Mojo playing with a team at the summer nationals in Providence.

The best way to learn to play bridge

Of course you can learn to play a game from friends or family, but there's nothing like having a professional teacher in an entertaining class to get a great foundation in a game.

In the first class you'll learn the mechanics of playing a bridge hand, and much of the language of bridge: contract, tricks, trump, notrump, opening lead, following suit, discarding, declarer.

In the following lessons you'll learn the basics of a bidding system called Standard American 5-card Majors. You'll also learn techniques for winning more tricks as you play the hand or defend a contract.

To accompany the class you'll have the text and workbook Bridge Basics I - Introduction by Audrey Grant.

Monday Evenings - Competitive Bidding

This is the class to level-up your competitive bidding skills, especially for club and tournament players. Learn how and when you can interfere profitably with the opponents' bids. Preemptive bidding with long combined suit fits are a theme that runs throughout this course. Discover fit-showing cue bids. Learn how vulnerability affects the score table and your decisions at the table.

• Monday evenings, 6:30 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.
• First class May 9, last class June 20 (no class May 30)
• $110 course fee
• Required text: Bridge Basics 2 - Competitive Bidding by Grant

Weekly lessons:

I'm offering two classes for November and December, Monday and Tuesday evenings. Please see the important requirements for online bridge classes below.

Defense

This is a dynamite 8-session class that introduces standard defense techniques used by expert bridge players. This course is especially effective when taught online. Our online tools make it much easier to visualize all of the hands at the table!

Normally each summer the American Bridge Teachers Association meets just before the Summer NABC. This year the annual teachers' convention was abbreviated to an online mini-convention.

They still managed to have a great convention, awarding prizes for bridge books of the year, and teacher of the year. They also held interviews for their prestigious Master Teacher designation.

I was one of two teachers who successfully passed the interview and received the designation.

The process is fairly demanding. It starts with an example screening test, and most teacher candidates will opt out of the interview at this point. Then well before the interview, the candidate will receive a problem hand to research and present to the panel. Teachers are encouraged to call on expert resources for this problem.

This fall I plan to offer three valuable online bridge classes from Audrey Grant's Better Bridge.

See technical requirements below for online classes.

Sunday Afternoons - 2 Over 1 Game Force

Step up from Standard American to the bidding system most used by tournament players at all levels. One small tweak to S.A. makes it easier to discover how high and where to play your best contract. 2/1GF is especially helpful for finding slams that are difficult to find using Standard American.

• Sunday afternoons, 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
• First class Sept. 19, last class October 31 (skipping Oct. 10) (six sessions)
• $110 course fee
• Required text 2 Over 1 Game Force by Grant and Rodwell

Weekly lessons:

Our last in-person bridge class from 2018!

PCC Extension is offering two bridge classes from Audrey Grant's acclaimed Better Bridge curriculum this fall.

All classes are offered on Wednesday evenings at 7:15 in person at Arcadia High School

Bridge — Introduction

This is the starting place! This class is designed for people who have never played bridge. You'll learn the mechanics and vocabulary of the game, and start on the journey to becoming a competent bridge player. You'll learn the basics of card play as declarer and defender, as well as the fundamentals of Standard American bidding to reach the best contract with your partner.

RealBridge from the UK - see and hear your table mates while playing bridge!

While we have some Tuesday evenings free between PCC classes, let's get together for some relaxed bridge with a lesson following.

• Five Tuesday evenings 7:15 - 9:15, March 23 - April 20.
• 12 hands (about 90 minutes), followed by hand review and lesson by Mojo on Zoom
• $9 for a single session, or $40 for all five
• No director, no masterpoints, no pressure

Here's what you need to participate:

• A reliable broadband internet connection
• A Mac or Windows laptop or desktop with camera, speakers, and microphone
• Alternatively: RealBridge is known to work with an iPad using Safari

Before joining the game, test your camera and microphone here on the RealBridge web site.

Dragon helps with most bridge classes.

Enjoy eight Sunday afternoons studying and practicing declarer play! Learn the timeless techniques experienced players use to develop extra tricks in trump and notrump contracts.

Here are the weekly topics:

• Making a plan
• Developing tricks - promotion and length
• Developing tricks - the finesse
• Eliminating losers - ruffing and discarding
• Watching out for entries
• Watching out for the opponents
• Managing the trump suit
• Putting it all together

This is an online interactive course using Zoom for class discussions, and a virtual bridge table where you will play actual hands and experiment with card play. Required for this course:

When we first learn to play bridge, we learn to count our high card points, add in distribution points. If the total is 13 or more, then we should open the bidding — that is, make the first bid in the auction at the 1 level.

Later when we start playing in formal or informal groups, we discover players opening 12 point hands, or even weaker! What's the deal?

There are indeed subtleties to deciding whether to open and what the opening bid should be. This course addresses those subtleties with effective guidelines and great practice deals that touch on all aspects of bridge.

This is an online, live, interactive bridge course. We will meet online using Zoom, and you will practice playing at a virtual bridge table with other students.

How better to spend New Year's Eve than playing bridge online? I put out the call for a bridge game that would be just for fun -- no sanction, no director, no masterpoints. We would use RealBridge, the platform from the UK which integrates audio and video into the bridge table.

Many of us have been missing team games. It's my favorite format for duplicate bridge, and by far the best way to hold a game with an extreme range of bridge experience.

RealBridge does a beautiful job of team game support. They offer round-robin, swiss, and head-to-head (knockout) formats. Their one current failing is that an odd number of teams requires one team to sit out a round. Every round is played in a "barometer" style, with all teams playing the same boards at the same time -- which inherently limits the ability to support a three-team round-robin in a larger game.