Practice with a purpose

[y66]

Do you practice bridge?

 

Do you enjoy practicing?

 

How much time do you spend practicing vs playing?

 

What do you do to get the most out of your practice time, for example, do you focus on specific problem areas?

 

I'm a novice/intermediate player. I'm just starting to think about this problem. I would appreciate any suggestions you might have.

 

I'm also new to this forum. If this topic has come up already, please let me know.

 

Thanks.

[joshs]

I think practice is very valuable if you are serious about the game.

 

Declarer Play- You don't need a partner for this. There are many good books to read on the subject. Also go over the hand records of hands that you played and see how you could have taken more tricks as declarer.

 

Defense - Again there are some good books on the subject and going over hand records is very valuable. Its especially valuable to discuss defense with your partner after the fact. Why did you play this card rather than that card. In my most regular partnership we discussed almost every card played on defense for the first year of our partnership, and it really helped.

 

Bidding - You can learn a little bit from reading books, but mostly you should try the partnership bidding room on BBO with a partner and also bid hands yourself. Try to select the call you think is right and be honest about what you would bid over that without knowing the complete hand. Whenever I try to learn a new bidding system, or am experimenting with a convention, I take a stack of hand records and bid them using the new methods.

 

I personally have spent many many hours doing these things...

[awm]

Nothing can really substitute for playing actual hands with your partner, especially on defense. This is perhaps the most important aspect of bridge and also one that people pay least attention to. Developing bidding judgement is also hard to do with practice hands -- this is stuff like when to compete and when to double, which doesn't come up in bidding practice when opponents are silent (or bid randomly).

 

With that said, the bridgemaster deals (available via BBO) are a quite useful way to practice declarer play. This is the one aspect of bridge you can really improve on your own, without a partner or any other players at the table.

 

If you're messing around with unusual methods (like many of the systems Josh likes to play) then I think the bidding practice becomes useful, to help memorize what you're playing and explore some of its strengths and weaknesses.

[pclayton]

There's several ways to practice:

 

1. Playing in a non-important event, like a club game. Situations come up between partners that require clarification. To me, this is one of the most ineffective ways to practice. While the partners may formulate agreements in the process, the situations that arise are somewhat random. Further, without supervision, you may create partnership understandings based on a negative result, which may be an anomaly.

 

2. Practice Bidding. Sitting down over lunch with your partner with 20-30 hands is a great way to practice. Frequently, agreements are more easily clarified, since you are usually focused on one area of bidding, such as responding to a 1N opening. The biggest drawback to these sessions, is that it is very difficult to simulate competitive situations, since you are only bidding 2-handed.

 

Another great way to practice bidding is to utilize the Partnership Bidding function on BBO. However, both of my regular pards aren't users, so this is out.

 

3. Using a teacher / mentor. When added to #2, I think this is extremely effective, if you don't mind hiring a pro. Several years ago, my regular partner and I hired a mentor for this function and it helped our partnership immensely.

 

4. Practicing on your own. When I am home, I am frequently reading about the game. This includes rereading some of my favorite books, like Killing Defense, and reading old Bridge Worlds, especially Masters Solvers Club. For some reason, I believe my bidding judgement is better than most, in large part due to the intense reading of MSC's when I first learned the game.

 

It amazes me how many players who have said, "I never read bridge books". Some of them are quite good, but frequently bridge is about identifying themes. If you've never seen a theme before, solving a problem can be quite taxing. But if you seen a position before, like a trump squeeze, the hand frequently plays 'itself'.

 

Oh, and I love to practice ;)

[joshs]

I think bidding practice is valuable learning SAYC, learning 2/1, or learning partner's brand new varient thereof, as it is for learning something esoteric. My first regular partnership was with my office mate Ben in DC. We played SAYC with 2/1's promising a rebid except if opener bids game or 2N. We had to learn how to bid with this system, especially our third bids, and learn how to handle 5233 14's, etc.

 

Suppose you have AQxxx Kxx xx Kxx

 

You open 1S

Partner bids 2H

You bid 2S (3H would be forcing)

Partner bids 3C(GFing)

What now?

 

It took lots of practice to get the system down...

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

I cant add a lot to the above said.

 

1) Try to deal complete hands, bid them

separatly, compare the bidding seq.

with the bidding seq. given by your

partner => You will have some comp.

bidding

2) Sometimes

3) To few, due to stress at work

4) sometimes, but most of the time we

use predealt boards with comments

which can be found on the net, see

Pavliceks page, Larry Cohens page

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[csdenmark]

Theory is basic - without that all else will be nonsense.

 

Practice is the way to test theory - some few have access to use computer simluations for that too.

 

Practice is especially important regarding defensive and interference handle. Theory is weak on these topics and 75% of bridge is about those 2 crucial topics.

[Kalvan14]

Practice is the most important factor in improving your bridge skills: most often bridge "problems" are repetitive. It is very important to recognise these situations, and learn to generalise.

Reading good bridge books helps a lot too, in particular for declarer's play and defense, but also for bidding theory.

The best thing is certainly to play friendly matches, and take the time afterwards to discuss the hands with your partner: look for things which went wront, and ask yourselves why; but look also for things which went right, and evaluate if the result was justified or sheer luck.

[mikeh]

For declarer play, Fred's Bridgemaster is great. Several classic books by such as Reese (MasterPlay for one) are great. One set of books I still go back to that I think are superb is the series by Kelsey on 64 board imp matches: you are given 8 problems, being a mix of defence and declarer, and then you 'compare' with your teammates, and do so for 64 boards. All of the problems are tough but incredibly useful. The bidding is odd (by current standards, especially north american) but not so odd that you cannot take the right inferences. And the comparison makes the books wonderful, because the results at the other table are as in real life: you may make a great play and lose imps due to an accident at the other table: just as in real life... but if you play well, you will win.

 

The Tough Match, The Needle Match are two titles I still have... I forget the title of the one I 'loaned' and never got back. They may well be out of print, but I am sure they can be found used.

 

As for bidding, if you are a north american or are interested in a north american style, I strongly, strongly urge you to get your hands on Bridge Worlds starting in about 1975. The BWS system in use in the MasterSolvers Club has gone through several iterations, and you have to be aware that some of the older situations would be treated far differently today, but it is the thinking that counts: the moderators are truly skilled and you will develop a feel for the factors that should influence your call. I have almsot a full collection (I lost a few copies to a flood) but the first several decades contain almost nothing of relevance to today. But the last 30 years are worth reading, again and again.

 

 

As for other practice, in one very serious partnership, in which we played unusual methods, we took the EW hands from Challenge the Champs in the BW and bid those, usually by telephone. And we used hand generators to practice specific low-frequency sitatuations, such as our response structure over a strong 2N opening.

 

 

Playing is actually of limited use: if you play at the club, the results and the calibre of opposition are too random and the tough situations too infrequent.

 

If you are serious about defence, Kelsey's Killing Defence series are great.

 

For specific topics (safety plays, avoidance plays, deceptive plays etc, Reese and Trezel put out a series of short single topic books inthe late 70's or early 80's that are good if you can find them.

 

If you do go to the club, or to tournaments, try to find out if the best players want to go for a beer after the game: I learned a huge amount by listening. Ask questions: most experts like to answer... but ask to learn, not to show how much you know... and the best is when two or three experts get into an argument: it's a bit like the BW MSC: where you, as the audience, get to listen to differing arguments and make your own choice.

[kenrexford]

I'd also recommend reading, a lot. I found great gains from reading even the early stuff (30's and 40's), to give perspective. One great book that is often skipped over is Dormer on Deduction -- it opens eyes.

 

I also agree that playing up helps wonderfully. This is especially fruitful over the beer, as suggested. Go to live tournaments and visit the hospitality room, lurking over great conversations with hand records ready.

 

I practice a lot with regular partners, especially with my wife, who is a new player. On-line is great, especially in the social rooms, where talking amongst each other is allowed. She has rapidly increased her base through this technique, and her confidence.

[y66]

Thanks everyone for many thoughtful comments and suggestions.

 

I just finished printing these off for discussion with my partner this evening. My goal is to come up with a plan that we can use to strengthen our partnership that also fits our very different personalities. Not easy for us to do. I feel pretty good about our chances now though, thanks to your input.

[luke warm]

i actually prefer practicing to playing, at least until both people know what they're attempting to do... one of the best ways i've found to practice bidding is to kib a lot of games with a partner and bid the hands as they come up, in *your* system... to do this you do need pretty good competitive sequences down, unless you plan on bidding all hands as if no interference (which can work)

[ArcLight]

Ive been playing a little over 2 years. While reading a lot helps, I think the Mike Lawrence software is the best investment of time Ive made.

 

Also, it helps to play with a pard at your level, and discuss mistakes.

 

Working on counting is important, and I'd suggest using a set of defensive signals rather than lots of conventions, at least for now. When visualizing the hands becomes easier, you will be well poised to advance.

 

Look at some of Kantars methods in Modern and Advanced Bridge defense.

If you and pard us ethe same set of signals you will get used to figuring out the hands, and you will be on defense twice as often as you declare.

[Al_U_Card]

Thanks everyone for many thoughtful comments and suggestions.

 

I just finished printing these off for discussion with my partner this evening. My goal is to come up with a plan that we can use to strengthen our partnership that also fits our very different personalities. Not easy for us to do. I feel pretty good about our chances now though, thanks to your input.

At any level, you realize that bridge is a complex series of relationships (bidding, cardplay methods, signalling etc.) built on a foundation of specific facts (rules, standard agreements) that relate logically ONLY BASED ON THE STARTING POINTS AND THE AGREED METHODS FOR REACHING THE END POINTS.

 

So, read, read and read again until you find things that you understand intrinsically and that please you esthetically. Practice however you like (dealing hands, playing games, reading analyses etc.) until these things you have read and understood become ingrained. Improve by studying methods and plans elucidated in still more books. Appreciate the elegance of the game. Enjoy the visceral nature of each and every inter-relationship.

 

Find a partner who shares your passion and like anything else in life, you will enjoy yourself.

[jikl]

One thing I would like to add is START with a natural system, no precision or relay methods. This will teach you bidding judgment. If you move onto artificial systems after this it will help a lot.

 

*waits for Claus' angry response*

 

Sean