[Chamaco]

Hi all,
first of all let me state one more time how great are all the activities held at the BIL club.

-Mentoring sessions by OliverC, Cascade, and many other great mentors (sorry if i do not mention their names, just that I ignore those who hold classes during my work hopurs or sleeping time ).
-Tourneys with prepared hands and post mortem analyses.
-a very nice bulletin assembled by the folks there
- and fuinally, many many nice people !!


So what am I to complain about ?
Here it is.

Yesterday I was watching one of the great OliverC sessions on the Precision bidding system.
I promise you his lessons are useful also for advanced players (at least "BBO advanced").
I told a friend of mine to join but she said:
"I wish very much I could, I can't because I have inb my profile *advanced*".

I learned then that if you are advanced you cannot attend to the BIL.
My freind also told me that she could easily create another profile with intermediate level and enter, but she does not like "cheating".

I believe this BIL policy is unfair, for many reasons:

1) the level of many of the teaching classes (OliverC being one) can improve the skills also of several advanced players, not only intermediates

2) we all know that many times the skill level in profile is meaningless: I myself have "intermediate" but I have seen several "advanced" playing much worse and other people who put "novice" on their card who are instead real hotshots. Basing the selection on self-assessed skill level seems a dubious choice.

I understand that a mentor has to prepare his/her teaching material based on a intermediate-beginner skill level and that the presence of stronger player increases the variability of the audience: but what I suggest here is that the activities remain focused as they are now towards beginners-improving players, and to let the advanced + players enter the club at least to view those classes, perhaps with chat right disabled so they won't bring up questions that may deviate the lesson from its basic scope.

Since the scope of the BIL club is to improve the general skill of the BBO community, letting advanced players in just to view the lesson is not an extra cxommittment in term of time of resources.

As for the rest:
good job, BIL folks !
I hope you take this post as a compliment for the quality of your activities !

[sceptic]

BIL = beginners intermediate lounge

Interesting concept letting advanced take over the lounge (perhaps they can take over the world next) hehehehehe,

maybe you could start a intermediates advanced lounge , that would solve problem

Then I can come to that also cos BIL is GREAT

[Chamaco]

sceptic, on Jul 11 2004, 02:12 PM, said:

BIL = beginners intermediate lounge

Interesting concept letting advanced take over the lounge (perhaps they can take over the world next)  hehehehehe,

maybe you could start a intermediates advanced lounge , that would solve problem

Then I can come to that also cos BIL is GREAT

I did not mean take over, do not play with my words please
I meant just view the lessons, maybe chat disabled, without interfering with the lessons that are -rightly so - oriented to the real Beginner-Intermediates.
Many of these lessons, I promise you, are so good that they also useful for many of them.

It would cost nothing to let them access those lessons, I just cannot understand why it is not allowed.

[1eyedjack]

Chamaco, on Jul 11 2004, 07:25 AM, said:

I told a friend of mine to join but she said:
"I wish very much I could, I can't because I have inb my profile *advanced*".

I learned then that if you are advanced you cannot attend to the BIL.

Umm

How about: change your profile to beginner. Go to the lesson. Finish the lesson. Change your profile back to advanced.

[Chamaco]

1eyedjack, on Jul 11 2004, 03:04 PM, said:

How about: change your profile to beginner. Go to the lesson. Finish the lesson. Change your profile back to advanced.

hehe, that's the easy way
If that's the suggestion, I guess I'll tell my freinds to do that

[paulhar]

Quite frankly, I can see both sides of the coin. When I first read the message, I agreed 100% with Chamaco. The BIL had a well-advertised presentation Friday night. When I started a forum topic (Is bridge a difficult game?) based on information from that presentation (which was loved by all, according to the chat afterwords), one reply that I got was 'I thought I only allowed beginners in here!"

My motivation for watching is my interest in bridge teaching. A teacher who watches other decent teachers in action is bound to improve, learning good teaching techniques seen in their presentations. It would have been sad to have been shut out because my profile says 'Advanced'. Indeed, wouldn't it be better for bridge all around if all teachers could learn from each other's expertise?

However, this was a special case. It was not interactive (as far as seeing the beginner's reactions) and nobody (except maybe the presenter) knew I was there.

It's quite different in an environment where the beginners are invited to say their piece during the lesson. Whether the advanced players are allowed to chat or not, the beginners can slide their mouse over the table number and know who is there. The beginners will be more comfortable talking if they know there aren't advanced players watching how little they know. On the other hand, if only other beginners are present, the beginners are only too happy to speak their mind and the learning experience is better.

Let me give you an example from experience.

Wanting to know what online teaching was like, I offered a couple of short minilessons by opening a teaching room in the Main Bridge Club. The first time, I just made up a few hands in movie format, and made a call to the lobby for some beginners & novices for a free lesson. I got beginners and novices and one intermediate player. Everybody was talkative, freely answering my questions, and asking many on their own. It seemed that the lesson was loved by all and several asked when I was doing it again.

The second lesson, advertised by a thread in the B&I forum, was different. I said, "suggested for intermediate - all welcome" and now am realizing that it might have been a mistake. There were several advanced people in the room and a couple of experts even dropped in. This time, I could hardly get anybody to answer a question, or to ask one. I thought it was a better lesson than the first one but it didn't go so well and it not appear to be enjoyed - I only got a couple of polite 'thank-yous'.

While other differences in the two lessons could have influenced the learning experiences, the lack of interaction certainly played a large factor. The people for whom the lesson were aimed were afraid to both answer my questions and to ask their own questions. When I sent private messages to a couple of intermediates to jump into an empty seat, they both replied, "Maybe later." I would guess that they were intimidated by all the higher level players in the room. If the advanced & experts weren't there, I think the intermediates would have been much more communicative and enjoyed the lesson.

What a spectacle this was - ME giving a lesson with an advanced player in every seat! In fact, they did learn from the lesson; they did everything wrong that I expected the intermediates to do, and they understood afterwards why they should have done the right thing. But it was rather disheartening to see many intermediate students pop into the room, see an advanced player in every seat (for THEIR lesson), and leave. I did not think the level of the material was beyond BBO intermediates though.

It might help if there was some way that the advanced players' profiles could be hidden so that the Beg/Nov/Int didn't know that they were there. However, if it were advertised how to do that, the beginners might know that the advanced people were there and be reluctant to interact.

As far as changing your profile to enter the lesson which you think might be for you: your profile might be incorrect now! Intermediate is supposed to be "average player on BBO" and advanced is supposed to be "enjoyed success at local but not national level". The inference that I draw from their level definitions is that to be advanced, you should be consistently over average at a club game, and expect to be average in an unrestricted sectional or regional event. Since the next level, Expert is defined as 'enjoying success at national tournaments', then the top of the advanced level will contain people that have won several regional and sectional events. If you would learn a fair amount from an intermediate lesson, it seems fair to say that maybe your level should be 'Intermediate', and you're certainly not cheating to make your level 'Intermediate' for the lesson.

While I might like to join a Beginner/Intermediate lesson to see another teacher's techniques, I fully repect Maureen's decision to shut me out of the lesson to make the acutal beginners feel more comfortable - which IMHO is much more important.

[Chamaco]

paulhar, on Jul 11 2004, 03:58 PM, said:

As far as changing your profile to enter the lesson which you think might be for you: your profile might be incorrect now! Intermediate is supposed to be "average player on BBO" and advanced is supposed to be "enjoyed success at local but not national level". The inference that I draw from their level definitions is that to be advanced, you should be consistently over average at a club game, and expect to be average in an unrestricted sectional or regional event.

I am talking of people like that: people that have played in national.
The lectures of OliverC on Precision are useful to them too.


Some do not know precision, some do not know a few hints, etc etc.
I guarantee you, these lectures are useful also for people who win several club tourneys.

[paulhar]

Chamaco, on Jul 11 2004, 11:04 AM, said:

I am talking of people like that: people that have played in national.
The lectures of OliverC on Precision are useful to them too.


Some do not know precision, some do not know a few hints, etc etc.
I guarantee you, these lectures are useful also for people who win several club tourneys.

Maybe so. But which is the worst evil, shutting out the few advanced players that might gain, or making the many Beg/Nov/Int uncomfortable to ask or answer questions bcause the advanced players are present?

Besides, in the example you gave, if someone decent wants to learn Precision because he doesn't know it, I got 587 hits when I Googled "precision system" +bridge. Some of those have to be quite informative and the advanced player should be able to easily distinguish which sites are garbage.

The novice living in an area where Precision is prevalent might not be able to make this distinction and it's important that he gets the full learning experience from the lecture. If even one advanced player in the room makes him nervous or causes him to hold back on questions, that's a crying shame.

You may correctly point out that the novices shouldn't feel this way. After all, the actual lecturer is probably a lot better player than the advanced player who joins the room and the lecturer isn't making anybody nervous. So, why should the presence of an advanced student make any difference? (Ironically, nobody cared that I could see their misconceptions when I gave the lesson but the same people might be nervous because I could see them in someone else's lesson!)

However senseless it may seem, this seems to be the case. Rational or not, the learning experience seems to be diminished by the presence of players perceived by the novice to be good (whether or not they are.) The experience in my mini-lessons tells me emphatically that this is true (there was just SO much difference in the way the students acted - not to mention that some walked in and left which did not happen when only B/N/I's were in the room.

In theory, in a perfect world, you are right. But...

[42]

Just a few thoughts of mine in no special order:

1. What I learned is that I should change my self-rating as it suits for occasion (I do not like that!)
2. The rating "advanced" may be correct in my area and not in a "strong" region.
3. To my opinion stronger players will leave if the stuff is already well-known.
4. I always look through pink glasses: people do not cheat in any case and people do not discourage beginners with rude remarks or fast responses or whatever. So I would as an "advanced" in an announced B/I-event be silent and always in the background. Why should a beginner feel her/himself uncomfortable when asking or making mistakes? She/he is there for learning. Maybe it is the big watching crowd which makes the difference and not the advanced/expert among them?
5. It is true that I can read books or articles about any system, but it is a nice idea following lessons about our favourite system with my dear friend sitting for example in Italy and me in Germany, and maybe have private discussions about it later. As you know precison is not precision overall... Does it do any harm?
6. As I taught absolute beginners over years I am really interested how other teachers do. Should I state myself beginner for being able to watch?
7. It is really great that people offer such lessons and I always wonder that problems occur even when all sides wish to please/help each other. No idea why it is so, a far field as Effi Briest's father always said.
I love (nearly) you all

[hallway]

I will reply to comments one at a time

Chamaco

At the request of some teachers I did allow some Advanced in as "watching' members - there are still a few, a very few who were/are able to accept the restraints put upon them. The rest caused trouble with a capital T .

Just a couple of days ago I had a member classing himself as an Intermediate tell me I should not let a BEGINNER play in my BEGINNER Intermediate Tournament - - "until they learned more than the basics" !!!

You are right some do apply as Nov/Beg/Int and are given a membership without question - few remain for long , they forget to change their profile when they come in from the MBC or when they enter a BIL tournament, then too the real BILlies are vigilant in the MBC and I am often greeted with - '....' is an Adv !! As you said "your friend does not like cheating' - well neither do I like those that do - for them I will do nothing.

You have it totally WRONG the scope of the BIL is NOT to improve the general skill of the BBO community.

The BIL is my Private Club and the scope of the BIL - IS , has ALWAYS been and WILL ALWAYS be to HELP the BEGINNER to learn to play bridge.

I included Intermediates for 3 reasons
1. Beginners cannot improve, lift their game just playing amongst themselves , we need to be challenged and that means playing with those more skilled than ourselves.
2. Most of the Seniors at my f2f club have never heard of the conventions my class use because of the information I have gathered on BBO. So the BIL can give those players, as they come online, a place to upskill and thus hold their own in the MBC. Whilst doing that my members can benefit by playing with them - they may not know the modern conventions but their declarer/defense play can be pretty canny !
3. And too it leaves room for those that join as Beginners to continue to learn and advance their playing capabilities to the point where they are comfortable playing with/against the MBC Advanced community

For the Intermediates as part of our first birthday 'celebrations' I am instituting an Honorary Graduate membership so that when they feel they have upskilled sufficiently they do not have to leave the BIL because they now class themselves as Advanced but will be able to remain and continue being helpful.

I had the selfish notion that I could learn to play bridge too - not to be !! The running of the BIL takes up all of my spare time. My Hands record shows that in the 315 days the BIL has been in existence I have played on just 25 occasions with an average stay of 11 boards. Hardly likely to improve at that rate !! and yet I spend never less than 8 hours a day, 7 days a week on BIL business - and you say that letting Advanced join is "not an extra committment in term of time of resources. !!!

My advice Chamaco - start your own PRIVATE CLUB for Int/Adv .I am sure Oliver and others will be pleased to come and teach for you.

BTW - your reply to Sceptic - (believe me I have asked ) Chat cannot be disabled as you suggest.

*************

PAULHAR - the reply you got from me was " I thought I only invited beginners" (from the MBC - via Lobby notice) (all BIL members General and Honorary <Advanced to World Class> were of course personally invited ) how many of them came I have no way of knowing. The Lecture Hall has no restrictions on entry.

You say - "I fully respect Maureen's decision to shut me out of the lesson" when , which lesson ?? According to my memory I sent you an information sheet outlining the various Honorary member categories the BIL offers and invited you to ask for temporary entry to the BIL so that you could assess what is going on in there and then to decide whether you want to offer to help the membership . You have not, to date, expressed a wish to do that.

Thank you for summing up your experience in the MBC trying to teach beginners. No more needs to be said . That is it ! The lessons that are offered daily in the BIL are suited for beginners who have moved beyond the basics and the intermediates.

It was for that reason that JAKE (and the BIL's beginner members are truly indebted to him ) focused on a Lecture Hall presentation because with that format the lesson cannot be taken over by anyone. If it seems too simple for some they can simply flick their 'back' button and be gone. We shall be having more of these.

****************

42 - your comment #3 'will leave' - sadly no, far too many of them do NOT !! They send private messages to the teacher 'arguing a point' distracting the teacher. They make smart/nasty comments to the other kibitzers and when they get an ear full from me they then start sending 'put down' messages by private chat to the hapless beginner . I have had members asking to be replaced at a table as they need to shut off their computer because THEY ARE IN TEARS !!!!!! ( not an isolated case ! ) yet those lessons had been CLEARLY advertised as being aimed at BEGINNERS

I have asked to have chat facilities to control this - they are not available to private clubs - so my work around is simple NO Advanced

Advanced to the World's Best are WELCOME in the BIL but only when they come willing to help my members in an Honorary Member capacity . To be given that they must contact me direct with their offer to help.

The BIL already has a WONDERFUL group of people HELPING DAILY - and I cannot ever fully express my gratitude to them for all they do and the difference they have made

[keylime]

Maureen,

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto times a googleplex. Ditto raised to the number of atoms in the universe (approximately 10 to the 87th power). Ditto to 10 to the infinity PLUS one power. Ditto.

Oh yeah, ditto.

[Chamaco]

hallway, on Jul 12 2004, 02:33 AM, said:

and yet  I spend never less than 8 hours a day, 7 days a week on BIL business  -    and you say that  letting Advanced join  is "not an extra committment in term of time of resources.  !!!

Maureen,
I am VERY VERY VERY grateful for your committment and all you do.
All the activities you do are great, and I wish there was something like this (and somebody like you!) also in real life bridge, that would be simply great !

I love the enthusiasm you put in.

And of course the private club is yours and you do the choices you think are right.

Still I believe it is right to express my disagreement on excluding indiscriminately all advanced players: those who like to make smart comments and interfere with the activities should IMO be excluded, yes, but my own opinion is that other advanced (42 being one of them) would stay there only to watch and do nothing.

I think I can say this without necessarily having to start my own club .


And yes, I do confirm that letting these silent advanced people in the BIL would not take away extra resouces: they'd just be watching and noone should do more that they are doing right now.


I do not expect that expressing my opinion changes the policy, but I had to say it, I think it is right to express one's opinion


Finally, let me again reiterate my compliments to all the BIL activities: as I said, my regret for them to be limited to a smaller audience, is an indirect statement of how good a job you and your team are doing !

[hallway]

Chamaco,

You do not realise - the handling of the applications is time consuming, - very time consuming, yet you are suggesting that I should double/treble that time to allow Advanced players access ! I had a very busy few days last week - I only got a portion of the applications dealt with - I have over a 100 still waiting to be processed !

And I have a question for you -

How do I know from a BBO ID whether that person is one of those that will be a well behaved person or a poorly behaved person - until such time as they show their true colours ?

If they prove to be one that needs evicting - By then I have had to process their application , enable their membership, monitor their behaviour, take time to read the feedback by LMM, by email and by chat from members, review chat log . Then when I evict them I have to (sometimes for months !!) put up with their personal harrassment of me.

The bottom line is I do not have the time nor the mental stamina to cope with that. I have more than enough of it from the uncouth Intermediates I do inadvertently allow to join, (thankfully a small minority)

Besides which Paul was 100% correct when he said that the mere presence of an Advanced player (unless, in the BIL, when they know that person to be an Honorary Member) intimidates newcomers to the game. Even the best and most charming of Advanced players are still human - when they see someone like me make some totally stupid bid/play being silent is an 'impossibility' !! The newcomers are the people I really want to help - people like myself who would love to be able to play bridge , but can't !

You want to further the skills of the Advanced then , if not yourself, encourage an Advanced to start a Private Club for the Intermediate/Advanced community.

[paulhar]

Sorry Maureen - I said something that could be misunderstood - when I said "I respect Maureen's decision to keep me out of BIL lectures" - I didn't mean me personally as much as I did Advanced players in general. And I'll reiterate, based on what I saw, that seems to be a wise decision.

Actually, your comments may have been an indication of what happened to my lesson that went awry. Both of the two lessons that went well were bereft of advanced or better players or kibitzers. Although I could see no comments that could put someone in tears (the perpetrator would have booted swiftly), it was quite possible that people were receiving unpleasant private messages and I really don't know any way of stopping those. Also, it is quite possible that some of these messages could come from others labelled Intermediate!

If I were to give any more online lessons (I have no such plans now - we have to write 80 lessons for F2F classes for this winter) I would post in advance that if anyone got an unpleasant private message, they should let me know immediately so I could boot the offender (I hope nobody would lie about this!)

In a class of a size I would get, I would have little problem with having the room with permissions so I could check level (and not allow prior rude players.) I could see that this would be a problem for a teacher of greater fame - they would spend an awful lot of time clicking on 'allow' & 'don't allow'.

[jtfanclub]

"Even the best and most charming of Advanced players are still human - when they see someone like me make some totally stupid bid/play being silent is an 'impossibility' "

I recognize myself in there...and I'm decidedly an intermediate. I solved this for myself by popping in and out and therefore getting the email notes when available. I don't know what fraction of the lectures have emailed notes to the participants, but when they do I suppose it would be nice to have Advanced people allowed to request them somehow.

[Free]

I think it's a nice initiative, and as the club name says, it's for beginners and intermediates (and novices ofcourse). The honorary members and teachers usually are experts in the field, who give their knowledge to these people.

And here, I can understand Chamaco! If you look at it totally objectively, then you'll see that advanced+ players don't get access to these expert's knowledge. However, most of the stuff which is teached you should already know Chamaco, so don't worry friend Let the club be what it is, you won't miss much anyway.

Just a thought: perhaps if someone would have the time to make a website, lectures could be put online so everybody has access. Then you won't get such complaints anymore, beg/int's can play amoung there own, and everyone is happy

[paulhar]

Free, on Jul 13 2004, 04:24 AM, said:

(portions deleted)
Just a thought: perhaps if someone would have the time to make a website, lectures could be put online so everybody has access. Then you won't get such complaints anymore, beg/int's can play amoung there own, and everyone is happy

In theory, yes. But someone E-mailed me the contents of a chat that I missed and was interested in and I got all the comments said by everybody. It's possible that the private messages to and from the sender were there too. A truly interactive lesson (I mean interactive with the teacher talking to you, not with a computer program where cows moo at you for wrong answers) is going to contain chat from the students, including the students' misconceptions. Now, if these students knew that anybody could get the chat history from the lesson, wouldn't that make them more self-conscious and less likely to ask and answer questions and speak their mind?

I would guess that in order to keep the B/N/I's more comfortable and freely speaking during the lessons, they have to know that what is said inside the room stays inside the room.

By the way, this is an impression that I've gotton based on three mini-lessons and on what Maureen said. If any of you Beg/Nov/Int disagree with what I'm saying. feel free to tell me I'm wrong. I'm tempted to open a poll in the B/I forum to test this theory.

[Chamaco]

paulhar, on Jul 13 2004, 05:58 PM, said:

If any of you Beg/Nov/Int disagree with what I'm saying. feel free to tell me I'm wrong. I'm tempted to open a poll in the B/I forum to test this theory.

I am intermediate and disagree

[paulg]

Free, on Jul 13 2004, 10:24 AM, said:

Just a thought: perhaps if someone would have the time to make a website, lectures could be put online so everybody has access.  Then you won't get such complaints anymore, beg/int's can play amoung there own, and everyone is happy 

I actually publish the hands played, and chat logs, from almost all of my BIL sessions on my website. I do edit the chat log to remove most of the personal chats and potentially embarrassing material.

I believe that my Monday crowd has built sufficient confidence in me that it does not appear to inhibit their contributions. In addition there is quite a demand for the hands and logs.

However it has been noticeable that when advanced & experts make guest appearances the level of chat decreases, or perhaps becomes private rather than public. For this reason I prefer to maintain the current position and not permit stronger players to attend.

Paul

[hallway]

In fact most of the BIL's teachers have their own website and the notes from their lessons are posted on there for members to refer to . Links to these are supplied for all members to access 24/7 in the Lounge - Club News.

For those that do not have a website and as a repostitory for the weekly News Update (Newsletter sent to all members weekly - which also supplies articles by many of the BIL's Honorary members ) two websites are currently under construction. When these go 'live' all members current and future will have access to all material generated by the BIL's activities.