[pdmunro]

I had a f-2-f beginners' bridge class last night. I wanted to share with you the teaching ideas I used.

I initially became quite frustrated during that day trying to work out prepared hands using Bridge Baron, my favourite program of the moment. And I was not looking forward to the 90+ mins I would need to physically set up the boards. So below is what I tried instead. It seemed to go OK and was a lot less stress on me.

The lesson was "game invite" sequences. I used Richard Pavlicek's online software http://www.rpbridge.net/xbp3.htm, to set up 8 illustrative bridge hands, with just EW hands displayed. At the start of the lesson, I spent 30 mins explaining the rudiments of the "game invite" sequence and helping the students to bid all the illustrative deals.

Next I got the students to set up the illustrative EW hands and to randomly deal the NS cards. These were put into the boards. And we were ready to go.

The students already knew the bidding so that was done quickly. NS didn't bid. To give everyone a turn at being declarer, we rotated the West position (the best hand).

At the end of the play, declarer's hand and dummy were both exposed and the students discussed the play. Often they wanted to play the hand fully again. I wandered around the 3 tables and gave play suggestions.

I found it easier and more interesting to look at a hand where the NS cards were random rather than set up the NS cards myself. And it made the hands seem more real, less contrived.

One last point: I have found it works well if all the hands have the same bidding and play themes. So last night, all the illustrative hands had a 5-3 spade fit (for the "game invite" sequence) and a 5-3 diamond fit, dummy having 5 diamonds (for the play strategy). So the aim, during the play, was to see if declarer could (1) draw trumps and (2) utilise the 5 diamonds in dummy.

Coincidentally, one of the students brought me the bridge column from the local paper where some players in a "quality field" had failed to utilise their 5 card suit in dummy.

[neilkaz]

This sounds like a very well prepared and conducted lesson !! .. neilkaz ..