TaigaBridge

Face-to-face bridge lessons

I offer several different formats of live lessons:

Classroom lesson series at the Flathead Valley Duplicate Bridge Center, 22 Village Loop, Kalispell, MT: these are six- to eight-week series of two-hour lessons. Each lesson consists of a short talk on that day's topic and a couple of example deals displayed on the board, followed by about six pre-dealt hands, giving you a chance to put what you've learned into practice. At the end of each lesson, you will receive a handout summarizing the lecture and a copy of the practice hands which you can review.

I alternate teaching these with Michael Boreson, another local bridge teacher. The schedule will be announced a month or two in advance, here and on fvdbc.org. These are currently $15 per lesson, with a discount for prepaying for an entire series.

Private lessons in your home or other location of your choice: this works best with a group of either 3 or 4 students, of somewhat similar ability. We can sit down, play cards together, and discuss each hand that happens to be dealt ("supervise play"), for as long as you'd like to play, for an hourly rate. Alternatively, I can prepare a lesson theme, similar to what I'd do for a classroom lesson series, to start off our session. Contact me to tell me about your group of players and schedule a session.

Weekend seminars: I am also available to teach 1- to 3-day seminars when I travel. This amounts to presenting a full classroom lesson series in a condensed timeframe, up to three 2-hour lessons per day. This could be the perfect brush-up the week before a tournament comes to your town, or a way to create a "bridge camp" as a special event for your club. I'm flexible on the details. Contact me, tell me what you have in mind, and we'll make it happen.

Among the topics I have materials already prepared and ready for:

• What's forcing and what's not, and why
• Slam bidding: cuebids, splinter bids, and asking bids
• Endplays and squeezes
• Develop your defensive ESP (counting on defense)
• Finding your best chance for the contract as declarer

Finally, we can play a club game or tournament together and discuss the hands afterward. For more details, see my professional play page or write to me.

Online bridge lessons

Another option, if you don't live in northwest Montana or you don't have a group of at least 3 players, is online private or small-group lessons, on either Bridge Base Online or Swan Games. Like live lessons, online sessions can either be shuffle-deal-and-play games, or predealt hands. We can discuss the hands either via online chat or by telephone while we play. Online lessons offer some additional flexibility that live lessons don't:

• It's possible to do these lessons with just one student, using two 'bots' to play the other two hands, or having me play all three other hands;
• It's easy to customize what hands are dealt. We can declare almost every hand, defend almost every hand, or even drill a specific auction (say, responses to partner's weak two);
• You can review the played cards trick by trick after each deal with a mouse click, rather than having to remember them or physically turn them over.

We can also play an online tournament together, for the price of a 2-hour lesson. Tournaments are typically 12 boards and take about one hour to play. These are real ACBL-masterpoint-awarding games — no chatting or phoning during a hand! — but after the tournament ends, we can either discuss the hands together in detail, or I can email you an analysis of each hand.

New in 2020: BBO offers "challenges" where you and a friend play the same 8 boards, with robot partner and teammates, and are scored against each other. These make nice clinics for bidding judgment and declarer play. I'll play the same 8 boards as you, then comment on how you bid and played via online chat or phone call.

Contact me and schedule your online lesson or tournament today. I can spare an hour or two almost every day of the week, and there's a tournament available every hour on the hour, day and night.