BBO Discussion Forums: How To Teach A Complete Beginner - BBO Discussion Forums

Hi all,

A friend of mine is interested in learning bridge, and I was round his flat at the weekend and tried to start teaching him: firstly i told him about the rankings of the suits i.e s/h/d/c then I dealt out a few hands and showed him how it works (i.e. the idea of bidding (not so much what the bid means), what "dummy" is, who leads and how you make tricks etc.

What is the best way to teach a genuine beginner with no previous bridge experience?

Could anyone suggest a list of things I could teach my friend so he is able to at least get a foot hold in the game of bridge

Thanks in advance,

Eagles

I've been trying to get my girlfriend into the game. She literally has zero card experience with any game. Basically did the same thing as you, started with the rank of suits, the mechanics (nothing conventional) of bidding, a very brief outline of the scoring, then we started playing 3 handed "mini bridge" where you deal out 4 hands and whoever has the most HCP becomes declarer and gets the dummy and decides the contract. Basically you skip the bidding process entirely, and its kind of nice because you only need 3 people. Personally, I feel like American teachers do things wrong (mostly) by focusing their beginning lessons on bidding rather than the play. I think the European style is to get beginners playing first, then finally move to bidding. This seems right to me.

Finally, I realized this was all pretty overwhelming to her. So we went down to her local club and shes going to do group beginner lessons starting from scratch. Something tells me this will work better, having a group of people at the same level to learn with should hopefully get her hooked more easily even if they are ~ 30 years older. I just don't have the patience to teach someone the game from the very start, and I'm probably not a very good teacher. I'd rather have my friends who are interested in the game take the necessary classes then I can help them once they know a bit.

I have taught friends and relatives. You don't start with he ranks of the suits, bidding etc. you play a few hands, introduce the idea of trumps suits, then of contracts and you set the contract yourself. When the student is confident about all of this, introduce auction-style bidding, or play mini-bridge.

After this you can introduce (contract-style) bidding.

gosh given your bbf manner would love to see your teaching LOL if i was a novice i'd be running a million miles from you

1. Teach them what a trick is
2. PLAY!

Don't try to tell them what they should have done, how they could have taken more tricks, how their long suit had set up and they could cash them, why they shouldn't lead blank honors, etc. The goal is to get them to have fun.

Agree with Kuhchung. I am teaching all my 3 kids (11 yo and 7 yo twins). They enjoy playing the cards, and they don't care to establish suits or about making bids themselves. Basically the twins are just cashing out Aces and Kings feeling super happy when they win the trick. The 11 yo is puzzled by the bidding so I started to explain more about what bids are and what they mean - he likes the "coded language" so I'm explaining that part since it's something he finds interesting. This is all the more interesting as he sees the long convoluted explanations in robots' bids, so when he understands that that actually means, he likes it.

They are all miles away from actually making a contract unless they have the exact number of top winners to cash, but they are having fun which is what keeps them hooked.

The 11yo likes to play Bridge Master on BBO and he actually managed to make a couple of the 1st level contracts without peaking at the solution, which made him super proud.

When I learned to play bridge (which wasn't until until after I graduated from college), I already knew other trick-taking games, like Hearts and Spades. So the only new skill I needed to learn were the partnership aspects, which is mostly about bidding. But I agree that if you're teaching a beginner who doesn't have much experience with related games, you need to get them playing first. Mini-bridge seems like a good way to go with that.

The best starting point, if at all possible, is to connect it to something they already know. Per barmar, many people have played some sort of trick taking game (spades, hearts, euchre, pinochle, etc), if so that is an ideal starting point. If, as per dustin, they have never touched cards at all, it is a steep hill to climb. Bridge has the longest startup time of any game I have ever played - by which I mean, the most rules, the most to learn before you can play out a game without assistance. Starting from scratch could be pretty tough, depending on the natural aptitude of the student. I guess agree with kuhchung, just start playing any simple truncated version and see where it goes.

eagles123, on 2014-February-04, 12:22, said:

LOL I am not so sarky in real life!

In the back of one of Ron Klinger's books he talks about "from whist to bridge" - teaching first straight whist (no trumps) and going from there through various versions adding more about "bidding" until you get the idea of contracts and auctions and the meaning of bids across, all the while emphasizing playing hands. I suppose this is somewhat similar to mini-bridge. Anyway, I think the idea "get them playing" is right, and only gradually, a little bit at a time, add in aspects of "bidding". If they're interested, like Diana's 11 year old, in the "puzzle" aspects of bidding you could even let them try to come up with their own bidding systems. Though maybe that should be a follow-on course.

Kuhchung has it right.

One thing we've done with success with new-to-bridge people is to introduce them to Mini-Bridge. It gets people playing right away. hey also learn to use the Milton Work count. Dealer simply announces HCP then each in turn. Player with highest HCP is declarer. Dummy is revealed and the player can decide whether to contract for a partial, game slam or grand slam before play starts. LHO then leads, etc.......This approach avoids many details that confuse, and taps people's desire for immediate fun and for learning by doing. Then folks are motivated to learn play basics, 9finesses, combinations, counting, suit splits). Bidding follows later.

Suggest you look for the mini-bridge UK site for details....

Much depends on the learning style for each individual.

kuhchung, on 2014-February-04, 12:51, said:

Wow this one must be post if the year. I always thought they should learn techniques step by step, starting with one suit, two players, open cards. And then gradually adding complexities . But what you say makes a lot of sense

It depends on how uch experience your friend has of other card games. The first thing is for them to understand whist, that is how tricks work. In my generation practically everyone knew this but these days that is probably less true. There is no point in starting on the auction until this point is reached. If they are still with you at this stage then you can move on to bridge fundamentals such as suit ranking and the concept of game, then to point count and the opening bids. From here it is easy.

For the bidding, create summary crib sheets for them and allow them to refer to these freely as you practise. For one-on-one (unopposed) bidding practise I used to select whichever of the unseen hands I thought would be most interesting rather than purely random hands but this can be done so much more easily now using the BBO software. I recommend such unopposed practise first and then adding the competitive auction later on when they are comfortable with the basics. That is different from the common practise of putting four beginners together and letting them all bid freely but I believe it establishes a better understanding of fundamentals. After a one-on-one auction, always evaluate the final contract and encourage questions. A big advantage of this format is precisely that you can analyse afterwards without feeling constrained by opponents having to wait for you.

helene_t, on 2014-February-05, 02:38, said:

I have had students who have learned bridge using this method and it generally involves unteaching them practically everything they thought they knew about bidding and starting again. Just playing is fine for the card play side of the game but bad for bidding. It is a little like teaching someone German by just having them talk - in Holland. For the most part the result will be useless.

For students who have literally no experience with card games, I started with a very simple game for two players:

East gets four cards, say 9732. West gets 8654. East deals. This example teaches them:

- The concept of winning a trick.
- The winner of the trick is on lead for the next trick.
- If you can (and want to) win a trick, win it as cheaply as possible.
- It sometimes matters which card you lead. In general it is best to lead small from a holding like 9732.

But now I am not quite sure how to proceed from their. The teacher who taught me the above simple game recommended spending many months on simple game, building up very slowly. He would teach the beginners things like endplay and squeezes based on games that were as simple as they could possibly be.

It is probably too extreme for most students. For many students the primary aim is to be able to play at the club as soon as possible. This means that they need to learn all the rules early. Then technique can come afterwards. OTOH, if you have a group of siblings that just want to have fun between themselves, you should probably get their card playing technique on the rails before bothering them with bidding and scoring. Then again, you may have a child like Diana's son. And if someone enjoys learning bidding I don't think you should hold them back even if you think that it may technically be better to focus more on card play.

I think just getting the show on the road is the way to go for an intelligent adult. Structured learning of bridge is extremely boring for novices and you'd be better just firing up bbo after some bare minimum hand evaluation discussion - what are hcps, what is a balanced hand, what is a fit and what is game. If he takes to the game after a few months then down to the club for a supervised duplicate, start to think more carefully about learning the game.

Similar to helene I have wondered if it wouldn't be much better to start playing bridge with less tricks rather than the full deck instead of minibridge.

The important plays in bridge most happen on the endings, even stablish suits etc, and counting is much easier with less cards.

Anyway the important thing at the start is to play, play, play, I stop the students to point basic deductions as I believe it is an important part of the fun from the game, and one that hooks players into.

el mister, on 2014-February-05, 06:55, said:

For a truly intelligent adult, learning the basics of bidding can be done in a day. A true story, I used to run a university bridge club and one day I ended up short of players for an arranged leagzue match. So I taught up my girlfriend of the time, who thankfully already knew about tricks from other whist-based games, using the suggested technique and she then played later the same evening with my housemate, who was a previous student and therefore used the same basic (Acol) system. The experience was obviously a little overwhelming but in truth they did fine, only missing one game in 32 hands iirc. What hurt more was the lack of card play experience together, which obviously could not be helped in this case. Nevertheless you can perhaps see from this why I say that teaching bridge is so much easier once they understand the card play part of the game!

I would start by dealing 4 hands, all open and explain the process of dealing and bidding each time

after that the next few hands are played like regular session, except that there are NO RULES, ask as many questions as you want, feel free to show your cards araound

after that the next few hands are designed to show the penalties/bonuses of undertricks/overtricks

after that the next few hands are designed to show the bonuses of game/slam contracts

after that the next few hands are designed to show scoring for vulnerabilities

rudimnents of hand evaluation come next