Keys to Winning Bridge: The Advancing Player's Handbook

Many elements contribute to success at bridge. Frank believes that two areas account for the difference between players who do well consistently and those who struggle.

(1) A winning player has rock-solid fundamentals. The best part of an expert's game is that he never -- never -- boots a simple situation. Give him a basic bidding problem or a textbook exercise in dummy play and he will get it right. If you never make errors in basic technique, you will have an edge over 90% of your competitors.

(2) A winning player keeps avoidable errors to a minimum. Bridge is a game of mistakes. Nobody has ever played a perfect session, nobody ever will. Everybody makes mistakes. Winners make the fewest. This quote is attributed to Bob Hamman: “All players are poor players, including some good players.” Hamman wasn't being opprobrious; he was just acknowledging that we all have shortcomings.

Many types of errors are common: mishandling suit combinations, forgetting to count, missing inferences. Maybe the majority of errors stem from lapses in concentration.

Frank Stewart is most well known for his syndicated column Daily Bridge Column which appears in more than 150 newspapers, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Sun-Times and is read by an estimated 3 million people very day. Stewart has written a score of books on bridge - his latest, Keys to Winning Bridgeis coming out to much excitement and buzz in the Bridge community. Stewart resides in Fayette, Alabama with his wife Charlotte and daughter Bessie.