Four new titles now available from Master Point Press

We were all very excited this week by the addition of four new titles to our collection. I was the most excited of all since I was able to work on all four books during my introduction to the wonderful world of publishing. To see them arrive, open the packages and hold a real book in my hands for the first time was very satisfying. They smell good too.

Here is the official word on each of these fabulous new titles:

1)Gary Brown’s Learn to Play Bridge by Gary Brown

Winner of the American Bridge Teachers’ Association 2007 Book of the Year award in its original self-published edition, this book has been given a new look and feel while retaining its refreshing approach to teaching bridge. It is designed as a short first course for newcomers to the game. No prior experience is required with any card game, and the ideas are developed in short, easy steps. Includes summaries and practice exercises in each chapter.

2)The Setting Trick by Ian McCance

This book of problems in defensive cardplay selects all its deals from real events, providing the reader the unique experience of being up against a declarer who will not always play perfectly. As the title implies, the emphasis throughout the book is on defeating the contract. We are playing teams, not matchpoints, and the number of undertricks or overtricks is irrelevent. The reader is encouraged to seek out the critical fourth trick against a major-suit game, the fifth against 3NT, and so on.

3)North of the Master Solvers’ Club – The Bridge Writings of Frank Vine

Frank Vine (1927-1987) had an acid wit along with a talent for putting pen to paper. A resident of Hamilton, Ontario and a lawyer by profession, he was also an expert bridge player who won the North American Men’s Pairs in 1969 (arguably in those days the strongest pairs event of the year). His trenchant commentaries on the game, often thinly disguised as fiction, appeared regularly in The Bridge World and other magazines in the 1970s and 1980s. A small collection of his work was previously published, but has long been out of print. Readers who are familiar with Vine’s writings will be delighted to see them once more available, this time in a much more comprehensive collection. Those who haven’t discovered Frank Vine’s work before are in for a rare treat.

(blogger’s note: some of the stories in this collection are hilarious and so clever in their references that even I, a non-bridge player [at the time I worked on this I had not had a single lesson], found it very satisfying)

And last (literally, the LAST, we think…) but certainly not least:

4)Roman Keycard Blackwood: The Final Word by Eddie Kantar

This is the fifth (and according the the author, the very last) edition of what is acknowledged to be the definitive book on a convention that every serious play uses. Revised and updated, this new version contains all the leading-edge ideas, and is full of examples, quizzes and practice hands. A must for the tournament player.

**All books will be shipping this week and will be available from Vince Oddy’s or chapters.indigo.ca (in Canada) and Baron Barclay or amazon.com (in the US) within the next few weeks. I believe they are all available now for preorder.

Enjoy!

Sally