Bridge Lessons

Ken's Background

Ken has been a serious student of bidding theory since he started playing while awaiting discharge from the Army in 1946. He began writing about bridge with a three-part series of articles on American Acol in The Bridge World in 1957, just after American dominance in international competition had ended with a loss to the British in 1955, followed by a loss to the French the next year and the rise of the Italian Blue Team juggernaut which continued to dominate until Ira Corn's Dallas Aces finally ended their reign too many years later. The Italian reign inspired Ken to begin a serious study of competitive bidding methods which culminated in 1981 with the publication of 3-D and the MAFIA Club in 1981 and described a competitive bidding system which allows its followers to compete effectively against any bidding system, no matter how obscure, without any advanced preparation, by selecting from among three different defensive systems depending on whether the opponents' bids at the current stage of the auction have described 0, 1, or 2 specific suits. After moving to Hawaii in 1982, he resumed his playing career in 1990. When Kathryn joined him in 1996, he began to focus his writing on instructional materials for the intermediate/novice players attempting to make the transition from Audrey Grant's beginning course and compete effectively in club and tournament play. From that beginning, after extensive discussions with Julie Greenberg, ACBL's Director of Education, has sprung The Foundation System which is featured in this Website and serves as the primary text for our Intermediate Bridge Course.

Course Recommendations

Beginners: If you have never played bridge before, we recommend the ACBL Club Series by Audrey Grant. This is an excellent course for absolute beginners. It teaches a simple form of the game which is suitable for party bridge, but bears little resemblance to the game played by most ACBL members in club duplicates and ACBL tournaments. Courses are offered regularly by several excellent local teachers: Edith Neff (261-5519), Karen Lanke (529-0808), Shizue Palmer (839-2301), and Edy Kuwamoto (488-0134). Kathryn and Ken are both certified to teach the Grant courses, but prefer to concentrate on the Intermediate market.

Intermediates: Our Intermediate courses are based on The Foundation System, with hand evaluation based on the Losing Trick Count. We prefer to get Club Series graduates as soon as possible after completing that course, since much that they learn in that course must be unlearned, and that will be easier before those bad habits become firmly entrenched. Course content will be tailored to the skill level of the students, but the following outline would be considered typical:

I. Opening Bids	Includes Hand Evaluation and the Losing Trick Count
II. NoTrump Bidding	Stayman, Jacoby Transfers, Minor Suit Stayman, Gerber
III. Major Suit Bidding	Single Raise, Limit Raise, 2NT as Forcing Raise, Splinters, New Suit and NT Responses
IV. Minor Suit Bidding	Searching for Major Suit Fit or NT, Single Raise, Limit Raise, NT Responses
V. Defensive Bidding	Overcalls vs Takeout Doubles, NT Overcalls, Preemptive Jump Overcalls
VI. More Defensive Bidding	Defenses Against NT Openings, Handling Competitive Bids by the Opponents
VII. Preemptive Bidding	Weak Two Bids and Responses, Opening 3-Bids and Higher
VIII. Slam Bidding	Artificial Forcing 2C Opening and Responses, Cue-Bidding, Roman Keycard Blackwood
Card Play	On Defense, we stress Opening Leads and the Six Primary Lines of Defense. For Declarer, our emphasis is on card reading, planning the hand, suit combinations, endplays, and simple squeezes.

Advanced: Our Advanced courses can be tailored to the needs of the class. It will usually include a description of the additional conventions many of the local players use to embellish The Foundation System, such as Flannery, Mini-Roman, Bergen Raises, Reverse Drury, Inverted Minors, Puppet Stayman, Exclusion Blackwood, and Feedback RKC, along with advice on how to go about deciding which conventions to include or exclude. Completion of our Intermediate Course or Consent of Instructor is a prerequisite for our Advanced courses.

Pricing: For groups of eight or more, the basic charge is $75 per person for a series of eight lessons, including extensive photocopied class notes and any applicable textbook. For a group of four, the basic charge rises to $100 per person. We would welcome such groups at our geodesic dome here in Laie. We expect that most groups will prefer a location in Kailua, Kaneohe, or Honolulu, presumably in the home of one of the students. To accommodate such arrangements, our policy is that one host gets a free ride. Thus the total cost of a group of four becomes $300 instead of $400, while for a group of eight it becomes $525 instead of $600.