Book excerpt: In the modern game, the majority of auctions are competitive, and every improving player needs to acquire the tools to handle this kind of bidding. This text covers the basic building blocks of competitive bidding (takeout and negative doubles, preempts, overcalls, competing over their notrump openings and dealing with competition over your own, forcing pass auctions, the Law of Total Tricks, and others). It describes a number of useful conventions and gadgets with which the reader needs to be familiar, and suggests other optional treatments for partnership discussion. Each chapter ends with reviews and quizzes, and the final chapter is a summary quiz covering all the material. This book will fill a major gap in bridge literature - most books on this topic are intended for expert-level players.