Hi bridge pals.
You may or may not have noticed that posts on this blog are collected into categories. You see every post on the main page of the blog, but if you click on one of the categories at the top of the page then you will see just the posts in that category. For instance, Computation Corner just shows the posts that are more about how to use my bridge program than they are about bridge itself.
If you are not clicking on the categories then you might not really care how each post you receive is categorized on the blog. But there are some changes coming, and so I am adding more categories.
I use this blog and my deal generator to help me in my own study of bridge. Writing the program and then writing about how to use it helps me organize my thoughts and, frankly, helps me look back and remember techniques I might lose sight of. Up until now, I have been a beginning student of bridge AND a beginning web programmer. But now I am just barely past the beginner stage in both areas, and my program has the main features I planned to implement.
Now it’s time to get down to more focused study of specific bridge topics. Hence the categories. I call the new categories “Cookbooks” which is something you see a lot in computing literature. For every computer language or technology there is a book called “The <computer language or technology> Cookbook”. This formulation lets the writer get away with writing a bunch of “recipes” and then piling them up and calling it a book. While I am not writing a book per se, I do like the idea of a pile of recipes and I do like the cookbook concept, so I’m going with that.
I will have three categories, or cookbooks, each of which represents an area that I will be studying intensely for the foreseeable future. The cookbooks are:
SAYC Cookbook
My goal is to master Standard American Yellow Card as the basis for my play and for making my game compatible with the widest number of partners. In this cookbook, I intend to take the SAYC one section or line at a time and see if I can express something about it both in writing and via my deal generator.
Suit Combinations Cookbook
Suit combination articles are covered over with math, logic, and statistics. Yes, I know the whole game of bridge is that way, but suit combinations brings out the Math Club guys.
I am not a Math Club guy.
I have to force myself to really sit down and pay attention to anything involving math, logic, and statistics. I like knowing those things, but I don’t like the process of learning those things. But I am going to try to make it fun for myself and, I hope, for you.
But mainly for me.
I have already published a post about suit combinations in general. This cookbook is where I will noodle out more of them. I will leave no stone unturned in my quest for correct card play!
Conventions Cookbook
I plan to focus my study of conventions on those that make the list in Larry Cohen’s article “What Should We Play?” Coming up with deals to exercise specific conventions should be instructive and may even lead to new options on the deal customization page of my bridge program—making it a one-stop shop for all your convention practice needs.
I may also explore the little-known corners of the history of conventions, such as the fascinating interplay between Messrs. Stayman and Jacoby outlined under the above historical image.
Well, that’s my plan! I hope you find the cookbooks fun and informative.