216pp, Paperback, ISBN 1-897106-14-9
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25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know (Seagram & Smith 1996), has sold over 60,000 copies in four different languages - which makes it the best-selling bridge book of the last 50 years.  This new book uses the same user-friendly approach and features to explain the most important bidding conventions for players who use the ACOL system - which means essentially everyone in the UK.

Sandra Landy (Aylesbury) is both a multiple world champion and one of the most respected bridge teachers in the UK.  She was responsible for the English Bridge Union's teaching materials, the Really Easy bridge series.

Mark Horton (London) is editor of Bridge magazine and a well-known international player and journalist.

Barbara Seagram owns and manages one of the largest bridge schools in Toronto, where she teaches hundreds of students every year to enjoy bridge. She has been awarded 'master teacher' status by the American Bridge Teachers Association.

"25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know (1996) is, according to its publishers, the best-selling bridge book of the last fifty years. That's odd, you say - how come I've never heard of it? Because nearly all of its 70,000-plus sales have been in North America and half the conventions are appropriate to Standard American but not to Acol.

Here, at last, is the British equivalent, 25 Bridge Conventions for Acol Players. It does not take a marketing genius to guess that such a title might well be a best-seller here too but when Sandra Landy suggested a similar idea to the EBU a year or two back, she was told that no one would want to read the book! Time will tell but my money is on a big readership.

There is a popular dinner party game amongst literary types where everyone has to own up to the classic text that they haven't actually read. The bridge equivalent is to confess to the convention that is so ubiquitous that you've never got round to understanding it properly. For me that convention would be the Grand Slam Force - for thirty years partners have put it on the card and I've never asked, nor has it ever come up! But I can sleep easy at night now - it's there at number fifteen! Perhaps I'll use it this millennium, who knows?

This is a beautifully presented reference book for ordinary players. There are three sections - Learn these First (Stayman, Blackwood, etc), More Complicated (Splinters, Michaels and, yes, the GSF) and Sophisticated Stuff (Meckwell, Lead-directing doubles, etc). Each convention is described in just enough jargon-free detail to enable even inexperienced partnerships to incorporate it into their bidding methods.

There's a little background about each of the inventors and various "asides" that help to make the gadgets memorable. More importantly, you learn about why you might not want to play the convention and how to cope with the complications of a competitive sequence. Each of the 25 chapters finishes with a checkpoint summary and a thoughtful quiz, as in the American original.

Players at every level will find something new they want to try.  For me it will be Rubensohl which looks a lot more efficient than the Lebensohl convention I have been butchering all these years.

Although this book is primarily aimed at the British book-buyer, there is also half an eye on the American market. Over here, Meckwell is (or should be!) perhaps better known as the Staveley Wriggle while most of us prefer the Baron 2NT convention (not covered here) to Jacoby (which is). But if you played and understood every convention here and desisted from playing any others, you would have the makings of a very fine Acol partnership.

Sandra Landy and Mark Horton are amongst our best and most experienced players so in many ways this book distils a lifetime's experience. Sandra is also responsible for the EBU's teaching materials and there are few better writers in terms of communication with ordinary, aspiring players.  I can heartily recommend this elegant text."
- Nick Stewart, ENGLISH BRIDGE

"The authors explain so many things well that it is difficult to pick out the highlights."
- Julian Pottage