52 COMMON BRIDGE MISTAKES Why are the world's top players so successful? They make very few basic mistakes! Players at a less exalted level often make the same mistakes over and over again throughout their bridge careers. In this book you will see 52 of the most frequent mistakes - in bidding, play and defense. The chapter on each mistake will contain several deals where the original player went wrong. It will end with some tips, to help you avoid making such errors yourself. In the first section, Mistakes in the Bidding, the author has used deals from high-level tournament play, including world championships. The cardplay and the defense in such events are usually excellent but it's amazing how often experts surprise the kibitzers with a bid or call that seems to be a clear mistake. Experts make such errors less often than the rest of us but you will find it instructive to look at these wayward decisions. Try to analyze why the bid was wrong before reading the author's thoughts on the matter. When it comes to declarer play and defense, expert mistakes are rarer. These errors will be illustrated with constructed deals, or examples from a lower level of play. Every time you eradicate one of these 52 common mistakes from your game, your results will improve. Avoid all of them and... who knows what may happen? DAVID BIRD (Southampton, UK) is the world's most prolific bridge writer, with more than 125 books to his name. The present title is his 50th to be published by Master Point Press. David has regular columns in the London Evening Standard, the ACBL Bridge Bulletin, BRIDGE Magazine, English Bridge and other periodicals around the world. He is married with a daughter, a son and two grandchildren.