• Random deals
If you plan on a “play and discuss” session with no special requirements for the hands used, you can generate random deals, by simply clicking the Redeal button each time you are ready to move on to the next hand.
Please note that if you are using random deals, these are uniquely generated hands, and they are not saved in the players’ statistics. If you like one particular hand you need to save it at the end of the lesson, otherwise you cannot retrieve it later. Same goes for your students – they can use the Options button, at the bottom of the My Results panel and click on Export deal > Save hand as... if they wish to review the lesson later.
• Prepared deals
The prepared deals are hands created manually, or hands previously saved and either used as such, or edited and/or annotated. To use the deals you prepared at the teaching table, click on the Deal source button, at the bottom of the table. Select Use saved deals then click on the Select button for the folder you intend to use. After you have done this, close the Deal Source window:
When you click on Redeal, your prepared deals will be loaded into the teaching table:
After you finished analyzing a hand, click Redeal again, and the next prepared deal in the Folder you selected will be uploaded. When the prepared deals are over, you will receive a message to inform you: “End of set of deals. Subsequent deals will be randomly dealt.”
If you wish to continue the lesson, you can use the hands dealt randomly or you can click on the Deal source button again and select another folder with prepared hands.
• Constrained deals
The constrained deals are hands generated by the powerful deal generator available within the Hand Editor.
Press the Deal Source button, at the bottom of the table and select the Random deals tab. You will see a series of tabbed menus. There, specific bidding constraints can be entered for the hands BBO will deal.
The Advanced tab leads to the most powerful feature: the ability to enter constraints in a programmer-like language. Through this, you can specify very tightly how BBO will deal the cards in a way that lends itself to practicing a given convention.
In the Advanced tab you will see an option to Randomly rotate generated deals 180 degrees. You and partner may be confident that you can handle every combination of hands that might respond to a one no trump opener, but are you just as confident that you could handle the same 26 cards if the opposite hand were the dealer (in other words, the responding hand is the balanced 15-17)? This is the sort of thing that rotating deals forces you to check. Don't be surprised when BBO makes the "wrong" hand the dealer!
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