[jillybean]

Hi,

The next free teaching session is on Fri 23rd 11am(pst) and will be a review of tournament hands

Winstonm will be providing the analysis for this session, all I know is that the theme is “visualizing”

A 4 board pairs tournament #140 is posted, sign up if you want to participate.
These sessions are targeted towards int+/adv players.

jb

[kgr]

jb,

Interesting lessons and a very good initiative. However after the last counting session I would like to make some suggestions.
- You open a lesson table, but some people come to this table to play without realising that it is a lesson table and then they disappear after some tricks. I think that this could be solved by setting up a club.
- Not a lot of participants. The problem here is that announcements beforehand only are done on these forums. You do announcements just before and during the event to public in BBO. These are often missed (lot of public chat) or people are already playing. I think that announcements would be more effective if you could build up a club membership.
- For me : Difficult to translate the announced time to my local time. Ok, now I know that I have to add 9 hours to pst. Maybe use an American, Australian and European time in announcement?
=> It would be great to have a club similar as BIL for advanced players. Not sure how much partipants the BIL has, but I think it is more effective to organize your lesson in a club format. Not so much to control the participants, but to have better 'promotion'.
!!!Remark: The above are no critics and are only my opinion. You are doing the work to set this all up, so for you to choose how you want to do it. Just want you to have a good 'return' from the work you are doing.

[jillybean]

Thanks for taking the time to provide some feedback.
A club would be an ideal setting to hold these sessions. I have asked BBO for a public club and I’m hopeful we will get one in time.

Converting to different times is difficult, I will add your suggestions to the times that are announced.
This is a useful link for converting times http://www.timeanddate.com/

We are setting up an email list to notify people of upcoming sessions – if you want to be included send a note to:

bill_6778@yahoo.com

I have had a lot of positive feedback from the 2 counting sessions that Han, Matt and Arend have run, hopefully these will become a regular feature.

jb

[inquiry]

actually you don't need a public club.. just fine one and make announcements to use that one. Public clubs are open to all anyway.

Ben

[kenberg]

I assume this is still on. I see that the four board tournament is listed as pairs, not as an indy. Is it expected that we will show up as pairs with a collection of conventional agreements?

[jillybean]

Ken,
yes its still on and it is pairs - conventional agreements are permitted as long as they are alerted and fully disclosed.

Ben - our own club would give us the benefits of being able to use Lounge Club News to inform people of upcoming sessions, Im not sure we could do that with an existing club?

jb

[han]

I also think that it would be nice to have the table in a public club rather than the main club for the reasons that kgr mentioned. Given that many of the students we had in our lesson were not advanced, I don't think that the club should be for advanced players. I would like it if the club was open to all (so that everybody can decide for themselves which lessons are suitable for them) and merely functions as a way to make the lessons easier to organize.

I won't be able to make Phil's lesson (nor Winston's ) but I'm curious to know how this voice thing is going to work. It sounds like a great idea and could also work well for the format we were using.

[kenberg]

OK, I must bring a date. In that case I am looking for a partner. My preference would be to try the whole Adv BBO 2/1 stuff. The works. I'll even agree to udca, although it's not my usual choice. Alternatively, the BBO basic system, just as it is on the site.

For four boards I would prefer not to have lengthy discussions on things that are highly unlikely to arise. It's not necessary to discuss family history if it's to be a one night stand.

Or I'll seek out a victim on my own during the next 20 some hours.

Anyway, I hope to see you all there. I'll now go read Fred's stuff. I think I know what most of the words mean. Ingberman is the agreement to play that after 1C-1M-2D, the other major is the (potential) start of a sign off, while over other reverses 2NT is the potential start of a sign off? I think that's right. Now 2-way nmf I will have to look up. I only know 1-way. But if someone out there is ready for this, let me know.

Ken

[jillybean]

Hannie, on Dec 22 2005, 01:01 PM, said:

... but I'm curious to know how this voice thing is going to work.

me too I'd be happy to have a dummy run with some forum people if we can arrange that.

[kenberg]

Sounds like an interesting experiment. Count me in.

I sent you an email as well expressing interest in a dummy run.

Ken

[jillybean]

Ok, lets see if we can get some people together around 9pm (pst) today 22nd.

[kenberg]

I'll check in! I'm on eastern time, but I am playing f2f tonight and will get home around the right time for 9pst (=12 est)

[spwdo]

hi,

if u desperate for a private club you can use mine, i started mine for the wrong reasons . i`m sure this isnt the case for you to start teaching stuff after you been railroaded from another private club so if you ask uday to put it in your name and bbocomunity can truly benefit without ppl having to split themselves into 2 to follow all lessons i would be happy to see my old private club actually beeing used for something again.


Grtz

Marc

[jillybean]

Teaching tournament #140 is posted - starts 11am(pst)

play 4 boards followed with analysis by WinstonM

tournament open to int/adv discussion open to all

[kgr]

Thanks JB. Was interesting!
Very good format and level very good for the target audience of Int/adv.

[kenberg]

Thanks for the opportunity, and happy holidays to everyone involved. A look at the scores may provide some amusement. On board 1 we were not in the slam. Despite the fact that it can be made it often wasn't, so not being in it gave us a positive imp score. On the next board, we defeated 2S. The hand was put forth as a defensive problem to defeat 2S, and we did, although not through any brilliance of our own. This got us a negative score since several were in 4S. This is a charming aspect of bridge, in my opinion. I think it is why it is called a game.

I look forward to continued participation.

Ken

[Winstonm]

Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you got something of value from the session - I know I did.

Just for future reference: there are so many methods to bid a hand and trying to evaluate which is the best way will only bog down the process. Maybe for the lesson we should use only a standard, published methodology such as Bridge World Standard?

After all, the play is the thing!

Winston

[jillybean]

Ditto, thanks Winston and everyone behind the scenes who is supporting this one way or another

Roll on live audio, I'm excited !!

jb

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on Dec 24 2005, 12:41 AM, said:

Just for future reference: there are so many methods to bid a hand and trying to evaluate which is the best way will only bog down the process. Maybe for the lesson we should use only a standard, published methodology such as Bridge World Standard?

After all, the play is the thing!

Winston

This occurred to me as well. There are related isues. First let me say a few words about the two formats.

My own preference is for randomly dealt hands. Here the problem might be in bidding or in play and I think people would get the most out of it if standard bidding and standard leads and carding were imposed or at least suggested. It's challenging to comment live on previously unseen hands of course. But predealt hands suffer from some well known features. For example, on board 2 of the lesson the challenge is for defenders to play second hand high in hearts to lead a trump. At my table, declarer led a trump himself to finesse. Among the many reasons he shouldn't do this, the most dependable may be that this is a lesson hand. Surely it's not right to lead a trump and take the obvious finesse. In real life, finesses may work. Not in lesson hands.

In the predealt lesson hands, with the accent on play, possibly the entire bidding should be imposed. In the four hands that I played, the lesson point did not arise in a single one of them. Here is what happened:

Board 1: 1N-2C-2D-3NT: Making 3NT was not difficult.

Board 2: 1S-2S: Declarer played on spades himself, eliminating the need for me to rise with my king of hearts. This hand, intended as a lesson hand for defender play, could serve as a lesson for the declarer of course.

Boars 3: 1N-2C(!)-2S-3NT: On the natural auction 1N-3N, my partner no doubt would have led the expected spade. Here he led a diamond. Declarer played the Q from dummy. went to his hand and led to the diamond T, losing to my J. The intended lesson was for me to duck with my J on the first round of the suit. When the Q was played, I managed to duck. For those who don't recall the hand, responder lacked a four card major, hence the (!) following the 2C call.

Board 4: 1C-1S-1N-6N: Making when the defender with 4 clubs pitched one.


Predealt hands typically have a specific lesson to illustrate. The above examples show that it may be difficult to get there. Imposing the contract, with imposed bidding, may well be the way to go. Still no guarantee, as also can be seen from the above.


I don't know whether my own preference for the random is broadly shared. Of course whoever is doing the lesson gets to do it as he pleases, and I hope to participate in all of them

Ken