[thepossum]

Dear all

I'm sure we all have our preconceptions about bridge players and personality types attracted to the game (after all we are bridge players ourselves); and also the more problematic aspects (shall we say) of those personality types. After all most of us either experience or have perpetuated some of those behaviours during the game at one stage or another. I would be very interested in any serious research on this matter. I have read on other sites, some rather uninformed (and unreferenced) opinion about the matter of problem personalities in bridge, and also people who listen to and add to that uninformed opinion. It has been dressed up as expertise and uses the "authority" of the author to lend it some validity, despite being unreferenced. In fact I would go so far as to conjecture that one of the problem behaviours many of us (myself sometime) have as bridge players as being very keen to dish out expert advice when we are not experts. The game seems to develop a certain group of "authorities" who then are able to perpetuate uninformed opinion. I know this is not unique to bridge, sadly it occurs throughout society, and the internet has enabled this more and more.

Following on from that I would be very interested in any genuine research on personality in bridge, either from the positive aspect, or the types of personalities, the aspects of different types of people and brains that are attracted to the game, or are successful at the game. I would of course also be interested in the less positive personality aspects, as someone trained in and who has worked in fields involving psychological or personality disorders.

Please only post with genuine informed views on the matter, unlike certain other bridge forums

regards P

[Vampyr]

Have you read Why You Lose at Bridge?

[Cyberyeti]

The biggest personality/mental problems in bridge are loss of objectivity and being unable to admit you're wrong.

I've not seen any serious research on this, but several players have identified some of the personality types in books.

[rhm]

Which sort of people get attracted to Bridge is a good question, but so far I have not come along a good answer.
It would be interesting to know whether Bridge players are representative for the society overall or not.
My guess is that Bridge players overall tend to have more higher education than a representative sample of the society, but apart from that I am not sure.
For example Bridge fascinates both sexes, which is quite different to many other games.

Usually people get attracted to hobbies or professions, where they have a talent for and where they will shine and have some success.
One of the mysteries of Bridge is, that so many get fascinated about the game, who seem incapable of mastering much beyond the beginner stage even though they play the game for decades.
Bridge is in many ways a game of logical deduction and inferences, yet many players seem incapable of making even very basic ones.
I never understood what fascinates these people about the game.

While there are of course players of different capabilities in other games, I do not think that many incapable players develop a lifelong attraction to Chess or GO.

Rainer Herrmann

[mikeh]

rhm, on 2019-March-26, 06:15, said:

Which sort of people get attracted to Bridge is a good question, but so far I have not come along a good answer.
It would be interesting to know whether Bridge players are representative for the society overall or not.
My guess is that Bridge players overall tend to have more higher education than a representative sample of the society, but apart from that I am not sure.
For example Bridge fascinates both sexes, which is quite different to many other games.

Usually people get attracted to hobbies or professions, where they have a talent for and where they will shine and have some success.
One of the mysteries of Bridge is, that so many get fascinated about the game, who seem incapable of mastering much beyond the beginner stage even though they play the game for decades.
Bridge is in many ways a game of logical deduction and inferences, yet many players seem incapable of making even very basic ones.
I never understood what fascinates these people about the game.

While there are of course players of different capabilities in other games, I do not think that many incapable players develop a lifelong attraction to Chess or GO.

Rainer Herrmann

Adding to what you say: while I believe that there is some correlation between the type of intelligence that scores well on IQ tests, it is not a 100% correlation. Many very intelligent people, with a love for the game, are hopeless.

Also, I do think that bridge, especially tournament bridge, attracts more than its share of eccentric people, possibly because, as younger people (and especially, but not only, younger males) bridge afforded (pre-computer and now internet games) a safe environment in which to socialize, when they were otherwise socially awkward. I don't mean to imply that all younger male bridge-players (of my generation and earlier) were misfits....far from it, but I do think the game attracted a relatively high proportion of atypical individuals.

One of my good friends, who is a very good player, claims only half-jokingly, that he can run off the names of at least 30 of his friends who are 'whack-jobs'....all of them play bridge, and most play it fairly well I have never asked him if my name would be on that list

[thepossum]

Dear all

Many thanks for all the replies. I won't take cyberyetis comment about loss of objectivity and not admitting being wrong, personally I won't make any comments about possible psychological reasons for those traits - eg sensitivity, defensiveness and other psychological defence mechanisms. I think it would be fascinating study area from different psychological perspectives, especially psychodynamics and cognitive-neuropsychology (in fact all persectives, evolutionary, behaviourist and humanist too ). Allthough to follow up what cyberyeti said I think the reason people take things personally is that, from my observation, there is a tendency for bridge players to use ad hominem excessively, so they have reason to take things personally.

I will read a bit more

I could quite easily conjecture about personality traits and types from experience, but will not do so here. There is a bit too much speculation/assertion by some professional people on other bridge forums. I will try not to make that mistake here.

All I could do is conjecture and I think it would attract a wide range of people but definitely with some strong clusters of some traits. I certainly get the feeling that pure deduction and inference would not be enough to make you good at the game. I suspect that it also requires a fair bit of feel or intuition to be a top player as well as psychological skills. And obviously many are attracted more for social reasons than necessarily competing and doing well. I think many just enjoy playing without necessarily wanting to be the top. It is an excellent participation game/sport from that perspective, as is clear from the grass roots

It would be interesting for me to study but I'm unafiliated at the moment (eg ethics approval) and am far more intersted in playing and chatting about things than studying it at that level

regards P

[Cyberyeti]

My comments weren't aimed at you in particular possum.

The sort of thing I was talking about was where partner made a mistake or misguessed, and you could have prevented it by bidding or playing differently, you know the situation, you've bid to 3♥ in a competitive multi-round auction, opps have bid to 3♠ and you're going to bid 4♥, but wait, you want a diamond lead not a heart, bid 4♦ and don't just accept partner's apology for leading a heart after you bid 4♥.

As one improves, hopefully resulting will diminish. Wondering why you got nowhere near 3N which the double dummy analyser says makes with an overtrick, when it demands 2 finesses, 2 3-3 breaks and a blockage is not helpful to your bridge.

Being unable to admit you're wrong is important and it's even more important to own up if (as I can be) you can be hard on partner when they get it wrong.

[thepossum]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-27, 06:30, said:

My comments weren't aimed at you in particular possum.

The sort of thing I was talking about was where partner made a mistake or misguessed, and you could have prevented it by bidding or playing differently, you know the situation, you've bid to 3♥ in a competitive multi-round auction, opps have bid to 3♠ and you're going to bid 4♥, but wait, you want a diamond lead not a heart, bid 4♦ and don't just accept partner's apology for leading a heart after you bid 4♥.

As one improves, hopefully resulting will diminish. Wondering why you got nowhere near 3N which the double dummy analyser says makes with an overtrick, when it demands 2 finesses, 2 3-3 breaks and a blockage is not helpful to your bridge.

Being unable to admit you're wrong is important and it's even more important to own up if (as I can be) you can be hard on partner when they get it wrong.

I understand those things Cyberyeti. It does rather surprise me that anyone would use DD results to criticise a partner over anything. It sadly does seem to be over-pervasive within bridge these days. More reflective of the state of the world than just brdge where everyone things an answer from a computer automatically has greater validity than a human Being over-critical does seem to be a personality trait common in Bridge. I'm sure many of us share it and its not much fun being on the receiving end

P

[Cyberyeti]

thepossum, on 2019-March-28, 23:02, said:

Being over-critical does seem to be a personality trait common in Bridge. I'm sure many of us share it and its not much fun being on the receiving end

That's a personality thing also. I like to be told I've made a mistake if I have and I haven't noticed, it tends to wake me up, but some partners hate it. The current one can live with it as evidenced by the fact that I've been playing with him for 25 years.

[nige1]

Victor Mollo wrote a small book on Bridge Psychology.
His Menagerie series also accurately analyses Bridge character,
The Bridge microcosm just reflects the outside world that features lots of hogs, chimps, and mules.

[mikestar13]

rhm, on 2019-March-26, 06:15, said:

...Usually people get attracted to hobbies or professions, where they have a talent for and where they will shine and have some success.
One of the mysteries of Bridge is, that so many get fascinated about the game, who seem incapable of mastering much beyond the beginner stage even though they play the game for decades.
Bridge is in many ways a game of logical deduction and inferences, yet many players seem incapable of making even very basic ones.
I never understood what fascinates these people about the game.

While there are of course players of different capabilities in other games, I do not think that many incapable players develop a lifelong attraction to Chess or GO.

Rainer Herrmann

I'm not sure about that. I play chess and I rather stink at it, though I've notched a lot of wins against players who stink even worse. I can tear a bad player of the "when in doubt, push a pawn" school limb from limb. I have invented chess variants, some of which are published, and I stink at playing them too, I am often literally beaten at my own game . But the game still fascinates me, though not to the profound level bridge does.

[nige1]

At Chess and Go, it's harder to fool ourselves about our abilities but
One of the attractions of Bridge is that we players almost all believe we are better than we are.
However bad our results, to rationalize our inflated self-assessment, we can blame:

• Our partners, who are error-prone, especially when playing with us,
• Poor hands. -- we would achieve better results if our hands were better.
• Lousy distribution -- our luck is terrible -- none of our finesses work,
• Stupid robots -- as partners, their bidding is kamikaze. As opponents, they bid and play perfectly.
• Daft assessment methods -- only a loony would judge himself against double-dummy analysis/simulation.