intermediate+/advanced club

[kenberg]

Pete and all,

 

I pretty much agree with your (Quite's) description of Advanced versus Intermediate. This morning while scanning the Larry Cohen "The Real Deal" article in the latest ACBL bulletin, it occurred to me that the article allows me to pretty well peg my own level (as I see it): The deal involved solid competitive bidding and then play involving trump shortenting to set up a trump coup when trumps broke badly. It is very possible, let's say even likely, that I would get this wrong at the table. But I might get it right, and if I got it wrong I could recognize my error and feel I should have done better. Certainly there was a time in my life when the whole subject would have been beyond me and the play at the table would just not even have occurred to me.

 

Sometimes I do some really stupid things at the table. I imagine many of us do. But also sometimes I get some pretty sophisticated things right, and not always by dumb luck. I am hoping that this advanced lounge will provide a setting for us all to improve our bidding and play. As you and others have noted, this is most likely to occur if we can encourage participation by our peers. How to bring this about is less clear.

 

Happy New Year,

 

Ken

[luke warm]

for the name, i like 'Togo Bridge Club' cause Togo has a kewl flag ;)

[Winstonm]

Definitions

Expert:Counts visualises and concentrates all the time

Advanced:Counts and concentrates most of the time.Tries hard to visualise.

Intermediate:Tries to count but often doesnt.Has frequent lapses of concentration.

Finds it very difficult to visualise.

Knowledge of bidding system is immaterial.

These are the best definitions I have seen and agree wholeheartedly.

 

Maybe we could combine definitions with a concept I had on new self rating terms?

 

Player: Knows the basics of the game but often forgets to count.

Thinker: Knows how to count and tries hard but sometimes lapses.

Counter: Counting is intergral to his game but has trouble visualizing.

Visualizer: Counting is routine and visualizing is common.

Cleat Thinker: World Class level of counting and visualizing.

 

For what it is worth.

 

Winston