Aggression

"The most noticeable difference between the bidding of an expert pair and that of an average pair is the experts' ability in competitive situations. Experts are able to hop in and out of the auction on a high percentage of the hands and rarely get caught. Average players are much less aggressive in competitive situations and when they do butt in they frequently get punished." (Bid Better, Play Better: How to Think at the Bridge Table, Dorothy Hayden Truscott, 1998, p. 74.)

How true. And how frustrating it is when expert players steal our bid or push us to a level where we go down. And even worse, because the result is usually worse, when we try to do the same and it just doesn't work out. However, we are getting better at doubling when our bid is stolen and we are working on disrupting the opponents' bidding without getting "punished."

My hard-learned lesson this week was on the need to be more aggressive, whether there is competition or not. Twice on Thursday afternoon I had a ton of clubs. Instead of diddling around I should have just bid 5 clubs. Once I thought my bid was forcing and my partner thought it wasn't, and once I bid to show points and length instead of a different (forcing) suit. In both cases, my partner passed and we were in a partial contract. I think my hesitation comes from past games when bold bidding often led to disaster. But I've learned a lot in the past few months, and it is time to trust of my evaluation of the situation. So what if it doesn't always work out, it's just a game. Right?

Complex Bidding

Last weekend Julie and I played in our fifth tournament. There were two sessions on Saturday--the first went okay but not great (meaning we didn't place) and, as has been the case four times previously, our play went downhill during the second session. Exhausted but undaunted, we returned the next day with our friends Melissa and Jeanne to play Swiss Teams.

We knew going into Swiss Teams that it would be a long day, but somehow we hadn't realized that we were going to be playing seven rounds of seven boards each. We started at 11:00 am and finished around 6:00 pm. That's a lot of cards!

The most entertaining play came towards the end. Our opponents were a young couple (young, of course, being a relative term). They were 0-5, having lost all of the rounds up to that point. Our team was 2-3, which all of a sudden didn't seem so bad. Once we started to play, it quickly became apparent that these two had quite a complicated bidding system.

I wish I could replicate the bidding here, but that is impossible; it was just too complex. I'm still struggling with trying to remember the differences in leads when playing suit vs no trump contracts, so the esoteric meanings that flew across the table were beyond me. However, I can still picture this lively and friendly pair as they slowly and intricately worked their way to a slam contract. It took quite a while, since every bid was alerted and I kept asking what each bid meant. I just couldn't resist. For example, one seemingly innocuous bid--was it 3 hearts?--meant that the bidder had a certain number of "points" in her hand. These points were assigned to aces and kings, so she had either one ace and three kings or two aces and no kings (or something like that). I was happy when they finally reached a 6 no trump contract, since I was on lead and was holding two aces. That took care of that.

At the end of the day we were 3-4, which didn't seem very good. But then I found out that we had gotten silver--the first for Melissa and Jeanne--so I guess we did okay after all.

Crystal Clear

My bridge partner last evening is an A player with zillions of masterpoints (I have about 13). She is very friendly and kind, but for some reason I was a little bit on edge. Not nervous exactly, but more like I-really-don't-want-to-do-anything-stupid. I recognized only a couple of really awful goofs, which I guess isn't too bad, although I do realize that there were most likely more goofs that I didn't recognize. We were playing as A players and came in 4th with 55%.

A huge benefit of last night's play was that my errors were crystal clear. When I play with a less skilled partner, I am not always sure if my bidding was on target or if I could have made one more trick (or stopped our opponents from making one more trick). Yesterday I could see the answers to those questions (or get the answers from my partner).

My bidding is not perfect but is coming along and getting more precise all the time. My main problem is keeping my focus sharp throughout the entire match and giving my complete attention to what has been played. For example, I trumped my partner's good queen (one of my egregious errors). I have to whip my lazy brain into shape!

Tough Opponents

To the extent that playing bridge can be boring, yesterday afternoon's game was just that.  Julie and I played east-west, and we have never before had so few points.  Out of 27 boards, we got the contract a total of 6 times (all partial games or going down).  I was consistently looking at hands with an average of 2-6 points, which likely explains my rash bidding when we came up against a pair of our toughest opponents.

We traditionally get low boards against these A players, who are always on top with 60%+ games.  They steal our bids and make slams while smiling and joking, and then graciously explain what we should have done differently.  This day we again started out with few points, so they took the bid and made their 3NT contract (a very low board for us).  Then I made a 1NT contract, which seemed bad at the time although it turned out to be an almost average board.  Finally came the last board for this round and finally it seemed as though Julie and I had some points.  We bid toward game in spades, but our opponents were also bidding and topped our bid of 4 spades with 5 diamonds.  With unfavorable vulnerability and no way of making 5 spades (game was a stretch), I ignored the little voice in my head that kept repeating "pass" and out of frustration I boldly bid 5 spades.  Everyone passed and play began.  "I am tired of you two stealing our bids" and "It's only a game" were my defensive comments.  Plus, I didn't have to play it--Julie did.  

Well, we went down two vulnerable for -200 points and were instructed that a better bid would have been a double, since there was no way they could have made 5 diamonds.  However, while I am sure this would have been a better bid (it never crossed my mind, although apparently Julie had considered it), it turned out to be a good board for us.  Not a top one, but it was above average.  

The moral of the story is that I need to develop a better sense of when to sacrifice, since I had no idea at the time that this score was a good one.  I also need to think harder about doubling.  At the end of this "boring" afternoon, we ranked first in C for the session and fourth overall.  I guess it wasn't so tedious after all.

Visiting a New Club

The players included a pair who bested us in the Kalamazoo tournament, a couple of familiar faces from GR, a few very focused and alert couples, and several people with vision problems and other impairments.  Julie and I had just had wine with dinner, but neither the alcohol nor the physical infirmities of our elderly opponents softened our competitive edge. 

Julie and I used our favorite tokens from the Kalamazoo tournament—automatic pencils decorated with a card motif and topped with clear plastic caps both for the lead and for the eraser.  Unfortunately, Julie’s eraser cap kept popping off.  The clear plastic was difficult to spot on the floor; coupled with the worry that someone would step on it and break it, this caused several episodes of mini-drama at our table (we were sitting north-south).  “What are you looking for?” one grouchy old man asked.  When I told him, proudly showing the cap still secure on my own pencil, he dismissively retorted that “you’re supposed to throw that away after you get the pencil—why would you need a cap on an eraser, it just gets in the way.”  Hmm. 

Julie and I felt pretty good about our play throughout the evening, although of course we had ideas about what we should have done differently.  As we waited for the last round, we noted that the pair coming up were very slow players.  In fact, we played three boards before they were done with their first one.  As we waited and waited and waited, we agreed that we had to get the bid at all costs in order to move things along. 

When the last pair finally sat at our table, Julie was the dealer and opened one diamond.  My RHO bid.  I looked at my hand – I had 16 high card points, stoppers in every suit, and my partner had opened.  I did not have a four card major.  I pondered my bid. I could go slowly and try to figure out if we belonged in slam.  However, since we do not have much practice with slam bidding, that route was fraught with possible pitfalls.  Also it was imperative to move the game along.  I decided that missing a possible slam was worth the risk, so I bid 3 NT.  It turned out to be a good bid; Julie had a minimum and we did not have slam.

At the end of the evening, both of our pencils had clear plastic eraser caps firmly in place, and we had a score of 58%.  That placed us first overall in A, B, and C.  We’ll be back.

 

Playing with The Director

Our club director and her husband very kindly offered to be partners with me and Julie at a Friday night game.  That happened last night; I played with The Director while Julie played with the director's husband.  

Before the game, I went to the ACBL website and reviewed the meanings of the bids on the convention card--how embarrassing would that be, to answer "I don't know" if my new partner had a question about something on my card!  I also went over my notes and played some hands on my computer software program.  My main goal was to have my head in the game and not do anything too stupid.  Did I succeed in this goal?  I think so, but I'm not totally sure.

The evening started out quite well.  At least I think it did, because my partner did not have much to say about my bidding or my play.  I listened as she occasionally commented on our opponents' play, though, which was gratifying because I knew what she was talking about.  

I was not surprised when this silence ended.  My bidding and defensive play were okay and at times even good, but my play as declarer was often flawed.  My partner pointed out the analysis I should have done as I planned the play of the hand.  I am trying to get better at this, but it is really difficult to think about all of the elements involved and put them together in a way that works.   I need to:  Think.  Think.  Think.  Practice.  Practice.  Practice. 

I thought I would be anxious playing with The Director, but I was not.  It helped that the cards were not too weird and so the bidding was relatively simple.  Also, she made some nice comments about my play and her advice was always matter-of-fact, never critical.  We ended up 2nd in A for the session, 1st in B.

A couple of people did compliment me on my calm demeanor.  Maybe someday I will be such a good player that people will want to be my partner and be nervous about it at the same time!

Lansing NLM Tournament

Julie and I drove to Lansing today with a couple of friends to play in the NLM tournament.  We had our best game yet, placing first in north-south!  It was a very nice afternoon, but most of the details escape me at the moment.  One thing that I do remember is that the director called for a 5 minute "hospitality break" in the middle of the session.  That gave people a chance to get up and stretch, get a snack, or catch up on their play if they were behind.  I liked that; I wonder why we don't do that in GR?  

We played mostly defense, which was in our favor because it turns out we are better at that than at offensive play.  Also, even though we went over and over certain conventions and bids that we are trying to incorporate in our game, we did not get to use any of them.  How can we improve if we have so little opportunity to make some types of bids?