[lmilne]

Hi folks - I've been tasked with creating an individual practice schedule for my expert partner, as well as checking in with them each week to see how they're going.

We are playing the Bermuda Bowl together this year for Australia, so we want to be in the best possible form going into the event.
I'm a professional player, so I get a lot of regular play, but playing together regularly isn't really an option aside from national events. So, he's decided that individual practice/training is the best way for him to keep on top of the game.

What sort of things do you think we should put in the weekly training schedule? Reading, Bridge Master, play vs robots, Kit's Korner - others?

Has anyone done something like this before? How would you set things up if you were doing this?

[MrAce]

lmilne, on 2015-February-17, 21:01, said:

Hi folks - I've been tasked with creating an individual practice schedule for my expert partner, as well as checking in with them each week to see how they're going.

We are playing the Bermuda Bowl together this year for Australia, so we want to be in the best possible form going into the event.
I'm a professional player, so I get a lot of regular play, but playing together regularly isn't really an option aside from national events. So, he's decided that individual practice/training is the best way for him to keep on top of the game.

What sort of things do you think we should put in the weekly training schedule? Reading, Bridge Master, play vs robots, Kit's Korner - others?

Has anyone done something like this before? How would you set things up if you were doing this?

-Starting with cc of likely opponent pairs can be a good idea.
-If anything comes up during your practice I would ask MikeH and Justin via pm or email. I know they played this event before.They are pretty humble when someone asks help if they have time for it.
-Make sure to also improve your stamina. I played in Rosenblum and made it out of the group and I also was a pro player including the Rosenblum.. However, playing at that level, that many matches and keeping your focus at the optimal level is totally different than being used to play a lot with your clients due to being pro, don't let it fool you. Even some top worldclass players are doing something to improve their stamina, such as Meckstroth, Robert Levin etc (I only wrote their names because I read some of their interviews, probably much more other pairs and players are doing something similar.)

Those are the things that would come to my mind first if I were in your shoes. Congrats on representing your country in BB. I wish you the best of luck.

[shevek]

Bidding practice on BBO has real merit. Hire some robots for a month, control the inputs. It's all good. Half an hour free? Bid 10 hands.

[Zelandakh]

You might also look into making up a regular JEC match. They are long, thus good for stamina, and the level is reasonably high.

[gnasher]

My favourite training method is to generate pairs of hands and each, independently, write down what the auction should be. Then compare the results.

That tells you lots of things about your partner: his style, his approach to evaluation, how well he knows the system, and what he does when there's a hole in the system.

[mikeh]

Strangely enough, I would start with diet and some level of exercise.

The BB, on a 6 player team (which is mandatory) isn't really gruelling in terms of having to play a lot of bridge, but (as I have found out the hard way) every team there can pose a challenge, and it is essential to maintain focus.

Allan Graves convinced me, back in 1997 when I was a lot younger, that eating properly during a long event can pay dividends. Especially during the sessions, always have fresh fruit at hand to maintain proper blood sugar. There was a fascinating study done in Israel a few years back, where they studied decision making over the course of a day. The study (and others like it) showed that as blood sugars dropped, people become unwilling to make tough decisions.

Applied to bridge, I would expect a player's willingness to be aggressive in the bidding, or ability to look deeply into play issues, would diminish over the course of a long day, unless he or she was very careful to maintain blood sugar.

Exercise helps with this as well, but exercise, to be worthwhile, means embarking on a programme months ahead....deciding to start working out only at the site hotel is unlikely to work.

As for bridge practice, that depends to some degree on how detailed your system is. The last BB in which I played, my partner (a fine player, who definitely played far better than I did...I played so badly that I still haven't played any non-social bridge since) didn't like 'methods', so there was little to practice. The first time I played, my partner and I did ok, finishing average in the Butler despite his being ill most of the event, and we had an extremely complex relay method.

In that case, we spent hours every week, by telephone or internet, going over hands and method. This was before BBO, so we used a lot of Challenge the Champs hands, not for the scoring but because those hand types are chosen to hit the seams of common methods. We also had the benefit of some coaching by Kokish, and, for example, had hundred's of FP situations, where we would independently write if it was or wasn't a fp, and what action we'd take, and then compare/discuss.

We also had a LOT of very detailed notes, and I read and re-read them many times, and would recite some of the relay sequences to myself. We didn't screw up any of them in the event.

I also had a practice of reading some books every time I was about to play a serious event.

Kelsey's series of team match books...the Needle Game and others, offer a really good opportunity to get the mind thinking the right way in terms of both declarer and defence play. I used to read Love on Squeezes for much the same reason. Now I think I would add the Rodwell book.

I would avoid any BBO sessions where any of your teammates are your opps. If either pair has a bad set, and bad sets happen, then it can become very discouraging for all concerned. You are better off, imo, to play some set games with your teammates as your teammates, not your opps, but even better, unless you are beating everyone you play, not to play as a team at all.

After all, while team chemistry can make the event more enjoyable, and keep stress down, when you are at the table, it doesn't matter at all who your teammates are or how they play: you are doing the best you can with your cards and opps. So I don't think that there is any benefit to a team practising as a team, and there can be detriment when one pair has a bad session.

[jallerton]

lmilne, on 2015-February-17, 21:01, said:

What sort of things do you think we should put in the weekly training schedule? Reading, Bridge Master, play vs robots, Kit's Korner - others?

Has anyone done something like this before? How would you set things up if you were doing this?

Ask your partner to read and post on BBF.

Zelandakh, on 2015-February-19, 05:10, said:

You might also look into making up a regular JEC match. They are long, thus good for stamina, and the level is reasonably high.

Then the pair of you can represent the BBF team against JEC!

[mgoetze]

jallerton, on 2015-February-20, 10:15, said:

Ask your partner to read and post on BBF.



Then the pair of you can represent the BBF team against JEC!

Due to low interest, this is possible even without having your partner post on BBF... Sad but true.

[diana_eva]

mgoetze, on 2015-February-20, 10:43, said:

Due to low interest, this is possible even without having your partner post on BBF... Sad but true.

Actually, I would always favor a BBFer + non-BBFer regular pair over a random pair of two regular posters sry. IMO it's important to have good partnership agreements, so why force posters to play with someone other than their live partner? Yeah we're friends, but bridge is bridge. If a pair needs to practice for Bermuda Bowl, it makes more sense (to my mind, at least) to allow them to play together, than give some extra points to other BBFers and set up random partnerships.

[benlessard]

Bid, bid, bid. This is the area where you will get more Imps/time spent.

IMO its better to bid 100 hands and quickly play (claim and forget about the overtricks and forget about the 2 double squeeze etc.. than to play 40 hands real time.

Alone, later you can think about the declarer play problems or the tough defense hands. In practice its tough to find opponents that are willing to speed play instead of showing their skills. One find to do this is to fix a number of hands to be played.

When you are close to the tournamnent date stopp all speedplay abrutly and try to find a slow tempo, always warn partner if he play too quickly at trick one or if he play too quickly in an non obvious situation tell him to do the same for you. I find that many mistakes are caused by following ennemies tempo or using club tempo rather than following your own tournament tempo.

[lmilne]

Has anyone done anything like what I'm talking about - a regimented practice routine?

It's remarkable to me that the only famous example of people putting in hard yards practicing bridge is the Aces! Surely there are others?

[Mbodell]

lmilne, on 2015-March-04, 08:16, said:

Has anyone done anything like what I'm talking about - a regimented practice routine?
It's remarkable to me that the only famous example of people putting in hard yards practicing bridge is the Aces! Surely there are others?

There are many junior programs that I understand do this. A number of international teams too. I think I remember reading about Iceland when they hired Kokish, but surely there are many others.

[PhantomSac]

lmilne, on 2015-March-04, 08:16, said:

Has anyone done anything like what I'm talking about - a regimented practice routine?

It's remarkable to me that the only famous example of people putting in hard yards practicing bridge is the Aces! Surely there are others?

People, especially top chess players I have talked to, often ask about this. Chess players are very regimented, they go over opening repertoire, their next opponents openings, study endgames, go over games of top masters, and do tactics problems. It is all easy to regiment.

In bridge, I don't think this is really the case. What are we going to go over? How to do certain types of squeezes? Double dummy problems? That is the easy part of the game. The hard part is staying sharp, making good judgements in bidding and in play/endgames. Those are hard to study, they are all situational. The reality is that bridge is simple enough relative to chess to not go over technical parts that much once you reach a certain stage. It's about making the right inferences and improving your judgement (hard to tell). Those things are best done by playing and talking with good players about your thoughts and reasoning. You get feedback like "that play is too big" (translation: I understand your clues but you are weighting them too high vs a priori odds), or obviously this guy has the queen (meaning whatever has happened, it is obvious to good players who has what and just back that despite everything else), etc etc. Bidding is even more reliant on talking with good players so you know if you're crazy, in the game, or automatic.

The things I think top pairs really go over in a regimented way are bidding system and defensive carding. If you play a lot, going over defensive ***** ups is really important, just go over what each of you was thinking, card by card, why you think your partner should have figured it out, etc etc. That exercise will leave you understanding your partner way more. If you understand how each other thinks, you will get much better and fluid at defense.

Bidding, that can be done in partnership bidding or in challenge the champs or w/e. But I think at a certain stage everyones constructive bidding is good enough, its competitive agreements that matter. I don't play a lot of conventions in competitive bidding, but knowing what stuff like doubles and 2N bids are are very important. Knowing stylistically what to expect based on vul, opps, state of the match, etc is very important and hard to get down in partnership bidding. Bidding when they don't bid is pretty easy, bidding when they are pressuring you and in different states of the match is a lot harder and more complicated. A lot goes unsaid but going over boards in those kinds of situations is important.

Basically, I think it's hard to just have a regimented practice session of bridge. The best thing the aces did was go over hands and talk to each other (top players). That helped with cardplay, judgement, etc. That is what happens at bridge tournaments (at least in USA). The top players go to a room and drink and hash things out and have really heated arguments. Sometimes fist fights are close! Sometimes bonds are formed, lol. But bridge is not such a technical game where it's all about studies. Yeah, I could know my squeeze plays better, and I'm no Michael Rosenberg. But I doubt there are many squeezes that come up in real life that I don't execute that a more technical guy would. More important is my judgement in bidding, my judgement in endgames about how to weight clues, my judgement in how my partner will play/bid in X situation, and my agreements in both bidding and defensive cardplay. Since those are all situational and non scientific, the best way to learn is to play a lot and talk things over with great players and also with your partner.

I don't know the bridge climate in Australia but if you don't have that readily avaliable, I would suggest a skype study session (AKA ***** on each other and hash ***** out, preferably while drinking), or an email list where everyone involves argues vocally for their point and calls each other retards etc. I know most people will think I'm RETARDED for saying it that way, but the best bridge discussions I've had have been with Brad Moss or Bobby Levin or Geoff Hampson where they tell me what an idiot I am and argue their point passionately. Ofc I would not treat others that way, but your peers know they are your peers and don't have to be diplomatic.

You are a poker player and this is exactly how you get better at poker. Know fundamentals, talk with people nonstop about spots and thought process, etc etc. Poker is way closer to bridge than chess is.

[lmilne]

PhantomSac, on 2015-March-05, 01:47, said:

You are a poker player and this is exactly how you get better at poker. Know fundamentals, talk with people nonstop about spots and thought process, etc etc. Poker is way closer to bridge than chess is.

Thanks for the reply.

You're right about that, the way I got better at poker was always by discussing hands with top dogs and getting called an idiot! I agree that this is probably the best way to get better. The problem is that it requires playing lots of national tournaments together which is tough for us.

Anyway, to sum up, you would suggest:

• Playing together, then discussing all the carding, as well as discussing tough bidding spots with top players
  
• Practising competitive bidding and getting more agreements in that area (perhaps with worksheets or against robots?)
  
• Try to improve our judgement by discussing partnership style together as well as looking at things with other experts.

Seem about right?

[PhantomSac]

Yep

[benlessard]

Look at Pavlicek quizzes
http://www.rpbridge.net/rpqz.htm

polls
http://www.rpbridge.net/rppc.htm