Did I play that right?

[EricK]

There is a class of player I will call the "born expert" who is picks up the game very quickly. Counting comes naturally to them, and they can become Advanced or even Expert in a remarkably short space of time without seemingly applying themselves. After they have played a hand, and so seen all the cards, they will very likely be able to work out if they played or defended the hand correctly - whether or not their actions were actually successful.

 

For the rest of us, it isn't so easy. I have no idea if I played a hand correctly or adopted the right defense. I can see afterwards what would have worked, but that is far from being the same thing. eg I take a finesse - it works, but maybe there was some elimination I missed which would have increased the odds. Or I take a finesse it loses but I could have made it on a squeeze. If the squeeze was less than 50% chance I played correctly, if it was greater I misplayed. But I am not capable of working this out for myself. Or we defend a contract and it goes one off. Did I defend correctly? Maybe the contract would always go down as the cards lie, but my defense would have given away the contract in certain other distributions, whereas a superior defense always beats the contract whenever it can be beaten. How would I ever spot this?

 

It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that prevents most players reaching their true potential. There is no way for them even to see the errors they make, and hence to correct them in future. It is not like in chess where for £30 I can buy a programme of supergrandmaster strength who will point out every single one of my mistakes.

 

So what to do?

[inquiry]

There is a class of player I will call the "born expert" who is picks up the game very quickly. Counting comes naturally to them, and they can become Advanced or even Expert in a remarkably short space of time without seemingly applying themselves. After they have played a hand, and so seen all the cards, they will very likely be able to work out if they played or defended the hand correctly - whether or not their actions were actually successful.

 

For the rest of us, it isn't so easy. I have no idea if I played a hand correctly or adopted the right defense. I can see afterwards what would have worked, but that is far from being the same thing. eg I take a finesse - it works, but maybe there was some elimination I missed which would have increased the odds. Or I take a finesse it loses but I could have made it on a squeeze. If the squeeze was less than 50% chance I played correctly, if it was greater I misplayed. But I am not capable of working this out for myself. Or we defend a contract and it goes one off. Did I defend correctly? Maybe the contract would always go down as the cards lie, but my defense would have given away the contract in certain other distributions, whereas a superior defense always beats the contract whenever it can be beaten. How would I ever spot this?

 

It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that prevents most players reaching their true potential. There is no way for them even to see the errors they make, and hence to correct them in future. It is not like in chess where for £30 I can buy a programme of supergrandmaster strength who will point out every single one of my mistakes.

 

So what to do?

This was, in theory, one of the reasons we created homebase. The idea was for the hands to have a written description of how the play should most likely go and why. And the hands are posted on the web/emailed to the participants.

 

The only way to get better is to learn from your mistakes, of course if you don't see your mistakes, how are you to learn. With homebase struggling, you might resort to another way. After you play the hands, go to myhands, examine the list of players at the other table and find a good player playing (or defending) the same contract you are. Look to see how they played it. Odds are the good players are choosing a superior line most of the time. Try to figure out why they took that line over the others (and especially the one you took).

[Guest Jlall]

Very good post.

 

If people ever get the chance to play with someone better than them I would encourage them to ask after the session if they played or defended a hand correctly if they were unsure. I was and am extremely fortunate to have those opportunities, and it really helps the progression of a bridge player.

 

Failing that, you have to simply work out as much as you can on your own, or perhaps use resources like the forums. It is a lot of work critiquing your own play and it is hard to stay objective, and there might be things that you will miss but do the best that you can. I would recommend that when you go over the hands you conciously think What do I know at this point about the shape and distribution from the bidding and play? What do i know from the leads? What do I know from what my opponents are doing? It may even help to write down what you know. Then create relevant layouts, again writing them down if needed. Then you can see what the best play rates to be with the information you know. Most of the hard part of bridge is figuring out what the unseen hands are, not figuring out what to do when you know all the hands. After the fact you can take as much time as you need to figure out what you know, so do that. Eventually it becomes easier.

 

Reading books will expand your scope of knowledge and positions. It's much easier to find a play if you've seen it before. So that is a good thing to do as well.

 

No one becomes an expert without applying themselves. Some need to work at it for longer than others and some progress slower, but in the end it always takes work and dedication to become an expert. Experts can spot their own mistakes more easily because they've seen more positions and have more experience and more skill. It wasn't always that way for them though.

[Guest Jlall]

Also if you find a good line, think about how you can improve on it. What layouts will it lose to? Is there any way to cater to any of those layouts without jeopardizing the ones you're already winning against? If you're in a bad contract try and figure out what layouts you can make against. Even if you do this after the fact it is a good way to spot errors in the line you took.

[mikeh]

I know exactly what you mean: I am one of those who has to grind everything out... I am not a natural player. As for the idea of a programme that helps develop your appreciation of difficult lines of play: there is at least one excellent choice: Bridgemaster: it is available through BBO... since it was developed by Fred. I have one of the early ones, but I know that there are more hands since then. It is a brilliant programme and I strongly endorse it. It is even better than the best books.

 

Other than that, play 'up' if at all possibe and, if not, see if the better players get together for a drink after a game and ask if you can join them. Most good players are delighted to be asked, and you can learn a lot from hearing them talk about the play of the hands. However, this works best when you are in a strong bridge community, and not everyone lives in one.

[pclayton]

I have a (bad?) habit of replaying hands several times after the fact. This OC behavior has improved my game I think. Its difficult sometimes to forget about them as I play subsequent hands, but I always enjoy replaying them when I'm driving, or eating dinner or

 

If you purge recent hands from your mental database, you are doing a disservice to your development.

 

Justin's advice is sound and it reminds me of Bobby Fisher's: "You've found a great play. Excellent! See if you find a better one".

 

What Eric is asking for is peer / mentor review. Isn't that why we are here? :P

[mikeh]

I have a (bad?) habit of replaying hands several times after the fact. This OC behavior has improved my game I think. Its difficult sometimes to forget about them as I play subsequent hands, but I always enjoy replaying them when I'm driving, or eating dinner or

Years ago, a tough hand came up. About 3 in the morning, I realized that not only was there a really interesting line to make the contract, but that I had enough info to draw the necessary inferences. I fell back to sleep, but a few hours later, my partner from the night before, an expert, called me to say that he'd been thinking about the hand all night and did I realize that.... and set out the line that had dawned (almost literally) on me.

 

I think every player who is or has any hope of being expert obsesses like this. We play or defend a hand and, usually regardless of the result, we havea niggling sense that we could have done better, and it is almost impossible to stop worrying about it until either we have found out how, or we have satisfied ourselves that the other lines would have fared no better.

 

Of course, this is one reason why non-bridge players flee social functions in which there are any significant number of bridge-players.

[EricK]

But this is the sort of thing I can't do. After the hand is over I can't remember sufficient details about it to mentally replay it. When an evening of bridge is over, all the hands merge into one (well not quite, but a lot of them get confused in my head). My father is one of the "born experts" I was talking about. When he used to play a session as a young man he could remember every single hand that he'd played that day; but I can't do that. Maybe it is because I am not concentrating enough or maybe my memory doesn't work that way.

[Stephen Tu]

Does your club provide hand records? I find those invaluable; I am also incapable of remembering most hands without a visual to refresh my memory. If it doesn't try to press the director to start providing them or find another club.

 

Despite this, I can play tolerably well at times, though I think not being one of the "born experts" contributes to my lapses when I play like a total duffer; non-natural players have to work considerably harder to maintain concentration & break down easier.

 

Do you still have trouble remembering/analyzing hands with all 4 in front of you? If that's the case I think just reading tons & tons of declarer/defense books helps (along w/ the excellent BridgeMaster as Mike mentioned), if you see a theme enough times the pattern tends to sink in even to us non-natural players.

 

Maybe you won't be able to see the more obscure squeeze positions but that isn't really necessary to be a good player.

[EricK]

Do you still have trouble remembering/analyzing hands with all 4 in front of you? If that's the case I think just reading tons & tons of declarer/defense books helps (along w/ the excellent BridgeMaster as Mike mentioned), if you see a theme enough times the pattern tends to sink in even to us non-natural players.

 

Maybe you won't be able to see the more obscure squeeze positions but that isn't really necessary to be a good player.

I do read tons and tons of bridge books. In the last couple of weeks I have read 4 books by Kelsey (well 7 in fact as one of them was the compilation of his squeeze books) and reread bits of some other books.

 

Show me an end position with all 4 hands and can probably sort it out very quickly. A month or so ago, for instance, a guy at work showed me the bridge column in his paper which had an end position. I looked at it and immediately (i.e. after a second or so) thought "It's a backwash squeeze.". As indeed it was!

 

My problem is that in the middle of a hand, there is nothing inside my head but total confusion. I know someone showed out of spades but was it LHO or RHO? What was the bidding again? Are there three clubs left out or only two? What was discarded on the third round of trumps? And even if I am having one of my good days so that I can answer those questions, I still can not get a clear picture in my mind of the total position, and as a consequence I can't work out what to do.

 

I would like to ask any of the experts here, what is going on in your head during a hand? Do you picture everything at once like in a bridge diagram? Or do you, perhaps, only see one hand at a time, but that is enough for you to work out the best play? Or perhaps you don't see anything but can just see the solution anyway?

[whereagles]

I would like to ask any of the experts here, what is going on in your head during a hand? Do you picture everything at once like in a bridge diagram? Or do you, perhaps, only see one hand at a time, but that is enough for you to work out the best play? Or perhaps you don't see anything but can just see the solution anyway?

I just go into some sort of trance while processing all the info and usually come up with a play. I'm not sure this can be mimiced, though I've heard that the famous mathematician Poincaré described his train of thought similarly.

[goobers]

I love this post.

 

I'm FAR from an expert, but I do strive to get better, and obsess over the hand as you do, EricK.

 

Your last post about remembering things in the middle of the hand brings up an analogy for me. When I meet new people, I need to make an effort every time to remember their names. No, it does not get easier with time, and it's not as if I can get better at it with practice. If I successfully meet and remember one person a week, it does not mean that the 8th will be any easier.

 

So I have to make an effort. I shake their hands, I look them in the face very consciously, and I always repeat their name 2 or 3 times as I'm shaking their hands.

 

I think bridge is the same way. For the longest time, I could not remember opening leads (either my pard's or defensive). Was the lead small? 4th best? Top of nothing?

 

In my opinion, you have to find a method that works for you. Now, before I play a single card, and after thinking about the hand, I commit to memory what the opening lead is or what it revealed, just like how I repeat somebody's name a few times when I first meet them. This is a conscious effort every time; it does not get easier for me to remember opening leads just naturally, but the more I practice this method, the less likely I am to forget to remember what card was led, or what signal was given, or which opp showed out, etc.

 

If you find a method that works for yourself, and then make it a habit, I think you'll be able to handle things like this.

[Finch]

I was fortunate enough to learn to play at University, in the company of a lot of other keen players. Many of them were better than me, and playing with/discussing hands with good players really is the best way of learning, as Justin says. I still remember from over 15 years ago, going off in a game in a friendly rubber and my partner gently asking what would have happened if I had ducked a round of trumps. Lessons like that sink in. (I married him, by the way, to ensure continued access to good bridge advice.)

 

My problem is that in the middle of a hand, there is nothing inside my head but total confusion. I know someone showed out of spades but was it LHO or RHO? What was the bidding again? Are there three clubs left out or only two? What was discarded on the third round of trumps? And even if I am having one of my good days so that I can answer those questions, I still can not get a clear picture in my mind of the total position, and as a consequence I can't work out what to do.

 

I don't know much about you, and this may be far off base, but it sounds to me as if you are i) spending too much time reading books rather than playing, and ii) playing too fast. I've seen people play on BBO (it's not something I do) and I don't think it's good for ones bridge - the tempo is just too quick, and there's a lot of 'tossing cards around'. Play more slowly - with some friends if others are impatient - and concentrate on every card. Once a hand is over and the cards put away, don't go straight onto the next hand without thinking, but ask yourself - and your tablemates - "what was in dummy, including all the pips?" "What was the opening lead" "How did the play go?" I played a fairly serious 30-board match yesterday, and the bridge part took about 4 hours. That is real, thinking-about-the-hands bridge tempo (OK, it was a little slow, but not hugely so: 8 boards an hour is standard f2f tournament tempo without screens). It's not rare for a top player to think for 5-10 minutes before playing a card, and when do you see that in online bridge?

 

I would like to ask any of the experts here, what is going on in your head during a hand? Do you picture everything at once like in a bridge diagram? Or do you, perhaps, only see one hand at a time, but that is enough for you to work out the best play? Or perhaps you don't see anything but can just see the solution anyway?

 

The first thing is that, with practice, you remember every card played by every player. This is partly a visual memory; if I suddenly find I can't remember what the opening lead was I can often visualise what that card looked like at trick one.

 

Apart from that, hands vary. Usually on defence you are putting most of your energy into trying to construct the bridge diagram, and then working out your trick target as a consequence. You start with "what is the layout of the suit led at trick 1", continue with "how many tricks can I see for declarer" and go on to "what is declarer's hand? what is partner's hand?" finishing either with "I know how do we beat the contract, but will partner know what to do?" or "I don't know what to do, so I'd better look to partner for guidance".

 

Declarer play takes many forms. There are 'textbook' hands which can be played very quickly: you know very early on exactly what you need and you simply play for it without bothering the construct the opposing hands (other than to check they are possible): e.g. game on a finesse, an elimination and throw-in... There are hands where you follow the approved route of counting your winners, counting your losers and forming a plan, then executing the plan (with further decisions en route depending on what the opponents do). There are the "hand diagram" hands where the auction has told you pretty much what the layout is, and you have to work out how to make the contract given that knowledge.

 

Then there are the don't-know-whether-to-suck-it-or-blow-it hands where you can't decide what suit to play when you gain the lead, never mind how to play the suit. These are the ones where the better players beat the less good players. They are also the ones you don't see in textbooks (though Bridge World play problems are sometimes of this form) because there is often no calculable, correct answer. You don't see them here, either, because what you do at trick 3 depends on what you did at trick 2, which depends on what you did at trick 1.... These are the hands to ask your expert friends about, because they are the ones where intuition (another word for subconscious experience) comes to play.

[pclayton]

As I progress in my abilities, I notice that at T1 I spend more and more time trying to decipher the lead and reconstruct the unseen hands. Unless the auction is 1N - p - p - p there is a wealth of information available based on the bidding, the opening lead and what Wasnt led' If Im 3rd chair its easy to take this pause, and if youre my pard, I hope you take a good 30 seconds to play at T1 if the hand looks complicated. If its an auto play, dont worry about it too much.

 

On Friiday a beginner asked me how I made decisions at the table. Feeling poetic, I compared a bridge hand to the room we were playing in. Many people only notice the number of tables, and the faces but in addition I mentioned the ceiling tiles, the type and color of the carpet, etc.. You can also visualize portions of the room that you cant actually see, like a closet or the head. My point was that the same information is available to all players of all abilities.

 

Becoming a good player becomes a function of what information is important, and what information is meaningless. Without this experience, information overload is a danger, and reliance on themes and general principles is needed, especially if the clues are somewhat weak.

[Winstonm]

This is a really good question, and I echo Justin in that it is a good post.

 

I am in the same boat as MikeH in that I have had to grind out everything I know as well - in my home growing up playing cards were not allowed so I didn't take up the game until age 22 or thereabouts.

 

I had two good things happen - first, I found the game fascinating and therefore immersed myself in good bridge books (like Kelsey's Killing Defense), and a bunch of Terrence Reese and so by being exposed over and over to expert analysis gradually saw some of the light.

 

The other good thing that happened was that I played a lot of live club bridge during an era where after the games about 30 of us would invade the local tavern and talk and discuss hands until the wee hours - work the next morning just got in the way of good bridge talk.

 

From his book, Bob Hamman used to spend hours solving double-dummy problems, and I know a number of good players who have used this approach.

 

But my best suggestion, if you don't have access to fine players for a lot of discussion is to read and absorb techniques - it is hard to determine if a hand could have been made on a double squeeze if you don't know the mechanics of a double squeeze.

 

I can tell you this - if you are like me and this stuff doesn't come easy, you will end up with raging headaches (at least, I did) trying to sort it out and learn it, and it will be very slow going - but once you finally have it, it will be worth the price of admission.

[Winstonm]

Do you still have trouble remembering/analyzing hands with all 4 in front of you?  If that's the case I think just reading tons & tons  of declarer/defense books helps (along w/ the excellent BridgeMaster as Mike mentioned), if you see a theme enough times the pattern tends to sink in even to us non-natural players.

 

Maybe you won't be able to see the more obscure squeeze positions but that isn't really necessary to be a good player.

I do read tons and tons of bridge books. In the last couple of weeks I have read 4 books by Kelsey (well 7 in fact as one of them was the compilation of his squeeze books) and reread bits of some other books.

 

Show me an end position with all 4 hands and can probably sort it out very quickly. A month or so ago, for instance, a guy at work showed me the bridge column in his paper which had an end position. I looked at it and immediately (i.e. after a second or so) thought "It's a backwash squeeze.". As indeed it was!

 

My problem is that in the middle of a hand, there is nothing inside my head but total confusion. I know someone showed out of spades but was it LHO or RHO? What was the bidding again? Are there three clubs left out or only two? What was discarded on the third round of trumps? And even if I am having one of my good days so that I can answer those questions, I still can not get a clear picture in my mind of the total position, and as a consequence I can't work out what to do.

 

I would like to ask any of the experts here, what is going on in your head during a hand? Do you picture everything at once like in a bridge diagram? Or do you, perhaps, only see one hand at a time, but that is enough for you to work out the best play? Or perhaps you don't see anything but can just see the solution anyway?

Good questions. Here is what I suggest.

 

First, it is easy to fall into bad habits playing online bridge, as you can always move the mouse and see the cards on the last trick - play more live bridge where once a trick is quitted you are not allowed to do that. If you can't play live, simply resist the temptation to look back and force yourself to remember the cards played.

 

Second, focus. I still have to fight this now and again, as it is easy for me to sit down and play without the necessary concentration on each card that is required to play well. This is more about willpower and repetition than anything else.

 

Third, take a Bols tip: You will never get anywhere in this game if you don't build up a picture of the unseen hands.

 

I think this is the heart of the matter for people like you and me - it is foreign to us and requires a re-education of thinking processes, much in the way that an attorney or a physician learns to think like an attorney or like a physician. To play this game well one must learn to think "like a bridgeplayer."

 

Bridge is a game of problem solving - but it is also akin to a jigswaw puzzle with an imbedded question in the design - before we can answer the question we have to put together enough pieces to see the question. It reminds me of what Sherlock Holmes said to Watson: "You see but you do not observe."

 

It is more than just noticing the lead is the 2 of clubs - it is starting from there on building up a picture of a hand that would logically lead the club 2, what does that imply about other suits and cards in that hand. Each trick that is played is like adding another piece to the jigsaw puzzle until you can make an intelligent assumption on what the question will show.

 

There is no shortcut - IMO, bridge is second only to chess in degree of difficulty to master, and may even be ahead. The good news is the only limitations on learning are your own intellect and time requirements.