A defensive disaster

[pilowsky]

I got a well-deserved bottom for this board. My only meagre moral victory is that I got the bidding right.

The hand was defended in a daylong yesterday by 23 other players. Three people got the 'optimal' result of 3♥Wx-1, They were equalled by another with 4HW-2 and two with 4HWx-1 all for +100.

15 people managed -140 to --530 with 4 of us not understanding what was going on at all on -630 (speaking only for myself - the others ay have been distracted).

 

Looking back I soon saw my defensive error - I should have played the hand as if I was the Declarer. I should have relaxed and waited for the tricks to come around to me.

I opened - what was for me - a normal 1NT. West overcalls with an obvious monster North passes it back. My takeout double is ignored, so I expect the robot to lead Trumps - because they usually do.

Instead, it leads ♣2.

It shouldn't matter unless you are me or one of the other 19 that failed. Given this success: failure ratio I'm rating this 'intermediate' with me as village idiot on this occasion.

So, all-in-all another excellent learning experience! Great value for $0.39.

[hv=pc=n&s=skjt5hq7daqj8cat7&w=sahakjt965d9632ck&n=s432h832dk75c9652&e=sq9876h4dt4cqj843&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=pp1n3hppdppp]399|300[/hv]

 

Here is the Traveller

As you will see, slight variations in bidding do result in some GIB bamboozling.

[Cyberyeti]

It should be abundantly clear that the robot playing diamonds is trying to ruff one in dummy, so at least on winning the second one you should be leading a trump.

[pilowsky]

It should be abundantly clear that the robot playing diamonds is trying to ruff one in dummy, so at least on winning the second one you should be leading a trump.

 

Right - that's what I realised when I replayed it on the teaching table. By leading back a trump and forcing the play into West, West has to lead into me. It's clear to me now.

Hopefully, I'll start to make that mistake less often in future. You only know what you know...

After making a few of these posts - and reading several others, I started categorising my failures as

• Rank stupidity
• Bidding errors
• Rub of the green
• Others were lucky
• GIB
• Poor Declarer play
• Ask the experts
• and so on

I store them in the deal archive and rank them against how everyone else did to see how I'm going and compare that with the type of tournament to estimate the size/quality of the field. Daylong no 1 has >1000 in it but it's divided into groups. It's also best-hand, so it's a bit artificial.

Then I replay it on the teaching table at least 10 times or so until I figure it out (with the help of double-dummy at the end) or give up - getting rarer.

[thepossum]

My only meagre moral victory is that I got the bidding right.

 

 

Sometimes that's all I have to feel good about but its a start :)

 

In fact when playing a tourney if I bid approximately 11/12 correct contracts irrespective of score/result and exactly how many tricks :)

 

I do like your categosition of failures - I am going to go through my recent hands and classify them now :) - although my priority these days is to play IMPs and target the few big negatives that make the difference between being mediocre and approaching reasonable

 

For me there is a missing classification - when looking at the hand afterwards "How did I miss that" - I don't know if its stupidity or something else - I almost feel like its some kind of cognitive problem that can never be addressed no matter how much I try. Some days you do it some days not. Forgetting a plan, Realising you made an error. Maybe it all fits into Rank stupidity but its a brutal classification :(

 

I don't know how you feel, esepcially regarding views on learning and teaching, but I feel personally that we all have strengths and weaknesses and maybe some things that will never gel. That is waht separates us in all our different fields and specialities from nt being world champion at tennis, football, bridge or maybe a Nobel prize winner as another "equivalent" I have come to terms that you cannot learn everything, its an illusion, we can keep cramming and trying and despair. That sounds negative but its a case of learning strengths and weaknesses and playing accordingly. As I said, much of my "failure" could be regaded as "stupidity" in my mind, or losing my way, not planning, forgetting what I was doing. But what I feel is lacking from so muc teaching (or maybe it is learning) is that next level up - the meta level - the plan - whateevr level that assists you do what you need to. But that in turn requires a particular stuctured mindset and not everyone has the same mindset. I constantly despair but realise I am too old to learn many new tricks and console myself with what I can delude myself as flashes of what I call inspiration or briliiance amongst the disasters :)

 

EDIT Although, before anyone gets the wrong idea I have often found that bidding a totally different contract to everyone else can also be a very

successful strategy

 

EDIT 2 As an example and as a question relating to your classification. Here is a hand that made a huge difference in a 12-hand IMPs tourney - essentially a vulnerable game missed by 1 trick (as often occurs) - 12.3 point swing and the difference between being in the middle versus the top of the whole tourney. I hope you dont mind me asking and you dont have to answer of course.

 

It looks obvious but how would you classify my failure to plan, or making a plan and forgetting, leading the wrong spade when things were on track. Lets put it in the ask Pilowsky category :) - or the so near but so far category or ..... the "I had it all worked out but something went wrong" category, the "how did you mess that up" category, the "its easy in hindsight" category, the "you had a few plans of attack and messed both up" category etc

 

Sometimes I feel there is too much of an emphasis in teaching/learning environments on learning the wrong things or the wrong approaches and too much of the "make people feel syupid" kind of approach - not suggesting that of you Pilowsky, at all, but of learning environments in general. Thats why I am asking your valued opinion - and that is not sarcasm either

 

Its the fact we place things into the "stupidity" category when that is word often used to demean, it becomes instilled in us, some of us didn't all come from the same backgrounds with genrations of skills passed down, they often were not taught, they still often are not taught. Despite my relative success ful life and achievments I ahve still faced that type of prejudice from educators and others - purely based on relative levels of privilege in our backgrounds and professional expectations, intergenerational advantages etc

 

In my view some particular skills are excessively valued in terms of the amount of power, authority and esteem placed upon them - taking no account of all the other differences we may have - including possible disability or should I say differential ability

 

Where do people learn that stuff - at school, at home, at university (if they get there), by doing, by being taught. And if it requires these higher evel conceptual skills and ways of looking at problems (maybe from being very young) how many are actually competent to teach them. Most of those who would understand it are out there at the highest level actually doing - its a bit of a problem

 

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[AL78]

Its the fact we place things into the "stupidity" category when that is word often used to demean, it becomes instilled in us, some of us didn't all come from the same backgrounds with genrations of skills passed down, they often were not taught, they still often are not taught. Despite my relative success ful life and achievments I ahve still faced that type of prejudice from educators and others - purely based on relative levels of privilege in our backgrounds and professional expectations, intergenerational advantages etc

 

I think what you are highlighting here is some people confuse ignorance and stupidity or abuse the definitions. The latter is a character flaw, the former is merely a lack of knowledge and can be addressed with education and/or study. We are all ignorant in something, that does not make us bad people, but all too commonly ignorance is thrown around as a weapon to slur someones character.

[pilowsky]

I think what you are highlighting here is some people confuse ignorance and stupidity or abuse the definitions. The latter is a character flaw, the former is merely a lack of knowledge and can be addressed with education and/or study. We are all ignorant in something, that does not make us bad people, but all too commonly ignorance is thrown around as a weapon to slur someones character.

 

That's an excellent point. Actually, I never use the term 'stupid', Just lack of competence. It's really a discussion for another place (Kenberg's thread on Education in the Water-cooler)

[thepossum]

I have another failure type or two for Pilowsky's list

 

Someone nagging you and causing a distraction

The phone ringing

Or just being so bored you don't feel like expending any mental energy at all

Etc

[thepossum]

I think what you are highlighting here is some people confuse ignorance and stupidity or abuse the definitions. The latter is a character flaw, the former is merely a lack of knowledge and can be addressed with education and/or study. We are all ignorant in something, that does not make us bad people, but all too commonly ignorance is thrown around as a weapon to slur someones character.

 

What I am attempting to question is how far many of these things (eg true disadvantages) can be addressed through teaching and/or study etc

[thepossum]

That's an excellent point. Actually, I never use the term 'stupid', Just lack of competence. It's really a discussion for another place (Kenberg's thread on Education in the Water-cooler)

 

Apologies if I contributed to a thread hijack Pilowsky. That was not my intent at all. I was trying to relate to and even add to your wonderful classsification system, with another practical example

[dsLawsd]

I define stupid (when it is mine)as knowing exactly what to do and then going right ahead and doing something else. I did that in the finals of a National (ACBL) event by getting ahead of myself one trick in a contract. When my partner asked about it I said to all 3 at the table a single word- Stupidity...

 

I suspect we all do these things through lack of sleep and other reasons- the great players just do fewer of them. Partly, it can be time pressure that gets us.

I find that playing on line when not playing in an all expert game that I do it way too often. F-2-F we have to answer to teammates and partners so that helps.

Anyone else??

[pilowsky]

Well yes, I put it in the stupid box when I know either as I'm doing it or immediately afterwards. I call it the 'Verloc effect' after the character in Joseph Conrad's book who could see his wife's carving knife approaching, had formed a plan to stop it, was about to put it into action, but by then the knife was deep in his chest.

[PhilG007]

Well yes, I put it in the stupid box when I know either as I'm doing it or immediately afterwards. I call it the 'Verloc effect' after the character in Joseph Conrad's book who could see his wife's carving knife approaching, had formed a plan to stop it, was about to put it into action, but by then the knife was deep in his chest.

 

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this M'friend Mistakes are part and parcel of being human. A famous Chess Gandmaster once quipped that

"The Blunders are all there just waiting to be made"" Look on this as a learning curve and put it down to experience.

[pilowsky]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this M'friend Mistakes are part and parcel of being human. A famous Chess Gandmaster once quipped that

"The Blunders are all there just waiting to be made"" Look on this as a learning curve and put it down to experience.

 

I agree, these are the forehead slappers that I don't lose any sleep over - it''s only Bridge - no-ones dying.

I think I've only met two Grandmasters. I once played Max Euwe in a Simul (so did my father) and Eugene Torres. He didn't do well in the tournament because as Laimons Mangalis said in the Sunday Mail of "late night courting and carousing": I think she may have been in my class at school but I'm not sure. .

[miamijd]

When the robot follows with the Kc to trick one, either (A) the bot has Kx your partner three small or (B) the bot has a stiff and your partner has four small. If it's (A), you aren't going to set this contract. When the bots bid 3x over 1NT, they have a very strong hand, not so much a preemptive one. So you have to hope that the K is stiff.

 

If that's the case, the bot has no entry to dummy's clubs (do NOT risk giving it one by leading from the Ks). So the bot has probably 7 hearts and the As. Where is it's ninth trick? A diamond ruff, a spade to the Q, and an endplay are all possibilities. You can see that a spade to the Q will fail, and there's not much you can do if declarer has KTx of diamonds and Ax of spades, so at trick 2, you should eliminate the D ruff possibility by leading a trump.

 

Incidentally, I wonder why so many people reopened with a X after 3H. Yes, you have a full 17 and nice distribution, but the Qh is wasted for offense and you are vul, so that -1X is -200. I would just pass quietly and hope to set it.

 

Cheers,

Mike

[msjennifer]

POOR MATHEMATICS.

[doccdl]

Doubling 3 ♥ was too adventurous.(after opening a flat 15 HCP NT.(the heart Q was a useless 2HCP).To top it all your counting the hand and the defense could have been much wiser.No regrets for getting a bottom.