Instant Guide to Bridge

by Hugh Walter Kelsey

The Instand Guide to Bridge is an indispensable reference for every beginner or intermediate bridge player who needs guidance on play and defense. It covers: Card Distribution American Standard Point Count Evaluation Possible Bids Responses Opening Leads

80 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 1991

About the author

Hugh Walter Kelsey (1926 – 1995) was a Scottish bridge player and writer, best known for advanced books on the play of the cards.

However, he was most famous and will be remembered as a writer. He wrote some fifty books on the game, mostly aimed at intermediate to advanced players. It is a measure of their quality that many of them were still in print more than a decade after his death. Two of his books, Killing Defence at Bridge and Advanced Play at Bridge, were listed by the Official Encyclopedia of Bridge as "mandatory requirements for a modern technical bridge library". Adventures in Card Play by Kelsey and Géza Ottlik (Gollancz, 1979) is regarded by many as the most advanced book on the play of the cards. It introduced and developed many new concepts such as backwash squeeze and entry-shifting squeeze. Bridge experts surveyed by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) in 2007 ranked it third on a list of their favourite books, nearly thirty years after its first publication.

Kelsey was bridge columnist for the Edinburgh newspaper The Scotsman, wrote many articles for bridge magazines, and was general editor for the Gollancz Master Bridge series. He was the International Bridge Press Association Personality of the Year in 1993.

The Scottish Bridge Union holds an annual Hugh Kelsey Tournament. This is open to all those in Scotland who are currently receiving lessons.