Defence is important too
Hello
Is anyone else concerned that we only teach winning hands in our lessons? I know we want to engender confidence in the ability to make the contract that we bid, but defence is more than half the game. With a 10 lesson course we can teach very little play, but surely there should be hands where you bid 'properly' and still go down, not hands where you make a mistake and still make your contract.
I include in my lessons a book, Breakthrough Bridge, which has a defence issue as well as a declarer issue. I am told I can copy it as it is out of print. In my opinion, one of the best learner's series (maybe because it helped me so much.) If I have a group that can get through the lessons quickly, I include the defence hands, so they learn they can lose even if they follow the rules! One of my mantras is: you ill be in the right contract MOST of the time!
Can NZ Bridge put a hand in once a lesson that you bid right and still go down?
Is it a useful exercise?
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- NICK WHITTEN09 Feb 2025 at 01:59PM
Hi Lance
You don’t appear to be inundated with replies here
I agree defence is most important and most neglected area for teaching beginners.
A few years ago I set up some elementary defending lessons for novices. I made up 8 hands with “normal” (and dead simple) bidding with South always the declarer (and put an experienced player South while the others rotate).
I also took them to two neighbouring clubs and they seemed to be well received. But more recently there has been a lack of enthusiasm primarily from the teachers (not from the novices themselves who weren’t consulted (“they have too much to learn already”)) so I have temporarily given up on that approach.
I’m now working on Plan B which is to compile a set of 8 hands suitable for beginners to try early in their lesson course. With simple bidding; only 1NT or 1-suit opening with raises.
If they bid wrong (that is too high) they get into a contract which does down, but only if the defenders avoid very basic error(s)This is a work in progress and I am happy to share the final product with anyone interested and any advice of how to improve the examples would be welcome.
Watch this space
Nick
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