I play my worst bridge when I'm:

[Phil]

See poll. Please explain your answer.

[helene_t]

I find this difficult to answer.

 

Instinctively I voted "on tilt because of partner" but maybe that's just because that I consider that the best excuse for myself. Fortunately all of my regular partners are nice people so it hasn't been an issue for a very long time.

[aguahombre]

Any of the choices could be my excuse at the time. But, I admit to being most affected by the deportment of my opponents. It shouldn't happen, but it does.

 

The higher the level of the competition, the fewer distractions caused by the opponents, it seems. For the most part they know and abide by the ethics and the rules, much more so than lesser skilled players.

[h2osmom]

I have noticed that my scores first session are likely to be as much as 10% higher than later sessions in a day will be. I don't feel tired at 7 or 8 pm, but that isn't borne out by my scores. I hate that!

[gwnn]

sometimes I just enter into a sort of lethargy, not caring much about anything, sometimes it's caused by partner or one of the poll options but most of the time it's just out of the blue or triggered by a few bad/stupid decisions of mine.

[Finch]

I'm not sure my answer needs 'explaining'. I play worse in the evening after being at work all day. I play worst of all on a Thursday or Friday night after being at work all week, or after playing the night before as well as going to work during the day.

[awm]

For me, being hungry is actually by far the worst. It's sort of the opposite of the "big meal" one. The "play through swisses" that tournaments seem to always have on Sundays are awful for me because of this (I don't really like the food they offer for lunch and can never eat much). This effects my level of focus a lot more than being tired.

 

There's also my problem with bright blue lights (hypersensitive to them, probably something to do with being colorblind). They basically give me an instant migraine, so I can't really play bridge when one of them is at the table. Unfortunately there's a pair in my district (and they play in a fair number of open/flight A events) where one of them has bad vision and they keep a super-bright blue LED light at the table at all times. This can effect me even from several tables away. Then again, I doubt too many bridge players play well with a migraine.

[jjbrr]

the poll is def tl;dr

 

is tired one of them?

[Elianna]

i voted other, but my explanation would be tmi.

[Hanoi5]

is tired one of them?

 

Tired is 8 of them.

[manudude03]

It is only natural you start to play worse as the day goes on. I find I play worst when I stay up late or have been drinking ;) .

 

Any time I play in a multi-day event, I'm always sure to be sleeping reasonably early and limit myself to 1 alcoholic drink a night. I'm always either staying at the venue or stay a few minutes away, so most of the poll options don't apply to me. It is very much possible that one of the others is more appropriate.

 

Helene could tell you (well, she already has I guess) I very rarely point out partner's mistakes, unless they specifically ask me to point them out. I'm just as likely to make any moronic mistake which happen. I'd rather partner made 2 mistakes and ignore them than have them make 20 and have to point them out. I do naturally get a little snappier in high pressure moments though.

[Mbodell]

Interesting that you have on tilt from partner or opponents but not on tilt from self. I'm much more likely to be frustrated about my own mistakes. I still wouldn't put that as my biggest issue from your list, but when I'm on tilt it is usually because of my own stupidity.

[Fluffy]

My worst bridge comes up when I have been playing 3 seasons a day for too long, this happened in European championship when we reached the final 52, with 2 qualyfing 2-season days before, and before we had also played teams. So it was like a week with 60 boards a day aprox. I was completelly unable to count anything in the end.

 

Being sick places me in the same state without a week of effort.

 

Also I lose concentration after a long trip to a tourney, after a big meal, and after the director has been summoned to the table (lasts a couple of deals).

 

 

I don't like coffee, but cocacola used to enhance my concentration, now it is more like if I don't drink cocacola my level goes down.

[georgeac]

on tilt from partner has been it lately. usually worry about some mistake i made that he tells me about. probably best if i just review everything at the end of the game.

[MFA]

For me, being hungry is actually by far the worst. It's sort of the opposite of the "big meal" one.

Same here. Being hungry is often a big problem for me. I think I have an unstable blood sugar, because it can really drop. A test didn't reveal anything unusual though. Should really try to improve my physical shape because that tends to help a lot.

[Siegmund]

Tired from lack of sleep, for me - whether it's from flying on the redeye or driving since 6am to get to the tournament, or from having to get up too early to play a morning session, or from staying up until 3am doesn't make much difference.

 

Missing from the poll is an explicit option for alcohol. I don't drink during a tournament and won't play with a partner that does -- I am amazed how much damage even a single drink at dinner will do to an otherwise solid player. (There are people sufficiently good that they can still win on autopilot after drinking - I've known exactly one in my life - but there are far more people who think they can but can't.)

[Rossoneri]

Not having so much experience with long tournaments tend to mean that I get tired towards the end.

 

The two longest tournaments I've probably played have occured in the past year, in the Spring Fours, I was completely out of it by Monday and kind of gave up after lunch, since we were in the consols event and teammates were pretty knackered as well, we withdrew midway. (For those unfamiliar, this is actually common practice for the Monday consols event!)

 

Last weekend I played 2 days in the U-25 pairs in London and then the Swiss teams on Sunday. This wasn't really much - 91 boards in the first 2 days and 49 boards on the 3rd. However, I could tell I was playing poorly towards the end, especially in the last set where I just didn't bid on holding a good 18 count and partner showing me at least 13 points with a good major suit fit. Grand was cold. Considering that that was the only slam which my partnership missed the whole weekend, and it was pretty obvious to bid it...

[jjbrr]

is tired one of them?

 

Tired is 8 of them.

lol.

 

i play my best bridge probably early-middle of a long tournament. thats generally because the first few days I'm either rusty or tired from traveling/time zone differences/whatever back home. By the end I'm just drained (isn't that completely normal?) and miss some spots or miss some inferences and start to drop tricks. Generally the Sunday Swiss is a big waste of time for me, mostly because I'm tired but also because I enjoy it much less and have to worry about traveling back home and stuff.

[nigel_k]

I don't have trouble working all day and playing in the evening, but I'm always a bit sleepy right after lunch, regardless of what I ate. Dunno why. Not having enough sleep the night before makes it worse though.

[Jlall]

Missing from the poll is an explicit option for alcohol.

Haha when I saw the title of this thread I was wondering if anyone would say "hungover."

[Phil]

Yesterday in the District GNTs I played like crap. I can go down this list and pick out about 8 things that contributed. Staying out til 12:30 the night before with a big dinner and a lot of wine was a shitty idea for a 10:00 AM game the next day. I was fine our first match, but I hit the wall about the 10th board in our 2nd and pitched 20 IMPs before the break at 14.

 

Historically, low blood sugar has been a big problem with me - which is sort of like lack of food. I learned along time ago to keep energy bars in my pocket. "Clif" bars seems to provide a lot of dense carbs that feeds glucose to your brain and helps you think. I also drink a ton of water, which hels a lot. But if I'm a little hungover, as I was yesterday, I simply can't drink enough water.

 

At Nationals, I will play like ***** after a night out. Its a given. I'm already on high adrenaline mode, and I can't sleep at all - and I refuse to take Ambien or anything else like that. So, I need every hour of sleep I can get, but thats usually only 4-5 hours a night on average. And because I'm manic, I will eat very little. I lose about a pound a day on average at tournaments, which can't be good.

 

In Reno, I sort of fell into the "didn't care enough about the event" mode. But, I was sort of in the 'detached' zen-like state and it seemed to work. I hope I can find a balance with the attitude somehow.

 

By the way, I thought of a few more: play too fast / play too slow for instance.

 

I purposely didn't put (I play my worst when I'm) drunk. This is a LOL, I mean does anyone ever enter a serious event ripped and expect to play well? Are there any full-time alkies among the top players?

[jjbrr]

lol.

 

 

also, clif bars are fantastic. i take them with me when i go hiking.

[Jlall]

How about this...

 

Let's say on average you play as well as a 7.5 (where 10 is meckstroth, 1 is someone who is playing their first session). Everyone has variance in how well they play, for the top players a standard deviation would be very small (part of being a top player is playing consistently well). For non top players, a standard deviation will be higher.

 

So let's say you play on average like a 7.5, with a standard deviation of .7. When you play like a 6.5, you will feel you've played horribly (and this is quite poor for you but happens every now and then). When you play like a 9 you will think you played great (and this is quite well for you, but happens every now and then).

 

So when you play like a 6.5 you will think of all the reasons this could happen, for instance you didn't sleep well, or something is happening in your life. Of course stuff is always happening in your life that could contribute negatively to your play. Maybe it was just one of your off days, and despite many possible reasons for it happening, it is just going to happen based on your skill level, and there's no specific reason.

 

 

Alternatively, let's say there are certain areas in bridge where you are very good, and certain areas where you aren't, which is also natural especially if you're not a top player. Maybe many boards than usual came up in your weak areas, which caused you to make more mistakes. In reality you will often mess up those boards based on your skill level, or at least have a 50 % chance of making errors on those type of boards, rather than a 10 % chance on a different hand type which would be very hard for others. So, because you ran bad on those things coming up, you feel you made more mistakes than you usually make and search for reasons why you might have played badly (and again, humans are good at finding patterns and reasons where none exists).

 

So maybe my answer is I usually play my worst bridge because I have natural variance based on my skill level, and when I hit the bottom end of that I am playing my worst bridge.

[Phil]

So maybe my answer is I usually play my worst bridge because I have natural variance based on my skill level, and when I hit the bottom end of that I am playing my worst bridge.

While all of this is true, I would argue its less of a factor with regards to performance.

 

I acknowledge that certain areas of the game are harder than others, and these elements will differ from player to player, especially a developing player (which we all are, to a certain extent).

 

I do agree that all of us have a 'range of abilities', and it can vary quite a bit from player to player, and that your performance is directly related to internal and external factors, and less of a function of the types of problems you are faced with that might challenge gaps in your game.

 

Watching USA1 last year on VG from Sao Paulo, you saw many 'uncharacteristic' mistakes. Do Woolsey and Stewart have a flaw in their game where they can't engineer a cash out? I doubt it. Or like Stansby's defense against Bessis' 3N near the end of the Vanderbilt. Don't you think that he would have got this right if perhaps he faced it on Day 2?

 

When I played on Sunday on Reno, I simply couldn't process, especially early in the session - no matter how hard I tried. This was frustrating and it showed me that there are many things I need to do to prepare myself.

 

Give me an example of an area in your game that is (relatively) weak, and where you had a challenging session where you played at the low end of your personal spectrum.

[jjbrr]

I agree with Phil. I can easily recognize the sessions where I have more decisions than others and therefore more room for mistakes. But when I legitimately feel like I'm performing poorly, it's almost always a result of being worn out at the end of a tournament, and while the automatic plays are still automatic, some of the other plays become too automatic when they shouldn't be, which results in errors.