What is the best way to teach somebody how to play bridge?

Having spent the last couple of weekends teaching my friends and roommates to play Bridge, I've got a few thoughts of my own to contribute here. I didn't start with bidding because in the case of most of the people I was teaching the card game most similar to bridge they knew was hearts.  As such I used an abbreviated version of the progression detailed in http://www.dur.ac.uk/bridge.club/TEACHING/Beginners.html to work up some basics.  I found this progression to work well among my friends.  The number of hands advocated on that website were in excess of what I found necessary or useful and so the pace at which I introduced new rules was quicker. Though we're still very early on in learning bidding, I've found that having started with the foundation of "open with no less than 12 points", what you are and aren't allowed to bid, and reviewing each hand while answering questions has yielded fast enough progress, and thus far retained everybody's interest.

Here are some of my thoughts. Not a complete recipe, but I hope at least thought provoking. Playing bridge is like driving a car--it requires thinking at multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously. Over time the lower level skills became automatic and no longer required conscious thought, so the player becomes able to focus on higher levels skills. When you were first learning to drive shifting the clutch and braking required conscious thought. It is difficult to think about shifting the clutch, what traffic signals mean, rules of the road, planning a route to your destination, adjusting the route based on traffic, judging distance from other cars, etc. all at the same time--too much bouncing up and down between levels of abstraction. The solution of course is to isolate individual skills. For example, just learning what a trick is and the need to follow suit is a low level skill that must be learned first. When you are learning that skill, you will have a hard time understanding if your teacher is also explaining something about bidding and something about drawing trump. The teacher must tolerate the many mistakes the students make in applying higher level skills when the focus is a lower level one. When the student has mastered a skill, introduce the next level of abstraction on top of it. 1. Allow them to learn by doing. E.g., get a deck of cards in their hands as fast as possible. 2. Mistakes are not the enemy, they are a part of the learning process. The goal of teaching is not to correct mistakes, it is for the student to acquire skills. You can transmit skills to the student by reinforcing good choices as well as by correcting mistakes. 3. Students frequently have self-confidence problems. The best solution for low self-confidence is a feeling of success. The wonderful thing about bridge is even in a session where you score 32%, there will be some hand you can point to as a success. Have an eagle-eye for finding success.  Praise the students for their successes. 4. Tailor the message to the student's level. Ignore interesting issues that are outside the student's level. It is tempting to explain how the student could have bid that slam if he only played fit-jumps and Exclusion Blackwood, but if that is outside his level, let him rest in game and explain that not all slams are biddable. 5. Don't be afraid to be wrong. If the student sees you admit your mistakes, then they relax and feel more comfortable about accepting their own. They will respect the teacher more, not less, for his ability to be open. Strangely enough, students often learn less from someone who intimidates them because he is always right, than from someone who is much less skilled but merely points them in the right direction, but makes them feel good about the learning process. 6. Reinforce that learning is the student's responsibility. For example, suppose you are teaching a class using Audrey Grant's Club series book. A student asks a question which you know is addressed in the book. Ask the student to read the answer and then explain the answer to the entire class in 10 minutes. Then give them the floor. The student will feel good getting to be the center of attention and subconsciously he will learn to acquire knowledge on his own without you. 7. When lecturing, share the center of attention as much as possible. Suppose you explain a topic and some student says, "I don't get it." Ask another student to explain it to the class in their words. Often times, they can explain in terms that resonate better with beginners, and they feel good about themself because of the temporary attention they receive.

Here's how I learned, and it's worked wonders for me: Teach them the very basics. Play a few mock hands with them (first with all cards face-up, then with cards hidden), playing and bidding the three hands that aren't theirs.  Continue to teach them a few things that come up as the play progresses. Have them read the amazing book The Fun Way to Serious Bridge, by Harry Lampert: http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Way-Serious-Bridge/dp/067163027X After they've absorbed most of that, get a couple more people and play real bridge over the course of several weeks/months. Have them read Bridge for Dummies, by Eddie Kantar: http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Dummies-Eddie-Kantar/dp/0471924261 Have them play lots more bridge. That's a pretty good start. Bridge is the kind of game that you can play for decades and still be learning.

You could do worse than having them read/listen to the Cardturner by Louis Sachar (author of Holes). Very easy young adult fiction that thoroughly explains the rules of bridge and more than a little strategy in the context of a coming-of-age story. It was recommended to me by someone who knew I had an interest in bridge and I found the explanations in the book to be sufficient enough for me to walk into a game (although I'd had a life time of pinochle, spades, hearts, and gin rummy by then).

Fred Gittelman has written software (free) that the ACBL has available. There are two downloads (get them both) and then just watch!  Here's the link:   http://www.acbl.org/learn_page/learn-to-play-bridge-software/

You can start with a quick overview of the purpose of the game, but before or shortly after that, I would point learners to this free software from the American Contract Bridge League: https://web3.acbl.org/newmembers/free-learn-software It covers all the basics in an interactive format that not only speeds up the learning process, but is fun.

Teach him or them to play whist first. After some time, you can tell them how to try to judge the strength of your hand. Somewhat later, you can teach them some basic signalling, and have them practise it while playing. Also, whist will help introduce the necessity and principle of counting the cards played. After some weeks, you can explain, how similar whist and bridge are. You can let them see the obvious advantage of being able to choose a trump which is most favourable to you. As naming your own trump is a great advantage, you have to fight for it in an auction, called bidding, where you make promises as a return for winning the favour of choosing your own trump. Etc.

The card game bridge is actually quite easy to learn but takes years to master. Bridge has two core phases: the auction, where players communicate the contents of their cards via a series of “bids” and the card play where players try to win as many tricks or points as possible.  It doesn’t take long to learn the basics of bidding and card play – but bridge players are always seeking to improve the level at which they play, and historically have turned to printed media such as bridge flippers and bridge pamphlets as guides. These are, in simple terms, like miniature textbooks and usually cover one or a few basic topics. Bridge flippers and bridge pamphlets have been used as long as bridge in its current form has existed (almost 100 years).  Nowadays though, players have access to wide range of computer bridge software to help them improve their game. While this computer bridge software can duplicate what bridge pamphlets and bridge flippers have always done so successfully, there is so much more that computer bridge software can offer the enthusiast.  Most  computer bridge software  like the pamphlets and flippers, is focused on the bidding phase of bridge. This is because of the vast number of bridge ‘systems’ and ‘conventions’ that players can adopt and use while playing. Plus this bidding phase of bridge is usually the most interesting and the most difficult to master. It also requires the highest degree of precision. Computer bridge software is ideally positioned to help bridge players out in this regard.  The ‘play’ phase of bridge is more standardized world-wide and there are far fewer options to adopt (and therefore learn). Key principles can be easily described in a bridge flipper or bridge pamphlet but computer bridge software is the best tool for bridge players to improve their card play. There are many good pieces of computer bridge software (such as Bridge Baron or Jack) available to bridge players to improve their card play. Bridge players can simply generate deal after deal on their computer and practice and hone their bridge playing skills. And there is no need for the presence of three other players as the computer provides you with two computer opponents and one computer partner. http://www.bridgeshop.com.au/

I learned by doing.  First the rudiments were explained, then we sat down and played.  Any time I had a question we turned the cards face up and talked about the possibilities. I was given a basic bridge book and started at the beginning, 52 cards in deck, 13 per person.  I mean really basic.  I love the social aspect of the game as well as the competition.  It is without a doubt one of the finest games ever invented.