In his philosophical classic Insight, Catholic philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan introduced the concept of self-appropriation – the personal search for knowledge of the self, and through that of the world – as the basis for systematic philosophical investigation.In Lonergan in the World, James L. Marsh argues, clearly and passionately, that self-appropriation can serve as the basis for philosophical, ethical, and even political and economic thought. Comp...

Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children's Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a decade of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. The hardships and fear created by a world war were immense. Britain's towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, and many children faced the trauma of being parted from their parents and sent away to the country to live with complete strangers. For just ov...

Water Covers All Sins James Marsh Banksiadale was an idyllic timber mill town, near Dwellingup and Pinjarra, in the south-west of Western Australia. In its heyday and climaxing in the early 1960s, it was the gem of all mill towns with its own electricity supply, piped fresh water to all houses and a peaceful, well-behaved community, not even needing a resident policeman. Today, it does not exist. Everything changed in 1963 when the mill mysteriously burnt down, all workers had to leave, an...

This is a story spanning some of the most turbulent decades in recent world history. James Marsh was born during the first year of the Second World War and many of his infant years were spent in air-raid shelters outside his home. Bombs rained down from the German Luftwaffe as they tried to destroy the city of Southampton, which has now been James' home for more than sixty years. The gritty determination, community spirit and, above all, the humour, with which the local co...

Do you remember collecting shrapnel and listening to Children's Hour? Carrying gas masks or sharing your school with evacuees from the city? The 1940s was a decade of great challenge for everyone who lived through it. The hardships and fear created by a world war were immense. Britain's towns and cities were being bombed on an almost nightly basis, and many children faced the trauma of being parted from their parents and sent away to the country to live with complete stran...

How do defender’s win trump tricks? Other than having high honors, natural winners, it’s by getting an early ruff of a short suit. Far more fulfilling and intriguing possibilities arise in poking away at declarer’s trump suit and plucking out an unexpected trick. Trump promotion has been described as the magic of creating trump tricks that didn’t exist at the beginning of the deal. The basis for this is simple. By putting declarer in a position where to win the trick he must ruff high, he ...

Card play at bridge embraces both declarer play and defense. Hundreds of books have been written about it. Our approach here, as in our previous books, is to focus on a particular deal type. Repeated experience with a theme makes it easier to recognize deal types and employ the appropriate techniques for each. A common and important line of play is elimination play, eliminating the side suits to removes an opponent’s safe exit cards before throwing him in to make a fatal lead. More than mo...

This is a true story. A young radiologist, fresh out of training, starts working in south Florida but has difficulty establishing himself in a practice. Finally, working alone in west Broward county, he sees the vast empty spaces, west of what is currently considered west. Knowing the future must lie west, the doctor becomes an entrepreneur and starts to push medicine to where now only cows walk. Does he succeed? Read how what starts as cow pastures becomes transformed into a thriving comm...

This book is about only one thing. Shortness, singletons or voids. It’s impossible to overestimate the value distribution plays in bidding accuracy. High cards are nice; anybody can bid games and slams when the high cards are falling out of their hands onto the table. But usually those results don’t get you very far. It’s usually an average or maybe just above. You don’t win bridge tournaments that way. The pairs who bid games and slams on less and who accurately stay out of bad games and ...

When discussing declarer play, the first thing I always suggest is for declarer to try to determine what kind of hand he is dealing with. Proper play of the hand starts with planning your play at Trick 1. After identifying/counting your losers, you need to look for ways to eliminate them. Counting winners too sometimes makes things easier, especially for dummy reversals. After all, there are only a finite number of types of hands, with variations on the themes. Typical hand types include a...

Just what is LOL? Yes, a common abbreviation for Laughing Out Loud, and often used to refer to a Little Old Lady, but in bridge it means a Loser-On-Loser play. At times a declarer can improve his/her situation by playing a losing card from one hand on a loser in a different suit from the hand opposite. This occurs when a player has a loser in two suits but can arrange to lose them both on one trick, thereby reducing the number of losers from two to one. Often this looks like a Ruff-and-Slu...

In this book, we will see a variety of examples of how to unblock your suits and how to block theirs. Mastering these will lessen your frustrations. The plays are easy, it’s the anticipation in sufficient time that is a good deal more tricky. I’m sure you will recognize some of these situations from your own times at the tables where you may have found yourself blocked. There is some overlap; some of the hands could belong in more than one chapter. Learning to unblock, wrote Louis Watson i...