surname beginning with:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)A squeeze play is a technique used in contract bridge and other trick-taking games in which the play of a card forces an opponent to discard a winner or the guard of a potential winner. The situation typically occurs in the end game, with only a few cards remaining. Although numerous types of squeezes have been analyzed and catalogued in contract bridge, they were first discovered and described in whist.
In the card game of contract bridge, to duck means to play low to a trick to which one has led, losing it intentionally in order to set up a suit or to preserve a control or entry. While mechanically identical, a duck is a manoeuver in one's own suit, while a hold up is in a suit played by the opponents. Nevertheless, the terms are used interchangeably with duck or ducking more common.
The Drury convention is a bridge convention, used to show a game-invitational major suit raise by a passed hand while guarding against a light opening by partner in third or fourth seat. It is initiated by an artificial and forcing 2♣ response by the passed hand to a 1♥ or 1♠ opening by partner. The 2♣ bid shows at least three-card support for opener's suit with 10-12 support points and asks opener to clarify the strength of their opening hand. The convention is also known in Europe as "Toronto".
"Rixi" Markus MBE was an Austrian and British international contract bridge player. She won five world titles, and was the first woman to become a World Grand Master within the World Bridge Federation. "In a 60-year career", Alan Truscott wrote in a bridge column 15 weeks after her death, "she had far more victories with partners of assorted nationalities than anyone else has ever had." She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to bridge in the 1975 Birthday Honours.
John Terence Reese was a British bridge player and writer, regarded as one of the finest of all time in both fields. He was born in Epsom, Surrey, England to middle-class parents, and was educated at Bradfield College and New College, Oxford, where he studied classics and attained a double first, graduating in 1935.
Elie Almon Culbertson, known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was widely regarded as "the man who made contract bridge". He was a great showman who became rich, was highly extravagant, and lost and gained fortunes several times over.
Oswald "Ozzie", "Jake" Jacoby was an American contract bridge player and author, considered one of the greatest bridge players of all time and a key innovator in the game, having helped popularize widely used bidding moves such as Jacoby transfers. He also excelled at, and wrote about, other games including backgammon, gin rummy, canasta, and poker. He was from Brooklyn, New York and later lived in Dallas, Texas. He was the uncle of activist and author Susan Jacoby, as well as father of James Jacoby, an author and world-class bridge player in his own right.
Alan Fraser Truscott was a British-American bridge player, writer, and editor. He wrote the daily bridge column for The New York Times for 41 years, from 1964 to 2005, and served as Executive Editor for the first six editions of The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge from 1964 to 2002.
Ben Cohen (1907–1971) was an author, publisher, and distributor of contract bridge books and stationery supplies. He pioneered duplicate bridge in the UK in the early 1930s and helped develop the Acol bidding system in the mid-1930s. He and the young Terence Reese wrote the first, and for a long time the only, textbook of the Acol system, The Acol Two Club (1938). He also contributed to newspapers and journals in South Africa, India, and Japan as well as the UK. Cohen was from Hove.
Dorothy Hayden Truscott was an American bridge player, winner of four world championships and the top-ranked woman for many years. In the late 1960s, she authored two books on the game and later co-authored two with her husband Alan Truscott. Her 1966 book, Bid Better, Play Better is considered a classic and was progressively updated.
Victor Mollo was a British contract bridge player, journalist and author. He is best known for his "Menagerie" series of bridge books, which consist of fable-like stories of caricatured people with animal names and mannerisms playing the game.
Hugh Walter Kelsey was a British bridge player and writer, best known for advanced books on the play of the cards.
Boris Schapiro was a British international bridge player. He was a Grandmaster of the World Bridge Federation, and the only player to have won both the Bermuda Bowl and the World Senior Pairs championship. He won the European teams championship on four occasions as part of the British team.
Leslie William Dodds was an English international bridge player and, by profession, an import-export merchant, from London. He was a member of the British team which won the Bermuda Bowl in 1955. In his youth he was a chess player, and famous for feats of memory and mental calculations.
Adam Theodore "Plum" Meredith was a British professional bridge player and world tournament champion.
Hubert Phillips was a British economist, journalist, broadcaster, bridge player and organiser, composer of puzzles and quizzes, and the author of some 70 books.
Marc Smith is a British bridge player, columnist and writer. Marc Smith represented Great Britain as a junior, winning the 1985 European Union Junior Teams Championship. He has a host of wins in national events, and reached the final of the World Mixed Pairs Championship playing with his wife, Charlotte. His book, co-authored with Barbara Seagram, 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, won the American Bridge Teachers' Association 1999 Shirley Silverman Award for Best Student Book.
Bridge Squeezes Complete is a book on contract bridge written by Ann Arbor, Michigan-based mathematics professor Clyde E. Love, originally published in 1959. Written in a "dry, mathematical way", it is still considered one of the most important bridge books ever written and the squeeze vocabulary Love invented remains the basis for all discussions of squeezes.
Why You Lose at Bridge is a book about the game of contract bridge by the Russian-born English bridge player S. J. "Skid" Simon (1904–48), first published in 1945. It contains practical advice directed mainly towards rubber bridge players and introduces to the world four stereotypical bad players: Mr Smug, the Unlucky Expert, Mrs Guggenheim, and Futile Willie. It has been much admired by duplicate bridge players as well as by rubber bridge players, and Simon's fictional characters have passed into legend.
This page gives a transcription of the booklet "Biritch, or Russian Whist" by John Collinson