[JustaDummy]

Well I've played live bridge for years and enjoyed it (in the UK, Precision mainly) and now "over here" in Canada I'm hoping to get back into the game. Online to start, then maybe join a club.

So I joined BBO, and have subscribed to the forums, but, well, folks, if this particular forum "Beginner and Intermediate" is for beginners, then I'm outta here. I just don't get it. Is my Bridge knowledge so poor that I just can't get into this forum? I think, maybe, this may well be the case, because ALL of the posts here, supposedly for beginners, just simply lose me. OK for intermediates too, but is there such a gap? Maybe so, in which case, let's have a beginners only forum please! But my point here is that I'm NOT a beginner!

You see, when I kibbitz on almost any hand on the BBO tables, I can anticipate what the play should be, and more often than not, when a hand goes down, I know why.

Is there some sort of discontinuity going on here? I know I'm not a great player, but I have played a few times on BBO and managed to perform OK. However, when it comes to this forum, I'm just lost.

Of course I know that Bridge can be very complex, but surely if I'm looking for support and satisfaction as a beginner or intermediate I should be able to read some of the posts in this forum and say, yes, I think that's right, I understand that, or hmm, maybe there's something I need to know there.

But it just doesn't happen. It's all gobbledygook. It looks like the learning curve is too steep for me in this forum. And I know I'm not stupid.

And I shudder to think what kinds of esoterica are paraded around the advanced forum…

So, what do I do? Leave? Suggest a Total-Nincompoop-Newbie-Don't-Mention-Esoterica forum where basic ideas can be thrashed out until I, and possibly others, can get a grip on them?

Or should I just take up crochet?

[Aberlour10]

Hi, welcome to Forums!

I would recommend you to use the "search machine" of this forums( in bar at the top of the site). The part "Beginner and Intermediate Bridge Discussion" contains about 160 pages ( from the beginning) with topics, so if you search using f.e. keywords, you will find for sure themes you are interesting in and you are able to follow.

Robert

[matmat]

One of the problems faced by teachers (of any kind) is that it is difficult to know what issues the students are having with the material. One obvious solution is to have the students give feedback. This is the case here.
If there is a topic that interests you, that has not been explained to your satisfaction, ask. People who answer here have absolutely no idea that their response wasn't clear to you, unless you tell them that.

That said, I don't think the forums are a great place to learn the game from a very basic level. The ACBL has some nice free software that can help you with some topics, there are classes and tournaments held by the Beginner-Intermediate Lounge on BBO that cater exactly to people who are starting out in bridge.

I think you have to be a little bit more patient and a little bit more active.

edit: I also think that a lot of advanced players don't recall the types of difficulties they had when learning the game, and they see a problem and think "oh, that's a neat, basic problem" and post it here; often this problem is, despite their best intention, not well suited to a beginner audience.

[pclayton]

There's a lot B/I's here that have learned the game correctly and are frankly better than many Gold LM's I've seen.

That doesn't change the fact that they are challenged and stimulated by the material in this section, although a recent compound squeeze I saw here made me scratch my head on why it was posted in the BI.

Be honest with yourself. Go through each BI hand slowly and repeatedly. There will be some hands that are too tough but there will be many that will help you.

Stay with it

[vuroth]

Honestly, I find that most of the people who post here are experts or better who are trying to help.

When beginners ask questions, they're generally very good at asking. By and large, though, the material here seems to come from advancing players.

I recommend that you ask questions here, and ask a lot of them. I don't think anyone will mock or laugh.

If anything, I wish I asked more questions here. (Then again, I do ask a lot of questions of my mentor).

0.02

V

[NickRW]

JustaDummy, on Nov 2 2008, 11:07 PM, said:

Or should I just take up crochet?

No. You're clearly thinking about your game and looking to improve. That puts you ahead of quite a bit of the competition already.

You're right, quite a bit of the material in this section is more appropriate for intermediate and the lower levels of advanced players. However, "bozo" questions from beginners are perfectly welcome. Also if more people asked this sort of thing, then there'd be more material in here for beginners - and perhaps those of us who get carried away with things that should possibly go in other sections would think before we scribble

Nick

[H_KARLUK]

Yea, welcome aboard. If you trust your trick taking potential i do not see any damage.

Lots of luck, have fun.

[Codo]

Welcome,

if you stay here for longer, you will see that 90% of the input comes from about 20 (?) contributors. They love to discuss and write about bridge. Some of them are really good, some are less. And sometimes they even forget that beginners need another answer then an expert.

We all try to give good answers, but we sometimes fail to do so. As others had said before, ask your questions and challenge any given answer if you think that it was not the right one.

[vuroth]

NickRW, on Nov 2 2008, 09:33 PM, said:

You're right, quite a bit of the material in this section is more appropriate for intermediate and the lower levels of advanced players. However, "bozo" questions from beginners are perfectly welcome. Also if more people asked this sort of thing, then there'd be more material in here for beginners

Exactly what I wanted to say, but put more eloquently than I was capable of.

I think sometimes the Adv/Exp post things here because it's so quiet - trying to bring some B/Is out of the woodwork. Nothing wrong with that, but this forum probably works best when B/Is ask our own dumb/ridiculous questions.

V

[el mister]

Hi, I'm a beginner and know what you mean - the B/I forum can be pitched at a ridiculous level sometimes. I think it's down to there being so few real beginners who post on the forums, and that the I designation is pretty broad.

The guys who do post in this forum are superbly helpful though - I don't post a question that often but when I do it's always a simple one because that's the level I'm at (Check some of my posts, I actually started posting as a complete novice) - the responses are always exceptionally helpful and courteous - you don't feel that you're wasting anyone's time or anything like that.

So I guess I should post some more to drag this forum down to the level it belongs
One thing that stops me doing this: I frequently play a hand at BBO and think it would be an interesting one to get advice on, but never get round to saving the data and posting it. Can you mark, or save the deal that you're interested in in real time on BBO? Then put it onto here such that the layout of the cards is automatically done for you?

[vuroth]

I know with the old application, you could save movies.

You can always go to online.bridgebase.com/myhands, look up your recent hands, and downloat the movie file.

[helene_t]

Hi JustAdummy, welcome to the forum!

What often happens is that a beginner or intermediate asks a very basic question, but it inspires an advanced discussion and people will not notice that it is the beginner/intermediate section so they will post aimed at an advanced audience.

So don't think that if you can't follow the discussions here that you must be below the "intermediate" level. Just follow MatMat's advice: ask questions, and if you can't comprehend the answers, tell us! There are many helpful people here, and some are quite good at explaining things at a basic level.

[el mister]

vuroth, on Nov 5 2008, 11:02 AM, said:

I know with the old application, you could save movies.

You can always go to online.bridgebase.com/myhands, look up your recent hands, and downloat the movie file.

Thks Vuroth! Just made use of it.

[Trumpace]

JustaDummy,

Sometimes ppl go overboard and post hands which are beyond beg/int, do not be discouraged by that.

There is plenty of useful material in this forum.

Also, If you do not understand something, please do not dismiss it as gobbledygook or advanced material, just ask, and someone will surely help you understand it.

If you don't ask, you might actually be dismissing some material as advanced while it is actually not. If it is actually advanced material, usually some will say so and you will know to come back to it later.

[pdmunro]

el mister, on Nov 5 2008, 10:41 AM, said:

Can you mark, or save the deal that you're interested in in real time on BBO?

What I do is click MOVIE when I am dummy, or kibitzing, and SAVE the particular hand in which I am interested. I then open it with a free double dummy solver:
http://www.bridge-ca...downloadDD.html