[dustinst22]

Would be interesting to have a GIB bidding teaching course for brand new players.

It could teach you in stages (i.e. Opening Bidding, Responses, NT structure, etc).

You'd bid through several deals learning each "stage" of bidding, and it would correct you when you bid incorrectly. It would be ideal if the hands could be randomized with constraints, this way the student is truly learning and not just memorizing a set of answers. This would be much better for practice.

This could be a really rapid and fun method of learning bidding for new players imo.

[Vampyr]

There are BBO movies with beginner lessons, and also several online tutorials. One is on the ACBL site; perhaps others know where to find more.

[dustinst22]

Vampyr, on 2013-March-11, 01:43, said:

There are BBO movies with beginner lessons, and also several online tutorials. One is on the ACBL site; perhaps others know where to find more.

I'm aware of this, but my suggestion is something else entirely. Tutorials and lessons while good, are tough to get new players to go through.

[barmar]

When I saw the thread title, I thought he was asking for something about how to bid when you're playing with robots, as opposed to normal bridge players.

This does sound interesting, but I'm not sure how effective it would be. When you make a mistake, the robots can tell you what they would have bid instead, but they can't tell you why your bid was wrong. It would be like trying to learn bridge by having a buzzer go off every time you make a bad bid.

In that case, you might as well just play with the robots -- the bad boards will be the "buzzer". Then look at how your hand was bid at other tables.

[dustinst22]

barmar, on 2013-March-11, 09:18, said:

When I saw the thread title, I thought he was asking for something about how to bid when you're playing with robots, as opposed to normal bridge players.

This does sound interesting, but I'm not sure how effective it would be. When you make a mistake, the robots can tell you what they would have bid instead, but they can't tell you why your bid was wrong. It would be like trying to learn bridge by having a buzzer go off every time you make a bad bid.

In that case, you might as well just play with the robots -- the bad boards will be the "buzzer". Then look at how your hand was bid at other tables.

The idea would be to make learning bidding as seamless and "easy" as possible for today's youth who want something more interactive rather than having to study/memorize charts and bidding tables.



Anyway, just an idea to throw out there. As a person who has experience trying to get many younger (i.e. 17-25 yr olds) players interested in the game (mostly people who play Spades), I think this would be a great way to do it.

Let's face it, experienced old bridge players are very out of touch with the best methods of getting younger people into the game. I think I'm reasonably in touch with what needs to be done, as I've had success bringing a lot of people over to Bridge from the younger generation.

[Vampyr]

dustinst22, on 2013-March-11, 11:07, said:

The idea would be to make learning bidding as seamless and "easy" as possible for today's youth who want something more interactive rather than having to study/memorize charts and bidding tables.

There are software packages, produced by Andrew Robson, Mr Bridge and others, which do what you are looking for.

[dustinst22]

Vampyr, on 2013-March-11, 14:00, said:

There are software packages, produced by Andrew Robson, Mr Bridge and others, which do what you are looking for.

With randomized deals? I don't believe so.

With set deals, the problem is the learner never really gets good practice and just learns what the "answers" are. To really learn the concepts, you need to go through several randomized examples.

Maybe I wasn't clear.

The idea would be to take the student through the various phases of bidding with random deals set by constraints (i.e. starting with opening bids, then to response bids, then to rebids, then to NT structure, then to competitive bidding, etc).

If the student makes a bid that is incorrect, it would simply highlight your bid red (or something similar) and let you know that your action was incorrect systematically.

Something like this, if available for free through BBO, would be incredibly useful for introducing new players (who are fearful of learning the bidding) to the game imo.


I think most people who have played bridge for years forget how difficult it is for a total newbie to learn bidding. It's even more difficult to get them to "study" bidding in order to learn it. Especially for young people who have other things to do besides being retired and having unlimited time. Learning through interactive actual deals is much easier and rapid for today's gen who needs/demands quick results due to the age of information imo.