[SoTired]

About 30 years ago, the president of the American Bridge Teachers Association sent a letter to its members asking whether the ABTA should join the "dogmeat" and teach 5-card majors. At that time almost all American experts played 5-card majors. My mother, a true expert, sent a scathing reply.

In Goren's 4-card major book, he devotes an entire chapter about which suit to open when you have three 4-card suits, two 4-card suits, or one 4-card suit. It is very complex.

When playing 5-card majors, you teach one simple rule, "If you have a 5-card major, bid your highest ranking one, else bid your best minor." If you want, you can teach the exception, "Except if you have a 6-card minor and a 5-card major..."

Anybody who thinks that 4-card majors and weak NT are simpler, is just too blinded by bias or lacks experience trying to teach beginners to bid.

[the hog]

SoTired, on Jul 16 2007, 04:17 PM, said:

snipped

Anybody who thinks that 4-card majors and weak NT are simpler, is just too blinded by bias or lacks experience trying to teach beginners to bid.

This is a very silly comment. In most parts of Australia and probably in England the system that is taught first is Acol. It is not difficult to teach and further you are teaching the "lingua franca."

Just to follow on from your comment:"If you have a 5-card major, bid your highest ranking one, else bid your best minor."

Really!!?? What do you open with:
AKJxx
KJxxxx
x
x

Life isn't so cut and dried as you seem to think it is my friend.

[helene_t]

I read in Henderson's book that in Acol, you open the lower-ranking 4-card (except with both red suits, don't know why) and that you play Walsh. In Coventry, it turned out that there were two schools of thought, both contrary to Henderson: some would open the major, while some would bid up-the-line.

If I lived in a country with such a lack of standards, it would be even easier for me to chose Precision. Not that all Acol styles are necesarily bad for beginners. Obviously I know too little about Acol to have an opinion about that. But why teach the "standard" if there is no standard anyway?

As for Ron's 5611-shape: I think that's a silly example. That hand came up in the expert bidding panel of the Dutch BF agazine a couple of years ago. Some open 1♠, some open 1♥ and rebid 2♥, some reverse. Clearly no beginner system can tell you how to bid that hand in a superior way.

[the hog]

Helene, if you play Baronised Acol, you bid suits up the line. This system was very popular here in Oz some time ago. Jim and Norma Borin, one of the best mixed pairs in the world, played it at world championships before taking up Precision. (They were paid to play Precision btw.)

[SoTired]

The_Hog, on Jul 16 2007, 04:37 AM, said:

Really!!?? What do you open with:
AKJxx
KJxxxx
x
x

Life isn't so cut and dried as you seem to think it is my friend.

first - you don't teach beginners anything about rarely occuring hands. 2nd, if someone asks, you open 1S because that is the rule.

When you teach beginners Stayman, you don't even discuss the auction 1N 2C 2H 3C. That is an advanced topic.

When I was young, I taught 4-card majors. All the bridge teacher material was written for Goren-based 4-card majors. Later, I learned how much easier it is to explain 5-card majors. To bid, respond and rebid when you play 5-card majors. It is just an easier system to play and easier to explain to beginners. I would spend the first 10 minutes of the first class talking the class thru modifying the Diamond Series for 5-card majors. A large portion of the material was eliminated.

Regardless of the superiority/inferiority of 5-card majors vs 4-card majors when played by experts, the fact is that learning 5-card majors is easier.

Between myself and my family, I've spent 2 lifetimes teaching beginners and that is what I've learned.

[Rossoneri]

What I can see is that this whole debate about systems is rather analogous to languages and learning them.

And then in every country you have your dialects and what-have-you-not...

[chicken]

there are 2 basic advantages for teaching 5M with str nt.
the principle of fitbids occurs more often and so the opponents dont interfere as much because the M fits are seen and can be bid by responder immediately.


same argument for the STR NT.

the point of a somhow ambiguous 1m opening can be seen from 2 pov. i made the experience that these openings are a good start to teach basic bidding rules and improve visualisational skills as well as the feeling for the correlating structures of bidding/language.

however talking about beginners bridge additionally means to create playing opportunities for the beginners apart from the weekly? lessons. so if the participants of a beginers course are living in an acolenvironment (and aren`t supposed to start playing on BBO soon) i would teach acol regardless of the flaws it has in the context of beginners bridge in my opinion.

@uwe: do u teach forum D? i have files for the different openings pbn and html.
do u use the "Eröffnungs-Schieber"? if interested we can phone/mail.

[P_Marlowe]

chicken, on Jul 16 2007, 05:48 AM, said:

@uwe: do u teach forum D? i have files for  the different openings pbn  and html.
do u use the "Eröffnungs-Schieber"? if interested we can phone/mail.

More or less FD.

Although I started with 5-17 direct (instead of 16-18),
and I plan to teach weak twos and transfer direct as
well, i.e. basic FD.

And we dont use the "Eröffnungs-Schieber", ... but
we will see, how patient they are, it is my first course.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[chicken]

transfers for beginners? what kind of a group do u have? nobleprice winners?
that has been tested before , usually it doesnt work very well, because its hard enough to understand the natural dialogue approach so bidding suits u dont have usually causes some confusion, like stayman and blackwood do.

[helene_t]

Another strange thing is the misconceptions about the pros and cons of 5cM. Most club players think the disadvantage of 5cM is that you cannot pass a 1♣ opening since it may be a 3-3-fit or worse, and that the advantage of 5cM is that if it goes
1M-1N
pass
you haven't missed a 5-3 fit M. Although almost all Dutch textbooks have something to say about the issue and it is also very frequently mentioned in the BF magazine, authors keep missing the point. Ed Hoogekamp wrote a 5cM book a couple of years ago in which he went a little more in dept with it. Still I haven't seen any Dutch text that comes anywhere near what Mike Lawrence writes about the issue in his 2/1 workbook.

chicken said:

transfers for beginners? what kind of a group do u have? nobleprice winners?

Yes, that's another war of religion. A lot of intermediate players don't even know how to respond to a 1NT opening if they don't play transfers. No surprise because many teachers don't know it either. And not all beginner's textbooks mention weak takeouts at all, except at a much later stage in relation to opps' penalty double on our 1NT opening.

[P_Marlowe]

chicken, on Jul 16 2007, 07:38 AM, said:

transfers for beginners? what kind of a group do u have? nobleprice winners?
that has been tested before , usually it doesnt work very well, because its hard enough to understand the natural dialogue approach so bidding suits u dont have usually causes some confusion, like stayman and blackwood do.

.-) nice to know, I will think it over and maybe
drop the transfer plan.
I was not 100% sure.

And, no, there are no noble prize winners in my group,
at least as far as I know.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[hrothgar]

keylime, on Jul 16 2007, 12:33 AM, said:

strongly communicating the importance of the 5-3 fit over the 4-4 fit.

When I was first learning bridge, the teacher emphasized the importance of playing in a 4-4 fit rather than a 5-3...

[MickyB]

hrothgar, on Jul 16 2007, 02:21 PM, said:

keylime, on Jul 16 2007, 12:33 AM, said:

strongly communicating the importance of the 5-3 fit over the 4-4 fit.

When I was first learning bridge, the teacher emphasized the importance of playing in a 4-4 fit rather than a 5-3...

The other day, I heard a teacher telling a class to "always" play in a 4-4 rather than a 6-4

[hrothgar]

chicken, on Jul 16 2007, 03:38 PM, said:

transfers for beginners? what kind of a group do u have? nobleprice winners?
that has been tested before , usually it doesnt work very well, because its hard enough to understand the natural dialogue approach so bidding suits u dont have usually causes some confusion, like stayman and blackwood do.

Can't say that I agree with this set of recommendations.

In my experience, most beginners are (pretty much) a blank slate. They don't have any conception what a "natural dialogue" is, nor do they necessarily find this any easier than conventional methods. (I suspect that your students are fairly similar. Otherwise, it’s pretty difficult to justify your decision to teach methods that require opening 1C holding a 4=4=2=3 shape).

In general, I am fairly agnostic regarding the specific system that should be taught to beginners. Traditionally, I’ve felt that the most important principles are

1. The system should be in common use in the local area
2. The system should be logical. Its very important that one can explain why the system is designed the way that it is
3. Minimizing the number of rules that folks need to learn

Personally, I’d never want to teach natural 2M responses over a 1NT opening. Sure, it makes it much easier to explain how one shows one specific hand type, however, this minor advantage is outweighed by a number of massive costs.

First: You need to pay the piper. While this one portion of your NT structure will be nice and clean, the rest of it will need to be a LOT more complex. (Alternatively, you’ll be teaching your students a piss poor system that they’ll need to scrap as soon as they leave their training class)

Second: Your students aren’t going to be able to play with anyone else. Just how many pick up partnerships use something other than transfers over a 1NT opening?

[helene_t]

hrothgar, on Jul 16 2007, 03:38 PM, said:

2. The system should be logical. Its very important that one can explain why the system is designed the way that it is
3. Minimizing the number of rules that folks need to learn

2. is quite difficult since very few people have a clue about why various systems are designed the way they are. I suppose still fewer are able to explain it to beginners. And some students don't want to know the "why" of the rules but just want to learn them by heart.

That notwithstanding, your criteria seem obvious, but it's less obvious what consequences they have for the choice of system. What is logical and contained in few rules to you may be ilogical and contained in many rules to me. For example, I find it difficult to justify that an opening can be a 4-card when an overcall must be a 5-card. I'd rather say that with a 4432 you pick the smallest lie which is per definition about the length of a minor (not that I'm happy with that either). That's just me. As for responses to 1NT, I think weak take-outs are perfectly playable and in accordance with the logic of the rest of the system. I cannot make up a single argument for transfers other than that they happen to be standard (and that's an important argument, I admit that). Again, that's just me.

[TimG]

hrothgar, on Jul 16 2007, 08:38 AM, said:

Second: Your students aren’t going to be able to play with anyone else. Just how many pick up partnerships use something other than transfers over a 1NT opening?

Absolute beginners are going to be playing with their classmates or the person who is teaching them. They're not going to start off by playing with a pick-up partner who will need to play transfers.

I think many bridge players have forgotten what it was like to be an absolute beginner.

Absolute beginners will be confused by the different requirements for responding to a suit opening bid at the one level and the two level. Once they get it in their mind that they need 10 points to bid a new suit at the two level, they will start jumping to 2♥ over a 1♦ opening to show their ten points. When NT openings are introduced, they will remember that a new suit at the two level requires 10 points and bid 1N-2♥ with a 12 count.

There are lots of basics that we never think about that can overwhelm a beginner. The important part is to get them playing bridge. The quickest way to do that is without things like transfers (or even Stayman).

[MickyB]

TimG, on Jul 16 2007, 03:22 PM, said:

There are lots of basics that we never think about that can overwhelm a beginner. The important part is to get them playing bridge. The quickest way to do that is without things like transfers (or even Stayman).

Indeed. They should be playing whist/minibridge, then bridge without any system for a while - bid your longest suit, 12 pts to open (or overcall), 6 pts to respond. Once they are comfortable with the mechanics of the game, you can get teach them that opening 1NT and a 2/1 response show a certain number of points. Things like Stayman should come a while after.

I think Acol is fine for beginners, there can be issues with showing the strength of a strong NT later but that won't worry them, and it means they can 2/1 with fewer points than if playing strong NT and 4 card suits, which feels right to an inexperienced player.

[Wackojack]

helene_t, on Jul 16 2007, 04:47 AM, said:

I read in Henderson's book that in Acol, you open the lower-ranking 4-card (except with both red suits, don't know why) and  that you play Walsh. In Coventry, it turned out that there were two schools of thought, both contrary to Henderson: some would open the major, while some would bid up-the-line.

If I lived in a country with such a lack of standards, it would be even easier for me to chose Precision. Not that all Acol styles are necesarily bad for beginners. Obviously I know too little about Acol to have an opinion about that. But why teach the "standard" if there is no standard anyway?

Helene, this I think will interest you. It is the hand discussion (edited) during an on-line acol lesson aimed at beginners and intermediates. The auction was 1s-2d-3d-p. Opener had 15 points 4243 doubleton heart something like 10x and missing an easy 3nt. 12-14 NT of course is taught.
Most at the lesson were from UK with a few from New Zealand

s: 1!d always if playing 'bridge'
c: standard !!! english acol 1spade yuk!!!
s: :)
wa: style 1!d or 1!s.... but having opened 1!s, then 2NT is the rebid after 2!d
s: and one wonders why game is in disarray
wi: isn't it one of those hands where acol does not show its best side
d: knew I'd be wrong no matter what I do
b: Another fun and style Q
s: yes agree jack and 3NT cold
b: the eternal 1!D or 1!S opener
d: only opened spade as did not want to be left in 1 diamond
wa: i gather from last weeks lesson that most here bid "up the line"
b: the problem with not opening 1!D here is West is worried about the black suits
b: and East !Hs
b: but neither one can reassure the other in the auction!!!
s: someone tell little me what the problem can ever be opening 1!d
b: 1!D-1!H-1!S-2!C(4th suit) - 2NT - 3NT
b: there isn't s I always advocate 4 card suits up the line and life is oh so simple
b: as this hand demonstrates
b: the ONLY advantage here is if South had a !H suit overcall...
b: it might stop the overcall
b: a small price to pay
b: I'll step off my soapbox now lol
c: why oh why do the EBU promote that abortion standard English?

fwiiw I prefer opening 1M here because "up-the-line" bidding is disadvantaged by:
1. As stated wjo's..... similarly with 5 card major systems (but not so severe if I am pulled up on this)
2 1d-1s-? 15-16 points 4243.... nasty! Thats why I like strong nt.

[helene_t]

Lol, Jack. But I think this shows the strength of Acol:
1♠-2♦
2N*
is forcing (oh that depends on style yes, but it should be forcing at least).

In SA, this particular problem would have been solved by a 1NT opening. But more generally,
1M-2m
3m
is forcing in SA so opener has to bid via 2M to show the 5♠4♦ minimum. That's playable but I wonder how many of those with "SAYC" on their BBO profile know that.

Biedermeijer comes in a multitude of dialects, some of which are SA-like in this respect, while others typically fake a new minor (sometimes on a doubleton) to create a force.

[blackshoe]

helene_t, on Jul 16 2007, 03:06 AM, said:

The system should only be changed if the new system is significantly better, which it isn't.

I suppose I should read the whole post before posting, but I didn't. I just picked out this one sentence, because what it says to me is that there is only one system, the system. The one teachers are teaching and which, perforce, student come to regard as the only system. I think even raw beginners ought to be taught that there is more than one possible system, that they will eventually run into things that bear little or no resemblence to what they've been taught, and that such is not a cause for sleepless nights, or worry at the bridge table. You don't have to go into details, just tell them the way you're teaching isn't the only way - although perhaps you hope it's the best basis for them.