Lecturing

I direct tournament games at the Manhattan Bridge Club, usually once or twice a week and occasionally more often. The games I run are mostly what we call “299ers”, limited to players with less than 300 masterpoints. (In practice, I generally set the top strat to non-Life Master, and allow in some players who are a little over the 300 limit but whose standard of play is appropriate). Before each 299er game, there is a lecture, about half an hour long. The lectures are free and open to all, but the 299er players are the target audience. Sometimes one of the regular teaching staff gives the lecture. And sometimes, I have to give the lecture myself.

Now, I have had a career as a software developer and analyst, and I’ve had to make presentations to management, users, and subordinates. It wasn’t necessarily my favorite thing to do, but I got by. But a teaching presentation is a little different, and I don’t mind admitting that I’ve had some trouble finding my - well, groove, for lack of a better term.

The topic of the lecture is, quite literally, anything the lecturer wants to talk about. There may be a few things that deserve a talk. For example, if I could get them all to understand (and use) the Losing Trick Count, I’m sure that their bidding would improve dramatically in the area of getting high enough when appropriate and staying low enough when the warning flags are out. But that’s a bit much to get across in a 25 minute talk. I’ve seen at least two of the teaching staff try it, and as straightforward as the LTC is, you still have to talk fast to get across all you want in the time-frame. And there’s no time left over for some example hands and bidding sequences, which is actually pretty critical stuff for a decent teaching effort. These days, I’m starting to follow the lead of Jeff Bayone, the owner of MBC. Jeff sometimes gives the lecture himself, and he doesn’t have a topic. One of his lectures is all about a hand. Just one hand, and the interest is usually not the bidding. It’s all about the play.

That sounds like it could be boring or repetitive. Or it could easily drift into techniques that are beyond the grasp of the intermediate players who are the audience. All of those dangers are real, but at the same time, there is plenty of scope for some interesting stuff that they really need. From declarer’s side, everything that Mike Lawrence wrote about reading the opponent’s cards is relevant, and well within their capabilities. So are some basic ideas around avoidance, suit establishment, card combinations, safety plays, and so on. From the defensive side, I’m not so sure (I’ve not tried a defensive lecture yet). I think it should be possible, though. There must be some hands that have enough points of interest to last 25 minutes! You need more than just one critical lead or switch to focus on, so I’m thinking perhaps a no-trump part-score will have two or three points to make.

Which leads to the next question: where do you get the hands from? I don’t really like to use composed deals to make a point in this sort of format. If I’m going to stand in front of a room full of people and chat about a hand, I want to be able to say “Here’s a hand from Houston last week” or “Here’s something that came up Thursday evening”, or something like that. But I don’t seem to be able to spot the right sort of teaching material as it comes up, at least, not yet. I’m hoping I get better at this with practice.

I haven’t been posting because I’ve been a bit busy, one way and another. But today’s laundry day, so I might as well put something up between visits to the basement.

It’s STAC week again, and I’m trying to gather in the 11 or so silver points I need for Life Master. So far I’ve not had too much success, but there have been some wild hands and even wilder opposition. A session with Agent 99 started slowly but accelerated when one pair of opponents perpetrated this horror show.

Love all, dlr S

          ♠ A Q 9 7
          ♥ K 9 8 3
          ♦ 8 7 5
          ♣ A 3
♠ 8 6 5 4 3 2         ♠ -
♥ 4         [ ]       ♥ 10 7 2
♦ A 10 6 2            ♦ J 9 4 3
♣ K 9                 ♣ Q 10 8 5 4 2
          ♠ K J 10
          ♥ A Q J 6 5
          ♦ K Q
          ♣ J 7 6

S    W    N    E
1♥   pass 1♠   pass
2NT  pass 6♥   dble
All pass

I don’t know exactly how N-S should bid in their methods, but I’m confident that both of them overbid in practice. I don’t think the South hand is too strong to open 1NT 15-17, and North was in too much of a hurry. If she had gone slower, maybe South could have talked her out of it. Agent 99 started with the ♦A, so only 2 down, but that was a top.

That was the last board against them, so we moved to a new table and this was the next board.

Game all, dlr W

          ♠ Q 5
          ♥ 9 5 4
          ♦ A Q 10 7 4 2
          ♣ 6 4
♠ J 9 8                ♠ K 10 6
♥ A K Q 2   [ ]        ♥ 8 7 3
♦ J 9 6                ♦ 8 3
♣ J 8 3                ♣ A Q 10 7 5
          ♠ A 7 4 3 2
          ♥ J 10 6
          ♦ K 5
          ♣ K 9 2

W    N    E    S
1NT  pass pass 2♠
pass pass 3♣   pass
pass 3♠   dble All pass

The above auction isn’t the whole story, not even close to it. South actually overcalled 1♠, and when this was pointed out to be insufficient, corrected to 2♠. I asked North what they were playing over opponent’s no-trumps, and she said Cappelletti, so I called the director, but before the director arrived, South commented that they played Capp over strong no-trumps but hadn’t discussed weak ones.

That makes a bit of a mess. You can’t just make an insufficient bid minimally sufficient without penalty if the result would be conventional, and a Capp 2♠ would show spades plus a minor suit. And North now has the somewhat unauthorized information that South only intended 2♠ as natural. On the other hand, the point about not having discussed weak no-trumps specifically is valid: the director could decide that without a specific agreement to play Capp on their card, making the bid sufficient to a natural 2♠ could be allowed without penalty. Rather than get into a big hypothetical argument, I suggested to the director that we let things go and see how it all turned out. He agreed, adding a specific warning to North that she should bid as if all she had seen or heard was the 1NT and the 2♠.

I pictured a somewhat more robust suit in the South hand, for which my ♠K-10 seemed to be well-placed (as far as South was concerned). On the other hand, I didn’t want to sell out, so I bid 3♣. At that point, South has just pushed us from a hopeless contract to our best spot. North wasn’t finished, though. Holding diamonds and hearing me bid clubs, she decided that there was enough evidence that South was single-suited in spades. True enough, but why she raised spades without mentioning diamonds I don’t know. I did know that I couldn’t let them play undoubled, however.

Now, throughout all this, Agent 99 is sitting looking at a hand full of jacks and figuring that whatever the opponents bid, they are probably making overtricks. But she kept a good poker face, and while I can’t remember the exact sequence of play, she did lead the 13th heart at some point for me to uppercut with the ♠10 and get 3 down for 800.

Was justice done? I think so. I know South didn’t want to sell out to 1NT, but that overcall was pretty disgusting, really.