Hard Work

Professionals at the top of all sports and mind games spend countless hours with coaches training to improve their games and keep their edge. For some reason this doesn't seem to hold true in bridge. Sure, the top players play a lot of hands (but not more than half of the year usually), but in general these are against weaker opponents and time is not spent critically analyzing the bidding and play. Is bridge inherently different from other games and sports?

I don't think so. Certainly there are diminishing returns from studying positions and analyzing hands, but that is true in all sports. The edge gained from studying is worth it to stay sharper than your opponents. In general I believe that once the paychecks start rolling in and your play reaches a certain level it is easy to become complacent and not work on your game. Your hunger and desire goes away, and your thought process turns to landing your next client.

The biggest reason the Aces were so successful is that they analyzed every card played and bid made together with a critical eye. They would have heated discussions that would sometimes result in hurt feelings, but it made them tough. It made them into a machine that would just make fewer errors than their opponents (except the Blue Team). Players on the Aces like Hamman, Wolff, Soloway, Goldman ended up becoming some of the best players in the world.

I have realized I don't want to become complacent, and I don't want my game to stagnate. To take it to the next level I have to practice and train every day with peers, essentially I can't just be lazy and be happy to get by with sub par performance. I have started training with Chilean junior Joaquin Pacareu and Josh Donn. I am also studying double dummy problems every day. Ideally we'd have a coach but no one fits the job, and if they did they would probably want to be compensated for it.

Yesterday we had several interesting hands. Here was an error I made that cost twelve imps. I picked up 2 AJ7 AKQT654 T6. I opened 1 and partner bid 2 which was game forcing. I chose to rebid 3 showing a solid suit and some extra values. Partner bid 3N. What would you do now?

I felt like I had shown my hand. I had shown solid diamonds and extra values, and that's what I had. At the table, I passed. After a lengthy discussion I believe that this was a mistake. Notably, my hand would be far worse if I had 2 spades and 1 club as opposed to my actual holding. Having 2 clubs is really important opposite a long suit; we have more chances to establish it and we won't be off 2 cashing tricks as often. For slam I really need very little, basically just good clubs. Also, it is very hard (but possible) to construct hands where 5 is going to go down so if I bid 4 and we end up playing 5 it's not the end of the world. Had I bid 4 that would catch a 5 bid from partner which would really turn me on (no spade cue means good clubs), and I could have bid the slam.

Without having Josh and Paca analyzing hands with me, I may have just continued thinking partners 3N bid was bad. Or I may have just been lazy and not tried to figure out what went wrong at all. I'm really excited about these sessions and am hopeful that I can improve my game and fix some holes in my thought processes.

How To: Improve Your Game

The most frequent question I am asked is, "What can I do to improve my game?" The truth is it's a lot of hard work. As in most areas of life, there are many more people who desire to become better than people willing to put in the work to achieve it. For those still interested, here is a guide to improving your bridge game no matter what level you are currently at.

Step 1: Play many, many, many hands. This cannot be underestimated. The more hands you see and experience you get, the better you will become without even doing anything else. While you are playing these hands, count. Count points, count shape, count winners, count losers, count everything. Form a picture of the hand, and change it with each trick that goes by until you know every card. The more you do this the more natural it will feel. Honestly, it is impossible to play good bridge without counting. Online bridge is great for this purpose.

Step 2: Evaluate. After each session you will need to objectively evaluate how you played. What boards did you lose imps on? Why did you lose imps on those boards? Could you have done anything or were you unlucky? This will be a very hard process, because you will realize that you suck. In reality, we all suck, and we just strive to suck less. After you go over the hands with yourself enough, you are going to find certain weaknesses in your game. Right now I feel like I give up the most on opening leads. I am getting into computer simulation, and forcing myself to take more time with leads. Leads are obviously not an exact science, but I'm sure I could do better. Whatever your weaknesses are that are causing you to drop imps, figure them out and don't feel embarrassed.

Step 3: Plug your leaks. You know what your weaknesses are, so fix them. This will not happen overnight. The main thing to do here is read. If your cardplay in suit contracts is a big weakness, read any declarer play problem you can find in a book or message forum that has a trump suit. Try to work it out. Really try, don't just think for a minute and then look at the answer. The other thing to do is to think. Really think about certain problems that you get wrong, like 5 level decisions. If you don't bid 5 over 5 enough, what is wrong with your evaluation? Perhaps you don't realize the power of a void in the opponents suit. Sometimes the problem is mental, and you have to fix it mentally. If you are unable to do this on your own, discuss hands with better players. Sometimes hearing their thinking process will make it clear to you what the error in your thinking was.

Step 4: So, you're now capable of analyzing every hand and not doing anything stupid. Sometimes you still do though, why? Once your game is at this level and you are technically proficient, you need to work on your head. Bridge is a mental game, and you need to be at your best all the time. Many capable players play poorly because they have problems focusing and concentrating. Sometimes they don't get enough sleep, or play distracted. Sometimes they can't get over a bad result and do something stupid after that. Don't fall into these traps. Figure out how to get your mind right, and what the best conditions are for you to be able to focus and give it everything you have. Again, this requires introspection to figure out what's going on. Only you can know, and only you can fix it.

Repeat. I guarantee if you go through these cycles many times and swallow your pride and ego and really work hard at doing these things, you will find tremendous improvements. I still go through this cycle routinely, and hopefully I always will. Nobody is too good to improve.

Sound like hard work? I'm exhausted just writing about it.

Mental Simulation

Most auctions start with each partner describing their hand to the other until one of them is able to take control. Taking control sometimes involves asking specific questions (such as blackwood) and sometimes just means placing the contract. When it comes time to place the contract I find the most effective thing to do is mental hand simulation. Things like combined high card point and losing trick count are now irrelevant as you should have enough information to figure out a range of hands for partner. From that you can determine what is most likely to be the best contract.

Obviously there are time limitations and we are not computers so we can only construct a limited number of hands. To try and get the best range, I like to think of 5 hand types. Horrible minimums, perfect minimums, horrible maximums, perfect maximums and average hands. I like to try and make about 3 average hands and 1 of each of the others. This method that I use was mainly based off of something someone wrote in the Master Solvers Club. I'm fairly sure it was Jeff Rubens, but I could be wrong. Doing this you get a very good idea of where you stand.

Let's try a few hands.

You hold AQ3 AKJ2 KQ62 Q3 and open 2N 20-21. Partner bids 4N inviting a slam and denying a 4-card major. You do not have any method to show 4-4 in the minors, so that shape is possible. At this point instead of thinking "I am maximum so I will bid slam" you should start constructing hands. To do this, we must consider what partner will have. He likely has about 11 points, possibly 12 with no 5 card suit or a very good 10. His possible shapes are 4333, 5332 with a 5 card minor, or 4432 with 4-4 in the minors. With a 6 card minor or 9 minor suit cards you have the methods to bid something besides 4N. In your simulations you want to include all possible shapes.

Horrible minimum: KJx Qxx Ax Jxxxx. Here we are off the AK of clubs and have no play.

Perfect minimum: Kxx xx Axxxx Kxx. Here 6 is gin but 6N will be on a heart finesse.

Horrible maximum: KJx xxx Axx KJxx. With 2 clubs, 3 spades, 3 diamonds and 2 hearts there are 10 top tricks. If the heart hook works you need a red suit to split or have numerous squeeze chances.

Perfect maximum: xx Qxx AJxx KJxx. Here slam is very good, if diamonds split you are cold otherwise you can try a spade hook in 6 diamonds. In 6N you need spade hook or a black suit squeeze.

Average hand: Jxx Qxx Axxx AJx. In 6N we have 3 diamonds, 4 hearts, 1 club and 1 spade off the top. If the diamonds split we just need both black kings to not be offside. If diamonds don't split we likely need a spade/diamond squeeze. 6 is worse.

Conclusion: I did these simulations hands just as I would at the table. I got every shape and HCP range in, and tried to spread the honors out as evenly as possible. On reflection one error I made was always giving partner the diamond ace. Had I done 3 average hands I probably would have given pard one with the spade king and club AK or something. This seems to be a very close case. It seems to come down to whether or not partner has a diamond fit. If I had 5 diamonds available to show 4 diamonds and be forcing, I would choose it. If partner signed off in 5N I would pass, otherwise we would be going to slam. If not, I would probably bid 5N pick a slam trying to get to 6D and otherwise play 6N. Your simulations may come up with a different answer! Usually there won't be discrepancies, but in a case this close there might be.

Let's try one more. You open 1 and partner bids 3 showing a 4 card limit raise. Your hand is 2 AK532 QJ82 Q42. Partner will have about 10-12 support points and has a wide range of possible shapes.

Horrible minimum: KJx QJxx xx Kxxx. Game has no play here and even 3 is not cold.

Perfect minimum: xxx Qxxx KTx AJx. Game is just cold here barring something very bad happening.

The horrible mins and horrible maximums will be the same, all depending on how much wastage there is in spades.

Average hand: QJxx Qxxx Kx Kxx. Here is a normal 11 count with evenly distributed honors. With a loser in each side suit, we have a lot of play. To get rid of the minors we might pitch one on the spades get 2-2 hearts, get a favorable lead, or find the T9 of diamonds third.

Average hand: AQxx Qxxx x JTxx. We must think about unbalanced hands. If partner has a shortness it's likely in diamonds. We have 2 clubs and a diamond to lose and a lot of work to do. They may get a club ruff or lead trumps. They don't always defend perfectly though, and even when a ruff is available they may not find it.

Conclusion: Much depends on partner's spade holding. With the average hands we saw game was close but not cold. I would bid this game at imps and hope for the best, but at matchpoints I would pass. If it is tough to make 4 we'll get a good matchpoint score for 170, but it may just be a win 1 in imps.

Did that feel like hard work? Well it is, but it also will give you much more accurate results than thinking about whether you are minimum or maximum in your high card range. Remember, practice makes perfect and it does get easier.