On Mar 25, 1:10 am, Martin Ambuhl wrote:
samsloan wrote:
I can assure you that I have studied the subject, I know copyright law
very well, and I have consulted with the Copyright Office and the
Library of Congress in Washington DC.
I know what I am doing.
For certain values of "know what [you] are doing." Republishing Kenneth
Harkness's trivial re-presentation of Culbertson, a book of little
interest in its time and almost none now, republishing Watson's _outline
of Contract Bridge_, which even you suggest ignoring half of, a half
that is a minimalist rehashing of Culbertson's books; republishing the
unexpanded and uncorrected version of Watson's _Play of the Hand_: all
these suggest that you haven't a clue what you are doing.
Sorry, but you are mistaken. The book, Invitation to Bridge by Kenneth
Harkness, is not a "trivial re-presentation of Culbertson". It has
nothing to do with the Culbertson System. The term "honor tricks" is
never mentioned in the Harkness book.
Rather, the Harkness book is one of the very first books to introduce
the "Goren Standard American" system of bidding. The system under
which Ace = 4, King = 3, Queen = 2 and Jack = 1 is introduced on page
72 of the Harkness Book.
Also, Harkness was a professional writer who happened to play bridge,
as opposed to other authors who were professional bridge players who
happened to write too. Harkness worked as a writer and editor of radio
articles and textbooks before he got involved in chess and bridge. I
am not qualified to make a comparison but I would imagine that his
explanations are easier to read and understand than that of other
writers.
Regarding "The Outline of Contract Bridge", I briefly considered
reprinting just the part that deals with The Play of the Hand for
which Watson is famous, but since the play of the hand is affected by
the bidding, I had to leave that in. Also, as Watson points out, there
is a best contract for every deal and in principle every correct
bidding system should reach the same contract. Of course, we realize
that this is just in theory, as in practice it does not work out that
way.
I have been through every page of the original 1934 book "Watson on
the Play of the Hand at Contract Bridge" and compared it with the 1958
update by Sam Fry and I am unable to find any changes at all in the
text. Sam Fry just added 12 pages at the end, which is the equivalent
of two or three issues of a daily newspaper column. Sam Fry also added
footnotes to the bottom of some of the pages, but I am unable to find
any other changes. The original Watson book was not even retyped. It
was just a photocopy of the original.
When my book comes out next week, you will be able to see clearly that
my books are much better. The fonts will be larger, clearer and easier
to read. The pages will be blown up and bigger. I took several of my
new books to Foxwoods this past weekend and everybody who saw them
agreed that the print quality is superior to that of the original
books.
Sam Sloan
http://www.amazon.com/dp/092389182X
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891749
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891943