Tournament Bridge For Notrump Players

This book is about how to play bridge in a tournament. Unlike club play, the hands are typically prearranged to test your skills. This book gives a comprehensive view of the various types of hands an advanced player might expect to encounter. The various categories of hands presented will teach you when and how to use the end play, when and how to squeeze, how to handle a forcing defense, and how to handle a 41 trump split. The book will also teach you how to play a Notrump hand, such as when to hold up, how to finesse, when to spurn the finesse, when to duck at Notrump, when to avoid the danger hand, how to deceive the opponents, how to unblock, and how to handle transportation.

The book is designed to give a comprehensive and systematic view of the rules of play for notrump contracts. The various subjects contain rules for when to hold up, how to finesse, when to spurn a finesse, when to avoid the dangerous hand, when to endplay opponents, when to squeeze, how to ensure your transportation to the dummy, how to sneak your ninth trick, when to false card, and how to handle a blocked suit. Under each subject, there are numerous examples of how to handle each rule of play. After finishing this book, you will be challenged to find a notrump hand that you cannot handle.

"Glory of Notrump" shows you how to win bridge tournaments or to excel at rubber bridge by bidding and playing superior notrump contracts when most others are playing in suit strains. It describes how world-class experts bid and played notrump contracts in championship tournaments, including the Bermuda Bowl, the Venice Cup the World Team Olympiad, and others. "Glory of Notrump" was written by John Sheridan Thomas, author ot "Standard American 21", the book that has become the gold standard for modern rubber bridge players.

This book is designed to give a comprehensive and systematic view of the types of hands an intermediate player might expect to encounter in a tournament. The various categories of hands presented will teach you when to use the dummy reversal, when to spurn a finesse, when to duck a trick, when to do the avoidance play and how to handle a defender’s singleton. The book will also teach you how to discard, how to unblock, how to deceive and how to handle transportation problems. Ken has published more than 15 bridge books. These books have now been consolidated into a series of 5 core tournament books as follows: Tournament Bridge for Beginning Players (4th ed. 2020), Tournament Bridge for Intermediate Players (5th ed. 2021), Tournament Bridge for Advanced Players (4th ed. 2021), Tournament Bridge for Notrump Contracts (4th ed. 2020) and Tournament Bridge Tips on Defense (4th ed. 2020). These 5 core books have themselves been condensed into a two-volume set called The Complete Book of Bridge Hands, Volumes 1 and 2 (2nd ed. 2019). In addition, Ken has published two books on bidding, The Casey 2/1 Bridge Bidding System (4th ed. 2021) and The Casey Simplified Precision Club Bridge Bidding System (2nd ed. 2021). Ken served as a Russian interpreter during the Vietnam War and then spent over 30 years practicing as a tax attorney. Ken also has an MBA in accounting and a CPA.

This book is about how to play bridge in a tournament. Unlike club play, the hands are typically prearranged to test your skills. This book gives a comprehensive view of the various types of hands a beginning player might expect to encounter. The various categories of hands presented will teach you how to play the first card, how to ruff, how to set up a long suit, how to play for the drop, how to get a count on the hand, and how to handle special combinations, such as the split A-Q or K-Q. In addition, you will learn about finessing up to a lone honor, the ruffing finesse, the backward finesse, and other finessing techniques. You will also learn how to read inferences from the opponents bids, opening leads, play, and discards.

This book is designed to give a comprehensive and systematic view of the hands an advanced player might expect to encounter in a tournament. The various categories of hands presented will teach you when and how to use the endplay, when and how to squeeze, how to handle a forcing defense and how to handle a 4-1 trump split. Ken has published more than 15 bridge books. These books have now been consolidated into a series of 5 core tournament books as follows: Tournament Bridge for Beginning Players (4th ed. 2020), Tournament Bridge for Intermediate Players (5th ed. 2021), Tournament Bridge for Advanced Players (4th ed. 2021), Tournament Bridge for Notrump Contracts (4th ed. 2020) and Tournament Bridge Tips on Defense (4th ed. 2020). These 5 core books have themselves been condensed into a two-volume set called The Complete Book of Bridge Hands, Volumes 1 and 2 (2nd ed. 2019). In addition, Ken has published two books on bidding, The Casey 2/1 Bridge Bidding System (4th ed. 2021) and The Casey Simplified Precision Club Bridge Bidding System (2nd ed. 2021). Ken served as a Russian interpreter during the Vietnam War and then spent over 30 years practicing as a tax attorney. Ken also has an MBA in accounting and a CPA.

This book is designed to give a comprehensive and systematic view of the various types of Notrump bridge hands one might expect to encounter in a tournament. The book contains rules for when to hold up, how to finesse, when to spurn a finesse, when to avoid the dangerous hand, when to endplay opponents, when to squeeze, how to insure your transportation to the dummy, how to sneak your 9th trick, when to falsecard and how to handle a blocked suit. Under each subject, there are numerous examples of how to handle each rule of play. Ken has published more than 15 bridge books. These books have now been consolidated into a series of 5 core tournament books as follows: Tournament Bridge for Beginning Players, Tournament Bridge for Intermediate Players, Tournament Bridge for Advanced Players, Tournament Bridge for Notrump Players and Tournament Bridge Tips on Defense. All 5 of these books were edited in 2019. These 5 core books have themselves been condensed into a two-volume set called The Complete Book of Bridge Hands, Volumes 1 and 2 Tournament Bridge for Beginning Players, Tournament Bridge for Intermediate Players, and Tournament Bridge for Notrump Players were then reedited in 2020. In addition, Ken has published a book on bidding, called The Casey Bridge Bidding System, an edit of The Precision Diamond Bridge Bidding System. This book was also edited in 2020.

The second edition of this book incorporates the 2/1 Game Force bidding system. The book is designed to improve your bidding in 5 steps. The 1st step involves maximizing your use of the 2/1 system whenever you open with a major suit. The 2nd step involves your use of the New Minor Forcing convention to find a 5-card major in responder’s hand. The 3rd step involves adoption of the strong 2 bid, a bid of 20-21p with an unbalanced hand (one with a singleton or void). By tweaking reverses, this allows the opener to show an unbalanced hand by bidding at the 2-lelvel with 16-17p or at the 3-level with 18-19p. The 4th step involves optimizing your slam bidding with conventions to show the trump Queen. It also involves the use of the Redwood kickback convention minor suit contracts and the use of the Fourth Suit Forcing convention to ascertain whether the opener has 4or 5 cards in this 2nd bid suit. The 5th step involves the use of bids to hamper the opponents from finding their 4-4 spade fit. This involves the use of the Casey overcall and the use of the Casey-Jacoby Transfer for R’s 5-card majors. Finally, the use of inverted minors is discussed.