hallway

Ah, now Yzerman, you have hit upon my most fervent wish. Mayhap, down the track aways when Fred and his Team have got the enormous task of getting the site set up for Tournament Play and after they have had a well deserved break !! the Skill Level List will get modified. We (the BLN's) have something of a dilemma with the existing List - I myself am trapped in a Void . If I call myself a Beginner (designated as someone who has been playing for less than a year )I am telling a lie - It is well over a year (almost two !! ) since I started to play. So I have to call myself a Novice (which on the list comes before beginner B) ) On a good day I have the nerve to think I am better than that LOL Fred at one time very kindly suggested that I should use Intermediate . It was a temptation ::) but an Intermediate without a Defense !?! - could create work for the Yellows !!! Still there is now some hope THANK YOU Fred for the [glow=red,2,300]Learn to Play Part 2[/glow] you gave all the BNLs / INTs to download this week. Just the very thing . (By the by, Fred, I spotted the Diamond Lead - talk about a flash of inspiration I'm still 'walking' on air ;D ) I like STUDENT - yes I would be very happy to select Student .

Well, now that Charlie & John have put in their two penneth worth so shall I ;D Way down here in the BLN department (that stands for BeginnerLearnerNovice by the by) (If you want to comment on that pls start anoher thread ) ......now where was I ? oh yes ACOL ! I am very fond of our weak 1NT 12-14 Balanced Opener - there's no need to worry about one's faulty judgment ;D We play it as 4432,4333, 5(minor)332. - over to you P you're in the driver's seat. It can / does put a spoke in the BLNOpps wheel - they can't get started at the 1 level :) Likewise our 1NT response is a wee gem 6 - 9 hcp not necessarily balanced , denying a holding of a 4 card suit that could be bid at the 1 level. No ambiguity - nice. And ofcourse the BLN's greatest asset the 4 / 4 fit. Such a pleasure to sign score sheets 3NT making 3-5 with all the other tables with their 5/3 fits having bid to 4H/S going variable sums of light . (Now I know thousands of you will have sound mathematical probabilities in favour of the 5 card opener but I liked the odds on Fri when the above actually happened twice in 24 boards ;D ) But when all is said and done isn't the first essential in Bidding to simply be having a 'legal' conversation at the table with one's Partner with both of you 'speaking' the same language . And then there is .......JUDGMENT....... for which there is no System :'( A BLN forever.... :-/

THANK YOU so much all of you for your replies. In a smallish All Grades Club the Senior + have a tendancy to become a touch 'tetchy' when we ask too many questions. :'( Needless to say the best we came up with was 4S for each hand which was why the bidding reached at a couple of the tables did indeed intrigue us. The actual bidding by one pair on these two hands went Hand 1 2S (weak 2) 2NT (art force) 3H (singleton/void) 4D 4H (void) 4S 5C 6S Hand 2 1S 2H 2S 5NT 7S I have printed out your replies for our 'discussion' time at our next weekly practice session, and they will doubtless be read with interest when I later on show them to the authors of the above bidding :P Again many many thanks - this is what makes BBO & BBF so GREAT 8)

How often I wonder do our hard pressed Yellows have to mediate when it is just a case of a language misunderstanding ? I came across the following and I thought it may demonstrate how easy it is to misunderstand, so before taking offense let it go - it is probably just a case of the missing punctuation. :B) An English Professor wrote on the blackboard the following words and asked his class to punctuate them for him. "Woman without her man is nothing" The men in the class wrote: Woman, without her man, is nothing. The women in the class wrote: Woman ! Without her, man is nothing. Punctuation or gender difference - forget the text - enjoy the Bridge :)

How would you bid the following hands / why? Both Hands: Matchpoints Non Vul West Dealer QJ10xxx K9xx -------- xxx xxx AKQJx Axxx x AKxxxx QJ10x Q10 AKJxxx Qxx Axx Jxx --------- ps - why does the type line up in the message box then comes out crooked in the Post ?? :'( no amount of fiddling with the space bar seems to change it :-/

We should all extend a VERY BIG THANK YOU to the Member who has taken so much time and effort to put together the new HELP FILE on BBO. 8) Whoever you are please Take A Bow - an awesome effort. B) All members old and new alike should take time out to have a good read. It is super USER FRIENDLY ;D Maureen

VERY good idea Syl - this Novice says Thank You and please make it a regular Beginners/Intermediate section feature. I haven't got an answer :'( but I am thinking about it :) . I am expecting the answers to be enlightening. It is the learning to THINK that is the struggle :) With enlightenment will come enjoyment and then Bridge will become FUN ............ yes ? M

I would like to add a question or two to Syl's Poll - Could the readers please cast their minds back to the days when they too were Novices and tell us which of your books you found :- (i) helped you the most to understand the fundamentals of the game (ii) pathed the way for you to lift your game from Novice to .......(wherever you are today) Thank you Maureen

A Beginners Wish....... I think it would be a great help if the Table Details/Description could be made into a Required field. When starting a Table the Host would have to enter some detail before the table could be activated. Last time I logged in there were 111 tables in play 60 had the Permission Required enabled BUT not one of those had bothered to elaborate in any way as to what criteria the host was seeking - yet people complain because it gets awkward trying to sort out who to accept ! ? ! Maybe most / some of the 'visitors' wouldn't ask if they knew they didn't qualify ? Only FOUR had used the field and only two of those had actually gone into any detail. I bet they weren't overly bothered by unwanted 'visitors' The other 42+% had neither table descriptions or any restrictions - which is extremely annoying and makes it virtually impossible for Beginners to find 'friendly' seats. By the time one has scanned the profiles of those at the tables - zap the seat has gone ! :'( There is no point in my sitting at a table where the three resident players are playing a system one knows nothing about - as 'newbies' we know darn all about the system we're - learning !! ;D ) At least with compulsory Table Descriptions one could just scan the Host name. ..........now if it could be compulsory to read the description before being able to sit - happy Hosts ...................

THANK YOU one and all :) I will check out our Bridge Club Library this afternoon , hopefully, the books you recommend will be there. If not I will do the download as you suggest , Ben , and I will, ofcourse, print out all the BBF posts for study/discussion. Our little group will meet on the 15th , the topic - "Shedding Light Upon the Takeout Double - the BBF way" What a truly wonderful, fantastic Place Fred has created. A place where gifted people who share his vision GIVE so much to any who ask. For the past nine months Wayne (Cascade) 8) has tirelessly held his twice weekly, two hourly Acol mentoring sessions on BBO at no cost to those of us who attend - thankyou :-* AND now there is BBF . Humbly, Yours Maureen (and then there will be Penalty X's and ReDoubling X's and Negative X's and who knows what other X's I haven't even heard of yet - one step at a time !! - I knew I should have started learning this game decades ago :'( )

Back to Basics - this is for Beginners ::) All the text I have read on this subject , so far , says that by Xing you are telling Partner that you have points, support for the unbid suits (most text suggests 3+ cards for support) and a shortage in the bid suit. Non of the text that I have read , however, defines 'short' , 'shortage'. What is a SHORTAGE ?? To illustrate my dilemma - :-[ I thought an A9 to be a stopper rather than a shortage I thought 986 to be length/support - not a shortage ( As my Chinese friend would say " thought without learning is dangerous" ) While on the subject of X's (at least now that I've started to have nightmares about X's I've stopped worrying about No Trumps !! lol - please tell me that's progress :-/ ) Should a Double over a 3D pre-empt Opener be construed as a Takeout Double or a Penalty Double. ? If it should be construed as a Takeout Double what kind of structure should the hand have ? Thanking one and all in anticipation. Maureen

THANK YOU Ben that certainly does help. 8) I have printed it out and will distribute it to the others I have introduced to BBO Cheers M

The section header is "Beginner" so to any responses please apply the KISS principal (keep it simple sweetie :) At my hometown bridge club all scoring is Match Points - I have asked but no one has been able to give me an understanding of the International Match Points scoring that seems to be the method of choice on BBO. On BBO: We bid 4S and made 7 - the Opps were rewarded with + 9.6 imps They bid 4S and made 7 - and we were rewarded with + 10.5 imps I've no quarrel with receiving the extra 0.9 ;D - just curious to know why we deserved it ? Another thing that puzzled me :-[ at the conclusion of one hand that I thought we did ok with I watched the Imp counter (top left) and was pleased to see us go into the positive - progress at last :D Alas it didn't last :( half way through playing the next hand a movement caught my eye and woe was me the Imps counter changed and that lovely + sign changed to a minus !! :o it might have waited till I'd finished playing the hand :'( So many posts speak of a different approach to one's bidding depending on which scoring method is in use at the time - keeping it simple now :) - what are the fundamental differences ? Thanks in anticipation Maureen Anyone who stops learning is old whether they be twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young (Henry Ford) - here's hoping M

Mmmmmm I just right clicked / Create Shortcut Hey Presto I have a shortcut on my Desktop ::D M

I agree that there should be some division of the Main Bridge Club but please don’t split it into four/five defined sections. It has been said on here that to improve ones play one needs to play with persons of better ability. There’s no arguing with that. But finding those of greater ability content to play with those of us of lesser ability is not easy. I kibitz a great deal on BBO (one can learn a good deal from doing that too) but only ever play when I can prearrange a game with a player to partner me who I know knows the system I am (hopefully ! ) learning. The greater the skills of the Opps the better. On one magical occasion my partner (a Senior in our Live Bridge Club, kindly giving me some practice) and I were joined by two whose profiles showed their skill levels as “Private” . It very soon became obvious that they were indeed Experts. They stayed at my table for at least a dozen hands (I will be eternally grateful for that , three would have been generous) , gave no quarter (and I thank them for that ), were courteous & friendly throughout and when they left did so in good order. That day I learned the Power of a Partnership Defense , watching I quite forgot whose side I was on !! – awesome. That day too I saw the reality that Bidding IS having a legal conversation with your Partner and when you are both ‘talking’ the same language it is as clear as crystal. My partner was equally in awe of their skills. If you split the Main Bridge Club into several defined sections that could never happen. I would always gravitate to the Beginner/ Novice/Intermediate area and players of their skills would forever head for the Advanced/Expert sections. Never the twain to meet !! I think too you would get even more dissentions – at present a person’s skill level is merely a generalisation on their personal profile ( subject to change according to their mood - I played against one defined as ‘expert’ in the morning who had slumped to a self defined ‘intermediate’ that same evening J ) That is quite , quite different from choosing to enter a “Room” that has a defined Skill Level.. Conversely it would be great for the Beginner/ Novice/Intermediate to have a ‘safe’ place to easily locate like skilled players to relax and enjoy a game without superior skilled players jumping in and out like yo-yos :). Had a ‘Expert’ recently come and go then come back again !! to ask us “how can I find a fellow Expert to play with ?’ I suggested reading the profiles, I thought later I should have told him to start a table of his own and to invite just experts to join him – hope he figured that out for himself !. So I guess the problem is the same whichever end of the scale one is. Initially I would suggest you try splitting the Main Bridge Club into TWO. The Informal Lounge - a place to relax and enjoy a non competitive game, to practice/hone ones skills, to meet new people Most Beginners/Novices/ Intermediates would gravitate to such an area but at the same time those with superior skills would not be ‘slumming’ if they too chose to play there (even the best of the best must have days when they aren’t feeling too well but would still like to play – here they could do so without the pressure of having to ‘perform’ and could give as well as get pleasure from assisting we who want to learn) Also whatever ones skill level there will/may be times when one wants to play ‘socially’ The Competitive Lounge - a place to put your bridge skills to the test …….; Most Advanced/Experts would gravitate to such an area but at the same time those of us lesser mortals who are emboldened are not precluded from putting our ‘best foot forward’. Here, though, there would be an expectation that, while there are no points/prizes on the line, all will be making a serious effort . Look forward to reading what others think Maureen :P

Patience Rewarded :-)) or as some say 'All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait ' ..... For the past five months I've been tempted from time to time to ask 'What became of the Newsletter?' - well THIS is WAY beyond expectations - a very big Thank You to all involved in its creation. BridgeBase just keeps going from strength to strength.