It was an amazing experience being at Raibidpura in person. People are extremely hospitable and friendly.
I was accomodated in a vacant house, with various players taking turns to host my lunch and dinner with their respective families.
The Children and Mini-Bridge
There are10-18 girls visiting the club everyday. They play mini-bridge (2 tables), and practice on the laptops using Bridge Master (Audrey Grant version). There are 15-20 boys who come in the next batch, and few young adults who have started learning as well.
They are highly enthusiastic, and seem to already love the game (albeit the mini version of it). This was evident from the fact that they would visit the club and play a few extra hours when they had a day oiff from school!!
Amresh had told me want to learn bridge - bidding included. I gauged that it may be too early for that - so gave them a few challenges to illustrate how much more there is in the domain of mini-bridge itself..
Concepts Taught
The concepts i focused on during this visit included:
Positives
Many kids seem to have an innate card sense.
For instance, a kid about 8-9 years old, from a nearby tribal area, tries to develop a trick in a suit with QJxx opposite xx at a NT contract!! And this within first 2 weeks of starting to play mini-bridge, with almost no training. Similarly, i saw another kid smoothly refuse a trick when the declarer took a finesse!! Another case - a new mini-bridge player could work out the lay of cards required for a simple squeeze to operate (this one an adult - a teacher).
Sure they cannot yet articulate the reasons for their actions, and maybe it was just a co-incidence, but when coupled with the kind of enthusiasm, hunger and dedication they have shown, I am very confident that some of them will turn out to be very fine bridge players given proper guidance/training.
What started as a 1-2 week fulltime commitment from me has already turned into a 6 month full time commitment at the minimum, thanks to the overwhelming response from the children.
Challenges
As the attendees range from ages 8-16, at different stages of mental development - teaching them all together is extremely difficult. It needs to lot of 1-1 interaction to understand how much each of them has grasped.
I found that some of the brighter kids were finding the pace a bit slow, or the lessons too easy, whereas the others were struggling to keep pace - something that happens in any class, but accentuated a lot more here due to the wide spectrum of attendees.
Other challenges include
However, one needs to be mindful of the fact that it is just a 3-month old initiative, and these challenges should just act to shape our future plans.
Opportunity
Modern day urban life makes time scarce even for kids aged 8-15. Rural India is still relatively untouched by this phenomenon, and as such Raibidpura offers an excellent opportunity to groom players for the future.When coupled with the fact that the game is already widely accepted in the larger society at the village, means there are virtually no social barriers to entry. A little support can go a long way in facilitating bridge players from Raibidpura.
Future Plan
There is a break in the teaching effort as the kids have exams, and I travel with the senior team to Chennai for a tournament. The classes will continue from October first week. The plan is:
I was accomodated in a vacant house, with various players taking turns to host my lunch and dinner with their respective families.
The Children and Mini-Bridge
There are10-18 girls visiting the club everyday. They play mini-bridge (2 tables), and practice on the laptops using Bridge Master (Audrey Grant version). There are 15-20 boys who come in the next batch, and few young adults who have started learning as well.
They are highly enthusiastic, and seem to already love the game (albeit the mini version of it). This was evident from the fact that they would visit the club and play a few extra hours when they had a day oiff from school!!
Amresh had told me want to learn bridge - bidding included. I gauged that it may be too early for that - so gave them a few challenges to illustrate how much more there is in the domain of mini-bridge itself..
Concepts Taught
The concepts i focused on during this visit included:
- Probability, combinations, breaks etc - and how to calculate probability of a distribution. This needs further work.
- Counting cards, and working out shapes
- Importance of vocabulary - esp. bridge vocabulary
- Importance of Planning the play
- Trumps v/s Notrumps - the essential differences
- Counting winners and losers - and making it a habit
- Planning the play - and making it a habit
- Power and importance of trumps - an ally and a danger
- When to draw trumps/delay drawing trumps
- Importance of entries
- Managing entries
Essentially, i covered the first few lessons from LTBP-I, with a strong focus on the players learning the right habits. I think at least 80% of the concepts were grasped by 80% of the audience - more than what i had hoped for when i had started.
Positives
Many kids seem to have an innate card sense.
For instance, a kid about 8-9 years old, from a nearby tribal area, tries to develop a trick in a suit with QJxx opposite xx at a NT contract!! And this within first 2 weeks of starting to play mini-bridge, with almost no training. Similarly, i saw another kid smoothly refuse a trick when the declarer took a finesse!! Another case - a new mini-bridge player could work out the lay of cards required for a simple squeeze to operate (this one an adult - a teacher).
Sure they cannot yet articulate the reasons for their actions, and maybe it was just a co-incidence, but when coupled with the kind of enthusiasm, hunger and dedication they have shown, I am very confident that some of them will turn out to be very fine bridge players given proper guidance/training.
What started as a 1-2 week fulltime commitment from me has already turned into a 6 month full time commitment at the minimum, thanks to the overwhelming response from the children.
Challenges
As the attendees range from ages 8-16, at different stages of mental development - teaching them all together is extremely difficult. It needs to lot of 1-1 interaction to understand how much each of them has grasped.
I found that some of the brighter kids were finding the pace a bit slow, or the lessons too easy, whereas the others were struggling to keep pace - something that happens in any class, but accentuated a lot more here due to the wide spectrum of attendees.
Other challenges include
- Lack of bridge literature in Hindi
- Inadequate Teaching/learning aids
- Not enough teachers to scale the program
However, one needs to be mindful of the fact that it is just a 3-month old initiative, and these challenges should just act to shape our future plans.
Opportunity
Modern day urban life makes time scarce even for kids aged 8-15. Rural India is still relatively untouched by this phenomenon, and as such Raibidpura offers an excellent opportunity to groom players for the future.When coupled with the fact that the game is already widely accepted in the larger society at the village, means there are virtually no social barriers to entry. A little support can go a long way in facilitating bridge players from Raibidpura.
Future Plan
There is a break in the teaching effort as the kids have exams, and I travel with the senior team to Chennai for a tournament. The classes will continue from October first week. The plan is:
- Continue to teach more sophisticated card playing techniques
- Teach the basics of defense
- Drill in the importance of the number of trumps in the combined hands (and exposet he inadequacy of HCP system alone) by modifiying mini-bridge rules so that the number of tricks to be scored by the declarer goes up for bigger fits
- Introduction to Contract Bridge
- Introduce the basic bidding concepts - Standard
