[QuiteACard]

inquiry, on Dec 29 2005, 02:29 PM, said:

Comment? This is total, utter nonsense.  The idea (jilly's) is to form a club where more advanced topics are discussed than what is occuring in the beginner/intermediate lounge.

Oh come on Ben, tell us what you really think.

;-)

[jillybean]

Lets start off with a public club, no restrictions. If it becomes necessary to restrict membership or for other reasons, we can migrate to a private club.

[kenberg]

A thought: Below I copy the BBO defintion of advanced. Does this appear to be a reasonable description of the target audience?

Advanced: Someone who has been consistently successful in clubs or minor tournaments

Myself, I find this definition somewhat unsatisfactory since some minor tournaments are really minor and some are not. Is a Regional event with no masterpoint limits a minor tournament? To Zia, yes. To me, not at all. I think of a sectional tournament as a minor tournament, although some sectionals draw some very stiff competition. Still I am guessing, perhaps incorrectly, that you will want to give some sort of guidance and this definition may be good enough. For example, if someone started a World Class Club, and copied the BBO definition of World Class (represented their country in international events) I would respect their wishes and not butt in. Actually I could probably figure it out even if they didn't copy the definition, but some folks need things to be explicit.

None of this is intended to revive the idea of enforcing credentials. A statement of general purpose is a different thing entirely. Quoting the BBO definition may be a succinct way to do that.

It would not surprise me if you are way ahead of me in thinking through what you want, in which case I apologize.

k

[QuiteACard]

kenberg, on Dec 30 2005, 02:09 AM, said:

A thought: Below I copy the BBO defintion of advanced. Does this appear to be a reasonable description of the target audience?

Advanced: Someone who has been consistently successful in clubs or minor tournaments

Myself, I find this definition somewhat unsatisfactory since
...

None of this is intended to revive the idea of enforcing credentials. A statement of general purpose is a different thing entirely.
k

Ken, I too find this definition unsatisfactory for similar reasons that you do.

And I too agree with you that the goal should be to develop a statement of purpose and not define enforcing credentials.

To me, the core issue is simply: what differentiates an intermediate from an intermediate++ and an advanced player? This is not a theoretical question for me. It helps me determine where I am in the learning process and where I need to channel my energies in order to move to the next level. I believe that time spent learning fundamental concepts and techniques pays big benefits down the road.

As an example of the type of criteria that I find useful, I offer the following guidelines excerpted from a thread posted in rec.arts.dance back in Jan 2003:

-An intermediate understands the major rules to duplicate bridge and understands the basics of the scoring system despite not necessarily bidding and playing directly advantageously to the scoring all the time.
-An intermediate knows the dominant bidding system in their locale and a smattering of the major conventions, but is not using them all and relies 90% on the bedrock system, which they are comfortable with.
-An intermediate has play problems but knows the underlying mechanics of planning declarer play for the 4 most common contracts: 1NT,3NT,partscore suit contract, and major game contract.
-An intermediate understands at least one decent defensive carding system well enough to make use of it, and while not giving away tricks like crazy comapred to the novice, will still make many defensive errors.


-An advanced player understands the scoring system and mechanics of duplicate well enough to play competitvely on this basis.
-An advanced player bids comfortably in their base system with many conventions to optimize their chosen style. They probably have experience playing against a menu of several opponent's systems and may know more than one system reasonably well.
-An advanced player is comfortable with a wide variety of declarer strategies and plans the play of the hand based on percentages and worst-case-scenarios. Unblocking plays, throw-in plays, etc are used regularly. Some familiarity with various squeezes, but not mastery.
-An advanced player's defense gives away very few free tricks in a typical session of duplicate in a competitive field of non-world-class players, and is thorougly signalified. The killer shift is found a pretty reasonable percentage of the time.
... (1)

I recall seeing similar definitional schemes in other places - exactly where I can't remember right now. FifthChair.org perhaps? And I know that some of these issues were discussed in the calling all experts thread here in the forums.

Another way to state this is: what are the fundamental concepts and techiques that mid-level intermediate players must master and what are the fundamental concepts and techniques that intermediate+++ and advanced players must master?

These definitions would be useful in a number of ways. They would enable members to perform self-assessment and to prepare a plan for their personal development. The definitions could be used to develop a curriculum for this club: it would allow planners and teachers to assume a certain level of expertise and to develop lectures based on the definition of an intermediate+++ and advanced player.

Respectfully offered.

Pete

(1) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.b...1018e98901ab7c4

[zasanya]

Definitions
Expert:Counts visualises and concentrates all the time
Advanced:Counts and concentrates most of the time.Tries hard to visualise.
Intermediate:Tries to count but often doesnt.Has frequent lapses of concentration.
Finds it very difficult to visualise.
Knowledge of bidding system is immaterial.

[kenberg]

Pete and all,

I pretty much agree with your (Quite's) description of Advanced versus Intermediate. This morning while scanning the Larry Cohen "The Real Deal" article in the latest ACBL bulletin, it occurred to me that the article allows me to pretty well peg my own level (as I see it): The deal involved solid competitive bidding and then play involving trump shortenting to set up a trump coup when trumps broke badly. It is very possible, let's say even likely, that I would get this wrong at the table. But I might get it right, and if I got it wrong I could recognize my error and feel I should have done better. Certainly there was a time in my life when the whole subject would have been beyond me and the play at the table would just not even have occurred to me.

Sometimes I do some really stupid things at the table. I imagine many of us do. But also sometimes I get some pretty sophisticated things right, and not always by dumb luck. I am hoping that this advanced lounge will provide a setting for us all to improve our bidding and play. As you and others have noted, this is most likely to occur if we can encourage participation by our peers. How to bring this about is less clear.

Happy New Year,

Ken

[luke warm]

for the name, i like 'Togo Bridge Club' cause Togo has a kewl flag

[Winstonm]

zasanya, on Dec 30 2005, 10:20 AM, said:

Definitions
Expert:Counts visualises and concentrates all the time
Advanced:Counts and concentrates most of the time.Tries hard to visualise.
Intermediate:Tries to count but often doesnt.Has frequent lapses of concentration.
Finds it very difficult to visualise.
Knowledge of bidding system is immaterial.

These are the best definitions I have seen and agree wholeheartedly.

Maybe we could combine definitions with a concept I had on new self rating terms?

Player: Knows the basics of the game but often forgets to count.
Thinker: Knows how to count and tries hard but sometimes lapses.
Counter: Counting is intergral to his game but has trouble visualizing.
Visualizer: Counting is routine and visualizing is common.
Cleat Thinker: World Class level of counting and visualizing.

For what it is worth.

Winston