Defensive Bridge Play Complete

This is probably the best book on bridge defense ever written for novice to intermediate players. "Big Red" (so called because it is in 8x11 format with red covers and 1-1/2 inches thick) demonstrates all the basic defensive techniques in clear, concise fashion. Kantar's numerous examples make the required thought processes simple to grasp, and his wit makes the book fun to read as well. Abundant quiz material strengthens the reader's grasp on the topics presented. The book is still fresh even though it dates to 1974. Some readers may be put off by the rough format of the book - it looks like photocopies of typewritten pages. Trust me; make the effort to see past the cosmetic shortcomings, and you will be rewarded. Eddie's treatment of surrounding plays is worth the price by itself. I find myself re-reading this book every year.

One of the all-time best bridge books will raise your defensive play to the expert level.

Originally published in 1974, Kantar's Defensive Bridge Play remains (in my opinion) one of the definitive works on the subject. I would strongly recommend this book to any player serious about improving his game and willing to dedicate time and effort to working his way through this book. I'm a tournament bridge player and I still make it point to re-read 'Big Red' every six months -- there's always more to learn!!A word of caution to beginners: you might be a little overwhelmed by parts of this book. Kantar provides guidelines, thorough explanations and lots of examples, but he doesn't ignore the complexity of the game. If you're looking for easy answers and hard and fast rules to memorize, you'll be disappointed by Defensive Bridge Play. On the other hand if you want to learn how to THINK on defense, this book is an invaluable reference that will grow with you as your bridge game improves.Also, 'Big Red' retains it's original formatting and typeset (from 1974, so don't expect much besides the great content!). If you prefer a snazzier layout, much of the same material is re-presented in _Eddie Kantar Teaches Modern Bridge Defense_ and _Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense_.

I faced usual beginner's problem after finishing my first course of bridge lectures and playing a few tournaments. I've noticed a big gap between me and more experienced players when playing defence hand. I consider myself very ambitious so only thing for me was to do real hard homework. But I couldn't find any good resource for my work. I was advised to play a lot, but I simply couldn't wait. There had to be some good book about defence play in bridge for me. For a very long time I was searching for such book. I've got a tip from a senior player recently about this book and I got it! It covers 12 aspects of defense play as opening leads, signals, making defence plans and so on. These areas are very throughly analyzed and presented with very simple and humoured language. After every chapter there are examples of play and some exercises. But beware! This book requires also a lot of hard work because every sentence is a small lesson. This is not an easy going book with anecdotes and famous deals. It is more like some advanced manual and hard work is needed to have benefits from this book.