
Danny's Bridge Books
Available from Masterpoint Press
Human Bridge Errors (2007). Chthonic is back. And this time, in an attempt to teach humans a little about the game of bridge, he's written his own wickedly funny book: Persistent Human Bridge Errors, assisted by his human editors Danny Kleinman and Nick Straguzzi. 232 pages, $16.95. Order from Masterpoint Press.
The Principle of Restricted Talent (2005). An anthology of humorous stories featuring Chthonic, the bridge-playing robot. The stories draw unmercifully funny portraits of human bridge players, as Chthonic's bridge brilliance and abrasive and ill-concealed contempt for his human creators leave them all in his wake. A particular target is the pompous Director of the Cybernetics Research Institute, whose opinion of his own bridge expertise differs greatly from that of his protégé. Some of these stories have appeared in The Bridge World magazine, where the characters are established as firm reader favorites. International Bridge Press Association Book of the Year, 2005. 205 pages, $18.95 Order from Masterpoint Press
365 Winning Bridge Tips (2005). Can you learn from the errors of others? Here is a collection of problems, mostly very simple ones, that gave a variety of players, mostly "intermediate" but including occasional beginners and experts, some trouble. You won't find bidding problems worthy of the Master Solvers' Club (a monthly Bridge World feature), declarer-play problems fit for "Test Your Play" (another Bridge World feature) or problems to challenge defensive maven Eddie Kantar. Instead you will find the kinds of "bread and butter" problems that arise several times a session each time you trudge to your local duplicate bridge club or travel to a sectional or regional tournament. 288 pages, $22.95 Order from Masterpoint Press
The Notrump Zone. Notrump openings, and the constructive auctions that follow them, are two of the most neglected areas in bridge literature. Following on from his popular articles in the ACBL Bulletin, Danny discusses the principles behind notrump bids and rebids in a variety of situations, emphasizing the ideas and concepts rather than attempting to teach a series of rigid rules. 221 pages, $18.95 Order from Masterpoint Press
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Opening Bids. Whether to open and what to open, followed by a catalog of 1,000 consecutive randomly-dealt hands with which I would make constructive opening bids, together with the openings that others would choose using different systems, with statistical analyses and conclusions that may be illuminating. 34 pages, $7
Down the Convention Card. What you should know when filling out a convention card to choose your partnership agreements. 72 pages, $12
Ask for Aces. A study of 100 deals as actually bid, using ace and key-card conventions, by a mix of players at clubs and in tournaments, to evaluate empirically how well these conventions work in practice … together with superior auctios (if any), some using key-card asks, others not. 106 pages, $18
Five Years of Bridge Calendars. Commentaries on the Bridge Calendar for 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. 58 pages, $10
Return to the Notrump Zone. An expansion to and revision of The Notrump Zone (original version, prior to Masterpoint Press editing). 116 pages, $20
Bridge Scandal in Houston (revised edition). This book investigates the cheating accusation made by Lew Mathe, Don Oakie, and the then-leadership of the ACBL (Lou Gurvich, President, and Lee Hazen, Counsel) against Richard Katz and Larry Cohen based on their performance during the aborted 1977 Houston Trials to determine the U.S. Team that was to compete for the World Championship later that year. The 1978 edition contained all 96 deals, the evidence against Katz and Cohen that was available from depositions of the principals and notes taken by witnesses, and analyses evaluating the theories of the accusers as well as every other cheating hypothesis that could make much sense to Danny. That is the edition bought by most readers prior to 1982. The current edition is a revised one. It makes no substantive changes to the 1978 edition, but adds a Postscript that examines the evidence and analyses presented in the two or three years preceding the 1982 settlement of the lawsuit that Katz and Cohen brought against Mathe, Oakie and the ACBL; states the terms of the lawsuit and settlement; and narrates the events leading up to the settlement. Of interest to bridge players and students of our legal system alike is Danny's description of the reports of "expert witnesses" and his analyses thereof. This book not only shows how the ACBL messed up its investigation of alleged cheating, but also serves as an example of how suspicions of cheating may be confirmed or refuted by the "internal evidence" of the hand records, auctions, and opening leads alone. 146 pp., $25
Bridge Internationalists, Famous and Infamous. Studies of the Italian Blue Team of 1966, and the British pair Terence Reese and Boris Schapiro in 1965, as they performed in World Championships, with an eye towards determining the illicit information that may have passed between partners. 145 pages, $24
Understanding Bidding: Volume 1, Foundations. 177 pages, $30
Understanding Bidding: Volume 2, Ramifications. 149 pages, $25
These two books are collections of essays on bidding and bidding theory that Danny wrote in the years 1976-1981.
Advice to the Bridgelorn. This book compiles from what Danny wrote about bridge in the years 1976-1981 items primarily dealing with the play of the cards. It includes many letters to "Miss Lonelyspades" and "her" (often tart) replies. 153 pages, $26
The Bridge Weird Anthology. This book, which completes the set of Danny's bridge writings from 1976 to 1981, contains his humorous (usually satiric) material, including many "Kantdu for the Defense" columns by "Erwin I. Kantdu" parodying defensive maven Edwin B. Kantar. 160 pages, $27
Drumming Bridge Basics into Your Head. In the early 1980s, Danny had students who had been playing rubber bridge at the Cavendish West for several years, yet remained "experienced beginners" (as so many still are). This book contains the essays he wrote to help them improve. Though he wrote it with "experienced beginners" in mind, an intermediate player once bought a copy and told Danny that he benefited by learning what and how to teach his own bridge students. It may have helped his own bridge game too. 156 pages, $26
Bridge in the Real World. 217 pp., $36
Bridge in Theory And Practice. 190 pp., $32
It’s a Bidder’s Game. 192 pp., $32
Review, Please. 416 pp., $69
Bridge in the Tower of Babel. 358 pp., $60
Newbridge. 438 pp., $73
Building Better Bridge. 210 pp., $35
PASS is a Four-Letter Word. 354 pp., $59
Bridge You Don’t Learn on Your Daddy’s Knee. 322 pp., $54
Bridge Fifty Years After. 180 pp., $30
Bids Are For Contracts. (mainly bidding) 192 pp., $32
Contracts Are For Tricks. (mainly play) 130 pp., $22
Bridge 95. 304 pp., $50
Bridge For Dummies, Defenders and Declarers. 256 pp., $43
Bridge For Smart Players. 226 pp., $43
Bridge in the Devil’s Own Year. 276 pp., $46
It’s Not The End Of Bridge. 232 pp., $39
These books differ from each other in content, but not in format or general nature. Each is a potpourri of short pieces Danny wrote about all aspects of the game, with discussions of bidding theory, systems and conventions, interesting deals, plus occasional empirical studies and book reviews. Danny compiled these books at the rate of roughly one per year, and they are listed in the order of writing.
Slam Bidding (revised edition). In 1990, Jeff Goldsmith taught bridge classes at Cal Tech, and invited Danny to be a guest lecturer. Since Jeff, whom Danny had encountered several years earlier in Individuals at Bridge Week, knew Danny for refusing to play Blackwood, he suggested Danny talk about slam bidding. With ample time to prepare, Danny wrote enough material for a whole series of lectures. About seven pages (a study of cue-bidding) Danny lifted from a book he had written earlier, but the rest was freshly written. He lectured extemporaneously, but gave a copy of the written material (not yet bound) to Jeff, who said it was the best book he'd ever read on the subject. 76 pages, $13
Doubles: Sputnik and the Ax. In 1992, a rubber bridge player who did not play negative doubles asked Danny's opinion of them. Danny undertook empirical research that confirmed some (but led him to change others) of his views about penalty doubles and negative doubles, examining how well each worked in different auctions. This little book is the result. 54 pages, $9
The Notrump Bidder's Bible. This book presents notrump bidding starting from simple methods suitable for players at any levels, then develops and modifies those methods to the point where all hand types can be handled, resulting in a complex structure that I used with a sophisticated expert partner whose ideas mainly agreed with mine. Out of print: largely obsoleted by The Notrump Zone and Return to the Notrump Zone. 66 pages $11
A Cornucopia of Conventions. This book, written early in 1998, contains descriptions of 200 of Danny's best conventions, previously included in some 16 other books at the time of invention. 134 pages, $22
Rough and Tumble Teams. This book combines the format that Jeff Rubens used for his "Swiss Match" book with the characters popularized by S.J. Simon in Why You Lose at Bridge. It contains eight 8-board matches. The eight players (Simon's four, three of Danny's own invention, and "you," the reader) do not compete in fixed teams, but cut for teammates after each match, and play for money rather than masterpoints. Most of the deals and problems arose in actual "IMP" games at the Cavendish West in the 1980s and early 1990s, but Danny has added a few others. He's chosen these deals because real players (usually slightly below expert level, but in a few cases, top experts) messed them up. The level of difficulty is higher than in Simon's book but lower than in Rubens'. 166 pages, $28
Not Your Daddy's Blackwood. A new and greatly changed version of a previous book with the same title, explaining and illustrating key-card-ask methods that are simpler than those in any of Eddie Kantar’s five books on Roman Key-Card Blackwood, and simpler than in Danny's own previous book. 90 pages, $15
Weak Two-Bids (booklet). A new view of this popular treatment. 26 pages, $5
Master Solvers Archives 1985-1987. 228 pp., $36
Master Solvers Archives 1988-1990. 234 pp., $36
Master Solvers Archives 1991-1993. 206 pp., $36
Master Solvers Archives 1994-1996. 164 pp., $28
Master Solvers Archives 1997-1999. 180 pp., $28
These five volumes contain detailed solutions to all the problems that have appeared in the Master Solvers' Club, a monthly feature of Bridge World magazine, in the years indicated, plus analyses of the magazine's periodic "You Be the Judge" problems. The first three cover the era of BWS85 and tell the panel's choices. The last two cover the era of BWS94 and also contain Danny's solutions to problems posed quarterly by Marshall Miles to a panel of which Danny is a member.
52 Weeks of Winning Bridge Tips. The text on which 365 Winning Bridge Tips was based, prior to editing by Masterpoint Press and with further editing by Danny. 177 pages, $30
Bridge at the Turn of the Century. What Danny wrote about bridge in 2000 and much of 2001, including Master Solvers Archives 2000-2001. 208 pp., $34