Counting

STaC week ended with yesterday afternoon's game; the results were light-years away from what happened last year.  At the beginning of this week a year ago, Julie and I were enthusiastic, positive, and looking forward to winning some silver points.  At the conclusion of that week we agreed that it was awful and hoped to never see it again.  This year, though, we placed in every game that we played in together and got enough silver for our next ACBL level (although we still need points).  Sometimes it is difficult to see progress, so this was an encouraging yardstick.

In yesterday's game I had the opportunity to work on my defensive skills.  Here's an example:  I was sitting South and defending against a 4 spades contract in the East.  In the course of the play I had taken a trick and was looking at a board with 2 trumps and no clubs.  I played a club; declarer played a low trump from dummy, Julie played a high trump and we won the trick.  The opponents went down one, followed by a discussion of what happened.

"I should have played the king," declarer said.

"I don't think that would have helped," dummy replied.

"No," Julie added.  "That would have just set up my jack."

"Maybe I should have..."

I listened for a minute as the three of them analyzed and conjectured before I finally chimed in.  "You know," I said, "not everyone is going to lead a club."

"Oh!"  They turned to me expectantly.

"I was keeping track."

"She's a counter," Julie said.

"You have to count," the opponents agreed.

That ended the discussion and it was time for the next round.  I did not disabuse them of their assumption that I had counted the clubs.  In fact, I had thought about the number of clubs in my hand and how the bidding had gone, and concluded that there was a good chance that Julie was out.  Since she was behind dummy she would be able to ruff higher or maybe one of her trumps would set up.  Not as impressive as actually counting, but at least I was thinking.

I am trying to count, though.  I start out okay but quickly become distracted and forget to keep counting.  I do better when I am the declarer, but even then I am not systematically keeping track of all of the suits.  I am going to keep at it, though, since I believe it is key to improving my game.