Playing Badly?

There was a lot of talk after the game yesterday about how it feels to play badly.  In a nutshell:  not good.  Thankfully, my contributions to this conversation, which took place over adult beverages at a local water hole, were not based on the game we had just completed.  I was quite pleased with the evening's result, even though, as usual, there were things I wished I had done differently.

"I don't get upset with my partner if she makes a mistake," I said.  "Everyone does the best they can, and it doesn't help anyone's game when they get criticized or yelled at."  While this statement seems obvious, common sense is sometimes sacrificed in the heat of the game.  Duplicate bridge players are by nature competitive, and we all want to "win."  That said, most people are actually quite restrained and encouraging, given what their partners sometimes do.

"I just get really mad at myself," Julie contributed.  "I hate it when I play badly."  Even though everyone knows they should put mistakes behind them and focus on the current hand, I find that difficult to do.  If I overbid and the results are disastrous, I try to not do that again and thus might underbid.  There's a balance between learning from your mistakes and letting mistakes rule your game; it's not always easy to walk that line.

"I buy chicken quesadillas for the table," Dee stated with a smile.  This was quite possibly the most insightful comment of the evening.  Food almost always makes things better, I reflected as I reached for a piece of cheesy goodness.

Any comments?