[Sigi_BC84]

Free, on Jan 22 2006, 04:55 PM, said:

Chess is imo a lot easier than bridge!  You just study the movements of every piece, add the special moves, and you can play.  For bridge you need to know what to do after every bid, and the standard systems these days are pretty complex for complete newbies to enjoy the game immediatly.  To get to a decent level in both games, you'll need to study and practice ofcourse, but to start playing chess is plain easy.  That's probably also one of the reasons why bridge doesn't get popular...

This is not the case!

Reread what I have said about Minibridge above. Playing Minibridge is easy and can be taught to reasonable intelligent people withing a few hours.

As soon as they know how to play the cards, you can start with scoring and bidding, the two complicated parts of the game (regarding rules and agreements, not technique!). Bidding should be kept simple at the beginning, improving later when there is a basic feel for what it is about. Of course one should not spend too much time with oversimplified systems as to not ingrain "bad" methods into the new player's mind.

In my opinion one of the real struggles with Bridge is that it's hard to find a game. Compare it to chess: you only need one opponent, and a chessboard with pieces, which are to be found in about every household.

To play Bridge, you need:

• a deck of cards (not the problem)
  
• FOUR people with agreements
  
• bidding boxes (by mouth is too hard for beginners I think)

The main difficulty is to find enough players. Right now my flatmate is sitting in the kitchen, playing chess with a friend. Maybe they would want to play Bridge, if they knew the game, but there still was one person missing if I'd count myself into the equation (of course I would want to play ;-).

Mind you that all four players need to know the game, as you can't simply introduce a fourth person to the rules if you are only three. This is a vicious circle: not enough players -> not many games -> not many opportunities to teach new players (or have people watch others play, thereby raising interest in the game) -> not enough players -> etc.

Playing Chess, Go, or any other of these two player board games, you (as an individual) only need one interested person to get somebody knew into the game (potentially). Playing Bridge, you need three.

--Sigi

[pigpenz]

just curious as what the progression is for most to start playing bridge....I came from a card playing family. On holidays my family used to have 2 day poker games....then some of them moved to bridge.

For me the transgression was
1.hearts
2.spades
3.bridge

[Badmonster]

DrTodd13, on Jan 3 2006, 06:40 PM, said:

You see. The school day is so short and they can't afford to waste one minute playing bridge when they could be endoctrinating children to love the state, obey authority, accept moral relativism, and always use condoms. There are some fascinating quotes by the originators of the US public school system how the purpose of education is to turn 95% of people into mindless happy drones that don't mind doing the same repetitive task over and over. The other 5% will be their liberally educated masters.

You've never been to NY. No, the reason why they said no in NY is (I'm guessing here, I don't work for the mayor or heaven forbid that govener) they cannot afford to keep the metal detectors on, to pay the security guards over time. And they cannot afford to buy tables, and seeing has how they hold classes in stairwells and bathrooms, because our schools are so overcrowded, and it's hard to fit more than one bridge table in a stairwell.

While our schools are an embarrassement, and while our government is greedy, corrupt, biassed, racist, elitist and morally bankrrupt, they don't indoctrinate us. We are free to hate them, and vote them out of office, so they can be relpaced by another politician who is also greedy corrupt, etc. Also, we don't teach morality in school, we plan too, right after we figure out how to teach basic literacy.

[pdmunro]

Gerardo, on Jan 22 2006, 11:28 AM, said:

OT: Not Judit, Zsusza (Susan now that she lives in the US)

Oh boy, thanks Gerado, not the first time that I have got in trouble for calling a women by the wrong name.

[pdmunro]

I am about to start high school teaching tomorrow. It is the start of the school year here in Australia. I am a contract teacher who is returning to the classroom after a number of years in other employment.

I know that the school has chess. There is an inter-school chess competition. The students basically run it themselves.

I doubt that I can introduce bridge. For me, the basic problem is that teaching science and maths will take all my time and energy.

But just in case an opportunity arises, I keep thinking about how to make bidding simpler for beginners. The simplest bidding system, I can think of, involves counting your aces, kings and queens as winners.

Say, each player wrote down the total number of aces, kings and queens that they held on a bidding slip in the middle of the table.
For instance, this hand,   K x x x    K Q x x    A x x x    x,   would write AKQ = 4. The total round the table would sum to 12.

How could the players use this information to bid?

[hrothgar]

pdmunro, on Jan 23 2006, 06:25 PM, said:

But just in case an opportunity arises, I keep thinking about how to make bidding simpler for beginners. The simplest bidding system, I can think of, involves counting your aces, kings and queens as winners.

How could the players use this information to bid?

I echo earlier suggestions regarding mini-bridge....

They've come up with an easy way to eliminate bidding altogether.

[Sigi_BC84]

hrothgar, on Jan 23 2006, 04:43 PM, said:

pdmunro, on Jan 23 2006, 06:25 PM, said:

But just in case an opportunity arises, I keep thinking about how to make bidding simpler for beginners.  The simplest bidding system, I can think of, involves counting your aces, kings and queens as winners. 

How could the players use this information to bid?

I echo earlier suggestions regarding mini-bridge....

They've come up with an easy way to eliminate bidding altogether.

Thanks Richard ;-).

Check this out: http://www.minibridge.co.uk/ (Minibridge at schools)
and this: http://www.cacbf.com/MINIBRDG.htm
This also looks good: http://www.ebu.co.uk/publications/Teaching...iBridge%201.pdf

Mind you that there are special "coded" decks available, which allow you to deal prepared hands. This works by having arrows on the backs of the cards, pointing into the direction where the card has to be dealt (N, S, E or W). Every deck has a collection of 24 arrows on each back of the cards, making for 24 teaching hands per deck.

There are several decks available for basic technique, bidding, etc. At the moment I can only find German retailers selling these. I don't know if you can get them in Oz or the US, but it would be a shame if not...

René Steiner has made a tool with which you can print out sheets to make coded decks yourself out of deals you specify: http://www.trsteiner.../en/magic.shtml
I think this is an invaluable tool for the bridge teacher if you can't get pre-made minibridge decks.

--Sigi

[pdmunro]

Here is what I might try with some students, if I get a chance. I have restructured the mini-bridge system in terms of Aces, Kings and Queens (AKQ). I want to prompt the students to picture each other's hands.

Mini-AKQ Bridge
Adapted from mini-bridge. http://www.cacbf.com/MINIBRDG.htm

Dealer announces how many AKQ he/she holds, followed in turn by each of the others. For example, a player with ♠ A K x x x ♥ K Q x x ♦ K x x ♣ x announces, or writes down, "5". The total for the four players will be 12. The partnership with the higher AKQ count wins the contract, and the individual in the partnership with more AKQ's becomes declarer. (Need a rule for the case where the counts are tied: my feeling is that the person who has had least to do should be declarer in that situation.)

Dummy now goes down, before the first lead is made. With dummy visible, declarer announces the contract: number of tricks, trump suit or No Trumps. The opening lead is made and play proceeds as in bridge.

The scoring is simplified. As usual, only tricks in excess of the first 6 (the book) score points. In ♣ or ♦ they are worth 20 points, ♥ or ♠ 30 points. In NT, the seventh trick is worth 40 points, subsequent ones 30.

The part-score bonus is 50 points, game 300, and slam 300 plus an extra 500. Undertricks score 50 points for the defence.

Each deal is scored independently and the game lasts for a fixed number of deals.

A possible analysis

Dummy    ♠ x x x      ♥ A x x      ♦ x x        ♣ A x x x x
Declarer   ♠ A K x x x    ♥ K Q x x    ♦ K x x    ♣ x

Consider the hand with long trumps to be the master hand. Lose to the ♠Q. Expect to lose a ♥. The problematic suit is ♦'s. Lead from dummy towards the ♦K and hope the ♦A is onside. Ruff the third ♦ in dummy. Lose just one trick in ♦'s. Contract to take 10 tricks with ♠'s as trumps.

With dummy visible, declarer is learning to think through a line of play.

And, if say 4 of the missing AKQ are on his left, he knows that the ♦A is most likely to be there, and may choose to contract for only 9 tricks. He is learning to make an adjustment, similar to what he would have made if that player had bid diamonds.

Could the defence learn to signal to let their partner know where their AKQ are?

Could some players learn common suit distributions such as 5332, 6331, 5431, 7321 and keep track of what declarer has left in their hand? Maybe declarer should be required to announce how long the trumps are in his hand. This would be known from the bidding in normal bridge.

Let's see what happens.