Bridge.

Contract Bridge Blue Book is, without doubt, the most famous book on the Game of Contract Bridge ever written. It is a landmark work, mentioned in every book on the history of bridge. As a result of the success of this work, the Culbertson Bidding System was the most popular system the world. Ely Culbertson had a nationwide syndicated column on bridge that was carried in hundreds of newspapers daily. This authoritative book is the master work on the Culbertson (Approach-Forcing) System of Contract Bridge. Here is a thoroughly comprehensive and easily understandable presentation of Ely Culbertson's scientific principles of Contract bridge now standard throughout the world. In these pages too are the reasons underlying the Culbertson methods which make them unbeatable. Reading this famous book you can follow step-by-step the inexorable logic of Ely Culbertson, world's greatest card analyst, as he brings for you the soundness of this simple way of winning at Contract Bridge. Scores of books and hundreds of articles have been written about his ideas - but here, in Ely Culbertson's own work, you can learn and profit at first hand.

There are three unique things about this book: (1) It is the first book in about 40 years to deal with the entire game of bridge, (2) It represents the best thinking of modern day experts and (3) It is expecially well organized and easy to read. The book received the 1997 Book of the Year award and continues to be a bestseller at national tournaments

Charles H. Goren's Contract Bridge Complete is probably the first book by more top level professional players than any other book today. It is an update and a combination of two previous books, "Better Bridge for Better Players" and "Standard Book of Bidding." This book describes the Goren Standard American bidding system. The point-count approach he popularized remains the foundation for most bidding systems.

This book was first published in 1959 and quickly became one of the classic textbooks for the playing of bridge. The original version has been out of print for some time and the book is now being republished in its first revision in 50 years. In its new modernised form, bridge players will find the ideas much more accessible, while handy end-of-chapter quizzes reinforce the concepts.

Winning Notrump Leads was a ground-breaking and very well-received book that used the power of computers to determine which opening leads work best against a variety of auctions at notrump. Using enhanced software, the authors now turn their attention to suit contracts. They generate millions of random deals, retaining those that match the chosen auction, for example 1S-2S-4S. By playing these deals automatically against each of the 13 possible opening leads from a given hand, they are able to discover which lead is most likely to beat the contract (also the best lead at matchpoint pairs). The authors provide insightful commentary to each result, answering timeless questions such as: When should I lead a trump? When is a doubleton a good opening lead? Should I lead differently against a partscore? Should I make an aggressive or a passive lead? Should I lead an ace against a small slam? Which leads work best against a grand slam? By using the number-crunching computer power available nowadays, there is no longer any need to rely on general opening-lead guidelines passed down by our ancestors. We think you will be surprised by many of the discoveries made during this investigation! DAVID BIRD (top) and TAF ANTHIAS were contemporaries at Cambridge University, both reading mathematics. They carried out research and development on software systems for over 30 years at IBM's UK Laboratories. In the 1970s they formed a successful bridge partnership, winning a number of national events. David is now one of the world's top bridge writers with 116 books to his name. Taf moved on to the USA, where he became a vice president of Cisco Systems. They have joined forces on this ground-breaking book.