READING LIST FOR
SAYC PLAYERS
Besides Standard Bidding with SAYC there are a lot of other interesting and helpful books that you can read to help you improve your bridge:
The first place to consider is the “25” series. This is a series of books covering a wide range of topics for players from beginner to advanced. This series includes the best selling bridge book: 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know. This award winning book along with its companion 25 More Bridge Conventions You Should Know explains the major bridge bidding conventions that every partnership needs to know to get the most from their bidding. Believe me these are two books that you shouldn’t be without. They explain each convention and how to use it thoroughly with examples and quizzes.
Some of the other great 25 books are:
25 Ways to Compete in the Bidding
25 Ways to be a Better Defender
25 Ways to Take More Tricks as Declarer
25 Bridge Myths Exposed
If I had to pick one from this list for my students I would pick the defense book. There are very few defense books aimed at students that do a good job in teaching this most challenging part of the game.
Another very good series is The Bridge Technique Series (some are only available as ebooks). This series written by David Bird & Marc Smith goes into depth about a variety of bridge play and defense topics. Each of these small books covers a different topic so you can pick the topics you want. If you are a new player I would suggest you start with Planning The Play in Suit Contracts and Planning The Play in Notrump. For more advanced players try Safety Plays or Reading The Cards.
There are lots of other good books but I would like to highlight two more. First a new book from Julian Laderman (author of the award winning A Bridge To Simple Squeezes), called A Bridge to Inspired Declarer Play. This book helps you to become a better declarer by teaching you the thought processes that you need to pick the best way to play a hand using example hands.
And second, Countdown To Winning Bridge by Marc Smith & Tim Bourke. This book is currently available as a software download. If you can use counting in your defense or declarer play you can become an expert; without that, you can’t. It is as simple as that. I especially like the software which illustrates the examples card by card.
For more books check out www.masterpointpress.com and for ebooks and software visit www.ebooksbridge.comArticles
- Why is April SAYC Month?
- The History of SAYC
- Surfing the Bridge Web
- Interview with Ned Downey
- Interview with Ellen "Caitlin" Pomer
Player Resources
Books
- Standard Bidding with SAYC, by Ned Downey and Ellen "Caitlin" Pomer
- Standard Bidding with SAYC - eBook Edition
- Reading List For SAYC Players
Teacher Resources
New Material to be added weekly throughout the month of April.
*Material provided with the permission of the American Contract Bridge League.
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