HOW TO IMPROVE MY POOR BRIDGE

[cyc0002002]

I play bridge for 4 years.

I play about 120 deal a week averagely, 1/3 of them are online. I don't have a stable partner either playing online or not.

I've read about 50 books about bridge.

 

I'm really frustrated these days for I'm making no progress for a longgggggg time (about a year).

 

I'm still making stupid mistakes in playing,which are actually the same level with I made 1 year ago

Now I think bridge is tiring.When I'm playing I feel exhausted.

 

 

should I go back to books,or I just need more experience.

 

 

I'm about to give up bridge

:blink: :( :( :( :( :( :(

:(

[helene_t]

I have the same problem myself. The first couple of years I played I had the ambition to become a decent player. Now I have given that up and just play for social reasons. But sometimes I wonder if there is anything I could do to make some progress again.

 

Maybe if you write more specifically about which kind of stupid mistakes you make, someone can advice you on how to work on those specific problems.

[y66]

If you know a good local pro whose judgment you trust, consider spending some time discussing this with him or her. They may be able to help you objectively assess your game and provide useful guidance for setting reasonable goals and focusing improvement efforts.

 

Not easy to find such a person though, in my experience.

 

For some general but really helpful suggestions on improving, imo, read this.

 

If you're not having fun, why not take a break?

[kfay]

Well the first step is knowing you want to become better.

 

I think you are definitely on the right track. Reading books and playing a lot are two of the best ways to improve your game personally, the other good one is to talk about it with other good bridge players, which you're doing here!

 

I think finding a regular partner would help to eliminate some of the outlier mistakes just by giving you someone you know (hope? :)) you can rely on across the table from you. You need to have reliable signaling from your partner, etc., to succeed regularly.

 

Secondly, recognizing you made mistakes is good, but you should evaluate WHY you made them. If you really go back and analyze the why behind the mistake, I guarantee you will become better. If you come away saying, 'I need to count more', or 'I need to cash both my aces against 6NTX' those realizations will stick with you the next time you sit down at the table because almost every mistake that people make are ones that stem from common themes like these, and you CAN reduce them.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

The most important thing is to have fun.

 

And if you really want to improve you need a stable partner.

 

Peoble always forget, that the game is a partnership game,

if you play seriously against another pair, it is the partnership

who wins or losses, and if the other partnership has a better

understanding than you have in your partnership, you will loose.

 

If you study for your own, you can improve your card game,

but what use it is, if you reach stupid contracts, because of

misunderstandings with your partner.

If you study for your own, you can build up a lot of knowledge

about various conventions, but what use it is, if you have agreed

to play a convention, and you are not on the same wavelength

how to interpret the letter.

 

And how do you learn, how to cope with the situation that your

partner is on tilt, how do you learn, how to bring him back,

remember we are only human.

 

S.J. Simon once wrote: "If two av. players play against two

quarreling experts, I will bet on the avg. players, if they are

supportive to each other."

 

Oh, and have fun, it is after all just a game.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[jjbrr]

agree with having fun as the number 1 priority. beyond that, keep reading books; they help you see techniques and patterns in the game that are difficult to recognize on your own. they also introduce you to new ideas or offer a different perspective that may help you "see the light" regarding some difficult situations. but the best way to continue to improve is to play as many hands as you possibly can while still enjoying it. we were joking around with a frequent poster recently about how he plays 1700+ hands a month just online. and he goes to live tournaments on top of that. while obviously this is on the extreme end and few people have the time or dedication or stamina to play so many hands, it is certainly the best way to familiarize yourself with various card combinations and situations that eventually become automatic.

[jdonn]

I would mention not to get discouraged if you think you are making a lot of mistakes. Something I posted earlier today is that it's often a sign of improvement when you notice more of your own mistakes. You aren't playing worse, you may just be seeing more and thus actually getting better.

[Trumpace]

I don't completely agree with the comments which say play as much as you can is the best way to improve. You should play hands, alright, but it is more important that you analyze(without any bias) the hands you played looking for your mistakes etc. Without that, you would just be having fun making the same mistakes again and again.

[peachy]

The fact that you recognize that you make the same mistakes is a good sign and means that you _are_ improving and you have the potential to become a great player because you actually _see_ your mistakes. Figure out what the area is where your mistakes are the most frustrating and concentrate on getting help in that area first. There are books and software, local pros, local volunteer teachers and good players some of who are willing to share their knowledge to help you out.

 

I have played for 32 years but I still make plenty of mistakes. Four years is a short time in the bigger scheme of things. If bridge is no longer fun for you, you could take a short break and come back refreshed, ready for fun and learning more.

[bill1157]

try playing with the robots some. I do this to get play practice and it is quite stress free. Robot tournaments are also nice. You get experience without having to be humiliated in front of a partner.

 

Bill

[nick_s]

It's important for me not to practice bad habits - like not counting the hand - like not noticing all the small pips.

 

There's a huge difference in my card play depending on how religiously I do this. The only way I've found for me to reacquire good habits is to play shorter sessions and focus on EVERY hand. After a while, it starts becoming less of a chore again.

 

Hope that helps,

Nick

[barmar]

I agree with the recommendation to find a regular partner. It's hard to concentrate on improving your own game if you're using too much of your brain power trying to guess what the random across the table is doing. Finding someone you enjoy playing with really takes the pressure off, because you only have to worry about 2 opponents rather than 3 :)

[Jlall]

Honestly quitting bridge might be a good option, especially if you are elderly. It is a very slow and long process to get better, probably compounded by most peoples inefficient practices while trying to do so. Your story is pretty normal. Good luck to you.

 

To clarify: I think it is often impossible for people to meet their goals when they start bridge too late. They simply underestimate how vast and difficult bridge is, and overestimate their own capacity to learn something like that at a more advanced age, especially if they are smart and successful people. It's sad that some people are never told this. OP, I think the biggest thing you can do is reassess your goals and see how reasonable they are. It is quite possible you are doing all the right things (playing a lot, studying a lot, reading a lot), but your goals are impossible to achieve. Assuming you do not want to lower your measures of success and improvement, maybe a new game/hobby is the right call.

[JoAnneM]

At first jlall's post made me see red, but I think maybe you need a break. 120 hands a week is a lot if you are not having fun right now. And even if you are working on getting better it still has to be a pleasurable experience unless you are working on making it your living, which I would advise most people against doing.

 

Also, slumps have been known to last as long as a year. Maybe your's is almost over and you are in store for some really great games and results.

[Stephen Tu]

Play less, try to focus more on the hands you do play. Better to play half the boards at twice the concentration level.

 

Reading more never hurts.

 

It's very important to get some regular partnerships established, finding someone at least reasonably close to your level, and preferably better. It'll be much more enjoyable playing with people who aren't making random calls & plays. At some stage it stops being much benefit at all to play with random pards&opps online, you can acquire bad habits that will hamper you when playing with better partners. Bids that may be the most practical with a random "CHO" won't be the optimal bid with a partner who can properly evaluate holdings & make proper inferences & negative inferences from your calls. Not trusting partner's carding on defense is also a bad habit, although sometimes practicing with a bad/mediocre partner can be good to develop your skills in preventing partner from making defensive mistakes.

[pdmunro]

In any sport, you will have plateaus. Worse than that, I have actually found my attainments dipped down as I tried to introduce some new skill. I am sure this is normal, but you know, that once you have acquired that skill, your game will improve.

 

I am a minimalist by nature so I am quite content to play the simplest bidding systems imaginable. So that leaves me to concentrate on playing the cards. And even there I am just trying to understand what is going on with the majority of plays. So what if I don't do squeezes - that doesn't concern me in the least.

 

I had to give up sport because of inflamed knees. So I knew that bridge was the way to go for me. I have always liked card games. My wife learned with me, but didn't like the stress that she felt, so she gave up. I continued because I knew I was in it for the long haul.

 

One thing I learnt from doing scientific research was that as you explore something in depth your broad understanding of related ideas also improves. So as I tried to work out some of the science of polymers, my calculus improved.

 

Similar things can happen with bridge. There are a lot of things to learn and different aspects of the game suit differnt people. I have found that exploring the one aspect that interests me will come back to benefit my whole game. So just chew off one bit at a time.

 

I recall my second night of bridge when I learnt the point range for 1NT and some of the follow-up bidding. I thought I will never be able to remember point ranges. Well, of course, we all do because it is no more difficult than remembering a 4 digit phone number.

 

I recall a suggestion in a bridge book that I count winners when planning a trump suit play, and thinking that just counting losers was enough for me. Nowadays, I try to work out winners and losers not just in the play, but also in the bidding.

 

So over the 20 years that I have playing bridge, at different times I have concentrated my efforts on different aspects of the game. Throughout, my focus has been on SAYC. At one time, I focussed on learning the basic suit patterns: 4441, 5332, 7321, etc. More recently, I restructured my bidding understanding in terms of winners and losers.

 

This year I have been trying to improve my recall of the cards. I tried thinking in terms of different suits being in different rooms in the house. (Please don't ask me how I had the members of the Heart suit arranged in the shower. ;-)) That didn't work. But now I am trying to think of each suit in blocks: AKQJ as one block; 10 9 8 7 as another block. So rather than just saying to myself "the ♥AJ have been played", I also think "the top and bottom card of the top ♥ block have been played".

 

In summary, for me bridge is an enjoyable pastime. To improve I concentrate on one specific thing, knowing that my results may dip while I do so. And seriously, try the Robot Duplicate Matchpoint Tournaments - I can see lots of possibilities for improving my bridge coming from playing in those.

[xcurt]

I would say

 

* Analyze after each session. Play less, analyze more. Look at the recap, figure out why you got a poor score on some boards, and ask what you could have done. This is one good thing about pairs. Playing teams you might have lost IMPs solely because of the other table result.

 

* Don't give up on hands when you don't have good cards or it looks like you might have nothing important to do.

 

* If you find you're playing to avoid losing the postmortem, you need a new partner. Also see next point.

 

* Become a better partner. This is a social skill, not a bridge skill, but it affects your bridge scores and it's worth doing.

 

Finally, don't think you can't improve. Sorry JLall, I have to disagree a little, while I think to become WC you need to have started young, when you're talking about the difference between an average club player and solid Flight A player, there are just so many areas where he or she can do better and get better scores, so that player does not need to do everything nearly optimally to get a big improvement.

[NickRW]

I think you mainly need to give yourself a break somehow.

 

Maybe you should, at least temporarily, give the game up for a little while. No arbitrary amount of time - it could be a week, or a month, or a year or a decade. When you feel interested again, come back to it.

 

If you don't want to do that, then I'd say 120 boards a week is quite a lot for most people. It could be that you are noticing that you are making mistakes that you know you shouldn't be making simply because your suffering from burn out. Play a bit less.

 

You also sound like you take the game quite seriously - which is fine in itself - but maybe you are setting goals for yourself that are - well not necessarily too high - but too high too quickly. Take some time to work out what you think you could realistically achieve over the next 12 months and work on that.

 

Nick

[cyc0002002]

I appreciate all the comments

I'll try

Maybe I'm pushing myself too hard

But I'm only 21,not elderly.

[zheddh]

Get yourself a permanent partner, someone who is near your level.. If he is much better than you, he wouldn't be happy. If you are much better, you wouldn't be happy.

 

Play with him/her regularly and always analyze your hands after play.

 

EDIT: Also if you are making a lot of stupid mistakes(which you realize when you make them), maybe concentrating and thinking more on every hand would help.

[glen]

Learning is not a linear process.

 

Say you read a book that teaches delaying drawing trumps on some hands. As you attempt to incorporate this technique on some hands you will delay drawing trumps when you would have been better served to just draw trumps immediately. Thus you will go down in some contracts you would have made before trying to improve your game. However after many hands of experience in delaying drawing trumps, you will gain control of this technique and your skill level will improve.

 

Thus I don’t think the solution is to play less. Instead play lots, and expect to hit stretches, some that can last many months, where you are a weaker player than just before. It is not a linear process, so you can’t measure improvement in short intervals.

 

I encourage you to establish one or more stable partnerships that play at least once a week. Establish a partnership even if it means you have to play with somebody who you feel is weaker than you are. Concentrate on being the best partner you can be: supportive, easy going, not results oriented. When people see that you can be a nice partner, you will start to get partnership opportunities with stronger players. Many bridge players are older, and their number one priority in a partner is not results, but finding somebody pleasant. Being super nice will get you nicer partners, and these types of supportive players can aid in your learning this complex game.

 

Finally I recommend that advancing players consider some one-on-one teaching, from an expert teacher. The teaching process will involving some playing together, as well as plenty of discussion after each playing session. If you can afford it, one should budget for at least 100 hours of teaching time over a number of months. This one-on-one time with an expert teacher will greatly accelerate your non-linear learning process, if you pick a teacher that works with you giving you feedback, tips, and guidance during your time together.

 

However, given you are 21, you may not have the finances to afford one-on-one teaching. However, being 21, you have the time to invest many years in getting better. Thus, please be patient with the non-linear process of becoming a better bridge player, and remember it is important to enjoy the process, putting up with the bumps and bruises we all get along the Tour de Bridge course.

[Winstonm]

I appreciate all the comments

I'll try

Maybe I'm pushing myself too hard

But I'm only 21,not elderly.

Rule #1: Never, but NEVER discuss hands at the table.

Rule #2: Review every hand and play from every session - but only after the session is over.

Rule #3: Play and think about only one hand at a time - the one in front of you.

[JanM]

I'd like to put in a plug for Bridge Master - in my opinion, playing the Bridgemaster hands that are at or a little above your level is a great way to learn declarer play and how to think about hands. Learning how to think about and play hands will improve your bidding judgment because you will be able to visualize what partner's hand is and how the play will go.

[Jlall]

I appreciate all the comments

I'll try

Maybe I'm pushing myself too hard

But I'm only 21,not elderly.

If you are 21 forget what I said, your capacity to get better is very high. Just realize that it will be hard. Get the most out of the hands you play by analyzing them afterwards, ideally talking them through with better players. If you are unsure about some hands/decisions/whatever, try posting them and people here can answer your questions.

[vuroth]

It is a very slow and long process to get better, probably compounded by most peoples inefficient practices while trying to do so. Your story is pretty normal. Good luck to you.

 

To clarify: I think it is often impossible for people to meet their goals when they start bridge too late. They simply underestimate how vast and difficult bridge is, and overestimate their own capacity to learn something like that at a more advanced age, especially if they are smart and successful people.

You make it sound like it's an almost impossible task. Very discouraging.