Beginners' bridge convention
Jan. 10th, 2012 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI've played bridge sporadically for the last few years. A few times I've had a spate of going along to the university bridge club, but often I've been playing casually with friends. In fact, most people I know fall into the "learned a fair amount of it at some point, but are really rusty" category.
I learned a little bit at school and went to some lessons with the university bridge club when I was at university, but never took it up regularly at the time. The first time I played with friends it had been years since I played, and I was really nervous -- nearly shaking -- because playing badly doesn't just mean you lose, it's generally really tedious for partner and everyone else too.
Since, I've got a fair amount of practice, probably less rusty than many of my friends who play sometimes, even if they may have had more experience long-term, and just about good enough to play with a pick-up partner at the university club without horrible miscommunication. Although I'm still very diffident at suggesting how things should be done.
And I've intermittently thought about the best ways of playing with not-complete-novice-but-not-played-for-years people. There seems (to me) to be an unfortunate tendency for everyone with some amount of experience to spontaneously offer helpful advice to anyone who seems to need it, which unfortunately, for the recipient, often feels like "everyone yelling at me". It's hard to avoid, because every piece of advice is helpful, so it's hard to not say it, even if there's little point giving more information than someone can absorb at once.
The previous weekend with Liv's family, and this Sunday at Naath's, things were surprisingly productive: I think people played fairly well, and more to the point, people seemed to improve by talking to each other with a minimum of feeling awful for not being perfect...
I think one problem is that people often get presented with heuristics without actually understanding the reasoning behind them, which is understandable when you're trying to teach someone quickly, but if you get things like "bidding stayman over an opponent's 1NT instead of partner's" it's a clear sign that you've not really explained to someone what they're doing.
Conventions
What I've normally ended up playing with very rusty but not completely untaught people is something like:
* Look at high card points for no trumps and loser count for suit contracts where you have 8+ trumps. I mightn't introduce both to a complete beginner, but most people I play with at home are used to both, and making the distinction seems useful. High card points don't seem that useful for judging how high to bid in a suit contract (and loser count means nothing unless you can trump things).
* 12-14 ("weak") balanced 1NT opening
* Natural 1-level opening suit bids (7- losers, but look at the points as well to see how well you'll likely do if you don't end up playing in your long suit)
* Weak 2-level suit bids (6-9 pts, 6+ cards in suit). I think strong two bids may actually be a lot more intuitive to beginners, but most people always expect weak twos, so it's good to get used to them.
* 2NT balanced 20-22.
* 2C strong opener (a _good_ 4 loser hand, equivalent to 20+ high card pts, or 23+ balanced rebid NT). I think people should be aware of this because there's likely to be a miscommunication if they haven't, but I think most people aren't aware of what to bid _after_ 2C, so I honestly think there's little point teaching beginners this until they've experienced "I opened with a strong hand at the one level and partner passed" so they see why it's needed.
* New suit = forcing (ie. bidder is not offering to play at that level -- they're accepting responsibility for responder's bid not being too high)
* Rebidding a suit = 5+ cards, rebidding twice = 6+ cards. Voluntarily responding to partner's suit = enough cards to make 8 between you (usually 4, but 3 if they've already shown 5, etc). If partner bids a new suit and you are too weak to bid anything else, sometimes you will have to choose the least-bad of partner's suits (remember the first one is usually stronger).
* Slam bidding conventions. I would recommend teaching people when they WANT to bid slam first, and only teaching Blackwood once they're comfortable with that. (It's also possible cue bids are actually better to learn for people who are complete beginners, but since most beginners feel more comfortable with a clear set of rules, it may be worth knowing blackwood).
I learned a little bit at school and went to some lessons with the university bridge club when I was at university, but never took it up regularly at the time. The first time I played with friends it had been years since I played, and I was really nervous -- nearly shaking -- because playing badly doesn't just mean you lose, it's generally really tedious for partner and everyone else too.
Since, I've got a fair amount of practice, probably less rusty than many of my friends who play sometimes, even if they may have had more experience long-term, and just about good enough to play with a pick-up partner at the university club without horrible miscommunication. Although I'm still very diffident at suggesting how things should be done.
And I've intermittently thought about the best ways of playing with not-complete-novice-but-not-played-for-years people. There seems (to me) to be an unfortunate tendency for everyone with some amount of experience to spontaneously offer helpful advice to anyone who seems to need it, which unfortunately, for the recipient, often feels like "everyone yelling at me". It's hard to avoid, because every piece of advice is helpful, so it's hard to not say it, even if there's little point giving more information than someone can absorb at once.
The previous weekend with Liv's family, and this Sunday at Naath's, things were surprisingly productive: I think people played fairly well, and more to the point, people seemed to improve by talking to each other with a minimum of feeling awful for not being perfect...
I think one problem is that people often get presented with heuristics without actually understanding the reasoning behind them, which is understandable when you're trying to teach someone quickly, but if you get things like "bidding stayman over an opponent's 1NT instead of partner's" it's a clear sign that you've not really explained to someone what they're doing.
Conventions
What I've normally ended up playing with very rusty but not completely untaught people is something like:
* Look at high card points for no trumps and loser count for suit contracts where you have 8+ trumps. I mightn't introduce both to a complete beginner, but most people I play with at home are used to both, and making the distinction seems useful. High card points don't seem that useful for judging how high to bid in a suit contract (and loser count means nothing unless you can trump things).
* 12-14 ("weak") balanced 1NT opening
* Natural 1-level opening suit bids (7- losers, but look at the points as well to see how well you'll likely do if you don't end up playing in your long suit)
* Weak 2-level suit bids (6-9 pts, 6+ cards in suit). I think strong two bids may actually be a lot more intuitive to beginners, but most people always expect weak twos, so it's good to get used to them.
* 2NT balanced 20-22.
* 2C strong opener (a _good_ 4 loser hand, equivalent to 20+ high card pts, or 23+ balanced rebid NT). I think people should be aware of this because there's likely to be a miscommunication if they haven't, but I think most people aren't aware of what to bid _after_ 2C, so I honestly think there's little point teaching beginners this until they've experienced "I opened with a strong hand at the one level and partner passed" so they see why it's needed.
* New suit = forcing (ie. bidder is not offering to play at that level -- they're accepting responsibility for responder's bid not being too high)
* Rebidding a suit = 5+ cards, rebidding twice = 6+ cards. Voluntarily responding to partner's suit = enough cards to make 8 between you (usually 4, but 3 if they've already shown 5, etc). If partner bids a new suit and you are too weak to bid anything else, sometimes you will have to choose the least-bad of partner's suits (remember the first one is usually stronger).
* Slam bidding conventions. I would recommend teaching people when they WANT to bid slam first, and only teaching Blackwood once they're comfortable with that. (It's also possible cue bids are actually better to learn for people who are complete beginners, but since most beginners feel more comfortable with a clear set of rules, it may be worth knowing blackwood).