Re: Marketing Bridge

On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:38:39 +0000, lescor <lescorbett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

dranon wrote:
On Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:46:26 +0000, lescor <lescorbett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


dranon wrote:

On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:10:38 +0000, lescor <lescorbett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



Give me a racket and some balls and it is simply my skill which will
decide if it's next stop Wimbledon. We can hardly say that about bridge
where partnership system memory might be even more important than the
skill element of the game, the card play.


This seems to me to be an emotional argument that resonates for you,
based on your experience, but is contrary to my understanding, based
on mine. What you describe as system memory IS PART OF THE GAME. For
you to say that people drop out once they encounter a competitive
environment where there is increased demand in that area is the
equivalent of saying that your budding tennis stars drop out once they
play an opponent who can, at will, put a top-spin rotation on a
backhand shot. It is all part of the skill of the game.

I dare say that *IF* you are correct, then the fault lies with those
who taught said students about the game in the first place. If they
were presented with dishonest expectations, they have a right to be
disillusioned at some point.

Interesting points, but not quite correct. My comments are not at all
emotional and I, until recently, enjoy playing duplicate bridge as much
as anyone. I am simply pointing out the main reason why so few from
those who take up the game don't also find it so.


But I think your understanding of their reasons and reasoning is based
on your personal bias and is not consistent with my experience.

Fine, so all is well and there is no problem, no worrying drop out rate?

I didn't mean to imply that. We both want to see a change that
increases the student's longevity. I submit that all things point
back to the teaching methods and that, as has been suggested elsewhere
in this thread, teaching to the expected course is far superior to
"just teaching the game."

Tel them upfront:

This is a class where you will learn how to play the game of bridge,
and you will learn those things which are necessary for you to be
prepared to play in a friendly duplicate bridge club.

I hardly think that ACBL (or any other SO) should bother with a course
that doesn't offer the above as a minimum syllabus.

But why the hell should you come to that "bias" conclusion? My
knowledge of their reasons are based upon teaching them by the hundreds,
speaking to them and even playing with them as an introduction. In
short, it is based upon what they said. You seem, for some strange
reason, and despite my comments, to suggest a personal bias. Seems that
in your haste to defend the status quo you assume that I dislike
duplicate bridge This is not so.

You invite many a comment about WHAT you are teaching and HOW.
Suffice it to say that if one teaches "to the result", you missed.
Many others have also, so don't feel too bad.

But John is right. It is all about marketing. If the bridge
"lessons" aren't seen as a marketing tool for increasing ACBL
membership, then they are not properly developed. Or, if one wants to
be kinder and gentler, they aren't tapping the vein with maximum
efficiency.

The topic, remember, was why so many do not find it as attractive as
some of us do.

I still blame the teacher.

Of course system memory is part of the game, and it is difficult enough
for the beginner to learn even the most basic, uncluttered methods and
they take time to absorb. If you are suggesting that the teachers
should, in the cause of honesty , also add defence to opponents multi or
weak twos and the rest, its a non starter.


Not at all. I am suggesting that the teacher make it clear that there
are certain skills that they need to have a grasp on before they
anticipate mediocrity in an open environment.

This is obviously made clear very early. It is not some guarded secret.
They know that in the game played under a different format they would be
faced with playing against systems which were not 'natural'.

Bravo. A problem identified is 1/2 solved. Then teach to them the
skills necessary to not feel overwhelmed.

It also presupposes that they
wanted to learn the game so that they could play duplicate bridge in a
club, a strange idea and one which the games governing bodies seem to
subscribe to.

Not at all. If you want my support, I expect something in return.
Hardly unreasonable.

Ah, but that is the purpose of the lessons. Even if a large
percentage never do, there may, someday be an individual coerced to
the game by three such never-doers, who his/herself goes on to do so.

In retrospect, I wasn't as pointed here as I should have been. The
purpose of the lessons is to increase ACBL membership.

And some do, including me, but not enough it seems. But the purpose of
the lessons is NOT to provide players for duplicate, it is to teach them
the fundamentals of bridge. Where they take this, what form of the game
they play and how often, is for them to decide. Maybe our difference of
opinion have a geographical basis , but I do not understand where this
accepted wisdom that bridge means duplicate (in one form or another) is
correct. Seems the vast majority of those who play the game would not
agree. Fault of the teachers you say......... but if so, maybe the
teachers have got the market right?

They may have "something" right, but it isn't the "market".


Then you "advisory" was lacking.

s/b "your"

Yes maybe, but that presupposes a wide low standard of teaching.

Admittedly.

There
might be other reasons for the problem and they could just be the ones I
stated. We have a class of 32 new players, slightly bewildered at the
beginning, but after 8 x 3 hour lessons and armed with pages of
comprehensive notes on each topic, they learn and, most often, fall for
the game, become fascinated by it, and will then sign up for another
course at the intermediate level a few weeks later after attending
weekly practice sessions.

We have them. keen as mustard and enjoying their increasing bridge days.
Many will, at some stage, take the natural step into club duplicate, but
not for long. Why? Poor preparation at clubs where the main objective
is to get them into club duplicates, as you suggest? Unlikely!

Agree to disagree.

this was a decade or so ago but, as I discovered the last
time I played, the duplicate world is now even less appealing for the
novice


Why is that?

The thought occurred to me as I played at a club and where the event
which once attracted 18 plus tables now had 8. Many old faces ( very few
young) and I reflected on how things had changed in such a short time.
How, a few years ago these events, and even one which carried a $200
winners-take-all cash prize, was run in a far more informal, chatty and
friendly fashion.

I started in 1971 in the Washington DC area and the games were very
large and definitively NOT informal, chatty or friendly. They were
fierce. The Thursday night Unit game was considered to be regional
open pairs' quality. My brains were bashed by the likes of Robinson,
Woolsey, Cappeletti(s) and so forth. Trust me, there were times when
achieving 35% was a victory.

I certainly understand being beaten to a pulp.

What I don't understand is not being prepared by one's teachers for
the experience.

What you describe is general bewilderment. You blame it on a specific
toxin: unfamiliarity. I suggest that is merely a convenient excuse.
Whether it is the first time one encounters a reverse into a 3 card
suit or a forcing pass system, the result is the same: newbies are
overwhelmed when playing against experienced players. Those that you
saw drop out would have still done so if they never ran into a Reverse
Bergen with LOTT undertones (or any such other system name you want to
make up). And they should be prepared for that reality from the get
go.

Maybe the last straw was bidding boxes, unless they see a need for under
table leg barriers in the future of course, But the change was
screamingly obvious, and if that past environment was unattractive to
novices, the present one is even more so.

and that fact will never be overcome by even the most expert
marketing.

All can be overcome by marketing.

Disagree.


I dispute your suggestion that system memory is a bridge SKILL


Houston, we have a problem. This is a fundamental difference that
can't be brushed over.

, at
least, not in the context discussed, possibly because it could be learnt
by someone with a lively memory but who had never touched a card in his
life. A vital part of the game without doubt, but memory of agreed
system is hardly a skill is it?


It is indeed. In a nutshell, people's brains have different
capacities. You either manage your capacity or fail. Managing that
is definitely a skill and separates many a bridge player from the next
level.

But you again miss the point. I am not suggesting that reason or skill
and experience cannot be used in tight bidding situations. It is more
about facing new artificial bids - many of which are meant to be
disruptive - of which there is a long list, some allowed, some allowed
for a while before being banned in some events but not in others.

It takes no great skill to recognise a multi opening bid which might
have one of 3 or 4 meanings. Its use disadvantaged more than novices for
a while, until they had agree a defence when it started to become widely
used. All part of the game of course, but why should the less
experienced player bother?

To become a less less experienced player.

Why learn yet another list of defences to it
and a few more for other such openings? Do you honestly think teaching
is the reason that they find the task not worth the time?

Absolutely.

Face the fact that this unlevel playing field is unattractive to most
apart from a few like us. No amount of marketing will change that
fact. The clubs that taught them once had them by the nose but failed to
keep them. You won't get them back with naive idea that you can , by
marketing, get them to see that what they found unappealing really isn't.

There is a way of increasing club activity given time, but it requires
fresh thinking and an acceptance of what the vast majority of those who
play the game would really enjoy. Market what is attractive, not " you
may have found it wanting but please try again as it's all we have got".

Your tennis example is not valid. Of course an opponents greater skill
in play will give him an advantage, but we both play with the same ball
as we do in all other pastimes apart from bridge.


I guess it depends on your definition of ball. I see 52 balls and
they look alike at every table I've ever played at.




I never suggested it was wrong that sophisticated and 'non natural'
systems are allowed. but simply pointing out that they are the reason
for the drop out of most who learn.


Again, I fault the teacher.

It is not losing a point to a
swerving spinning serve, a result of skill. It is more like losing one
to an opponent suddenly serving with a smaller harder ball, one we have
never experienced before.


A fabrication of your own choosing, I'm afraid. I see no difference
between your smaller ball and my top-spinning backhand. The novice
can not handle it and only the crybabies murmur something about a
different ball. It isn't different. It is returned with greater
skill. Learn to defend that skill or lose. Simple.


You are dead right, it is part of the game. I never disputed that, but
it is the part which makes duplicate bridge growingly more difficult to
market to those who have recently taken up the great game.

More difficult? OK, I'll buy into that. 1%, maybe 2% more. It
merely is a matching of expectation with experience.

Only because their initial tutors failed them miserably.

Ibid.


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