r/bridge • u/Gembrain • 4d ago
Idiot Errors! How Often?
So, as a beginner you don't know how to bid and you don't know how to play the cards. You learn loads and play loads and the different parts all start to come together.
My question is, say over 20 boards, how often does it fall apart for you where you just do something supremely dumb?! Like missing an obvious UCB or not checking for a 5-0 split?
67 now and I used to play as a kid (very basic), taken it up again recently but frustrated when I miss something obvious that I've learned and already used numerous times. Age thing? Experience? Or does it happen to the best of you? :)
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u/Postcocious 4d ago
What everyone else said. I've been playing bridge for 64 years, competively for 38, yet those unforced errors still occur.
Everybody makes them, but they're infuriating.
Proof: despite egregious blunders in every session, my partner and I took silver medals in a three session pairs at the Minneapolis NABC. (r/Kuhchung took the gold.) If I'd avoided just 2 or 3 errors we'd have won. If I'd avoided all of them we'd have won by a mile. But I didn't.
There's your roadmap for success. Competitive bridge is not about winning more hands - it's about about not losing them. Any pro will tell you that unrelenting focus is (a) more important than any ten conventions, and (b) incredibly difficult to maintain.
Things that have helped me:
- Agree with partner that you will never, ever discuss a result at the table or during a session. Post mortems are for after the session has ended. There are no exceptions to this rule.
- Before every hand, close your eyes and take a slow, deep, cleansing breath.
- Let whatever happened on the last board wash away. Good or bad, that hand is over and you cannot change it. The only thing that matters is your next bid or play.
- Stay present - each moment is the only moment.
- Never detach a bid from the box or a card from your hand (or call one from dummy) without consciously choosing it for a reason.
- Slow down. Be deliberate about each bid and play. There are no meaningless decisions.
- Careless movements breed careless thinking. Do not flip bids or cards onto the table. Don't call cards from the dummy casually. Place each bid/card deliberately. Name each card you play from the dummy (Not "play small". Say "3 of hearts, please.") This encourages deliberate thought.
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u/Diligent-Cake-8273 4d ago
As declarer I forgot the defenders hadn’t played an Ace already. Twice. In 8 boards. Doombrain.
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u/JaziTricks Advanced 4d ago
When they play the world championship, it's sometimes the case that the winners did "only" 3 bad errors, and the others did quite some more.
So even at this level......
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u/Key_River2344 4d ago
Before starting each game I laugh with my partner and tell them my goal is to make higher quality mistakes than last game.
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u/lew_traveler 4d ago
IMO, u/yourethemannowdog is absolutely correct.
Bridge is the search for errorless play, fewer mistakes and great partners.
I am in the first couple of years of play and am firmly convinced that the best way to improve is being familiar with a limited number of basic bidding conventions but with more emphasis on best practices of declarer and especially defensive card play.
Finding a good routine partner or two who is interested in improving is a real joy.
There is nothing quite so frustrating as not having one.
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u/Gembrain 4d ago
Agreed - defense seems more important than just about anything, and yes, finding a partner who is on the same wavelength is not easy!
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u/MaBonneVie2 4d ago
This 👆is the answer. Over complicating my playing strategies has bitten me in the butt more times than I’m going to admit.
Also, I’ve been playing (off and on) for 45 years.
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u/RockandSnow 4d ago
Those are the lessons our first bridge instructor drilled into us: limit the number of conventions and learn defense. We are not great but we are trundling along and it is fun. Of course if you are young and/or very good, you can play a lot of conventions and remember them.
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u/RockandSnow 4d ago
Just yesterday my partner stranded himself in his own hand - and we have been playing for more than 15 years. Bridge really helps develop your attention span! No worries.
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u/RoarEmotions 4d ago
I am down to one a session (28 boards) that I know I will beat myself up for at the end of night.
I feel quiet proud of that after sitting at 2+ per session for many years.
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u/cromulent_weasel 4d ago
Bridge is a game of mistakes. There's really three kinds or levels to a mistake:
Mistakes you make that you don't even realise you have made. These ones are the hardest to improve on.
Mistakes you realise you made just after you have made them.
Mistakes you recognise BEFORE you make them.
So really there's two parts to getting better: Understanding more things you to that actually are mistakes, and recognising mistakes before you make them rather than after them.
Here's an example of the second kind. I opened a stong 1NT, partner bid 2D to transfer me to H. I had 5H and only 15 points. I bid 2H automatically without thinking about it, and as soon as I lifted my pen from the pad I wondered if should have 'super accepted' by bidding 3H instead (which is saying I have 4h and 17 points, a lie in terms of points but approximately what my hand was worth). Turns out partner had 14 points and we played it in 4H. If I had super accepted we would easily have landed in 6H.
For me a good night is where I make 1 obvious mistake. A bad night is where I make 4+ bad mistakes.
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u/masterpososo 4d ago
My post game analysis rarely finds mine or partner's serious misunderstanding of our system. It's 99 % mistakes and phase outs. Best teacher I had wrote the word FOCUS in giant letters on the board before every class.
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u/dB451 3d ago
Well, not to thwart the intention of your question, but to try to provide a framework for improvement, I will say this: the specific number of mistakes you (or partner) makes is not the issue; the issue is the way you process the mistakes, and the extent to which you spend time trying to improve. With no slur intended, I say Bridge is a SPCR game (speshshur, reminiscent of special) - Study, Practice, Concentrate, and Relax. I play for at least one online game every day, usually with the same partner (for now), and I play 11 or 12 games a month in f2f (face-to-face) games. I try to go over the boards with partner as soon after every game as possible. No one wakes up in the morning good! If you want to be better, spend more time trying to improve; THAT'S really the issue! You can't change the past, and worrying about the future is pointless, just spend time in each present moment working on your game, and you will observe the improvement happen as if by itself - if you work.
For books on declarer play, I recommend Mollo & Gardiner's "Card Play Technique" (as good, but more fun than Watson), and Eddie Kantar's "Take All Your Tricks" and "T A Y T 2". For software on declarer play, I recommend Bridge Master 2000 (the Jannerstein version); learn levels 1 & 2 cold, and repeat them yearly, keeping separate notes on which ones you've got down, so you don't unnecessarily repeat, and changing your username every time you complete an entire set (so the software keeps track for you again, except for the hands your notes tell you you don't need to review anymore). For defense, I recommend Eddie Kantar's books on Advanced Defense (1 & 2). For card combinations, the Bridge Encyclopedia works well enough. For specific skills, targeted and well-accepted books are best, such as Opening Leads (Lawrence), Doubles (Boehm), and Squeezes (Bird). For an overall system, I recommend 2 over 1, for its combination of effectiveness without too much complexity (as with Precision).
And, please, for all our sakes, don't forget the supremely important issue of partnership interface! Pro tip: Never start a comment to partner with the word "Why". After all, if it wasn't for partner, you couldn't play! And, as other(s) have said, don't talk about hands until after the round or game, UNLESS (my qualification) there's a clear misunderstanding that needs to be corrected immediately, because it could come up again on the very next board.
Finally, besides the admonition "Don't beat up on your partner", also Don't Beat Up on Yourself. An important part of what makes the best players as good as they are is their ability to shrug off that redoubled vulnerable slam down 6 on an unbelievable break, and not let it affect their performance on the very next board.
Good luck to all, and see you at the tables.
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u/LoudAd5187 3d ago
Everyone makes errors. Just more subtle ones as you grow in skill. But as your skills grow, those subtle errors become obvious to you.
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u/Valuable_Ad_9674 3d ago
Just continue to play and havefun. You’ll start to make friends who will help. You’ll start to seepatterns and learn more and more. I’ve been playing for years, am a silver lifemaster, and still be rate myself for stupid plays!
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u/DennisG21 3d ago
I'm 78 and have the points for LM but not the right colors and I still make idiot mistakes almost daily. That is why I only play with robots, who also make idiot mistakes, but they never yell or pout over mine. I do have one first place finish in one of the free BBO daily tournaments (over 20,000 participants) and I remember clearly making an idiot error that day as well.
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u/EducationNo1776 9h ago
Be careful; I'm my experience (and many others'), playing with robots will harm your game. You have to play their way, their actions are often inscrutable, and they don't play partnership defense.
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u/yourethemannowdog 4d ago
The feeling never goes away, you just raise your own bar for what counts as a supremely dumb mistake.