More Free Downloads – Gary Brown

The pace of new technology is incredible and it is affecting the book industry at a great pace.  Some times it seems like we are running to stay even.  At home we just upgraded our big screen TV because it was 780p (new is 1080p) and didn’t have HDMI input which meant that we couldn’t watch BluRay and do all the other things we wanted.  Now we have an even bigger television with modern features and a Sony PSP3 which is a wonderful Internet and Intranet hub and DVD player and yes you can play games on it although we don’t actually have any games at this time.  We will eventually have a seven speaker system and once more and for a short time be current.  I know 3D is coming but after having seen Avatar Ray and I just don’t think it is the time for 3D yet.

In the book industry, ebooks are becoming a lot more important.  Many new readers were announced at the latest electronic show and everyone is waiting to see what Apple will do.  There is no doubt that ebooks are starting to move up the technology curve.  When I worked in that industry I used to talk about the first adapters, and then a nice Bell curve until we eventually reached what I called the beer belly middle and final the slow  pokes.  We are definitely starting up the slope.  One good thing is that Amazon Kindle can now read PDF’s which means that all of our ebooks can be read on the new Kindle reader.

And just as wonderful, we can now offer a lot of extras for readers of our ebooks (and even those who just want the extras!)  Readers of this blog will know that we are planning a free download of 20 practice squeeze problems.  It will be available for free download in about a week, (I will announce it here).  Colin is currently casting a beady eye on it.  He is very good at finding problems in bridge quizzes that we call him Ratbert.  (If you don’t understand this reference I suggest you check out Dilbert).

Also available will be chapter summaries.  These summaries outline the main principles behind each squeeze type and provide a handy reference.  I know because I was constantly referring to them myself.

Right now we have the Gary Brown teacher’s manual available as a free download from www.ebooksbridge.com or www.masteringbridge.com.  Gary Brown has a very popular beginner book and he has now provided free of charge a detailed (and very impressive) teachers manual to go with it.   Whether you are using his book or not you might still find the teacher’s manual interesting and helpful if you are teaching beginners.

In the next few days we will also be uploading some interesting stories and mathematical exercises designed by Bob McKinnon to accompany his new book Bridge Probability & Information.  So if you liked restricted choice you are going to really like the four door Monty Hall problem.  I will say more about this book at a future date but we have worked with Bob on it for a lot of years.  It was my belief that mathematical principles could be applied to bridge and provide practical answers to practical problems and Bob was just the man for that job.  I believe the extra download goes beyond the book and includes more advanced ideas so don’t expect any easy solutions.

And for our third new book, the Mysterious Multi there will be a download of the ACBL defense to multi.  There is another defense in the book which was written by Eric Kokish but you need the ACBL defense to hand out at the table if you are playing Multi (where allowed) in North America in an ACBL game.  This is also available from the ACBL website and is reproduced with their permission.

So available within a day or two: Gary Brown

Available next week: Many other freebies from our new books

Isn’t it a wonderful world we live in.