[sceptic]

The problem with teaching a system different from the national norm is that you limit your beginners' choice of partners when they play outside of class.

This is what Mike Star said, I have been playing bridge for 4 years 3 in yahoo land and in a social lounge with absolutely no understanding of the game, we played for fun and most of us dont have a clue about the correct way to play.

That said in the last year I have been playing here and I now have a mentor and he is great and has done me the world of good (Paulg), the problem I have is I have only ever played on the net, not in real life (well almost), What Mike said is exactly my experience, we play ACOL in the UK as I am sure you are aware.

I learnt SAYC, I can't play ACOL and this really restricts my options for joining a club and finding a real life partner, so start basics and teach a system that will be the best for the pupils to take it further in their country.

[DrTodd13]

I agree that beginner's should be taught the predominant system in their country.

I am curious though as to whether people would teach the system via memorization (e.g., open 13 pt hands) or via the reasons behind the point count ranges. If you do the former then people are like "where are all these numbers coming from...I can't remember them." If you do the latter then people will take forever to bid because they constantly have to recompute how many points they need to take action in some particular situation. I've tried teaching boths ways but don't have enough data points to say which is best. If you start with the former approach then you quickly need to get people thinking about the latter or their bridge will be forever impaired. If you start them with the latter then I'd say they would quickly start to remember ranges and not have to recompute all the time.

From their reactions, they seem to be more comfortable with "open 13 pt hands" to start with but I get the sense that many people aren't ever explicitly taught the latter approach. I've asked people who claimed to be advanced about the sequence 1C-1H-1S and whether they are forced to bid with 7 or 8 pts. Many people will say no.

[bearmum]

sceptic, on Apr 29 2004, 03:22 AM, said:

The problem with teaching a system different from the national norm is that you limit your beginners' choice of partners when they play outside of class.

This is what Mike Star said, I have been playing bridge for 4 years 3 in yahoo land and in a social lounge with absolutely no understanding of the game, we played for fun and most of us dont have a clue about the correct way to play.

That said in the last year I have been playing here and I now have a mentor and he is great and has done me the world of good (Paulg), the problem I have is I have only ever played on the net, not in real life (well almost), What Mike said is exactly my experience, we play ACOL in the UK as I am sure you are aware.

I learnt SAYC, I can't play ACOL and this really restricts my options for joining a club and finding a real life partner, so start basics and teach a system that will be the best for the pupils to take it further in their country.

What I would suggest is go to your local club-- tell them that although you play bridge you only have learned SAYC , and find out if there is anybody in the club who would be willing to play a few games with you and instruct you on ACOL.
My husband and I play Precision, but the great majority of the players at our club play ACOL(lots of different varieties though) so once a fortnight we play ACOL by changing partners with another married copule. It has been fun to do and it has taken suprisingly little time to grasp the basics of the system, as the PLAYING of the cards is less of a problem than if we were beginners at the game

[MesSer]

I think I can call myself a recent beginner. Started out my bridge playing career maybe 2½-3 years ago or something. I learned swedish modern standard as my first system. It's basically as any normal system (SAYC / 2/1) but all openings on 1-level shows a 4-card suit and you bid 1M prior to 1m with 2 4-card suits. I dont play that any more nowadays, but since that was what most swedes played at that time, it was a good way for me to be able to find partners to play with.

Later I was introduced to online bridge and as a result I had to learn SAYC and 2/1. These are actually very good systems for beginners since they are easy to learn and you understand why you bid things. I think any natural system is a great way of starting your bridge career.

With that said I can't but say that I fully agree with Mishov and Hrothgar. They have very good points in everything they say. Card-reading and understanding how to count your tricks and play thereafter is the key to winning bridge. Not to mention the ability to visualize hands.

If your students learn a normal bidding system they will be able to play with most partners and have a good foundation in their comming bridge career. Dont emphasize on conventions. Just let them find a reasonable contract in the beginning. Later introduce them to jacoby and stayman and such conventions. When they get a GOOD hang of bridge in general and learn how to use these conventions, you can teach them more advanced conventions.

When me and my friend play nowadays in competitions we use 2 conventions, 1) an agreed NT-module and 2) two way-checkback... Rest is standard, easy to understand, 5542 bridge (5+M opening, 4+D opening and 2+C opening). And so far, when playing in ~10 tourneys with varying competition, we have always received our share of Master Points...

So, to sum it up, conventions aren't really that important when playing standard bridge. And I assume that's what you want to teach those to-be bridge players. Nowadays I can play with almost any partner and tell them to choose a system. I just hope that I will receive a complete version of Mosquito, when Hrotghar finishes his work on it, soon so I can learn that very interesting system...

[whereagles]

The_Hog, on Apr 24 2004, 08:49 PM, said:

Precision of any sort is not a system for beginning players.

I disagree.

Reese precision is much simpler than 5-card majors. Why? Because from the 1st bid you know immediately who's boss of the auction. In 5-card majors most disasters that happen to newbies (and experts!) is precisely because nobody knows who's in charge.

The problem of auction capitancy is very complex, but is also of crucial importance. Precision solves that in ONE bid, while 5-card majors players take years to sort it out. Capitancy is the most underrated side of bidding and that's why precision has never been given due credit.

[keylime]

Reese Precision - yeah baby yeah, now THAT brings back some memory. Can anyone say "Precision Bidding, Precision Play?"

Frankly, Precision is so much better to teach to beginners because they get to bid their good hands immediately and not have to do that jump rebid over a forcing NT per se to show strength, when 1C does the trick. I've said this before, but I strongly feel that SAYC and 2/1 suffers from so many problems that it's no wonder beginners struggle. Give me a team of four who are beginning Precisioneers, and a team of four who are beginning 2/1'ers and/or SAYC'ers, and I can almost bank on the Precisioneers coming out on top.

[joker_gib]

Totally agree with Misho and Mikestar.

First of all, teach them the rules of the game. Everyday, I see people playing bridge and they just don't know what they are doing !!

Teach them the national basic system so that it will be easy for them to find partners. You cannot improve your game if you don't find suitable partners !

[helene_t]

MesSer, on May 7 2004, 05:48 AM, said:

[...]So, to sum it up, conventions aren't really that important when playing standard bridge. [....]

My question is not about many conventions (more precisely: artificial bids) or few conventions, since I think we all agree about that. Actually, a strong-club system has the potential of being less artificial than SAYC. This is because you trade the not-very-natural 1♣/♦ openings and 2♣ for a single artificial opening. Anyway, let's assume, just for the sake of the argument, that some strong-club system has to be worked out, in the first place just in order to consider its feasibility.

My idea is a "positive-relay" structure, in which great(?) strength is always(?) indicated by means of a provisory relay or "jocker bid", which is a double or a cuebid, or, when that is not available, the first-available-minor. Thus, Forcing Stayman, 1♣-opening and take-out doubles should not be seen as stand-alone conventions but are all the same convention, which would be the only artificial element in the system.

Why should this structure be used in a strong-club system? Actually, the Looier BS in Amsterdam uses a similar structure in combination with a natural 4-card-major opening scheme. However, I see two virtues of the strong-club opening scheme: One is that you don't have to call an opening of a 3-card minor "natural" (eventually, though, students will probably have to swallow 1♦ on a 4-card). If we want to extend this virtue to the reponse (and rebid?) schemes, a relay should always be available so we don't have to bid some pseudo-suit just to "do something forcing". The other virtue is that the natural openings (5-card, say, 11-15 HCP) is similar to overcalls, so we could use the same response structure to openings and to overcalls.

One problem I have is that I'm not familiar with the alternatives. Also, I'm not sure if "first-available-minor" is better than "first-available-suit". Then the question of 2-openings and other jump bids. In SAYC, all single jumps are strong and double jumps preemptive, which is easy to remember. In a system in which strong jumps are generally not necesarry, I'm inclined to define most jumps as preemptive (or fast arrival), but there will be exceptions, so I'm not sure if that is a good idea.

[whereagles]

Hum... helene, let me just warn you about a political aspect of your problem.

If you decide teaching some variant of precision to beginners, it might happen that the club's senior players will oppose to the idea. Unfortunately, most people are very conservative and don't like playing against unfamiliar systems. They'll argue with things like

"Precision is too artificial for beginners"
"Nobody plays precision, they won't find people willing to play it"
"what beginners need is card play, not dozens of relay bids!"

And if despite this you insist on your point of view, they'll turn to the students and poison them against you. This might sound wierd, but believe me, this sort of things do happen. In fact, it has happened to a friend of mine, which is why I tell you

It's very annoying to fight against such atmosphere, so before you decide carrying on with a "precision-to-newbies" program, scan the people at the club, see if there is some tolerance towards your methods. If not, you're probably better off teaching them the standard dutch system, with muiderberg and all that

[the hog]

This has very little to do with politics. Simply: teaching beginners a strong Club system before they have learnt plastic evaluation is very poor Pedagogy. It emphasises the worst aspects of the point count mentality before getting students to look at the playing value of a hand.

The incidental arguments of:
"How can I find partners" etc etc are also valid but of far lesser concern.

As an aside, your comment: "The problem of auction capitancy(sic) is very complex, but is also of crucial importance. Precision solves that in ONE bid" is of concern. If you think Precision solves the problem of captaincy in "one bid" with all due respect, I don't really think you understand the system correctly. Relay Precision, yes, but even then either opener or responder can assume captaincy.

[whereagles]

You can't teach hand evaluation alone. That's a misconception. It's of no use knowing how well your hand fits your partner's hand if you don't know how to use your bids to find out what the correct contract is. Here's a classical example. You hold

♠ AKQxxxx
♥ xx
♦ x
♣ xxx

partner opens 1♦. Playing a natural system you cannot just shoot at 4♠ now, as that might lead to missing a slam. So you must bid 1♠, despite the fact your bid makes it easy for opps to enter the auction. Opposite a limited 1♦ bid you CAN (in fact should) bid 4♠ now, as there's very little risk of missing a slam, compared to the preemptive and disinformative value of the bid.

The point is hand evaluation should be learned in the context of a specific system. This is another forgotten aspect of bidding. To learn evaluation in too broad a context leads to an automatized interpretation of the same cards, which is bound to turn out wrong sooner or later.

As for capitancy, and again with all due respect, you're over-simplifying the matter. It's not just a question of "I ask, you reply". It is to know at all stages who has the power of making decisions and how his partner can effectively help him. And any sort of precision does do that with the first bid.

[helene_t]

whereagles, on May 13 2004, 03:04 AM, said:

Unfortunately, most people are very conservative and don't like playing against unfamiliar systems. [....]  believe me [.....]

I believe you. I even realize I get more and more conservative myself as I grow older. Last summer I was in England and dropped by at a bridge club where everybody was playing the same stone-age acol they'd been playing for fourty years. No squarels about missing alerts and brown-sticker conventions, nobody teaching the opponents that they play an inferior system, no illegal information flow related to the explanation of biddings with unclear meanings, everybody could play with everybody.

But that's a different story. I was just wondering if somebody had experience with teaching strong-club systems to beginners. The issue of capitancy is interesting, gives me something to think about.

[keylime]

Give you two scenes:

1. Playing in Oklahoma City, where everyone HATED a forcing club method.
2. Playing here in Nanaimo, BC, Canada - where they don't care what you play, as long as you are nice and play to the best of your ability that day.

Guess which scene I like?

If people are willing to fuss over the fact that Precision has really 3 artificial bids (1C, 2C, and 2D), then I'm going to start fussing over the fact that in 2/1 and SAYC there is an artificial 2C opening with 2D response/2H double negative.

[keylime]

With regards to captaincy, basic Precision allows both hands to be the captain, even after a limited bid, because 14-15 points hands seem to have good playing strength. Just from my experience, captaincy if anything is easier to deal with than with approach forcing methods.

[MesSer]

Many good replies pointing out different things. Maybe a strong club system is not that bad after all... I would still aim at keeping it simple, very simple though.

That means not relaying, just bidding your suits and telling them that 1C-1D is a negative bid. I don't think anything else would be needed. Keep it as simple as you can for a starter and then let them learn the rest if they are really interested.

I don't think letting them study relay-schemes is a good start for inexperienced players.

[Free]

Yeah, relays are not for beginners imo. But if you teach them a strong ♣ system, you better learn them how to deal with intervention. If you play against me, you'll always have a bid in 2nd hand, except when weak and a 4 card ♠