Where do you leak the most points?

[32519]

In longer matches (3 sessions or more), when you and partner analyse your bad boards, where do you find you are leaking the most points?

 

Bidding errors (read = forgot our systems notes) is where I find we are leaking the most points. Then we use mental fatigue as an excuse? Bunkham! You should know your own system!

 

What about you?

[Cyberyeti]

Interesting question, usually bidding misjudgment I would say.

[Free]

Even if you know your system you can easily leak points by applying poor judgement

[ahydra]

It's gotta be my declarer play. When the contract is cold I sometimes go off due to careless or semi-careless (e.g. not spotting that the entry I'm using at trick 1 will be needed at trick 10) misplay, and when the contract is cold off due to a bad split etc, I go down loads more than others - a disaster at MPs. Probably the worst thing is that I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong most of the time.

 

ahydra

[billw55]

I think I toss the most tricks on defense. Bidding judgement and declarer play error also happen, but the lost tricks on defense seem much more frequent.

[Antrax]

For me it's declarer play, for my partner it's bidding judgement (so when he's dummy we're doubly screwed :P)

[Vampyr]

Bidding errors (read = forgot our systems notes) is where I find we are leaking the most points.

 

If this is happening, your system is too complicated. When I'm tired I make every error under the sun -- except this one.

[Zelandakh]

I analysed this with my current partner early on in our partnership. The overwhelming area where we were leaking was in competitive bidding. We tightened up in this area and it made a major difference. As of now, I think we actually drop the most points after a disagreement, unexpectedly bad result, or simply from meeting unfriendly opps - in other words, from recovering after "stress".

[Cyberyeti]

I analysed this with my current partner early on in our partnership. The overwhelming area where we were leaking was in competitive bidding. We tightened up in this area and it made a major difference. As of now, I think we actually drop the most points after a disagreement, unexpectedly bad result, or simply from meeting unfriendly opps - in other words, from recovering after "stress".

 

I was considering that as part of bidding judgment, but yes competitive bidding is difficult, under doubling at pairs and getting too many 50/100s whether doubled or not vs 110/140 is what costs us most matchpoints, at teams it's actually probably more often a defensive foul up.

 

Putting a bad board behind me instantly and not letting it affect me is one of the strongest parts of my game. It has to be given the system I play.

 

Oh and I agree with Vampyr, if you keep forgetting your system, play less system.

[Codo]

Luckily I make no mistakes, so it is just bad luck, if I ever lose an imp.

 

Seriously, I dislike my declarer play.

[Cthulhu D]

IMHO there are two categories of lost IMPs. Dumbassery, where you squander imps because you do something stupid, and missed opportunities which are situations in which you've created a chance to gain IMPs and then miss the boat. I would consider poor judgement in slam bidding getting you to 6S and going off dumbassery, whereas a preempt not made in the rest of the room resulting in the opponents playing a poor 5D that you let through rather than the ice cold 3NT is a missed opportunity.

 

In my main partnership, in both cases our single biggest loser is sloppy defense, with declarer play coming second, poor judgement in the slam zone 3rd and other bidding 4th, but in a typical session cardplay is 70-80% of our dumbass mistakes and missed opportunities.

[jogs]

Take a term from tennis. It is unforced errors. Often it means taking a call, when one should have been passing to partner. Playing captain too often.

[ggwhiz]

It was too much speed not enough thought for me but improved a lot with speedball play. I can still lose patience and focus against slow opps.

 

After a 4-day round robin I watched one guy take his pard to task saying "We are winning x number of imps with me declaring and losing y imps with you on play".

 

His pard pointed out that it said volumes about the quality of the dummy.

[aguahombre]

Mods: Please add Dumbassery to the glossary. For us, the cow will fly by in any phase of the auction or play. When we lose concentration, we lose it, then get it back. We can't blame fatigue.

 

However, like ggwhiz, we notice that slow opponents have an effect; but not high-level slow opponents.

[awm]

For Sam and me last weekend it seemed we lost most IMPs at our table because of:

 

1. We bid a lot of games that the other table didn't bid. Overall this was a net positive since I think 50% of the games or more made. However, there were certainly some bad ones that didn't even have much play when dummy came down. Perhaps we could avoid the bad ones and still bid the good ones.

 

2. Luck. There were some slam contracts on a finesse that were bid at one table and not the other.

 

3. Opening lead. This is one area where we could definitely improve, but it is also one of the hardest areas of the game. One hand in particular Sam held ♠KQTx ♥xxxxx ♦xx ♣Kx and heard the auction 1♣-1♦-2♣-2♥-3♣-3♦-3NT. It seems obvious to lead a major, but he picked the wrong one...

 

4. Competitive misjudgment; I remember one in particular where the auction went 1♠-2♣-4♠-5♣ and I held ♠AKQxxx ♥ATxx ♦xx ♣x and took a white versus red save, but neither game was making.

 

We didn't have any "system forgets" despite playing really complicated methods. I also don't recall any hands that we lost in declarer play (at least not clearly so). There were a bunch of hands where we pitched overtricks on defense, but this is somewhat normal for IMP play, and the contracts we let through that should fail were normally opening lead issues.

[mikeh]

For me, it is almost always a matter of attitude.

 

When I am playing aggressively, we tend to do well. However, I sometimes develop a very pessimistic attitude that infects my bidding and causes me to underbid/fail to preempt/fail to sacrifice, because I talk myself into thinking bad things will happen.

 

Bad things can happen, but my experience, when I am playing well and aggressively, is that they tend not to and, when they do, they tend to be offset by the good things. I know all of this on an intellectual basis, but I have great difficulty getting out from under the dark cloud of pessimism when it sets in.

 

I've played entire tournaments in this state of mind, and the last time that happened caused me to quit playing...that was 18 months ago :P

[Finch]

I don't know.

What is more, I'd lay odds that most of the answers here are wrong.

 

If you and your partner analyse only your own results you will generally overestimate the impact of system and underestimate the impact of play and defence. Particularly defence.

 

I have been involved in many other pairs' post mortems, and I am pretty confident that if an 'advanced' pair (good club players) showed a real expert everything that happened on a club session, the expert would point out a huge long list of points/tricks lost that the pair had not noticed, because they aren't yet good enough. You see that when you play a weaker pair who don't realise how they could have done better against you.

 

You don't need help to know if you had a system screw-up or ended in a stupid contract, so these tend to get attention.

 

We also do our own post mortems, and I'm equally certain that we miss lots of things which could have been improved so I also don't know where we lose most points. Talking through the card with your teammates helps, because they are unbiased when it comes to assigning blame and also have a different perspective having played the hand in the other direction. But even then teammates are generally a similar standard to you, so they probably also miss things.

 

I believe that most club/tournament players lose most points through

- unnecessary system screw ups

- lack of aggression in the bidding

- poor defence

[CSGibson]

slam bidding is a big one for me. I remember a GNT match where my partner and I went 0 for 9 on slam decisions at our table over a day long knockout (and that not all of those decisions were swings). That we still won was amazing to me.

 

Bidding in general is often where my decisions deviate from the norm, encompassing the majority of swings one way or another. While I lose points in declarer play or defense occasionally, those are only rarely nullo plays as opposed to wrong views.

[Cyberyeti]

slam bidding is a big one for me. I remember a GNT match where my partner and I went 0 for 9 on slam decisions at our table over a day long knockout (and that not all of those decisions were swings). That we still won was amazing to me.

 

Bidding in general is often where my decisions deviate from the norm, encompassing the majority of swings one way or another. While I lose points in declarer play or defense occasionally, those are only rarely nullo plays as opposed to wrong views.

Slam bidding is interesting, I was playing the national final of a pairs event at the weekend and I think below absolutely top level slam bidding is just generally poor. Examples from that event:

 

[hv=pc=n&s=saqjh52d7caqt7542&n=sk6432h6dak5ck863]133|200[/hv]

We got more than 80% for 6♣=, 6♠ could go off on a ruff if the opening leader underled A♥ but never did. Auctions would have varied depending on what the opp 6-5 in the reds opened.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=s7ht643djt753c743&w=s9hakj5dak82c9862&n=sqt65432h8d964ct5&e=sakj8hq972dqcakqj]399|300[/hv]

NS vul We only got 55% for -1100 in 2♠x which should go for 1400 it seems a combined 37 count is not enough to bid a grand for many players. One pair played in game and 2 pairs went off in something with 13 cashing tricks and no ruffs on.

 

We also got a complete zero on a thin slam where you have to play a side suit of Axx/KJ10xx for no loser with one ruff allowed where I correctly divined who had 3, who had 2 and lost to the doubleton Q.

[jogs]

slam bidding is a big one for me. I remember a GNT match where my partner and I went 0 for 9 on slam decisions at our table over a day long knockout (and that not all of those decisions were swings). That we still won was amazing to me.

 

 

I'm convinced that no one, including the world class experts, fully understands how tricks are generated.

[aguahombre]

I'm convinced that no one, including the world class experts, fully understands how tricks are generated.

I am convinced that I will never understand that post.

[PhilKing]

I am convinced that I will never understand that post.

 

Tricks are magically generated by a wizard who lives on top of a mountain.

[Antrax]

I don't know.

What is more, I'd lay odds that most of the answers here are wrong.

 

If you and your partner analyse only your own results you will generally overestimate the impact of system and underestimate the impact of play and defence. Particularly defence.

 

I have been involved in many other pairs' post mortems, and I am pretty confident that if an 'advanced' pair (good club players) showed a real expert everything that happened on a club session, the expert would point out a huge long list of points/tricks lost that the pair had not noticed, because they aren't yet good enough.

I generally agree with the second quoted half. However, I think you might be thinking along the lines of "if they compared you to the best possible Bridge player, where would the largest gaps be?". I think it's also useful to focus on egregious errors, as measured by the occasions you do something differently from similar-level peers, and that something either backfires or should've backfired.

 

Personally, I just look at boards I did poorly in and then ask others how they got a good result (or try to figure it out). It won't make me a Bermuda Bowl winner, but it can teach me why I lost a particular session. Moreover, you can see if types of mistakes seem to repeat themselves, and then you've found a leak. So far it's been working "pretty well", by which I mean I felt I was making progress and results within the context of that club improved.

[32519]

Every tournament (and the larger clubs) always distribute hand records at the end of the tournament. I always compare what actually happened at our table versus what the hand records say should have happened. I do it primarily to identify holes in our system.

 

Often we get a below average board through absolutely no fault of our own. This happens when e.g. the opponents bid to 3 of a major and made the 9 tricks that the hand records say they should make versus a large part of the field that bid to 4 going down 1. Alternatively, others that stopped in 3 but were allowed to make an overtrick.

 

Bad results such as this simply get discarded.

[JLOGIC]

Slams and opening leads imo. Probably not a coincedence they are the hardest to get right and also are super high leverage (lots of imps swinging on small edges, like whether you bid a 52 % slam or not).