[thepossum]

Every time there is a biggish(??????) tourney and I see a few hands out of them that seriously let me down I try to analyse what went wrong
Oh yes. I knew I did that wrong at the time
Or how did I miss that
Or that is so obvious
How did that happen etc
Or no matter how hard I try it keeps happening etc

How do you improve and iron out the obvious bad stuff

[mikeh]

thepossum, on 2023-April-06, 05:08, said:

Every time there is a biggish(??????) tourney and I see a few hands out of them that seriously let me down I try to analyse what went wrong
Oh yes. I knew I did that wrong at the time
Or how did I miss that
Or that is so obvious
How did that happen etc
Or no matter how hard I try it keeps happening etc

How do you improve and iron out the obvious bad stuff

One radical idea is that you post problems on an online bridge forum and, when better players offer advice you try to avoid writing long screeds attacking those players, accusing them of ganging up on you.

That way, you just might improve

[AL78]

mikeh, on 2023-April-06, 10:49, said:

One radical idea is that you post problems on an online bridge forum and, when better players offer advice you try to avoid writing long screeds attacking those players, accusing them of ganging up on you.

That way, you just might improve

I would have put it more tactfully than that but it is along the lines of what I was thinking. To the OP, don't take criticism as a personal attack on you. The two statements "Your bid was bad" and "You are bad" have completely different meanings and should not be equated. I would go as far as welcoming criticism, since if there is a widespread view than an action you took was poor, it gives you something to look at, understand why it was poor, and how to avoid repeating it in the future.

Posting hands on here is a very good way of improving your game. I have learnt much from the analysis from the experts on this forum (not just on my bad hands), and criticism tends to be constructive and polite, at least when it is me at fault.

[jillybean]

I like the direct approach but please,

STOP FEEDING THE WILDLIFE

[akwoo]

Most bridge players do not suffer from a lack of knowledge about the game.

Most of us are not hindered by not knowing what to do; we are hindered by not being able to apply that knowledge while sitting at the bridge table with (real or virtual) cards in front of us.

Bridge imposes a pretty significant cognitive load. I've certainly had the experience of thinking so hard about a hand that my brain simply overloads and I revoke. And, while revoking is rare, overloading and then doing something fairly dumb is common.

Many of us look for ways to play just as well (or better) while doing less actual calculating at the table, but experience tells us there are no such shortcuts. Beyond the beginner level, it's almost all about keeping track of more information and considering more possibilities at the table.

Calculation ability is important, and while you need much less at bridge than at chess, most of us still don't have enough. (On the other hand, you need more recall at bridge, since there is lots of information that isn't visually available to you.)

Innate ability matters in bridge just as much as it does for football. Yes, everyone could work hard to become better at football than they actually are, but it takes hard work, and, for most people, no matter how hard you might have trained and how good coaching you might have gotten, you could never have made it to a Premier League team.

On the rare occasions I have discussed a hand with real experts, I am always amazed at their ability to keep track of and figure out facts about the hand. They feel like they are from a different planet.

It's the same in the other direction with experienced but not nearly as good players I know at the club - I sometime marvel that something that is obvious to me is something they have no ability to figure out at the table (though they can figure it out slowly when it is written out afterwards).

Differences in bridge-playing ability are to some extent innate, and it can't all be overcome with study and practice. We can all get better with study and practice, but that doesn't mean we can all become experts, just as no amount of coaching and training could have turned me into a Premier League footballer.

[akwoo]

Club game today.

In a 3N contract with sufficient entries to both hands, I held Kxx in hand and AQT9xx in dummy (in diamonds).

The correct play is of course to first cash an honor in dummy first so that you can pick up Jxxx on either side.

I thought briefly about this, realized the correct play was to lead to an honor in dummy (I happened to be in hand), and then cashed the king of diamonds. RHO actually did hold Jxxx, so this cost me 2 overtricks.

I make a play that I know is wrong at the time of making the play at least once a session, though usually it doesn't cost anything.

[mikeh]

akwoo, on 2023-April-09, 00:00, said:

Club game today.

In a 3N contract with sufficient entries to both hands, I held Kxx in hand and AQT9xx in dummy (in diamonds).

The correct play is of course to first cash an honor in dummy first so that you can pick up Jxxx on either side.

I thought briefly about this, realized the correct play was to lead to an honor in dummy (I happened to be in hand), and then cashed the king of diamonds. RHO actually did hold Jxxx, so this cost me 2 overtricks.

I make a play that I know is wrong at the time of making the play at least once a session, though usually it doesn't cost anything.

That’s just a lack of focus. Happens to (almost) everybody.

Improving focus can be learned and developed and, while important, seems to me to be qualitatively different from pure bridge skills, such as card play technique or coherent bidding. Indeed, you knew the technique…you just failed to apply it due to loss of focus.

[thepossum]

Deleted again thanks

[kgr]

mikeh, on 2023-April-09, 00:16, said:

That’s just a lack of focus. Happens to (almost) everybody.

Improving focus can be learned and developed and, while important, seems to me to be qualitatively different from pure bridge skills, such as card play technique or coherent bidding. Indeed, you knew the technique…you just failed to apply it due to loss of focus.

In my opinion Focus is the most important for most bridgers to improve their game. With focus I mean: not being lazy, doing everything you can to play as good as possible. Most bridgers are too lazy at the table, they don't do their very best.
I intended to do my best to know the exact distribution (like 5=3=3=2) of partner on every hand as soon as possible, using all available information (and when that works to know distribution of all players). That would make me a better player, but up till know I didn't manage to do this (only on some obvious hands). At least when the hand is finished I should know the exact distribution, even if I had 0 HCP, but I don't. Too lazy
And it is not only distribution, also first card played by partner, first discard, details about small cards, ....
It doesn't help to win most of the time at the club where I play. The short term award of more effort is almost zero, although I realize it would make me somehow a better player in the long term. (Zia wrote in a book that he played rubber bridge for more money than he could afford)

[thepossum]

Thanks to all those who understood the question. It was about focus and not about knowledge or competence

When you watch people at the top level of any sport. Some keep shooting themselves in the foot

[akwoo]

mikeh, on 2023-April-09, 00:16, said:

That’s just a lack of focus. Happens to (almost) everybody.

Improving focus can be learned and developed and, while important, seems to me to be qualitatively different from pure bridge skills, such as card play technique or coherent bidding. Indeed, you knew the technique…you just failed to apply it due to loss of focus.

But almost everything is lack of focus.

I try to run a squeeze and lose count of one of the suits. I guess that's loss of focus.

I try to count out the hand and do something that's equivalent to thinking someone (or some suit) has 14 cards. Lack of focus again.

I'm too lazy to consider if I might disastrously lose control when trumps break badly, and hence forget to knock out the side ace first. Lack of focus too, I guess.

I lose far far many more matchpoints or IMPs due to lack of focus than lack of knowledge.

Now - I suspect that part of what's going on is that I have played less bridge in my life than most of you, so I have to devote mental effort to some things most bridge players who are as good as or better than me do automatically.

[mikeh]

akwoo, on 2023-April-10, 14:09, said:

But almost everything is lack of focus.

I try to run a squeeze and lose count of one of the suits. I guess that's loss of focus.

I try to count out the hand and do something that's equivalent to thinking someone (or some suit) has 14 cards. Lack of focus again.

I'm too lazy to consider if I might disastrously lose control when trumps break badly, and hence forget to knock out the side ace first. Lack of focus too, I guess.

I lose far far many more matchpoints or IMPs due to lack of focus than lack of knowledge.

Now - I suspect that part of what's going on is that I have played less bridge in my life than most of you, so I have to devote mental effort to some things most bridge players who are as good as or better than me do automatically.

Ok. You hold A4 in dummy and K108762 in hand. You need to score 5 tricks in this suit. How do you play it?

This is an example of the difference between focus and knowledge. I’ve given this layout to some pretty good players and nobody’s got it right yet. There is one optimal play (it’s not guaranteed to work, but it’s demonstrably ‘correct’).

I didn’t work this out by myself…I read about it. I’ve been hoping to have the hand so I could show off (though the odds of the correct play making a difference are very low).

99% of bridge players, if facing this at the table wouldn’t know the play. Me? If it came up and I missed it, I suppose that would be focus but for most it would be ignorance.

(Obviously not now for readers of this forum!)


There are lots of other examples where technique matters.

You’re defending, on declarer’s right, and you see 10xx in a side suit in dummy and you hold KJ9x and have reason to hope partner has some values in the suit. Any well read player knows that, absent contraindications, one leads the Jack, hoping to find something like Axx in partner’s hand and Qxx in declarer’s…leading low means declarer can duck, establishing a stopper.

Most beginners and intermediates simply don’t ‘know’ that play. When they fail to find it, it’s due to ignorance, not focus. I suspect that if you failed to find it, it would be a focus problem.

I also think that you’re right in suggesting that focus issues can be very real. I played a KO match just over a week ago, in the midst of an unpleasant bout of Covid. I didn’t realize until my partner and I did our usual post game debrief (two days later, since I didn’t have the energy to do it earlier) that I’d completely missed cards on two hands…one where the opp, playing 5 card majors, opened 1S on KJxx. After a competitive auction I got to double, in front of declarer, with AQ109x. At some point dealer played a trump from dummy….I didn’t see partner followed! After all, I ‘knew’ that he was void😀. The result was I let declarer out for 300 when I had an easy 500…did I mention that we lost the zonal finals of the GNT by 1 imp?

I’d kept focus for 97 boards but lost it on the last 14.

[pescetom]

I think loss of focus has many nuances.

The example akwoo cited of failing an attempt to pick up J (knowing the technique and then forgetting you were applying it) is at the same level as "slip of the tongue", a real loss of focus as mikeh says (unless you are argine and it was programmed in).

Forgetting to knock out side Ace is more likely fatigue related, many of us have less resistance to hours of bridge than others (who have trained this aspect over many years and as you say are probably spending less on the basics).

But even champions in any sport will often shoot themselves in the foot, as thepossum notes. Talent and resistance to winning do not necessarily go hand in hand. There are some freaks who win everything time after time, but they are very few and even then may go completely to pieces when nobody expects it. One of the first things most mental coaches recommend top players is to learn to lose shamelessly as often as necessary. Although that is easier to manage in an individual sport than in pairs bridge, let alone teams.

[akwoo]

mikeh, on 2023-April-10, 14:49, said:

You’re defending, on declarer’s right, and you see 10xx in a side suit in dummy and you hold KJ9x and have reason to hope partner has some values in the suit. Any well read player knows that, absent contraindications, one leads the Jack, hoping to find something like Axx in partner’s hand and Qxx in declarer’s…leading low means declarer can duck, establishing a stopper.

Most beginners and intermediates simply don’t ‘know’ that play. When they fail to find it, it’s due to ignorance, not focus. I suspect that if you failed to find it, it would be a focus problem.

This is actually a very good example to think about.

1) I have known about this for at least 5 years, maybe 10, and I might have even seen this 15 years ago. It has never come up as far as I can remember.

2) I suspect if this came up at the table, I would find the right play less than 1 time in 3.

3) If you gave this problem to me 25 years ago when surely I had never seen it, gave me a blackboard and chalk (but no cards), and told me I had an hour to work the right play, I'm confident I'd have worked it out.

4) I have known a couple of very talented beginners whom I think could in fact work this one out at the table without having been told it.

5) GiB never remembers any techniques - it just creates a thousand random hands and computes the correct double dummy plays for them, basically by looking at all possible lines of play and seeing how each fares, and then picks the best one - clearly for GiB lack of knowledge is not an issue here (and it WILL find this play).

Given (3)-(5), it's not entirely clear where the boundary between lack of focus and lack of knowledge is!

In any case, I am confident that the vast majority of players lose far more MPs/IMPs through lack of focus, if we're defining it to include laziness, than lack of knowledge - to the extent that lack of knowledge is basically irrelevant.

[helene_t]

Some ways to improve focus:
- Don't underestimate physical fitness. Bridge is quite exhausting. You need to have your water/sugar/salt balance, and physical exercise, right
- Avoid distractions. Ideally there should be only one thing in your head, namely the board you are currently playing. Don't pay attention to the play while dummy, don't think about the previous board.
- When choosing bidding and carding agreements, there are three criteria that are important: simplicity, simplicity and simplicity. Of course, simplicity is in the eye of beholder. For some pairs, Moscito is easier than Acol.
- A long-term goal is to learn guidelines that allow you to make most bidding decisions and many play decisions on autopilot. If you have to analyse the consequences of each individual action, bridge is very exhausting.

[AL78]

helene_t, on 2023-April-12, 03:38, said:

Some ways to improve focus:
- Don't underestimate physical fitness. Bridge is quite exhausting. You need to have your water/sugar/salt balance, and physical exercise, right
- Avoid distractions. Ideally there should be only one thing in your head, namely the board you are currently playing. Don't pay attention to the play while dummy, don't think about the previous board.
- When choosing bidding and carding agreements, there are three criteria that are important: simplicity, simplicity and simplicity. Of course, simplicity is in the eye of beholder. For some pairs, Moscito is easier than Acol.
- A long-term goal is to learn guidelines that allow you to make most bidding decisions and many play decisions on autopilot. If you have to analyse the consequences of each individual action, bridge is very exhausting.

I find it harder to maintain focus if I am on the wrong end of a hand bias and end up defending on three quarters of the hands. When you are put to the test hand after hand after hand, something gives eventually.

[helene_t]

AL78, on 2023-April-12, 06:04, said:

I find it harder to maintain focus if I am on the wrong end of a hand bias and end up defending on three quarters of the hands. When you are put to the test hand after hand after hand, something gives eventually.

True, yet another reason for bidding aggressively. Which also has the advantage that if you start with an (undisciplined) preempt (or an (offshape) 1NT opening) the rest of the auction is very easy as you have told your story and can leave it to opps and partner to fight out.

[Gilithin]

thepossum, on 2023-April-06, 05:08, said:

How do you improve and iron out the obvious bad stuff

A regular partner and I take notes during a session and then go through the hands afterwards. Over time, this has a noticeable and significant effect, particularly if the better player is could at keeping the focus on the more important aspects of improvement at each stage of development. The benefit of such analysis is somewhat dependant on the willingness of the players to accept ideas and advice though. If you are doing this analysis and not improving, you probably need to work out whether one or both or the players in the partnership is unable to accept their inaccuracies and learn from them. Some players are unfortunately just not worth the time and effort to teach.