What makes a good bridge player?

[Hanoi5]

I have been wondering how a good bridge player is formed. Yeah, practice and study but there is definitely something else.

 

Is it about being competitive? Is it a mathematical/logical thinking mind? What is it?

[kenberg]

If you ever find the answer I hope you will let me know. As a mathematician I think I would say that mathematics is definitely not enough. For one thing, in mathematics a theorem is not proved until every potential flaw in the reasoning has been examined and taken care of. If it takes three years, or three centuries, so be it. With most hands, and in most games, it is necessary to size up a situation and construct a strong line of play, even if you cannot be certain that it is absolutely optimal.

 

Logic helps, no doubt about it, but it's not enough.

[Hanoi5]

I am also interested about the opinions on when is this shown.

 

Is it a good student the one that pulls trumps on his own? The one that counts them?

 

I know the one that does not use them to ruff at the first opportunity usually turns out bad, what about the finesse? Can someone who does not understand a finesse the first or second time around turn out to be a good student? Or can anyone be good as long as they have some drive?

[maggieb]

I know a bonafide rocket scientist who's been trying to improve his game for years and is still basically hopeless. And then I hear there are some high school dropouts who are doing quite well in bridge :P. I think it is safe to say that being smart is not necessarily enough to be a good bridge player, but it is a requirement to be a good bridge player.

 

In my opinion you have to be smart and you have to put in the work. But even if you were a bridge prodigy I think you would never amount to much by playing against random people at the club or local sectionals. To be any good at this game you need to practice a lot, play against people better than you, and talk to people better than you and really think about what they're saying. Avoid people who are more interested in system than bridge (at least in the beginning, maybe for life), and avoid pseudo-experts whose list of accomplishments basically amount to a couple sectional and regional wins. The importance of listening to truly good players can't really be overstated in my opinion.

[DWM]

To get beyond a certain level I dont think the question is what makes a good bridge player it should be what makes a good partnership.

 

To start with card play and basic system knowledge is probably top priority, but beyond a certian level I think its more important to have a great understanding with your partner than have the ability to identify the more complex squeezes etc.

[EricK]

The one set of people you shouldn't ask "what makes a good bridge player?" is good bridge players. Because I believe to be a good bridge player, the primary consideration is to have a mind of a certain type. And when you have had a mind of a certain type all your life, it is easy to treat that as a given, and to look towards things like hard work, study, practice with a partner and so on.

 

But just like some people can't use a map without constantly turning it around in their hands, some people just can't perform the right sort of mental manipulations to be a good bridge player.

 

If you can imagine the holdings of both unseen hands and project the play forward a few tricks in your mind, and be confident of what all the hands have left, then you can, with hard work and study etc, become a good bridge player. If you get muddled doing that "simple" task, then you can't.

 

And I don't believe you can develop this to any great extent with practice - it either comes naturally or it doesn't.

[Mbodell]

The one set of people you shouldn't ask "what makes a good bridge player?" is good bridge players. Because I believe to be a good bridge player, the primary consideration is to have a mind of a certain type. And when you have had a mind of a certain type all your life, it is easy to treat that as a given, and to look towards things like hard work, study, practice with a partner and so on.

I think this is true to an extent. Certainly people make this sort of mistake all the time looking at, for instance, what it takes to be successful in starting a company. Where when you look at the very successful folks who started companies you'll see things like hard working, believe in their idea, etc. And you'll think that this is what it takes. But instead you'll miss the degree that luck and other factors come to play. Indeed if you looked at those companies that didn't survive you might find the same ingredients. So what you really know by looking at the survivor biased firms are the necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for success. If you focus only at good bridge players you might find necessary conditions (smart) but not sufficient conditions - as pointed out plenty of smart people are no good at bridge or other card games.

 

Personally, one thing I've seen when looking at smart people who are no good at card games (hearts, poker, euchre, bridge, spades, etc.) the common factor that I've seen is that they didn't play cards when young. And that their families didn't play many games of any sort.

 

I will not pretend that this is either necessary nor sufficient nor that my sample size is huge, but I think starting young is probably important, and not starting young is probably a big disadvantage. Which, if true, is yet another reason to make teaching bridge to school kids important for our games future.

[Old York]

Learn the basics, join teaching tables, when you have learnt the basics then go back and learn it all again. A good bridge player does not need to think about common situations, it becomes second nature.

Do not worry about complex conventions and forming regular partnerships. A good player can play with anyone and expect to do reasonably well

Learn to count, at least up to 13. World class players can count up to 52, this is totally beyond most of us, learn to identify the problem suit, and basic ways to handle difficult situations, like avoidance and endplays

Trust your intuition, this is the one that I have most problems with

 

Good luck

Tony

[PeterGill]

I think the requirements vary from one person to another. The best players tend to be good at most of, but not all of, concentration, partnership handling, temperament and having an open mind for learning (not a closed mindset).

 

Maggieb, we have another rocket scientist in Sydney who has never managed to figure out how to play the game well, but Curtis Cheek is a great player who was a rocket scientist before becoming a pro bridge player. No clues there.

 

Perhaps there are a few guidelines. Although people in their fifties and sixties are often world class, those who first played bridge in their twenties or earlier tend to end up the best.

[Fluffy]

I think mathematics and some scientist/engineers have a very strict mind for bridge, to be a good bridge player you need to be able to "relax" the rules and bend them a bit.

 

I know of several engineers/mathmaticians who just "know" (by memory) a set rules, but don't have the ability to link the rules with the "why" of the rule, thus being unable to tweak the rule if neccesary.

 

 

Other than that, it depends, some people "just know" wich cards have been played ocs they have that skill, I have to count them and sometimes remind the image of the card being discarded (some sort of photo-memory that I have leart to apply to bridge).

 

I also have some skills rotating objects in 2d or 3d in my mind. I apply it this way:

 

I do some sort of "tetris" thing with blocks of cards from hand moving, and fittng into blocks in dummy. I don't think many people do the same.

 

To explain, trump is spades, trumps already draw

 

♠xxx

♥x

♦AKQx

♣Ax

 

♠xxxxxx

♥xxx

♦x

♣xxx

 

My way of thinking is something like

 

my spades are good, I lose a heart, the other 2 hearts are a hole that is FILLED with the extra trumps in dummy, my club losers fit into the diamond winners in dummy etc.

 

This hand is a perfect match, when things are more complicated I can do it poorly, unable to create "blocks" with different parts wich depend on how the opponents defend (morton's fork for example), I then have to use some mind tool to fit into the card scheme that won't work as good.

[bluecalm]

I for example never count losers. I think it's mental shortcut which was devised to help weak players to play suite games.I always count tricks and try to visualize different lines and count tricks I take using them. I've never have a thought like "now i discard my losing heart", instead I think : "well now i play trumps and 3 spades, pitching hearts, then clubs and heart ruff = 11 tricks".

[Jlall]

Personally, one thing I've seen when looking at smart people who are no good at card games (hearts, poker, euchre, bridge, spades, etc.) the common factor that I've seen is that they didn't play cards when young.  And that their families didn't play many games of any sort.

DING DING...tell him what he's won!

[pooltuna]

I have been wondering how a good bridge player is formed. Yeah, practice and study but there is definitely something else.

 

Is it about being competitive? Is it a mathematical/logical thinking mind? What is it?

Good bridge players are abstractly suspicious of their opponent's actions. Also the ARCH acronym has been ground into them so much that it is second nature.

[Vilgan]

Personally, one thing I've seen when looking at smart people who are no good at card games (hearts, poker, euchre, bridge, spades, etc.) the common factor that I've seen is that they didn't play cards when young.  And that their families didn't play many games of any sort.

This.

 

I've taught some beginning bridge lessons, and the difference was ridiculous. Played euchre/pinochle/spades/hearts/something with tricks before? They ought to pick it up reasonably well and advance at a speed in accordance with their intelligence/logic abilities.

 

Never played any card game before? Looks blank when I talk about "taking a trick". They will learn really really slowly, expend 10x the effort to get somewhere, and never become a really great player.

 

I'm sure there might be an exception or two, and obviously this doesn't apply to people who are still young. However.. it certainly seemed like an ironclad rule from what I saw teaching easy bridge to a mostly over 50 crowd.

[Winstonm]

I think you have to get an addict-needle-like thrill from solving the kinds of problems that bridge issues. I would think for many intelligent people the effort required simply doesn't match the reward/fix.

[ggwhiz]

A little math aptitude and a lot of study and practice isn't enough. Two things I look for are

 

1. A healthy ego: Staying calm when adversity strikes and managing a partnership. There are exceptions but I can name a large handful of locals over the years that had the talent to win the big one but couldn't keep a partner.

 

2. Empathy: Partnership management but also the ability to put yourself in the other guys shoes and think along with them to develop table feel.

 

The best example might be one of the old time greats that bragged he never misguessed the queen on a 2 way. If I remember right, a pair fixed a hand against him and in mid play he said "There's something wrong, you both have it"

[Winstonm]

The best example might be one of the old time greats that bragged he never misguessed the queen on a 2 way. If I remember right, a pair fixed a hand against him and in mid play he said "There's something wrong, you both have it"

 

Supposedly Ely Culbertson made this claim - but given the quality of journalism in those days, I would place this story in the "urban legend" rather than "fact" category.

 

Edit: I see ggwhiz remembers the story about P. Hal Sims - that may be right.

[Jlall]

I don't believe this you must have ego thing to be a good player. I think that:

 

1) People who are good are very likely to be smart and competitive.

 

2) People who are smart and competitive are likely to have egos. This is for obvious reasons.

 

3) The population of good bridge players that have a big ego is no different than the population of smart+competitive people that have egos.

 

The fact is, most people have ego for a reason. Sure it may be inflated, but it is completely backwards to say something like "The top 100 players in the world all have ego, ergo ego is necessary to become one of the top 100 players in the world." More like they all have ego because they have been able to achieve a level that very few people can, and because they probably have succeeded in other areas of life because they are smart and capable and have good work ethic (obviously, since bridge takes so long to get good at), and because they have been looked up to on their rise up the bridge world, and because they are looked up to now...etc etc etc.

[ggwhiz]

Note that I meant "healthy" ego as opposed to quantity and I don't even know what that means.

 

In students, some start off afraid of their own shadows (or to make a bid) and when or if they get over the fear factor, they improve rapidly without becoming overbearing idiots.

 

The ones that start off with bluff and bluster (ex military playing with their wives?) limit themselves.

 

I did get the story wrong but from the Eddie Kantar's bridge humour pages

 

P. Hal Sims a great expert of yesteryear had the reputation of never misguessing a queen in a two-way finesse position. He finds himself playing against two ladies missing a queen and finally announces that neither one of them has it. Sure enough the queen was on the floor.

 

I don't know if it's true cause I'm just not THAT old.

[h2osmom]

It's interesting, my son (who is 27) has told me on more than one occasion that he thinks it's far more important that I played games with him than that I read to him as a child. He says, "Reading to your kids is fine, but if you don't, they will learn to read in school anyway. If you don't teach them to play games, they might never learn."

[nigel_k]

My list of factors that make a good bridge player:

 

1. Logic. Not necessarily mathematical, but the two often go together.

 

2. Visualization. Being able to form a mental picture of the unseen hands and understand how that translates into taking tricks.

 

3. Psychology. Being able to see things from an opponent's perspective and therefore limit the range of possible layouts to those that are consistent with the bidding and play so far. Also understanding how a given opponent will likely react to various bids/plays you might choose.

 

4. Bidding Skill and Judgment. I don't know if this is unique to bridge, or is a more general skill. But certainly there are some otherwise good players who just don't have it. Essentially I mean the ability to grasp principles of bidding such as not bidding your hand twice, knowing when a hand is 'good' or 'bad', and having the discipline to stick to agreements and the wisdom to know when to depart from them.

 

5. Collaboration/Communication. Essentially how to be a good partner.

 

6. Concentration and Discipline.

 

This is limited to abilities that you might try to detect in someone early on, which I think is what the op was about - so things like practicing a lot or having parents who play are not included but obviously matter.

 

A competitive attitude might matter at the top level, but I think you can be 'good' (maybe very good) without it. In general, I think the attempt to apply sports psychology to bridge is a bit misguided. The game is really about problem solving and the personal satisfaction of solving puzzles can be a decent substitute for the competitive desire to beat the opponent.

 

As for how you might detect these factors, I really have no idea that isn't obvious.

[Elianna]

It's interesting, my son (who is 27) has told me on more than one occasion that he thinks it's far more important that I played games with him than that I read to him as a child. He says, "Reading to your kids is fine, but if you don't, they will learn to read in school anyway. If you don't teach them to play games, they might never learn."

Speaking as a teacher whose students played games with their parents, but weren't read to, I think he's just plain wrong.

 

While they may teach him TO read at school, they can't teach him to LIKE to read.

[lilboyman]

Technical skill in playing cards.

Mastery of bidding agreements.

Good bidding judgement.

Being a good partner.

Be able to read people.

[MickyB]

When I was very inexperienced, but rapidly becoming a system freak, I attended lessons with a maverick teacher. He used to take a suit, deal a few cards at random then discuss the suit combination with us. One time it was QJx opposite Axx; My initial reaction was to play the queen. As a result of this, he informed me I'd never be a good player! While I know I'll never be a world-class declarer, I'd like to think I've done my bit to prove him wrong :(

 

But even if you were a bridge prodigy I think you would never amount to much by playing against random people at the club or local sectionals. To be any good at this game you need to practice a lot, play against people better than you, and talk to people better than you and really think about what they're saying.

 

When I had been playing about four years, I went through some level five bridge master hands with a ladies international and my housemate, who had been playing for three months. It was slightly disturbing to discover that he was the best of the three of us! When I last played with him, he was decent for the most part, with the odd absurdity, but it seems clear that he has missed out on discussion with top players.

[hotShot]

Anders Ericsson (Florida State University) says that you have to invest about 10000 hours of practice withing 10 years get world class in something.

That is about 3 hours a day.

His prime examples are darts, chess and violin play.

 

I'm quite sure that it's also true for bridge.