"It's very important to be fast."

[cherdanno]

The title is a quote from memory by Meckstroth (in the most recent ACBL bulletin).

True?

The context was a question about what makes him successful, and among other things Meck mentions that he is quite fast, which he thinks is very important.

[bluecalm]

Very interesting. One local very good polish player says the same thing. Is it possible to read that interview somewhere on the net btw ?

[hanp]

Not to worry cherdanno, you can be good at other things.

[Jlall]

It's definitely a good skill to have and it helps a lot in his success but I don't think that means it's important for every top player to be fast. Being slow has a lot of advantages also.

 

I mean Mecks regular partner is very slow, and most top bridge players are pretty to very slow so whatever.

[whereagles]

maybe he wasn't talking about bridge?... lol

[JanM]

If you're playing with a very slow partner, it's good to be fast, so your partnership doesn't get in trouble. And of course sometimes the very speedy player gets his or her opponents to play too fast for their comfort &/or skill level; but once in a while, those very speedy players do make mistakes.

[Phil]

I hope all of my future opponents read this article - but not my partners.

 

Aren't we kind of past the stage in our games where we don't get sucked into someone elses tempo?

[mikeh]

The biggest single improvement I ever made in my game was playing with a slow, thinking partner. maybe Meckstroth, who plays all the time, recognizes situations quickly, but most of us amateurs benefit from slowing down and thinking.

[Jlall]

Aren't we kind of past the stage in our games where we don't get sucked into someone elses tempo?

The benefit of playing fast is not mainly "sucking people in"

 

Great player #1 takes forever and makes a great play, and the defense has had a long time to realize there is a big problem on this hand and something is coming. Somehow they find the brilliant pop with Kxx to preserve their partner's entry, or they find the killing shift, or whatever.

 

Great player #2 finds the same great play but he does it almost instantly. The defense is not aware that this is probably some kind of book hand, and doesn't find the brilliant counter.

 

Great player #2 didn't suck them in, he simply didn't give away what was going on because he had to think for so long before finding this play.

 

Great player #2 is going to be much tougher to play against, because he's making or capable of making great plays quickly and isn't giving the show away.

 

And it is not reasonable to balance this by taking 3 minutes on every play, or even every trick 1, since bridge is a timed event.

 

The downside for Great player #2 is he's under more pressure to play quickly because his normal tempo is quick, so as jan said that might induce him to make a mistake or 2 that he wouldn't if his average tempo was a little slower.

 

I think Meckstroth's point is not that you should play faster, it's that having the ability to play quickly and not have your game suffer is a huge benefit.

 

Meckstroth does preach that in normal situations it's better to make a play in tempo rather than tank and give it away (for instance if dummy has AJx and partner leads one, meckstroth has been said to say that he will always play the T from KTx rather than think for 2 minutes about which one to play. This could cost but in the long term it is beneficial since declarer doesn't know who has the king every time). Most intermediates learn to just duck your ace 2nd hand with a stiff on dummy rather than think about it. So there are situations like that also.

[gwnn]

dunno, I like bidding fast because looking at my hand for another minute will not make it easier to decide which category it belongs to and by bidding fast I leave more time for the play. I suspect the main advantage of playing fast is exactly the opposite of sucking people in, you get information slow declarers don't?

 

late edit: just want to clarify that when I wrote this jlall's post was just 1 line long.

[peachy]

Slow players can learn to be fast if there is incentive for them to do so, external or internal. If not, they do their thinking and playing in the tempo they are comfortable with. I play fast because I trust my instinct a lot. I also like fast playing opponents. Also, I tend to be susceptible to the Sominex coup, get irritated waiting for "nothing" - and state of irritated mind is not good for bridge... But that is my own problem, I should be able to not get irritated by slowness (or by the other stuff that I allow to interfere with my peace of mind...).

[awm]

An advantage to being slow is that partner always knows when you have a problem and can use that information to work out what you have. While this is not strictly ethical, I don't think I've ever seen a director do anything about tempo in the play of a hand.

 

You also put the opponents under time pressure, since the director will eventually notice your table is way behind and won't (in a team game anyway) discriminate between the slow pair and their opponents. Of course, the slow pair is probably used to warnings from the director but their opponents might get flustered.

 

And there is always the good old "sominex coup" where opponents forget what cards have been played, what the contract is etc. This is roughly as effective as the "speed coup" where a fast player gets opponents to play too quickly and make mistakes.

 

Finally, even if a slow pair loses a knockout match, they have the consolation of knowing that their opponents are probably totally exhausted (having had to play way later than the regulation time) and this will hurt their chances substantially in their next match.

[Jlall]

An advantage to being slow is that partner always knows when you have a problem and can use that information to work out what you have. While this is not strictly ethical, I don't think I've ever seen a director do anything about tempo in the play of a hand.

 

You also put the opponents under time pressure, since the director will eventually notice your table is way behind and won't (in a team game anyway) discriminate between the slow pair and their opponents. Of course, the slow pair is probably used to warnings from the director but their opponents might get flustered.

 

And there is always the good old "sominex coup" where opponents forget what cards have been played, what the contract is etc. This is roughly as effective as the "speed coup" where a fast player gets opponents to play too quickly and make mistakes.

 

Finally, even if a slow pair loses a knockout match, they have the consolation of knowing that their opponents are probably totally exhausted (having had to play way later than the regulation time) and this will hurt their chances substantially in their next match.

I don't understand this joke

[cherdanno]

Actually, a while ago someone posted a link to detailed statistics of the performance of top partnerships and players in various settings (e.g. as declarer in game when the contract is the same as in the other room, etc.) in world class events. (gwnn?)

One thing I noticed was that players who are well-known as great but slow declarers (e.g. Rosenberg or Bauke Muller) weren't actually winning IMPs as declarer.

[Phil]

Great player #1 takes forever and makes a great play, and the defense has had a long time to realize there is a big problem on this hand and something is coming. Somehow they find the brilliant pop with Kxx to preserve their partner's entry, or they find the killing shift, or whatever.

 

Great player #2 finds the same great play but he does it almost instantly. The defense is not aware that this is probably some kind of book hand, and doesn't find the brilliant counter.

 

Doesn't #2 presuppose that the defense has been caught napping and not thought about the hand enough? In the example you gave, it appears that declarer is just trying to establish a suit, and this doesn't take much time to work out, but I'm sure better examples are out there of a complex hand.

 

I agree that if you are going for deceptive play like playing an open suit in 3N, that it needs to be done in tempo.

 

If I am playing and declarer shotguns trick 2, do I think, "hey, there isn't a big problem to this hand, so I don't need to do something unusual, and just play low". I hope not, although when I'm not playing my best - I don't.

 

bridge is a timed event

 

Pairs I agree. Slow pairs stick out to the directors.

 

Long team matches? As Adam mentions (in a post I doubt anyone should take that seriously), its hard to determine fault, so slow play isn't penalized a whole lot.

And on a critical hand, if you have the choice of losing 3 IMPs for slow play or losing 10 for not making the right play, the decision is clear.

 

I think Meckstroth's point is not that you should play faster, it's that having the ability to play quickly and not have your game suffer is a huge benefit.

 

I do agree that if you can play quickly and not let your game suffer that its a benefit, but thats self-evident, because you do avoid the occasional slow play penalty, and you can catch even good players napping. But when I read this quote, it tells me that Meckstroth doesn't play better when he plays faster, his opponents simply play worse.

 

However, there is a difference between being 'fast' and being 'deliberate'. We see this in golf all of the time. A great player has 180 yards in and is caught between a 6 and a 7 iron. So he goes back and forth to his bag pulling out each club, throwing grass up to check the wind, discussing it with his caddy and inevitably gets so head-f***ed that he makes a bad swing.

 

I do see this happening with bridge, but this seems to happen when the player isn't thinking clearly. He will go back and forth with lines in his mind and either choose the wrong one, or do something bizarre like play the wrong card on a later trick when he is subconsciously trying to 'catch-up'.

 

In the end, unless you are truly an elite player, I still think 'play faster' is bad advice, and if you are an elite player, it might be dubious. In my experience, more mistakes are creating from playing too quickly, than generating mistakes by playing quickly.

[awm]

While my original post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I do think there are some ethical issues associated with slow play. The time allotted for play is for all players, and by taking more than share of the time, slow players are somewhat infringing on the rights of their opponents. In team events directors might "take boards away" but they typically won't penalize one pair or the other for being slow unless they admit to it -- which many pairs will not.

 

There's also the issue that breaks in tempo can communicate information to partner. I agree that they can communicate information to the opponents, which can then be used against the slow player. However, while tempo cases in the bidding are dealt with fairly frequently, I rarely see a case where tempo during the defense was brought to a director's attention. What I see fairly often is a case where both defenders are discarding on the run of a suit, and one defender's discards suddenly become very slow (i.e. he has a problem) and the other defender who up to that point had just been discarding useless cards suddenly decides he needs to make a spectacularly clear signal. Maybe he would've done this anyway, but how can we tell?

 

Playing against a really slow pair can be somewhat agonizing, and it's even more annoying when the director comes to the table with a slow play warning and I get to hear my opponents claim that "oh everyone was slow" when it was clearly them... and then the director leaves after admonishing us all to play faster and the opponents play even slower.

 

And it still seems ridiculous to me that Spingold matches end as late as they do. I bet it increases the fatigue factor.

[jdonn]

I'm pretty sure Meckstroth's point is that it's better to be fast than slow given the same skill level either way. Some people in this thread seemed to interpret it as it's better to be fast and worse than slow and better, uh lol?

[cherdanno]

If I am playing and declarer shotguns trick 2, do I think, "hey, there isn't a big problem to this hand, so I don't need to do something unusual, and just play low". I hope not, although when I'm not playing my best - I don't.

I think this misses the point. If declarer is fast, then he will always "shotgun" (relatively speaking) at trick 2. Then either you go along with his tempo, and miss some great plays from Kxx, or you stop to think when you have Kxx in that suit and then you give away the position of the king EVERYTIME at trick 2.

 

There isn't a huge load of IMPs to be won between the declarer play of the technical level of Meckstroth and that of Rosenberg. I am sure Meck would happily treat those IMPs for knowing every time whether his RHO has an honor in the suit he plays at trick 2.

[Phil]

Then either you go along with his tempo, and miss some great plays from Kxx, or you stop to think when you have Kxx in that suit and then you give away the position of the king EVERYTIME at trick 2.

Didn't you consider this before you played at T1?

 

Justin would say, by thinking at T1, that you've already spilled the beans, and I will concede this, but I think he would concede that if I always think a lot at T1, then it mitigates this tell.

[blackshoe]

Playing against a really slow pair can be somewhat agonizing, and it's even more annoying when the director comes to the table with a slow play warning and I get to hear my opponents claim that "oh everyone was slow" when it was clearly them... and then the director leaves after admonishing us all to play faster and the opponents play even slower.

I noticed — not for the first time — an interesting phenomenon the other day. Whenever I'm in a hurry, the drivers in front of me drive more slowly. My conclusion: people are telepathic, they know I'm in a hurry, so they slow down just to piss me off. :)

 

The whole slow play thing is certainly a problem. I'm not sure though that trying to enslave everyone to the clock is a good solution. Keep in mind that by law, in f2f bridge at least, the round doesn't necessary end when the clock dings, but rather when the play on the last board is done (Law 8B).

[ggwhiz]

It's a 2 edged sword.

 

If you can make a really strong play quickly and smoothly it will work out more often than if you give declarer time to think along with you.

 

Meanwhile, my favorite quote from a Kokish article is "West ducked smoothly, often the second best play".

[Rossoneri]

Probably some truth in that.

 

I had at least 2 boards over the weekend where I've paused to think for a while, and ended up forgetting to draw trumps, thus going off in 2 cold contracts.

[dburn]

When asked how he managed to find successful actions so quickly, Skid Simon (perhaps not quite in Meckstroth's class, but certainly a great player) replied that he had a natural gift for realising in seconds that he would not know what to do if he thought for several hours.

[Phil]

When asked how he managed to find successful actions so quickly, Skid Simon (perhaps not quite in Meckstroth's class, but certainly a great player) replied that he had a natural gift for realising in seconds that he would not know what to do if he thought for several hours.

Yep - see: Gladwell's "Blink".

 

I guess I can't let go and play like that however.

[nige1]

Arguably ....

• Intelligence is an asset at Bridge.
  
• A crude definition of Intelligence is speed of thought.
  
• Fast and accurate play, on most boards, is a sign of intelligence.
  
• A fast-player may pressure opponents into playing at an uncomfortable pace for them, if they have a naturally slower tempo.
  
• Saving time on most boards, keeps the fast-player fresh and allows him more time, if he needs it, on difficult boards.