[Kaitlyn S]

Hi - the Bridge World magazine for experts frequently has a feature called a Bridge Movie where you bid and play a hand in frames; when it's your bid, or crucial play, you stop, make your answer, and go on to the next step.

I feel that there is no reason the experts should have all the fun. That is why I am creating one for novices. It's not very long; it's more of a bridge sitcom rather than a movie.

Here's how it works. You get to see your hand, and each post will take care of a bid. Then you'll get to play or defend.

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Here, you are dealt the far from awesome hand shown. You were thinking you would never bid, but here you are. Your partner doubles 1D and you are not off the hook. Your call?

Make your answer and then go to the next post to continue this movie.

[Kaitlyn S]

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You have a lousy hand, but defending 1D doubled with 200 point vulnerable overtricks is not a good plan. You at least have a four-card suit to bid - it could be worse, you could have to bid a three-card suit.

So, you bid 2C, and soon find yourself being forced to make a decision about a slam!

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Ugh - you have to play a slam with this garbage. Are you thinking about bidding again?

[Kaitlyn S]

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Assuming that partner is sane, they know that you could have nothing, and have just offered to play 6C not knowing you have the king of clubs. Even if West has the CK, partner can't imagine that you have an entry to take a finesse. So partner plans on making 6C even when you are going to lose a trick to the king of clubs. Are you going to lose that trick?

No. You are most definitely not going to lose the CK because you have it. If partner can make 6C without the CK, he should be able to make 7C with it. So with this awful hand that you didn't think you could possibly declare, you are playing a grand slam!

On to the play:

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West leads the ace of diamonds. Partner has his 6C bid. Plan the play.

[Kaitlyn S]

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While we usually count losers from declarer's hand, that is because declarer tends to have more trump than dummy. Here, after trumping the diamond lead, dummy and declarer each have four trump.

Let's count our losers from declarer's hand. Both spades, both hearts, and all the clubs are covered and we trumped one diamond but we have four more diamond losers. Oh my.

Let's try counting losers from dummy instead. Only the S3 is a loser; we can simply draw trump which should fall in 3 rounds or less, and trump that S3 in our hand to make dummy high. No problem!

When we play a high trump, West shows out, discarding a small heart. Does this change anything?

[Kaitlyn S]

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 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-25, 15:09, said:

When we play a high trump, West shows out, discarding a small heart. Does this change anything?

It sure does! East has four clubs. If we draw all four trump, we will have no trump left in our hand and dummy's S3 will be a loser and 7C will go down one.

We must delay drawing trump until that S3 is dealt with. What are we going to do with it? If we play the SA and SK, our hand will be out of spades, and we can trump the S3. Having handled our loser, we can finish drawing trump, and dummy will be good.

Did you bid and make your grand slam? If so, well done!

Here are all four hands:

---

Did you enjoy your first bridge movie?

[MOVIE IS COMPLETED, YOU MAY NOW POST. THANK YOU FOR WAITING.]

[diana_eva]

Kaitlyn, there is a tool on BBO that allows anyone to create a bridge movie in a nice interactive format, with quizzes and comments. Check out this link, you can log in with your BBO username and password and transform this post into a real movie: http://bridgebase.com/store/

Here's what it would look like:

http://bridgebase.co...wer.php?id=2184

[Kaitlyn S]

 diana_eva, on 2016-September-25, 17:05, said:

Kaitlyn, there is a tool on BBO that allows anyone to create a bridge movie in a nice interactive format, with quizzes and comments. Check out this link, you can log in with your BBO username and password and transform this post into a real movie: http://bridgebase.com/store/

Here's what it would look like:
http://bridgebase.co...wer.php?id=2184

I'm not sure I'm ready to learn new technology now, but I tried one of the beginner hands to see what could be done, and it's very impressive. It's a lot like VuBridge but I think this gives the author more capability than VuBridge. Since I got to play that hand for free, I don't see what's in it for the authors - whereas some of the VuBridge authors (which are admittedly known authors) get paid for their deals and analysis. (I'm of course talking from the point of view of a real top author, not mine.) Clearly I didn't check around much, there may be some paid content from some of the top players/teachers.

I also noted that the exact opposite of the levels that happen here on BBO happens with those hands. I played a beginner hand where I was expected to know that 1S (3D) 4D showed spade support and slam interest, and where I had to correctly time my entries in the trump suit so that I could take a first round finesse against the preemptor's partner with AJ10x opposite K98 without cashing a high one first. I suspect that every student in my advanced classes would get that wrong and the true beginners wouldn't even begin to comprehend what was going on - I believe that my "Bidding Problems for Novices" are too hard for beginners who have just taken 12 classes and they are trivial compared to the knowledge assumed to be known by a "beginner" in the one I tried. (I'd better not try an Intermediate one - I might get it wrong!)

Actually I said this the wrong way. What I should have said is that I suspect over half of the BBO self-labeled experts would have got that "beginner" hand wrong. At least one of the labels is wrong by a lot, perhaps both.

But yes, that appears to be an awesome tool, I'll have to give it a look when I'm ready to learn something new (maybe those people looking for me to learn Gazzili are going to be disappointed longer.)

[Kaitlyn S]

Sometime I am going to learn how to read. I just noticed that you made a movie out of my hand!

Now I'm really impressed.

[diana_eva]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-25, 17:45, said:

Sometime I am going to learn how to read. I just noticed that you made a movie out of my hand!

Now I'm really impressed.

I edited it a bit to add quizzes and highlight cards, it's a fun tool. I'd be happy to help you convert some of your posts if you agree

[Kaitlyn S]

 diana_eva, on 2016-September-25, 18:03, said:

I edited it a bit to add quizzes and highlight cards, it's a fun tool. I'd be happy to help you convert some of your posts if you agree

It sounds like your saying the bidding problems would present themselves better as movies too. So if I was to present one here, I would just put the link in the initial post and all the hints & answers would be in the movie itself?

It would be cool, but I realize I would have lost one thing had I done that. In some of the problems, the novices gave their ideas which could in theory give me ideas for future quizzes (knowing where their strengths/weaknesses lie.) If they did the movie, chances are we'd never hear from them. Not that I'm saying the quizzes in movie form are a bad idea, I just showing one possible downside.

Someday I might try to set one up and if I do that I would greatly appreciate any help as technology and I aren't the best of friends.

[Kaitlyn S]

I went to the BBO store to see what other types of hands were there and found that a friend had some quizzes up there. I saw that a new hand was posted today and opened it and much to my surprise, the author was:



(that's my avatar on BBO) Apparently this movie is available there.

(It seems like I should be able to make that image smaller. I tried Size=2 but no effect.)

[diana_eva]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-25, 18:46, said:

It sounds like your saying the bidding problems would present themselves better as movies too. So if I was to present one here, I would just put the link in the initial post and all the hints & answers would be in the movie itself?

It would be cool, but I realize I would have lost one thing had I done that. In some of the problems, the novices gave their ideas which could in theory give me ideas for future quizzes (knowing where their strengths/weaknesses lie.) If they did the movie, chances are we'd never hear from them. Not that I'm saying the quizzes in movie form are a bad idea, I just showing one possible downside.

Someday I might try to set one up and if I do that I would greatly appreciate any help as technology and I aren't the best of friends.

I didn't mean the bidding problems. Forums have a clear advantage that you get comments and replies and engage into a discussion.

I was thinking in the future, if you like the "movie" concept and would like to convert some hands into that format I can help. Nothing wrong with posting a problem in the forums and also having it listed as a bridge movie in the store.

[m1cha]

Hi, nice problem.

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-25, 14:56, said:

Ugh - you have to play a slam with this garbage. Are you thinking about bidding again?

For a little while I wondered if playing NT could be a good idea until I figured out that partner is unlikely to have many diamonds ...

[m1cha]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-25, 15:17, said:

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East has four clubs. If we draw all four trump, we will have no trump left in our hand and dummy's S3 will be a loser and 7C will go down one.

We must delay drawing trump until that S3 is dealt with. What are we going to do with it? If we play the SA and SK, our hand will be out of spades, and we can trump the S3. Having handled our loser, we can finish drawing trump, and dummy will be good.

Be sure to ruff with the ♣K! This comes at no cost but it rescues your contract if opener has a ♠ doubleton!

[Kaitlyn S]

 m1cha, on 2016-September-26, 21:56, said:

Be sure to ruff with the ♣K! This comes at no cost but it rescues your contract if opener has a ♠ doubleton!

Opener has no trump.

[m1cha]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-26, 22:06, said:

Opener has no trump.

So true. Sorry, I guess I was too tired last night.

[Kaitlyn S]

 diana_eva, on 2016-September-25, 17:05, said:

Kaitlyn, there is a tool on BBO that allows anyone to create a bridge movie in a nice interactive format, with quizzes and comments. Check out this link, you can log in with your BBO username and password and transform this post into a real movie: http://bridgebase.com/store/

I tried creating a movie. It has been submitted and will be up in a couple of days. I do have a couple of questions though:

(a) How do I put suit symbols in text?

(b) The "Next Frame" delay always seems active, with a maximum of 10 seconds. How do I set it so that the user has to hit the arrow to go to the next frame?

© The "Help" function seemed to do nothing. Am I missing something?

(d) Kind of unrelated, but I noticed several movies from Ben Dickens. Is that Inquiry?

When the submission is approved, I'm going to ask you all for an honest critique. I plan to submit several more of these (and encourage others to do the same), but I would like to hear places where I could improve the user experience.

Also, for those of you that wish to try creating a movie (it's not that hard, but you do need to pay some attention to detail), I have some advice:

(a) Write down your entire deal. You are only going to display the cards that the user is going to see at each screen, but you don't want to get to the end and then wish some of the initial cards had been different.

(b) Make sure what you're saying is correct. It will be embarrassing to submit a movie that gives bad advice.

© Know your target audience and make sure that what you are saying is appropriate for their level, and that they will understand what you are saying. You don't need to remind the user to play the high card from the short side first in an advanced movie, but you don't mention the "obvious squeeze" in a movie intended for beginners (and in reality might have to spell things out much more than you think you would.)

There is probably advice on making bridge movies elsewhere but I didn't find it.

[diana_eva]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-23, 14:25, said:

I tried creating a movie. It has been submitted and will be up in a couple of days. I do have a couple of questions though:

(a) How do I put suit symbols in text?

Same as on BBO, with !s !h !d !c

Quote

(b) The "Next Frame" delay always seems active, with a maximum of 10 seconds. How do I set it so that the user has to hit the arrow to go to the next frame?

Delete the Next Frame effect completely, you don't need it unless you want the movie to auto-play. I can do that for you if you like, I'm reviewing your movie anyway before it's approved.

Quote

© The "Help" function seemed to do nothing. Am I missing something?

That's a bug, thanks for noticing! There should be thorough help files available, something must have gone broken at some point. We'll fix that. Meanwhile, this tutorial by Inquiry covers pretty much everything.

Quote

(d) Kind of unrelated, but I noticed several movies from Ben Dickens. Is that Inquiry?

Yes, Ben Dickens is Inquiry.

[Kaitlyn S]

The movie is approved and I am looking for constructive criticism about how to make future movies a better user experience.

Since I thought that it was more intermediate than novice (others may disagree), I put the discussion for constructive criticism as well as the movie link in a new thread in the I/A forum. This is the thread:

Link to movie discusson thread

I do have a couple more questions for diana_eva (or anyone) though. I noticed that 'edit' is no longer an option. Once a movie is submitted, it is no longer possible to edit it? (I ask because I am considering editing the first one that you created for me long ago, adding some questions. However, I notice you left an editable version out there which I assume is the same? Also, if someone finds a serious flaws in this movie, I'd like to collect a list of flaws and fix them.)

Also, if you can't edit an approved submission, but had a copy saved, you could in theory make many fixes and resubmit the same movie. However, I noticed when I wrote the movie, I had an option to 'Save' but not to 'Save As' so it appears like I have one work copy of a movie which I lose when it is approved, then I have nothing. I do realize that this is incentive for people to be really careful and get it right the first time, but is there some option to get a hold of a submitted movie and resubmit it with fixes? (Clearly this would be something that would be done rarely.)

By the way, "it's all in inquiry's manual" is an acceptable answer. I just figured if the answer was "No" then someone would tell me.

EDIT to add: When I played my movie: I noticed you had added some improvements. Thank you! I will try to keep those new screens in mind when (a) making my next movie and (b) making notes for others about making their first movie.

[diana_eva]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-24, 08:29, said:

The movie is approved and I am looking for constructive criticism about how to make future movies a better user experience.

Since I thought that it was more intermediate than novice (others may disagree), I put the discussion for constructive criticism as well as the movie link in a new thread in the I/A forum. This is the thread:

Link to movie discusson thread

I do have a couple more questions for diana_eva (or anyone) though. I noticed that 'edit' is no longer an option. Once a movie is submitted, it is no longer possible to edit it? (I ask because I am considering editing the first one that you created for me long ago, adding some questions. However, I notice you left an editable version out there which I assume is the same? Also, if someone finds a serious flaws in this movie, I'd like to collect a list of flaws and fix them.)

Also, if you can't edit an approved submission, but had a copy saved, you could in theory make many fixes and resubmit the same movie. However, I noticed when I wrote the movie, I had an option to 'Save' but not to 'Save As' so it appears like I have one work copy of a movie which I lose when it is approved, then I have nothing. I do realize that this is incentive for people to be really careful and get it right the first time, but is there some option to get a hold of a submitted movie and resubmit it with fixes? (Clearly this would be something that would be done rarely.)

By the way, "it's all in inquiry's manual" is an acceptable answer. I just figured if the answer was "No" then someone would tell me.

EDIT to add: When I played my movie: I noticed you had added some improvements. Thank you! I will try to keep those new screens in mind when (a) making my next movie and (b) making notes for others about making their first movie.

Once a movie is submitted and approved there's no way to edit it anymore. You can however email support@bridgebase.com to ask for the movie to be pulled out of the store and sent back to you for editing. You don't have to email support now, I'll just send back the first movie to you so you can take another look and edit as you wish.

While saving movies there's an option to Copy. It's not Save As, but does the same thing, creates a copy of the movie that you can save with a different name and edit separately.