Customer Reviews

Bridge for Dummies

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I would have to disagree with other reviewers who write that this book is not for the rank beginner in bridge. I was a rank beginner in bridge who tried to read other bridge books and got absolutely nowhere. This was the book that turned the lights on for me at the bridge table. Kantar writes in a lively, funny and informative way that I found to be the "spoonful of sugar" to help the medicine go down. With this book, I went from a frustrated and confused player to one who really enjoys the game. Now, the bridge column is the first thing I read in the papers, and I'm always ready for a hand.

An excellent book. One of my favorites. Get it and improve your game dramatically.

This is the best book I've found on Bridge because Kantar explains the "why" behind the conventions. Once I understand the logic of a convention, and it makes sense to me, I can easily "use" the knowledge in my play. My game has definitely improved as a result of reading this book.

My husband, too, has found it useful and he plays at a higher level than do I. (He plays Duplicate regularly.) My Dad, who has been playing for 30+ years, picked up this book when he was visiting and has asked me to buy him a copy.

Thank you, Mr. Kantar!

I am also new to bridge, and have also tried several other books on the subject. The three that I tried previously started with covering hand evaluation and bidding. By the time I get to the sections on "Responding to Responses at No Trump", I was getting lost. Kanter's approach is just the opposite. He teaches the mechanics of playing the hand first, THEN teaches how to evaluate the hand and bid. This is a great approach because once you learn how the play should be done, you are in a much better position to understand WHY you should evaluate and bid the way a hand demands you should. I've only studied the first 65 pages or so, but can already see a dramatic improvement in my bidding and my play. I can't wait to continue to study this great book.

Overall, a terrific approach to teaching this great game. I can't wait to read some of Kanter's other books as well.

Addendum: I continue to read and carefully study the chapters on play which preceed the chapters on bidding. There is lots of great material here. Don't let the "For Dummies" title fool you. This is a great book by a great teacher.

Addendum 2: Here I am 6 months after buying this book, and am I glad I did. I'm playing online regularly, and am gearing up for my first NABC in July! I'm still a novice, and there is a tremendous amount of learning and practice ahead, but this book has been a tremendous first step. I think that of all the beginner books that I've read on ANY subject, this has been the best in terms of preparing me for the next level.

BRIDGE FOR DUMMIES is a good and generous book and I have no trouble saying it excels over most similar beginners' books.

Why? It's CONCISE. Kantar, a world-class authority and bridge player, takes the reader who doesn't even know that Aces top Kings and introduces the fundamentals of play. IMHO I don't think he goes too fast for the beginner, but the book is . . .

EFFICIENT. Kantar teaches the elements of play before the elements of bidding. He does this by teaching play at notrump (so the tactical elements of a trump suit are not at issue) and generally assumes a 3NT (notrump) contact, which is worth game. And it works quite well; play at bridge is difficult but probably less difficult than bridge bidding. Later on, we can take the strategic and tactical material we use at notrump and apply them to contracts at one of the four suits (Kantar defines trumps as "wild cards," perhaps not strictly according to Hoyle but helpful nonetheless.)

COMPREHENSIVE. Kantar goes all the way through trump suits, booking slams (contracts to take all, or all but one, of the card tricks), and other recognizable situations. He has an amiable, at times amusing way of introducing tips and necessary bridge terminology. He's also . . .

MODERN. He assumes the use of 5-card majors and will allow an opening with eleven high-card points (HCP to initiates) in a hand at any position if the bid suit is good enough. Weak two-bids, too, of course.

I'm not crazy about advocating the 11 HCP opener in all positions but this is a very small wrinkle in this engaging and useful book.

Notes on production: It is certainly true that the text of BRIDGE FOR DUMMIES is only in black-and-white and does not show red for the red suits of diamonds and hearts, but then neither does the daily bridge column in the newspaper. The FOR DUMMIES series needs to keep costs down, after all. At the time of this writing (July 2008), Amazon has BRIDGE FOR DUMMIES at an attractive discount, so this is a great way to get more book for your buck.

I've been playing bridge at an intermediate level for many years and was interested in having a general reference as well as expanding my skills at bidding and playing. This book has two major problems for me. First, the point count system used is non-standard -- at least it is different from anything I have encountered before. Only high card points are used -- no distribution points. So point counts for standard bids are correspondingly lower and one has to remember all sorts of special cases to decide what to do.

The second problem I have is the way hands are displayed. Hands are illustrated with tiny, badly printed card images, with no colors. So Hearts are hard to distinguish from Spades and Kings look alot like Jacks.

Don't assume this book is beneath you just because of the title. It's written by Eddie Kantar, one of the best modern bridge authors. It's a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to basic bridge bidding and play.

I came across this book after playing party bridge for several years. Although much of it was review for me, I did pick up a number of pointers to sharpen my game. Kantar breaks down the bidding in a very logical fashion. As someone who has tried (and occasionally failed) to teach the game to a number of friends over the years, I appreciated his elegant approach.

That said, this book is probably not the best tutorial for people who know literally nothing about bridge. There's not enough overview to provide the "big picture" for total beginners. Kantar quickly dives down into the detail of how to bid particular kinds of hands. If you've tried playing bridge even a few times, though, you should have enough context to follow along.

Bridge is hard, but Kantar is here to help! Kantar has already written some of the best bridge books around. Here, he covers the three fundamental aspects with style: bidding, declarer play and defense. A terrific accomplishment to prune, compact and explain all bridge aspects into a work suitable for a brand new player, but even the intermediate or intermediate-plus player will benefit (basic stuff is easily skipped). Treatment is accessible and he makes judgments on what should be "standard American style" that in the end will help the new or intermediate player (e.g. treating limit major raises as "standard") avoid the confusion that can result from debates over the "best" conventions. He shields the reader from these complexities while explaining and coordinating the basic concepts. This book could have easily been five times as long, and it is a tribute to Kantar that it was not. Kantar shows once again that he, along with the incomparable Bill Root, is one of America's foremost bridge teachers and authors.

I don't recommend this book for people who are completely new to bridge, despite the title, which suggested to me that it was appropriate as a beginning book. To give one example -- a new player needs to know how to make an opening bid. This book has a thirty page chapter on the opening bid. Once one has memorized that, then there's another thirty page chapter on responding. It would be a lot more helpful to give a few rules of thumb, then add rules a few at a time as the reader practices. One thing I learned -- don't buy a book as a beginner based upon reviews by experienced players -- they can't remember anymore what it was like to be new at the game! This book may be okay as a reference, but certainly not as a way to get started.

This is my second book on bridge. I started with "It's Bridge Baby" which I would recommend to a complete novice to the game and/or card playing in general.

Bridge for Dummies is not the comprehensive authority on bridge but it is a solid foundation and intermediate step to solid play based on good fundamentals. I highly recommend it.

This is the best book for Dummies I have ever read.
Kantar presents material in an order that makes sense. It is the first time I understood what I was doing in Bridge. As soon as I read some information on playing, I went to my software program, Bridge Baron (also excellent), and immediately played several hands by myself, making every contract with ideas Kantar had given me; even making contracts with what I used to think were awful hands. Kantar seems to be a born teacher. You can easily see that he loves his subject and very much enjoys imparting knowledge to others. This book is worth every penny! It is one of the best Christmas presents I received this year.