[helene_t]

You don't need to be sure that they go down. You are allowed to gamble a bit. Doublung is dangerous but sometimes passing is more dangerous.

[mikl_plkcc]

I have realised another major problem.

I have bid a contract, e.g. 3NT. The dummy comes down. I count the tricks the contract seems hopeless. I then start cashing all the winners in a hope that the opponents will misdefense. Sometimes it will work, but most of the times I will end up down 2 or down 3, when the best (or most straightforward) line of play will get me down 1. Then I lost a lot especially when vulnerable (and that will get me a 0 in matchpoints).

Or I'm trying a line of play which relies on a certain card held by a certain opponent, but their play suggests otherwise. Then I continued to play the original line of play and get down 2 or worse, while it would be down 1 on the best line of play, and get a 0 at matchpoint again.

For example, I bid 3NT without 25 HCP hoping that a certain suit will run. Unfortunately, I failed to run the suit. I ended up down 4 as I already took all the winners before I tried to run the suit (I couldn't afford to lose the lead before running it if I wanted to make the contract as I had weakness in another suit) but, if I didn't attempt to run the suit, I could probably held the contract to down 1.

[smerriman]

If you're playing IMPs, taking an unlikely line to make a contract is usually correct, because the gain if it works dwarfs the loss if it doesn't. There are situations where the chance of making is too low compared to how much you lose if you try, but they're pretty rare.

Matchpoints is an entirely different game. Whether or not you make the contract is irrelevant; your goal is solely to score better than other tables. So you'd never play for an unlikely lie of the cards if it would lead to a 0.

[helene_t]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-March-16, 15:47, said:

I have realised another major problem.

To be honest, most of your problems are the kind of problems which decent players still have after decades of practice. Maybe this is just a very strong club and getting -20 IMPs on an average club night is what most players would be happy with?

[mikl_plkcc]

I played matchpoints at another club yesterday and got an extremely poor result, with lots of 0 including stretching to 3NT and getting down 2 or worse for multiple times, doubling their contract then misdefended (I forgot to count a certain suit and discarded the setting trick at the critical point), etc.

I doubled twice yesterday. One was when they stopped at 2, I balanced and pushed them to 4, I doubled and they got 9 tricks, but the DD was 7 tricks and other tables got 7 or 8 tricks only in the same suit, the other was they suggested weak bidding with no game contract, we pushed them from 2 to 4, DD was 9 tricks and every other table got 9, but I misdefended and let them got 10.

And my expectation this year, after having a break from the game for multiple years, is just to get to the break even point (50.00% MP or 0.00 IMP) in a typical English club.

[Bad_Wolf]

OK this is what I tell my students.

To be competitive (in a club field)...

"All you have to do is not have any silly bidding errors". You don't need to be an expert declarer or defender. No, simply no bidding cock-ups board after board, hand after hand.

So, simplify your methods as far as possible, or further! Dump all the conventions you can. After Stayman transfer and blackwood the rest are frills.

[mikl_plkcc]

Bad_Wolf, on 2025-March-17, 15:00, said:

OK this is what I tell my students.

To be competitive (in a club field)...

"All you have to do is not have any silly bidding errors". You don't need to be an expert declarer or defender. No, simply no bidding cock-ups board after board, hand after hand.

So, simplify your methods as far as possible, or further! Dump all the conventions you can. After Stayman transfer and blackwood the rest are frills.

Sorry but my biggest problem is that my NT play cocks up board after board, hand after hand, to the extent that I stopped bidding 3NT with dodgy stoppers (for example, holding Ax or Kxx in the opponent's suit) and lose a lot of IMPs when I stop at a 3 of a minor "to be safe" and the field bid 3NT and makes, or when I have the values to bid game and bid 5 of the minor, get down 1, and 3NT makes.

Back to the matchpoint game I played last Sunday, my (non-regular) partner let me off by lying on her hand shape:

---

First, she misled me by bidding 2♥, which should show 6 instead of 5. Then, she misled me that she was short in ♠ by the double, and forced me to show my long suit. We ended up 3NT-4 instead of defending their 2♠ which would go down. She told me that she had to force me to bid something because she had 19 HCPs, however, my view is different that if it is obvious that there is no fit, she should let them play and set them, and it is my responsibility to balance if I have some strength, that she can pass for penalty afterwards.

[jillybean]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-March-18, 09:21, said:

Sorry but my biggest problem is that my NT play cocks up board after board, hand after hand, to the extent that I stopped bidding 3NT with dodgy stoppers (for example, holding Ax or Kxx in the opponent's suit) and lose a lot of IMPs when I stop at a 3 of a minor "to be safe" and the field bid 3NT and makes, or when I have the values to bid game and bid 5 of the minor, get down 1, and 3NT makes.

Back to the matchpoint game I played last Sunday, my (non-regular) partner let me off by lying on her hand shape:

---

First, she misled me by bidding 2♥, which should show 6 instead of 5. Then, she misled me that she was short in ♠ by the double, and forced me to show my long suit. We ended up 3NT-4 instead of defending their 2♠ which would go down. She told me that she had to force me to bid something because she had 19 HCPs, however, my view is different that if it is obvious that there is no fit, she should let them play and set them, and it is my responsibility to balance if I have some strength, that she can pass for penalty afterwards.

You can only work on your own game.

[mycroft]

Newer players play NT badly. (Experienced players play NT badly too, but not quite as much more badly than suits as newer players).

Some of that is because newer players bid NT on hands they shouldn't - "Misfits do not play well in NT" - but a lot is because NoTrump Is Hard. Without the safety of a trump suit (and the "have I pulled trump yet? Is there a reason why I can't pull trump now? Okay, pull trump" manifesto) it is easy to lose control and let them run their suit. The lure of "cashing tricks" and "taking tricks" when one doesn't know what to do is also hard to ignore - and that is a big reason newer players lose control in NT (It's funny watching higher-level NT play where both sides are avoiding taking tricks for the first little bit, but when they do it, it's usually right!)

Maybe it's a MPs vs IMPs thing, but I find more of the people in this category are afraid of 1NT rather than 3NT, because there's just much less "control" on offer, and because at least at MPs, the question of "what's the actual contract" is frequently both more critical and harder to answer. I find that playing a weak NT for a while will either break you of that fear (or stop you playing bridge at all. This is not *really* a serious recommendation, but when it works, it really works :-).

But as Oswald Jacoby is quoted in Watson's "Play of the Hand", "I am the best player of bad contracts in the world. That's because I've been in so many of them." The only way out is through.

[mikl_plkcc]

Another Friday again and unfortunately my regular partner was sick, so I had to play with a pick up partner. I only made it to the venue in the last few minutes and we went through the system card in a rush, including a few NT sequences, but unfortunately there were still a few misunderstandings.

There was a board they opened a weak NT, I doubled, we went through this sequence at the very beginning but he forgot that we played system off here (we played system on if our 1NT is doubled, but not when we double them). As a result, we ended up 2♦ going down in a club where strong NT is the norm, while the field was 4♥ making by us, because my partner had values. He then asked how he should bid a strong hand without system, which my intention was to just let them play and collect the penalty, or bid straight to the contract since a X over 1NT promises a balanced hand.

Another misunderstanding was that my partner made a negative double after 1♣ - (1♠). I bid 2♥ and he bid 2NT which I had no idea. As a heart fit was shown I just corrected to 3♥ holding 4 only and ended up in a 4-3 fit going down. He told me that 2NT was just a natural invite and I couldn't understand why he didn't bid some NT at the first place.

The third misunderstanding was that I raised 1♠ - 3♠ as a preempt without intervention, as we had go through our part of system card using conventional raises for value hands, but he forgot the system and thought it was invitational, and raised to 4 without holding an additional trump, and we ended up down 1 while other tables made 3.

And also I made at least 3 mistakes in defence. One was that my partner led a Q, the K was not seen (so it must be in the declarer), I held the A. I thought for a long time if I should play the A or not but I forgot to take the bidding into consideration (which would be obvious because my partner showed 5, I had 4 and the dummy had 3), and I didn't play the A. It cost us a game contract.

There were also 2 deals where I gave partner a ruff, he returned me back, and I didn't give him a second ruff but instead tried to cash my remaining winners, which ended up getting ruffed by the declarer, and I believed that one of these mistakes actually cost us the contract.

And my partner even once made a suggestion that I could leave a 1-level negative double holding KQxx in the opponents' suit (luckily I didn't do that, I rebid a strong 5-card minor which became the final contract making - another table left the double at the 2-level and their game made!)

And the field yesterday was so aggressive that my partner once doubled their 3-level contract, the opponents doubled a standard 1NT-2C-2H-3H-4H sequence with 15+9 HCP ending up 4♥ going down (that was my mistake as I didn't realise my hand was 4333 before I pulled 2♣ out), and on another board the opponents doubled us in a competitive auction and we ended up making! When we went through the system card about the point count, I told my partner that I normally bid game with 26 points combined but he would do that with 24 (because we were playing IMPs) and we ended up changing some numbers.

When I play IMPs, I never double any suit contract unless I hold a strong trump stack (for a 1 or 2-level contract, at least 5 strong), and if the contract is between 2H and 4D, I nearly never double unless I could count the setting tricks myself with my trumps, because a partscore doubled into game making is a disaster at IMPs.

[blackshoe]

Sounds like you should concentrate, for starters, on making sure your initial hand evaluation, including shape, is solid, and that you don't forget it.

[helene_t]

To get back to the title of the thread,I think it was Justin Lall who said you need to focus on not messing up the easy hands. You won't experience enough difficult hands for them to make a big difference. Also consider that matchpoints is exhausting so if you spend too much energy on the difficult hands there's a risk you will be too tired to get the essy ones right, too.

So practising Bridge Master is the way to go. If you get at least level 2 right consistently you should be OK. You may want to supplement with a declarer play puzzle book that emphasises matchpoints since BridgeMaater is mostly about making the contract.

Defense is more difficult to practice, I wish someone would make a defence version of BM.

Don't worry too much about bidding. It looks like your bidding theory is adequate. While it's true that bidding decisions cause lots of swings, much of it is down to random guesswork which you can't improve on.

[mikl_plkcc]

I mostly play IMPs but there aren't many IMP games around apart from the Friday evening sessions at Young Chelsea so I sometimes have to play matchpoints if I want to get more games.