Notes from an Exhibition
Let's see ... Sean and Scott played a series, including half an exhibition game!
Sean brought a new person in, Mike.
We mainly played Race for the Galaxy and Bridge. Bridge can take a while to get to the point of comfort, and then you spend forever getting better. So here are some links to try to get towards comfort...
1) Richard Pavlicek's site has good lessons. The 5th Chair Foundation also has a reasonable series of bidding lessons. I can't vouch for the American Contract Bridge League's "Learn to Play Bridge" software, but it's probably pretty good. (Click on the "Free Lesson Software" link).
2) You can play BridgeBaseOnline for free. There are beginner tables, and you can just watch some deals. It has some lessons somewhere, too.
3) The Turtle Creek Bridge Club is local. In general, I advise calling and asking about classes or novice games. (They do have a novice game on Tuesdays at 1).
4) I have several introductory books on card play I can loan out. Sadly, I don't have any books that summarize bidding that are appropriate. I may swing by used book stores to see if I can find any.... you can also try the library for the ACBL sponsored "Club Series" (by Audrey Grant).
In general if people want to play bridge I'm happy to teach, although I'll try to just set it up and answer questions. I have plenty of first hand experience about how "playing bridge" is basically following instructions for your first X hours. That's not really that fun, I know. I'll try to reduce the bidding basics further.
Labels: Bridge, session report
posted by Brian @ 10:08 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
My batting gets much better when I cut out that pesky 9th position. Sigh.
I've got a "bridge for dummies" book... it takes a little while to get to the point though. The "Learn To Play Bridge" software is pretty good, actually. I went through it a few months back, but have forgotten the bidding stuff...
Bridge seems like something that i would enjoy. Once I begin to remember what order to play the cards in. Poor Dennis. Every time he cringed I knew that I did something wrong. But it was enjoyable.
I wasn't cringing, I was just confused; I haven't practiced card counting in a while, and wasn't sure if I was missing something. You cannot possibly plumb the depths of bad play that I have seen.
I have a copy of the ACBL Club and Diamond series books if anyone would like to borrow them. They are particularly good for the lessons on card play.
In the SABBL, I visited Sean's team. The team in search of a name (perhaps naming them will improve their performance)?
In the opener, I scored 4 in the top of the first on an one out double by howard; a two out home run by posada; followed by a double by guerrero; a signle by h. ramirez advancing guerrero to third; h ramirez stealing second; and then m ramirez singling guerrero home. Sean came back with 2 in the bottom of the 3rd. He took the lead with 4 in the bottom of the 7th. In the top of the 8th Howard Singled; ortiz doubled and then posada singled them both in to tie the game. In the top of the 9th young reached on error; matsui singled on a hit and run advancing young to third and figgins hit a sac fly to score what would turn out to be the winning run; after one final insurance run the score was set at 8-6 marlin cubs. The Marlin cubs lost game 2 6-3; stranding 12 in the process; falling short in the top of the 9th; loading the bases against okajima only to see H ramirez strike out to end it. In game 3 the marlin cubs won it going away 6-1 with Kendrick going the distance. I am 8-7.
hitters through 15 games:
3 with 18 or more PA with over 1 OPS:
David Ortiz--1.158
Jorge Posada--1.121
Diaz--1.444 (18 PA)
But still 5 starters with .700 or below OPS:
Vlad Guerrero--.700
Chone Figgins-.688
Manny Ramirez--.564
Chris Young--.675
Kaz Matsui--.651
After 15, I've got only one person with an OPS greater than 1:
Alex Rios, 1.006
(Corey Patterson has an OPS of 1.467, but he has only 6 PA, so I didn't count him.)
But I've got no one lower than .700. Derrek Lee is my lowest at 0.724. He had an OPS of 0.913 in 2007 in RL, so he's slumping a bit. He actually had two series with an OPS over 1, but in 3 games against Sean, he went 1 for 13 with one single, giving him a series OPS of 0.154. Not so good.
The usual batting title requirement is 3.1 PA/game (500 in a season). Since I've played 12 games, that's 37 PA. Here are my winners and losers with at least that many:
Chase Utley -- 1.176
Todd Helton -- 1.127
Nick Markakis -- 1.117
Randy Winn -- 0.669
Aramis Ramirez -- 0.611
Eric Byrnes -- 0.570
Jose Reyes -- 0.415 (0.133/0.170/0.244)
To those of you who keep making me trade offers -- all I am interested in is a hard-hitting, preferably right-handed outfielder to replace Winn or Byrnes, and I'm willing to give up starting pitching to get it.
some other highs and low and team stats:
The good (or at least the highs)
Posada 21 hits
Vlad Guerrero 13 singles
Posada 9 doubles
Ortiz 6 homeruns
Ortiz, Posada, and H Ramirez 9 walks
Ortiz 18 Ks
Ortiz 17 rbis
Ortiz 13 runs
Posada .368 ba
posada .455 obp
ortiz .746 slg
steals (I still haven't attempted a steal with less then 70% chance of success):
H Ramirez 5 sb; 11 attempts
Figgins 7 sb; 12 attempts
Kaz Matsui 4 sb; 5 attempts
dp's vlad with 4
errors; no not h ramirez; figgins with 5
Post a Comment
<< Home