BBO Discussion Forums: Why do you suck at bridge? - BBO Discussion Forums

Bridge is a game, that requires several skills. Other games require several skills as well. I don't think there's any skill unique to Bridge, at least offhand, so one could say "I think Bridge is more difficult than chess since the most important aspect is preparing a good system and it's much easier to study opening variations than it is to defend against precision" or whatever. That saying would make sense, I believe. It wouldn't necessarily convince someone who thinks other aspects of Bridge are tougher to master, but I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything (there was this huge thread about whether card play or bidding is more important in Bridge, and I don't think that was decided). I was just wondering if people with experience playing other incomplete information / strategy games consider Bridge to be the pinnacle of gaming or not.

OMG Weenies RULE!

For all those who think they are not talented I suggest they read "Bounce" by Matthew Syed.

He puts forwards a clear and cogent argument that there's no such thing as talent, all you need is hard work, good training and a lot of purposeful practice.

Sadly I suck at bridge because I am deficient in all 3.

My cynical elderly father says that
"The one thing you learn from experience is that you ... don't learn from experience."

Isn't it always the partners fault?

Seriously - I could be much better if I had enough time and will to invest, to me it seems to be just a matter of two things
1. investing a lot of time in reading and practicing - basic "mathematical" view of the world is a must - i.e. in general statistics works, and like in cooking - deviate form the recepie once you know what you are doing, not the first time you cook it.
2. Finding a good partner that you will feel comfortable to learn with, and make mistakes with.

Ive been sucking the past couple of weeks. Hope I'm just gettin it out of my system before the nationals!

Yu18772, on 2011-September-24, 20:58, said:

Yes, I do #1 to an extreme, but #2 is the stumbling block despite my 10,000 hours at the table.

Perhaps too much intuition on defense and not pausing for thought at the tipping point in defense.

Is "Magic the Gathering" a more complicated version of War?

In the same sense chess is a more complicated version of tic tac toe. Why do you ask?

1. lack of long-term partner due to schooling:
The bridge club in our school was in a very high standard when I joined in F.2, always having tables filling more than a classroom in the meetings. This was probably due to the then-recent award got in the Rose Bowl (the highest level tournament for secondary schools).

After that, the club became smaller and smaller. When I was in F.3, the tables filled near a classroom (there can be at most 7 tables in one classroom); in F.4, there was only 3 to 4 tables left; in F.5, there was usually only 2; in F.6, there was usually only 1, and some meeting had to be cancelled because there were fewer than 4 members present(!) In my last year (F.7), the regular meetings even seemed to be disappeared!

The first regular partner (Jason Wong) I got was studying at the same year as me in secondary school, when I was in F.4, but he was knocked out after the HKCEE (HK equivalent of O-levels, discontinued) and failed to get in university after the A-levels due to poor academic results, while I could.

The second regular partner (Patrick Cheung) I got was from the school's bridge club when I was in F.6, but when the older members graduated from F.7, the club went dysfunctional with the lack of new members, with only me and him knowing how to play contract bridge.

Now, I've already finished my secondary school and is getting into university, in my secondary school, there are now about 3 tables of players, but all of them, except me and Patrick, are new players which have played for less than a year. My current partner is Jacky So, but I'll have to find a new one again when I get into university, since all the older members in our school's club have got into different university. (Although I'm getting into a top uni in HK, it is unpopular in my school even when our school has generally the high academic standards required to get in that uni.)

2. lack of coaching:
When I was in F.5, Charlie Lee, who won the Rose Bowl mentioned above and got into the Hong Kong youth team, regularly went back to school for coaching every Saturday. However, I had to participate in other training teams, in my case, the Hong Kong Olympiad of Informatics (HKOI), so I couldn't attend them. Afterwards, as the older members were near their public exams and Charlie was busy in university and his youth team training, the coaching in my school disappeared.

3. Inferior bridge judgement, especially when competing:
In yesterday's match, LHO opened 1♠, partner doubled, RHO raised to 2♠, confirming a fit. I held a hand with great ODR, with one ♠ only and ♥AKTxxx, and bid 3♥. LHO then bid 4♠, after both partner and RHO passed, I raised to 5♥, thinking that 4♠ would make, with equal vulnerability, thinking that partner had 4 ♥s and short in ♠ shown by the takeout double. LHO penalised us, and when the dummy lie down, it shocked me. There were only 3 ♥s! (15 HCPs 2=3=4=4), with great defensive strength!, which was not I expecting. Finally, we went down 3, certainly losing lots of IMPs.

4. Frequent overbids and underbids:
All overbids are done by me, and all underbids are done by my partner. First, let me talk about my overbids. One of my overbids is already mentioned above, and the following is another:
Partner opened 1♥, I raised to 2♥ with 10 HCPs (2♥ in our agreement is 6 to 11 points, while 3♥ is a game-forcing raise), LHO overcalled it with 2♠s, and I balanced with 3♥, thinking we could made with at least 22 HCPs combined, and went down 1 vulnerable.

Sometimes, when not vulnerable, I tend to overbid when I think that the opponent's contract can be made, hoping that the opponents don't have enough trumps to double me. But unfortunately, sometimes the opponents double on their defensive power (such as controls and quick tricks), even with trump shortness, and successfully set our contract.

Nearly all underbids are done by my partner, which he need to find some strange bids after his underbid. For example, on one hand, he overcalled at the 1-level with 22 HCPs(!) (he actually remembered our agreement that an overcall is 8-17 HCPs), and rebid 2NT, which is undefined in our agreement, when I held rubbish in my hand and was unable to rescue him to the 3-level (no trump fit existed!), and went down in 2NT.

Another example of his underbids is that, he failed to raise my 1♥ overcall which shows 5 ♥s to 3♥ in competition, which in our agreement is weak, when he actually had 4 ♥s and nearly no HCPs in his hand, and let the opponents play cheaply.

The third example, although the underbid is not done by my partner, his misbid caused me to underbid, and missed a cold game:
Partner opened 1♥ in 5-card majors, me, holding 4-card support and 3 cards in all other suits (the "flat" shape) with 8 HCPs, raised to 2♥s. Then partner bid 3♣, alerted as a weak suit game try, and I, holding Kxx in ♣s and xxx in ♠s, denied the game try and stopped in 3♥. I lie down the dummy and watched the play, and discovered that the "weak" suit actually was AQxx, the strongest side suit in his hand! 4♥ was actually an easy game.

I don't know what's wrong, but in a match, I found us defending for about 2/3 to 3/4 of the session, and let opponents make game easily because we don't have an 11-card trump fit to compete to the 5-level! (We have agreed that we should compete the the law of total tricks only, and only compete when we don't have defensive strength)

5. Extremely bad NT play:
Yesterday, in a 3NT by me, I repetitively counted and counted and couldn't count nine tricks. Then, hopelessly, I tried to establish the dummy's 5-card ♠ suit, hoping to get two more tricks to make the 3NT. But unfortunately, the ♠s split 1-5, and no additional tricks could be taken, and even failed to take a winner (I planned to take that winner after running the ♠ suit, but the ♠ suit failed to run. The suit could be run when it broke 3-3 or 2-4). In the hand record, a way to make 3NT is provided.

Moreover, in some 3NT-1, partner told me that I failed to cash a winner. I asked, he told me that 9 was the top card at that time!

JLOGIC, on 2012-July-08, 01:42, said:

You and me both. I've been working on Double Squeezes and more advanced endplays (BSQ by Love), but my game has been awful, about as bad as when I started 3 years ago. While I won't play in any of the major events like you, my friend needs 11.3 masterpoints (6.74 Gold) to make Life Master, and she's counting on me to get her across that line.

Antrax, on 2012-July-08, 23:10, said:

Because I do not know the answer -- I do not know whether there is more to it than constructing a deck and removing the cards in some order and seeing which one wins.

I cannot see the relationship between chess and tic tac toe, so I'm afraid your answer was not helpful.

@mikl
1. Bridge is uncool. Just accept this. When you are at school, doing uncool things gets you ridiculed by your peers. Peer pressure is quite strong. In addition to this, bridge is, for most, not as exciting as many other things, poker and games consoles for example. These factore make it unsirprising that a short-term craze dies out quickly. It was cool for a year, after this the children saw the light.

2. Coaching? Perhaps you should ask how many of the contributors to BBF got coaching as children. And I daresay that the posters here are well above the international average for this. I learnt bridge around 11 and never met a real life partner until 18. If you are lucky enough to be in the right country and either a brilliant junior or have the right parents then coaching might be an option. But for the vast majority it is not even close to the radar.

3. Judgement takes a little time to develop. That said, what you described is less a matter of judgement than another common mistake, that of bidding your hand twice. You already showed everything you had by bidding 3♥ so now you have to trust your partner who is in a better posotion than you to determine what should happen next. This is particularly true given your system, described in 4, where 2♠ covers such a wide range of hands.

4. Overbidding and underbidding is part of judgement. The example you gave in this section is really a function of playing a poor system as much as anything else. Your 2♥ response is simply covering too wide a range of hands so how can you expect partner to know what to do. But your description here suggetss you fundamentally do not understand what the problems here are. You described your hand as 10hcp but no mention of the number of hearts held. Later on you say you have agreed to compete according to the LoTT. So which is it - are you competing here because you have a maximum or from shape? Also no mention of whether 2♠ would have made - this is also pretty fundamental to whether 3♥-1 was a good or bad result.

The point here is that you and your partner are obviously still beginners and learning. You can expect mistakes to happen and the best thing is to discuss them and come to some conclusions about how things could have gone better. If you can get a more experienced player involved then so much the better. The BIL mentoring system might be a good idea for you here. In effect this is a form of the coaching you were talking about in 2. With such discussions you might reach an agreement that you always raise partner's overcall with 4 card support, or that you always raise with some special exceptions. If you find that the agreement does not work then you might want to adjust it later - no problem, this is part of the learning process. The same here for game tries - agree with your partner whether you are going to play weak/help suit game tries, natural game tries, or something else entirely. Clearly there was a disagreement on this hand so you need to discuss it with your partner. Remember in such discussions that sometimes you will do better agreeing to play what your partner knows even if it is theoretically worse. It is often up to the stronger player of a pair to play the weaker player's system in such disagreements.

Another thing you mentioned here is about defending too much. One reason for this may well be what you described earlier, that your partner is not raising you enough in competition. Another might be that your requirements for opening, overcallinng and/or preemption are too stringent. It is difficult to give feedback here without seeing you play. Again, a BIL mentor could be helpful in addressing this issue.

5. Again, this is a matter of experience. Some people take to NT play straight away and have difficulty handling trumps, others find trumps simpler and have problems in NT. All beginners make muistakes in card play. Actually, experts make mistakes too, just not as many. Just playing and analysing later where you went wrong can be helpful, again especially if you can analyse with a more experience player. For hands where you are unsure you can always try posting here. The Novice/Beginner forum has been created specifically for players such as yourself and you can expect a very sympathetic response there. One thing to remember is that just because a particular line works as the cards lie does not make it the best line. Sometimes good play goes down and bad play is rewarded. This is bridge.

Finally, the failing to cash a winner thing affects many. Just this weekend one of the better players in our club failed to cash 2 top hearts when she did not notice me play the jack on the first round. This is where you need to learn to actively watch and count every card. Counting is one of the keys to improving and starting to make more advanced plays. Try and practise this every hand. It is difficult but it will pay big dividends in the long term.

Vampyr, on 2012-July-09, 01:41, said:

That's precisely what I was getting at - MtG is as far removed from "war" as chess is from tic-tac-toe. Both use cards and that's where the similarity ends. I don't want to complete hijack the thread, so I settled for a short answer, hoping it would be understood.

Last night, I made a mistake that I failed to realise that a 9 was a top trick in a suit contract, trumped over it and turned -100 into -200, which was certainly a loss in any partscore battle.

Recently, I and my partner got flame wars about defensive and competitive bidding with hands with no values. For example, when we decided the range of a Michaels cuebid and unusual 2NT, he insisted me not to bid it with a 0-HCP hand. If I can bid a 0-HCP hand with Michaels cuebid, then partner can happily raise me to the 4-level with 5-card support with also 0 HCPs. Then I asked him how I should bid with 0 HCPs and two 5-card suits. He told me to PASS!!!!!!!!!! The final range agreed was 8-11 or 16+ HCPs. I also insisted him not to bid anything off-shape. For example, I told him not to overcall with 1♠ at the direct seat holding ♠AKQJ, or overcalling with 1NT with a singleton, and told him to always bid 4-cards suit up-the-line in constructive biddings, even it meant bidding 1♥ with ♥5432, and always bid the longest suit first, regardless with the quality.

After a deal, partner told me never bid 5♥ over 4♠. The reason was that 4♠ may not be made. He is also afraid of me raising his overcall to the 4-level directly with 0 HCPs and 5-card support. He thought the result would be -4 or -5 doubled, which would certainly be a disaster. (I am very disciplined in constructive bidding, but not in competitive bidding, especially, the fewer defensive values, the higher I preempt holding enough trumps. That disaster was because I failed to realise that a takeout double implies defensive values. I just thought of the "shape", but not the values. The "points" are the last thing for me to consider in competitive biddings.)

mikl_plkcc, on 2012-July-12, 23:23, said:

Admittedly it's a peculiar mix. Ultraconservative rules on NT openers and shape, together with wild swingy calls like michaels with zero points.

A question, if you consider yourself not conservative in competitive bidding, why can't partner overcall a very strong 4 card major? I would say that is a pretty conservative position.

billw55, on 2012-July-13, 06:36, said:

My view on "wild" call is calling aggressively when you have the exactly right shape (for example double for takeout holding 4-4-4-1 even with very few HCPs, Michaels cuebid holding 5-5 or longer, opening at the 3-level at the third seat holding a 7-card suit, regardless of the quality, overcalling 1♣ with 1♠ with ♠T7643 and club void after partner has passed), but not stretching to bid off-shape.

Are you happy when partner leads your T7643 suit?

Antrax, on 2012-July-19, 05:37, said:

I'm not happy. But I am not happy with the opponents making an easy 1♣ either.

mikl_plkcc, on 2012-July-12, 23:23, said:

You make me feel so old - at least in bridge years.

Seriously, it is not good bridge to bid micheals on a zero count. Sometimes partner will have five card support, and a shortage, and have been unable to enter the auction on his own, and it will be right to have bid. The rest of the times you are screwing him over. Most of the time when he wants to raise you its when he has Axxx Kx in your suits, and expects ten tricks opposite a routine micheals like KQxxx Axxxx. If you are too ill disciplined it becomes impossible for him to raise you with balanced hands, and that is a much bigger loss than when its occasionally right and partner couldnt find a bid on his own.

Further, when you enter the bidding with micheals, or a t/o double, you telegraph the distribution to declarer. Maybe your opps are no taking advantage of this atm, but in good fields every time you make a t/o double and don't declarer, you are conceding half a trick in information. A killer at MP, and not nothing at imps. Micheals its even worse, a whole trick every time you bid and don't declarer, as he would be unlikely to play for you to be 5-5 without the bid.

As for four card overcalls at imps, I have made exactly one in thousands of boards of competitive bridge. I have never got to the end of a hand and thought that, if only I made a four card overcall, I would have done better on this board. You lose in discipline, and its hard to see that without experience, but the more ill disciplined your bids, the harder it is for partner to raise accurately, and that really matters. This is why expert pairs have so many ways to raise the majors, especially after a one level overcall, like 1c (1h) 1S, all of 2c, 3c, 3s, 2N 3d 4d 4c, 2h 3h 4h, are ways to raise hearts.*

It sounds like you are much too busy at the table. Relax, bid less, your results will improve.

*Four card overcalls are ok on the right sort of hand, but they are not my style, buy the marshal miles book if you want to understand the right sort of hand, and the adjustments you must make to subsequent system.*