How do you "count out the hand"?

[ynrobinson]

I have an above-average memory, and when I play chess games I can often review the game move-by-move without having written down the moves while the game was in progress. I do well with names, phone numbers, lines of text or other indices of good memory, both short and long term. I am trying to learn methods to remember during a bridge hand what cards have already been played. I understand that awareness of what has already happened enables obvious inferences, for example that nobody else holds any cards in the suit, so I can run the suit on offense or discard it on defense. I also understand that following the discards of unseen hands enables a skilled player to "count out the hand" by its distribution of suits, which ideally allows the last five or six tricks to be playable "double dummy".

 

I am finding it difficult to keep track of cards played. I am seeking your collective advice for how you approach this task.

 

One thing I've tried is to keep a running count of cards played, like this:

First trick, defender (west) leads ace of clubs, all follow: 0004

Second trick, king of clubs, declarer (south) ruffs with a spade: 1007

Third trick, declarer wins a spade: 5007

Fourth trick, declarer wins another spade, defender (east) discards a heart: 8107

Fifth trick: diamond, all follow: 8147

And so forth, with four numbers for spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds respectively. I find it difficult to keep track of these numbers when three or four suits are played to a trick in the later stage of play. I find it hard to reinforce this habit when often the hand is claimed (or transparently equivalent to a claim) before all the tricks are finished.

 

The other thing I've tried is counting the cards in my hand and in dummy by suit, noting that there are missing (for example) 4 spades, 8 hearts, 7 diamonds and 7 clubs. The purpose is to establish distribution for the two missing hands, starting with one hand known to have a long suit if possible. It's virtually impossible for me to establish one hand's full distribution, remember the original count of missing cards, derive the other hand's full distribution and still keep apprised of what is happening trick by trick. The experience of trying to do this reminds me of how difficult I find it to coordinate movements while swimming: any time I focus on the arm movements, I neglect the leg movements, and vice versa.

 

Since you're all experienced players, and have either moved past this stage or given up trying, how would you advise?

[jjbrr]

the best advice available is this: bridge is unlike chess. prodigies are few and far between.

 

the best way to get good at counting hands is to play lots and lots and lots of hands. i guarantee you the most respectable posters in this forum will tell you that they've put in countless hours and thousands of hands to get to where they are.

 

you clearly have the right mind for bridge. the ability to discipline yourself to count out all the suits demonstrates an innate talent, but the fact is you won't get good at it overnight. put in the work and you will gain the rewards.

 

play as many hands as you can. you'll learn that on some hands you dont need to get the count. on others it's imperative. read books. learn from people much, much better than you or i.

[mike777]

I have an above-average memory, and when I play chess games I can often review the game move-by-move without having written down the moves while the game was in progress.  I do well with names, phone numbers, lines of text or other indices of good memory, both short and long term.  I am trying to learn methods to remember during a bridge hand what cards have already been played. I understand that awareness of what has already happened enables obvious inferences, for example that nobody else holds any cards in the suit, so I can run the suit on offense or discard it on defense.  I also understand that following the discards of unseen hands enables a skilled player to "count out the hand" by its distribution of suits, which ideally allows the last five or six tricks to be playable "double dummy".

 

I am finding it difficult to keep track of cards played.  I am seeking your collective advice for how you approach this task.

 

One thing I've tried is to keep a running count of cards played, like this:

First trick, defender (west) leads ace of clubs, all follow: 0004

Second trick, king of clubs, declarer (south) ruffs with a spade: 1007

Third trick, declarer wins a spade: 5007

Fourth trick, declarer wins another spade, defender (east) discards a heart: 8107

Fifth trick: diamond, all follow: 8147

And so forth, with four numbers for spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds respectively.  I find it difficult to keep track of these numbers when three or four suits are played to a trick in the later stage of play.  I find it hard to reinforce this habit when often the hand is claimed (or transparently equivalent to a claim) before all the tricks are finished.

 

The other thing I've tried is counting the cards in my hand and in dummy by suit, noting that there are missing (for example) 4 spades, 8 hearts, 7 diamonds and 7 clubs.  The purpose is to establish distribution for the two missing hands, starting with one hand known to have a long suit if possible.  It's virtually impossible for me to establish one hand's full distribution, remember the original count of missing cards, derive the other hand's full distribution and still keep apprised of what is happening trick by trick.  The experience of trying to do this reminds me of how difficult I find it to coordinate movements while swimming: any time I focus on the arm movements, I neglect the leg movements, and vice versa.

 

Since you're all experienced players, and have either moved past this stage or given up trying, how would you advise?

wow

 

 

given your resume I would think you are far, far ahead of most of us. I mean you remember all of the chess moves?

 

 

Many of us cannot remember our best friends phone numbers.

[NickRW]

They say play slowly to the first trick, count your winners and losers, make a plan. All good advice of course - but something that the books don't tell you is to make a note of which are the critical suits that you really need to count - which suits do you need to break for you and so on - that helps - you'll pay attention more easily to the opps cards because you know what you're looking for and what is less important.

 

Another thing is to learn the distribution patterns and recognise them instantly - you'll know that an individual hand can be 4=3=3=3 or 2=4=2=5 - but a single suit follows the same patterns around the table. The better you recognise these patterns the easier it is to count the hand - you really only need to know the two seen hands and just one of the unseen ones in order to know the fourth. (Indeed, strictly speaking - you only need to know the 2 seen hands and 3 of the suits in one of the unseen hands - the rest is pattern recognition)

 

Another good habit to get into is to make sure you know what the opps carding methods are - before the round starts - just routinely ask for their card and silently note what it says about carding - the bidding system they are playing is almost irrelevant - that you can ask about during the hand if you really need to know. Asking about carding during the play alerts the opps - doing it quietly less so.

 

Nick

[nigel_k]

All I do is say the cards to myself at the end of each trick, e.g. "King of hearts, four, seven, ace". That is enough for me to remember all of the cards in most cases and my memory is not especially good.

 

The hard part is not knowing what cards are left, but drawing all of the available inferences from the bidding and play to date. I would focus on doing that and by the time you learn it, remembering the cards played will probably have become automatic.

[peachy]

Play lots of hands.

Given what you tell about yourself, you might enjoy reading Kelsey's books on defense (Killing Defense) or other good ones which gets you to enjoy the "detective work" always present at bridge and to make the activity so routine that it comes naturally without a lot of effort or memory aids. This helps your game both as declarer and as defender. Good memory is not key, it is only a crutch to rely on when the pattern recognition is not yet routine and in some cases to remember which cards are high. Anyway, my two cents. People learn differently, do what you feel comfortable with. But: play lots of hands.

[mike777]

i strongly disagree..

 

 

If your read these posts they tell you you play lots and lots of hands...no

 

 

With yourskills. you can learn just to play less lots of less. You do not need to play trillions of hands...play less ..lots of less.

 

 

Frankly I think these posts who tell you to play lots of hands are nuts. Just play normal.....billions.\ or less.

[Siegmund]

One thing that's very useful is to count DOWN rather than up. When dummy comes down, you can make a note to yourself "opps are 8-6-5-7" or whatever -- actually, you don't even need to do that for all four suits at the start, just wait until a card of a given suit is exposed, start counting that suit downward. Oftentimes as declarer it'll be very easy to do this since you control the order the suits are played.

 

As a defender I make a point of trying to estimate declarer's distribution on every deal. As declarer, a lot of that is really wasted brainpower. Well over half the time there won't be any point in bothering to count the unseen cards if there is no end position to set up and no big choices to make about your line.

 

If you can remember chess move sequences, you may well be able to work out a bridge hand's distribution as a sequence of moves too. With experience you will get better at deciding which tricks to group together in your mind as "moves". Remember that the bidding and opening lead and defender's first signal are moves too: "LHO overcalled in hearts so he has at least 5... I pulled trumps in 3 rounds and they broke 3-2 .... then I cashed my clubs and they broke 2-4.... okay, that means eight red cards with West, either 5-3 or 6-2, he would have bid them again with 7..... ah, yes, East echoed in hearts, so let's assume they are 6-2. So that's 2 diamonds on my left and 5 on my right."

[Hanoi5]

I agree with NickRW and Siegmund. I also believe jjbrr has it right about playing a lot. I was amazed at nigel_k...

 

I remember when I started playing serious bridge I wanted to find a way to remember every single card played, so that I didn't miss how my 7 was winning because the 8 came down under the K, or whatever. Somehow after playing LOTS of hands I realized bridge memory includes 'a memory of the future', i.e. you have to make a plan and that plan should help you realize what to memorize, what to keep better track of in the present hand, etc. Teaching taught me this also, all students used to ask 'but what can I do to help me remember every card played?'and the only answer I could give was 'well, not all the cards are important, you have to know what to look for'. And that's why it is so important to make a plan.

 

I don't know if it is because of the law of attraction (if that even exists) but then I started reading a book by Klinger on how to improve your memory and that was one of the advises given: 'find out about the critical suits and cards and keep a better track of them' (or something to that effect). I think even Clyde Love sort of mentions this in his famous book.

 

Another thing/book which helped me a lot was the thing mentioned about patterns. A teacher I had adviced to play the first card only after having formed an image of the posible patterns of the hidden hands. Reading 'Killing Defense' also showed me the importance of this and also of counting HCP's and tricks (patterns, HCP's and tricks have to be counted/studied in order to better defend a hand). Probably one hand makes it neccessary to count only HCP's and another only the pattern while one of them would need you to count two or even the three aspects, so you better count all three until you've learned to recognize which are neccessary/useful in which situation. For learning the patterns (which will help you think faster) I followed the advice by Kelsey: when going to sleep instead of counting sheep, count patterns (4333, 4432, 5332, etc there are only 39).

 

I'd love to see Justin's answer to this thread but if he says he remembers like nigel I'm gonna be disappointed in bridge (or in me...)

 

By the way I use(d?) to have the same attitude than jjbrr to chess: I was always trying to compare and contrast the 2 games and of course think of bridge as coming on top. Chess will someday become an open game: the answer to who should win once white starts (or if a draw is imminent) will appear in a headline in the following years. Bridge will never have this problem...

[hotShot]

I would suggest you start a little smaller.

 

There is no need to remember the full tricks.

Actually you don't even need to know all the cards that have been played.

 

Assume that your long suit it is: AQJ98432 somehow divided between dummy and your hand. The only relevant cards that your opps have are K and T. And the only information you need is: Are they still out there and who holds them.

So you can focus on 2 cards in that suit instead of 13.

If you only have 65432 in a suit, you can almost forget about that suit completely as any card is bigger than yours.

 

Count DOWN the missing cards in your long suits. And it's probably better to count the other suit down too, just to keep the irritation minimal.

 

Think in patterns:

Assume that all suits are as equally divided between opps as possible (unless bidding suggests otherwise of cause). Whenever you lean something from the play, modify that pattern. Lets assume that you have 8♠, 6♥, 7♦ and 5♣ This means opps have 5♠, 7♥, 6♦ and 8♣. So that with the assumption that e.g. LHO has 3334 and RHO has 2434.

Now if LHO leads ♥2 against your NT contract, and this is 4th of the suit update that to: LHO 2434 RHO 3334. So step by step you will get the right shape.

 

If that is almost automatic, you can work on more.

[PhantomSac]

I'd love to see Justin's answer to this thread but if he says he remembers like nigel I'm gonna be disappointed in bridge (or in me...)

Heh, I mean sorry but... eventually you have to not remember just the shape but the exact spot cards they have played, especially with all the signalling/suit preferences/inferences/whatever out there.

 

Just remembering every card that is played is the easiest way imo.

 

Another way you can do it is possibly "I played 3 rounds of hearts, and RHO showed out pitching a discouraging diamond. Then I played spade-spade, they both showed even count. Then I took a club hook, RHO dropping a highish spot." Or whatever. This is fine, the problem with this is that you miss some cards (for instance, LHO followed to 3 rounds of hearts, he might have given a suit preference). You could have decided to take note that he gave some suit preference also if you wanted.

 

For me, I find it easier to just remember what cards they played and then at some point when I need to make my decision (I've seen this called the kill point in the hand), I go back over all the information I have and make my decision. Early in the play I'm thinking more about what are the likely shapes/what shapes can I cater to or whatever, since there's less information to go off of from the cardplay, and more from the lead and the bidding inferences.

 

But basically if you remember what happened early in the play, you can call upon that info when you need it. It is not efficient to just be keeping track of the information as it's going on in a lot of cases, sometimes you don't need it, so I prefer to only try to think about the clues at the points I need them. This can happen at different points in the play.

 

Before trying to remember which spots were played and in what order though, just focus on trying to remember how many cards in each suit are left, and which high ones are gone (so that you know what is the highest card left in each suit at least). Those are obviously the 2 most important things.

 

If I'm just trying to count someones shape at the end of the hand, I of course don't care about the spots, just which cards they played, and I will always know how many rounds of a suit have been played etc, so I can just say they have shown up with 4 spades, 3 clubs, and 2 hearts, so they have 4 diamonds or w/e. But if I somehow lost count, I could just go over the tricks in the order they were played and recall it pretty easily. Basically if you have all the information about what cards were played on the tricks already played, you can recall any info that you want. I would say I always have some kind of running count on the shapes going at least, if only subconsciously.

 

It's hard to answer this because I don't really think about it while doing it, but there's my best answer.

 

Just want to add that most hands early in the play you are figuring out what are some possible shapes, and trying to cater to the most possible ones based on math or winners/losers, or whatever, and then after a few tricks you have the shapes much more narrowed down. Most of the time by like trick 5 you can have the shape narrowed to 2 or 3 possible patterns, so you have a lot more to work with. So 95 % of the time I spend thinking not "what is the count" but "how do I play this to cater to those possible shapes."

[helene_t]

I am very bad at counting myself, but much worse when defending than when declaring. Which is interesting because in a way the two situations are identical except that when defending I have more information (partner's habits, the auction usually tells more about declarer's hand than about defender's hands) so in a way it should be easier to defend.

 

I think the reason is that when declaring I have a plan. I know what I am going to do next, I know what cards are critical, I know what opps might be able to do to ruin my plan.

 

There was this psychological experiment where chess grand masters and beginning chess players were asked to memorize some random chess configurations as well as some configurations that had come up in real chess. The grand masters were much better than the beginners at memorizing realistic configurations, but wrt random configurations the two groups were equal. Because memorizing is easier when one can make sense of the picture.

 

My (totally unqualified) guess would be that something similar would apply in bridge. If all four players just played the cards randomly (not even having to follow suit), a top player may not be better at memorizing the play than a beginner. If that is correct, the key to counting would be to understand what is going on. What would a sensible declarer do if he held this-and-that? What can I deduce from the fact that he didn't duck the opening lead?

 

Remembering each card that is played is daunting, but if one can relate it to why it was played, the amount of information to keep shrinks. For example, if one defender signs a suit off and his partner then shifts, the two event are correlated so the information you have to keep to remember both events is less than the sum of the information from each of the events in isolation. This is probably not something that reaches the conscious level. But when you have seen (and payed attention to) tens of thousands of hands, there will be some patters which come up again and again and therefore become expected and thus easier take note on when they occur again.

[Finch]

It takes time and practice. But not just playing loads of hands, you have to concentrate on the hands you play.

 

I bet when you first started to play chess you couldn't remember every move played in a game. It takes time to get to that point. Justin is right (of course) - eventually your aim is to get to the point where you simply remember every card played in order. And - if it's any help - you do get there eventually.

 

However, you have to get from 'here' to 'there'. It can get a bit depressing just trying to keep count of suits during the play. A few other ways that may help are:

 

- After the play has finished, can you remember every card that was in dummy? Or at least, dummy's shape and every honour card as a minimum. You should always be able to name every card that was in your hand once the play is over? If not, you haven't been paying sufficient attention. Start with that.

 

- Next, after the play is over, what were the two concealed hands? Or at least, what were their shapes, and their honours?

 

- When you have been defending a hand, what did partner lead/play to trick one? When you declared, what was the opening lead?

 

- When you are dummy, pay attention to partner's play. See if you can work out what his hand is by the way he is playing it (easier if partner is at all competent, of course!).

 

- To start on counting the hand as declarer, begin with the trump suit. How many trumps are outstanding? If you play two rounds, and everyone follows, how many trumps are left?

 

- To start counting the hand as a defender, start with the suit led. If you were on lead, what card did partner play? Was that encouraging, discouraging or a count signal? What do you know about the position of the honours in that suit?

 

- Play the card game hearts, or if you can find 3 other players, even better is to play barbu. The small pips are incredibly important in these games and you soon get used to keeping a sharp eye out for the 2s, 3s and 4s

 

- When I started trying to count hands I used to work in tricks - we've had two rounds of spades and LHO discarded on the second, so 7 spades have been played etc I've no idea if that is a better or worse approach to start with than any of the other recommendations in this thread.

 

 

p.s. everything Helene says about putting things into context makes perfect sense

[barmar]

Has anyone tried the software Counting at Bridge by Mike Lawrence and Fred?

[phil_20686]

I found that when I was learning I only really started to watch the pips when I started to play count. As intermedeate players we decided we would just give count all the time regardless. And this more than anything else really helps you concentrate on the cards as you can often tell on the first round of any suit how it is distributed. At first I would nto try to remember every pip. Just try to remeber the last pip that partner has played in each suit. That way you will always pick up the simple count and attidude signals of high low, and note to yourself at the time if that was higher or lower than his previous pip in that suit.

 

If you make that kind of effort on every board you will normally find that you can remember every pip after a reasonably short space of time. The principle reasons why I lose track of count is always that I played too quickly, or that I didnt look. Its often tempting to look at and consider declarers card, and not look at partners pip when he plays it.

 

In RL play, make an effort not to play too quickly. You dont have to turn over your card from the previous trick until you are ready. Look at every card that was played and try to draw every inference before you play to the next trick, particularly when declarer is cashing winners. Now slowing down the tempo by not turning over your card can give you the extra time to make sure that your subsequent discards are in tempo, and that you have properly considered partners and declarer's discards.

[JanM]

There was this psychological experiment where chess grand masters and beginning chess players were asked to memorize some random chess configurations as well as some configurations that had come up in real chess. The grand masters were much better than the beginners at memorizing realistic configurations, but wrt random configurations the two groups were equal. Because memorizing is easier when one can make sense of the picture.

I hadn't heard of that experiment, but my initial reaction when I read the OP was that the reason you're not doing as well with memory at bridge as at chess is that instead of counting in a way that relates to what's going on in the hand and what you need to remember, you're trying to count the way we count cards at blackjack, where the order of play and who played what is irrelevant. So it's a pure memory effort. OTOH, if you watch the plays in context, with a picture of the whole hand and what's going on in mind, it's much easier. Eventually it becomes almost second nature to think "oh, the opening leader didn't ever bid and led the 6 of diamonds - either s/he has long diamonds or a singleton or doubleton, or maybe thinks the other suits are bad to lead" and then continue that sort of thinking as the hand is played out.

 

Another point is to be sure to stay focused. That sounds simple and obvious, but I'm willing to bet a lot of money that the ability to stay completely focused, even when the hand looks boring or you really want to think about whether you could have made/defeated that tricky slam one or two hands ago, is what separates the greats from the merely good. One very good player (my recollection is it was Dick Walsh, but I'm not sure - memory going on me) suggested that you repeat the opening trick to yourself, more to get yourself started focusing on the hand than anything else, and I find that does help. After the opening trick I say the cards over to myself and that usually gets me started on the right track.

[fred]

Has anyone tried the software Counting at Bridge by Mike Lawrence and Fred?

As far as I can tell, this program as its sequel ("Counting at Bridge 2") are both highly-effective as learning tools. This opinion is based mostly on feedback from a lot of people who have used these programs.

 

Here is link to a simple game I created that is designed to help you master a skill that is essential in order to be good at counting the hand:

 

Link to game

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Edited May 7, 2019 by diana_eva
Updated link

[gwnn]

There was a program posted here that helped you count. It is awesome, I tried and loved it:

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=35317

[dicklont]

Has anyone tried the software Counting at Bridge by Mike Lawrence and Fred?

As far as I can tell, this program as its sequel ("Counting at Bridge 2") are both highly-effective as learning tools. This opinion is based mostly on feedback from a lot of people who have used these programs.

Agree 100%

It's not as much the way to count that is taught there, but the way to use the information to your advantage.

[y66]

My counting skills are so-so but steadily improving since I started working harder at trying to figure out what's going on in each hand. Maybe that's an example of remembering stuff "in context" that others have mentioned.

 

I don't play much chess. But that game definitely has a very high CFR (context to factoid ratio).

 

Nice program there by G Bradt (in gwnn's post). Hadn't seen that before. Kit Woolsey discusses the usefulness of drills like the ones in that program for improving counting skills in the Boot Camp Appendix to his Partnership Defense CD. He believes that sharpening these skills frees up energy for working on more difficult problems that come up in a hand.

 

Not surprisingly, the last time I tried Fred's program, the guy who had the best score was one of the strongest players on the forum.

[Mbodell]

I found my counting abilities improved after I started playing a relay system. This was because I got a lot more focused at finding the shape patterns. So the links to Fred's "game for the whole family" will likely help. 2=4=5=2, 7=4=2=0, 5=4=3=1, 6=5=1=1, etc.

 

The other thing that I think can help is to predict the shape of the unseen hands at T1 based on bidding, dummy, and lead. Often you can say I expect the declarer to be 4=3=2=4 based on the dummy, bidding, and partners lead. Then it is easier to both count the hand and plan for the defense.

[pretzalz]

Regularly discuss the hands afterwards. Once you can remember what happened to every trick 3 hours later, remembering what has happened for 5 minutes will seem easy.

[eyhung]

Has anyone tried the software Counting at Bridge by Mike Lawrence and Fred?

I have. I agree with what's been said about it so far, but one caveat: it apparently does not run on Windows 7 -- it uses an older engine.

[fred]

Has anyone tried the software Counting at Bridge by Mike Lawrence and Fred?

I have. I agree with what's been said about it so far, but one caveat: it apparently does not run on Windows 7 -- it uses an older engine.

It's not Windows 7 that is the problem - the problem is that you are running a 64-bit version of Windows.

 

We have (free) upgrades available through:

 

Click to go to upgrade page

 

Fred Gitelman

Brdige Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[pirate22]

BRAINPOWER-a very required commodity,but "visualisation" is a commodity,create a defensive plan or a aggresive plan--Stamina is also a commodity,not to be squandered,what helped me was 4 television screens.if 1 was declarer in any contract--be it what may be.

on the opening lead-my tv screen was locked in-my dummy the other screen was locked in-that allowed me on the opening lead-to devise a plan--taking into account,the possibilities,as declarer one has a distinct advantage,USE it(Visualiation)-you are in control---

as many contributors have stated play 100's hands------NO i disagree a very slow way to achieve success---go to VU-Graph-although the systems are not what you may be playing,but the end result is the play, or defence it is important.CARD SIGNALING is an important factor,between you and your partner,in some cases,false carding,is an element-to boot-it sounds that you have a disciplined mind.%100---all you have to find isa partner that has a "Wavelength"

I mention the word "DISCIPLINE" another important commodity

gl in your endeavours