Bridge Basics 2: Competitive Bidding

We bought this book for a newly formed bridge club - we have two veteran players, two beginners, and two novice-intermediate players. This book has been great to get the beginners up to speed quickly and to be able to engage in basic play with all members of our little club. We bought her companion "cheat sheet" as well (bridge at a glance), which helps in the heat of play if we've forgotten something. It has given us the basics for all of our players to improve their play and learn more advanced skills.

This book is excellent for the still- improving relatively new duplicate bridge player. It goes beyond the opening bid and discusses the following bids as well as giving you all of the bids on pre-dealt hands. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to improve his/her game.

Bridge is a difficult card game to learn. I have books 1 & 2 and both are written in a very inderstandable way in a step by step format. There are also many examples that aid in comperhension.

The field of bridge is full of wise old savants and we should listen to them and read their work. But if anyone is entitled to carry the bridge banner into the 21st Century, it must be Audrey Grant. Her BRIDGE BASICS 1, pre-requisite for this book, is good and sound -- and believe it or not, she spends a fair amount of time on telling people when NOT to bid. Newbies have to know that. And in this one, BRIDGE BASICS 2: COMPETITIVE BIDDING, Grant still teaches us kindly when not to bid. Under her system you might indeed miss a part-score once in a while; but once you've got a good hand and some rapport with partner -- or are in a position to torment you opponents -- this is a full-speed-ahead, friendly and very informative bridge book. The best bridge books struggle to impart wisdom, or perhaps better said informed judgment, instead of limiting themselves to "the rules," and this one is very good for that. I can heartily recommend BRIDGE BASICS 2: to anyone who loves to play bridge, whether the at-home type or the duplicate club type. I wish there were more up-to-date books like this. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future Ms. Grant will put her BRIDGE BASICS series into an omnibus volume.

I learned a lot from this book; there is much information to be studied and digested. It is especially helpful for those who have been away from playing duplicate for a while. The title of the book, Competitive Bidding, says it all.