Modern Bidding!

[helene_t]

SAYC is one of the worst possible systems to teach. You will find your students bidding suits in the wrong order and never understanding that a rebid shows a change in the length of 2 suits. The easiest system to learn is an all 4 card system, all rebids are easy.

Lol, actually I think Richard agrees with you that SAYC sucks and that 4cM is better for beginners than 5cM.

 

As a teacher living in a 4cM country, I strongly prefer teaching 5cM, more specifically Precision (except that only 4cM books are available in Dutch). But that's a long discussion which we have had many times.

 

Maybe it's a nonconformist thing. Or maybe it's just that it keeps surprising how long time it takes for beginners to learn a bidding system, so it's tempting to think that there must be another system which is easier.

 

I can't say that weak take-outs are easy to learn. Beginners learn that 1♠-2♦ promises 11+ (or whatever) points and 4+ diamonds, and then they bid 1NT-2♦ with 18 points and 4 diamonds. Maybe some could invent a full-transfer system in which the weaker partner never bids suits naturally, and maybe that would be easier to learn than standard systems. My point is just that weak take-outs apply in many situations in SAYC (or SEF or Acol or Precision or whatever you're going to teach) so they will have to learn them anyway, and I see little reason to treat the uncontested 1NT-opening as an exception.

[hrothgar]

I respected you quite a bit before these posts Richard.

 

My one question is have you ever taught absolute beginners?

 

...

 

Let us assume we are using some sort of vague version of SAYC.

 

SAYC is one of the worst possible systems to teach. You will find your students bidding suits in the wrong order and never understanding that a rebid shows a change in the length of 2 suits. The easiest system to learn is an all 4 card system, all rebids are easy. The beauty of the 4 card approach is that when you change to 5 card suits you might know what order to bid suits in. My least favourite opener playing so called beginner SAYC? A 16 hcp in a major that is balanced.

 

Sean

I have a fair amount of teaching experience, both in the real world and in bridge.

 

I taught Economics and Intro to Statistics to undergrads back when I was working on my PhD. After I left the university I spent my first six years working in training groups at various software companies.

 

If we restrict ourselves to bridge, my notes on MOSCITO is one of the standard references for players trying to learn symmetric relay. I've also taught "the basics" to a fair number of novices.

 

My expectation is that the main difference in our experience is not whether we've taught noives, but rather the pool of players that we have taught. By and large, when I've been teaching new players, I've been working with either:

 

1. University students from top schools

2. Professions from technical disciplines (math, software, finance, engineering)

 

I readily admit that these student might be strongly biased towards systems based on a logical rules set (even if this requires a fair amount of artificiality)

 

For what its worth, when I was last teaching bridge (and its been a while), I strongly preferred to avoid the topic of bidding altogether and, instead, focus on declarer play and defense using a mini-bridge type system. This might also bias our comparisons. Its entirely possible that 2-3 weeks during which you focused on simple natural bidding I ignored bidding altogether.

 

I was fairly indifferent regarding what system we actually taught, so long as it made sense. (5 Weeks to Winning Bridge was actually one of my favorite books to use)

 

As I recall, we used a very basic NT module

 

2C = Stayman

2D = Transfer to Hearts

2H = Transfer to Spades

2S = Minor suit Stayman

2N = Natural and invitational

3C = Invite

3D = Invite

[helene_t]

1♣-1♠

1NT-2♥*

 

This sequence it's very interresting :), the other including 2♣ and 2♠, since repeating a previous bid suit a min level are always a sigoff.

 

This can't be 5/5 no Michael's. Since 5/4 and 10+ would be a good hand for NMF, I say this is a 5/4 with less than 10pts.

I had an uncontested auction in mind - you are bidding clubs and notrump, p is bidding spades and hearts. So Michael's is not an issue :)

[PedroG]

1♣-1♠

1NT-2♥*

 

This sequence it's very interresting :), the other including 2♣ and 2♠, since repeating a previous bid suit a min level are always a sigoff.

 

This can't be 5/5 no Michael's. Since 5/4 and 10+ would be a good hand for NMF, I say this is a 5/4 with less than 10pts.

I had an uncontested auction in mind - you are bidding clubs and notrump, p is bidding spades and hearts. So Michael's is not an issue :)

Yep yep, my mistake :) so 5/5 possible too :)

[jikl]

Thanks for the response.

 

The disparity in who is being taught is quite different.

 

5 Weeks to Winning Bridge is indeed a good book to teach from.

 

When I taught, and for me it has also been a while, I always taught 4 card majors since it makes more sense logically. Bid your longest suit, 4s up 5s down etc. I just wanted to get natural bids in their minds rather than introduce artificial bids too early.

 

Sean

[johnallen]

My recommendation for the best beginner's book is "Bridge for Dummies", Second Edition, by Eddie Kantar. Kantar is a world-class writer (and player), and this is a well-written, simple-to-understand book that provides full coverage of standard bidding and play. This book teaches Jacoby Tansfers and Negative Doubles as part of today's standard bidding, which I am glad to see.

 

Audrey Grant's books are good, but you need the whole series to get the overall picture. The SAYC book is terrific, but is more for people who have learned the game enough to want to learn the discipline of SAYC.

 

Much as I think 2/1 is the future, I personally think it's not in common use by the mainstream player. Graduate to Max Hardy's book on 2/1 "Standard Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century" when you are ready to read about 2/1.

 

Hope this helps.

[blackshoe]

My recommendation for the best beginner's book is "Bridge for Dummies", Second Edition, by Eddie Kantar.

Did they revise the awful illustrations in the first edition? That stuff made my eyes hurt. :lol:

 

I agree that most "mainstream" players don't play 2/1, but I really think that's unfortunate. While at least one expert friend of mine prefers "standard" to 2/1 (he believes the latter puts too many constraints on his judgement) I agree that 2/1 is the wave of the future - assuming bridge has a future, which I sometimes doubt. :)

[johnallen]

I heard an interview with Eddie Kantar (from BridgeHands.com). He explained that he wasn't satisfied with the first edition of "Bridge for Dummies", but had more control over the second edition and was happy with it. The diagrams look fine to me.

 

I quite like this book. It teaches defensive bidding effectively as well. I think if it wasn't a "... for Dummies" book it would get more respect.

[helene_t]

Agree with the Bridge for Dummies recommendation.

[ssukaye]

Have read the recomendations with great interest, but has anybody got any ideas on defence to this lot if you play acol? I like weak nt.

[gifster]

I want to strongly recommend the ACBL Editor, Brent Manley's, very simple and to the point book called "Bridge Everything" I've told partners who seem as anxious to be "on the same page" to use it as a their entire system at first. You can adopt it in bits and pieces and agree along the way. They've been having high stakes tournaments between a team of stars who use every convention they want against a team that is not even allowed to play stayman or transfers -the simple bidders do surprisingly well. If you play the cards well and especially defend well you'll do well at any level-I love playing again convention addicts. For the most part they WAY overuse them. KISS and remember that "even a bad agreement is better than none"

[hrothgar]

They've been having  high stakes tournaments between a team of stars who use every convention they want against a team that is not even allowed to play stayman or transfers -the simple bidders do surprisingly well.

What tournament was this?

 

It certainly wasn't the recent "Naturalists versus Scientists" match where the so-called "Scientists"

 

1. Didn't feature any pairs playing Scientific methods

2. Didn't feature any established partnerships

3. Had to be handicapped 56 IMPs the first day

4. Still lost convincingly

[han]

They've been having high stakes tournaments between a team of stars who use every convention they want against a team that is not even allowed to play stayman or transfers -the simple bidders do surprisingly well.

They did surprisingly well? How much were you expecting them to lose by if you thought this loss qualified as "surprisingly well"?