[AL78]

Yesterday evening I messed up the defence three times, once by discarding the card nearest my thumb instead of a card that allowed me to maintain communication with partner, and twice when I played the wrong card to signal to partner the correct switch. The first case resulted in partner throwing the wrong card at trick 12 when declarer was cashing winners and was about to go down (which wouldn't have happened if I could have just put partner in after discarding correctly), and one of the others was a classic dangerous suit in dummy where we have to attack a third suit to knock an ace out before declarer draws trumps and takes a finesse in the dangerous suit (partner thought I signelled for a lead in the dangerous suit and led through it which established it for declarer). My main issue with fatigue during F2F bridge is the evening sessions are on the two days of the week I commute to London for work and it is a bit of a rush to get back (reliability of UK trains is hit and miss), get a meal and go to the club. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to combat or reduce fatigue during play? I have a sedentary office job so the fatigue is not physical.

[P_Marlowe]

The commute is physical draining.

In general your best bet is to improve the quality of sleep on the other days.

I fight with similar issues, add children are killing my weekend sleep.

And physical exercise will also help, ... easier said than done.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: If you found the silver bullet, I am eager to hear.

[sfi]

I reckon my matchpoint game drops by about 5% after work. It’s not as dramatic at Imps, but it’s still clear. No answers, just sympathy.

[mikeh]

Focus is a constant battle for non-professional players

Historically, whenever I was preparing for an important event, I’d read one of a handful of bridge books. Kelsey wrote some incredible ‘team match’ books. 64 hands, presented in sets of 8 boards. You get each hand as a problem, with solutions after each batch. The solutions included realistic results from ‘the other table’, so you got to imp each set…your teammates are good but not perfect.

What that exercise did for me was to get me ‘thinking’ the right way. It forced me to stop thinking about work, family, what’s for dinner, etc and got me into the groove of bridge thinking.

That would be overkill, for me at least, for a club game, but something like this might help, if you tried it for a few games. You’re commuting so presumably have time to read part of such a book on the train. Ideally, partner might do the same.

The bidding is, to NA eyes, both strange and very old-fashioned…the books were written, iirc, back in the 70’s, but they remain very useful now because it’s not about ‘what to bid’, in terms of a system, but ‘what to bid’ in terms of thinking about the hand and, more often, what to play, as declarer or defender, armed with whatever information is available. Besides, the bidding likely won’t be as odd to you as it is to a non-Acolite!

Iirc one is The Tough Game.And another is The Needle Match. I think the first in the series was Test Your Match Play

Unfortunately when I just checked on Amazon (Amazon.ca, maybe uk Amazon might have better selections) The Needle Match was listed at $144!!!!!!! Few bookstores, here, carry any bridge books, even used, but you might find one somewhere and I’d expect a bookstore to charge a tiny fraction of that silly Amazon price. I saw the tough game much, much cheaper, and a hard back of test your match play for about $5 US.

Btw, I’d strongly recommend any and all of these books to anyone aspiring to be, or even considering themselves now, an expert. I’ve collected many, many bridge books and these are amongst the top ten of all time, imo. Partly because the analysis is first rate and partly because (afaik) Kelsey was the first to write such a format.

[pilowsky]

There are 100's of studies on the relationship between hours of wakefulness, and quality/duration of sleep on cognition.
Cognition being an umbrella word for a variety of elements necessary for success in activities such as Bridge, Chess, piloting Jumbo Jets or working in Intensive Care Units (hopefully not simultaneously).

Broadly speaking, after a period of about 8 hours of mental work cognitive ability begins to decline.
The decline is enhanced by many factors including older age, difficulty of the task faced, and coexisting factors such as ambient noise.

It turns out that after about 12-15 hours of wakefulness the decline in cognitive function per additional hour of wakefulness is equivalent to an additional 0.01% of blood alcohol.
This means that after being awake for 18+ hours your cognitive function declines to a point where you may not feel impaired but you are.

The number one recommendation to combating fatigue if you want to do anything mentally demanding after a long day at work is to not drink alcohol.
Eating may also be a problem. If you have a heavy fat and carbohydrate rich meal (pie and chips with a beer) at the end of a long working day, then some cognitive decline is inevitable.
Perhaps on a "Bridge-evening" you could try a good breakfast, a small lunch and a pre-game snack - I don't know if such a regime has been tested formally but it seems sensible.
Stimulants such as coffee and cigarettes don't seem to have much real effect but they will raise your blood pressure and heart rate which may be bad for clear-thinking.

Basically, one needs to tackle the contributors to fatigue that you are able to do something about.

The suggestion of working through Bridge problems as a mental warm up likely aims to improve the speed with which you access Bridge knowledge in long term memory, which is a great idea.
Unfortunately, if the problem is fatigue this can only be ameliorated by tackling any fatigue-causing elements that are within your control - short of quitting work so you can sleep in every day because eventually you'll run out of money.

[AL78]

mikeh, on 2023-September-23, 14:38, said:

Focus is a constant battle for non-professional players

Historically, whenever I was preparing for an important event, I’d read one of a handful of bridge books. Kelsey wrote some incredible ‘team match’ books. 64 hands, presented in sets of 8 boards. You get each hand as a problem, with solutions after each batch. The solutions included realistic results from ‘the other table’, so you got to imp each set…your teammates are good but not perfect.

What that exercise did for me was to get me ‘thinking’ the right way. It forced me to stop thinking about work, family, what’s for dinner, etc and got me into the groove of bridge thinking.

That would be overkill, for me at least, for a club game, but something like this might help, if you tried it for a few games. You’re commuting so presumably have time to read part of such a book on the train. Ideally, partner might do the same.

The bidding is, to NA eyes, both strange and very old-fashioned…the books were written, iirc, back in the 70’s, but they remain very useful now because it’s not about ‘what to bid’, in terms of a system, but ‘what to bid’ in terms of thinking about the hand and, more often, what to play, as declarer or defender, armed with whatever information is available. Besides, the bidding likely won’t be as odd to you as it is to a non-Acolite!

Iirc one is The Tough Game.And another is The Needle Match. I think the first in the series was Test Your Match Play

Unfortunately when I just checked on Amazon (Amazon.ca, maybe uk Amazon might have better selections) The Needle Match was listed at $144!!!!!!! Few bookstores, here, carry any bridge books, even used, but you might find one somewhere and I’d expect a bookstore to charge a tiny fraction of that silly Amazon price. I saw the tough game much, much cheaper, and a hard back of test your match play for about $5 US.

Btw, I’d strongly recommend any and all of these books to anyone aspiring to be, or even considering themselves now, an expert. I’ve collected many, many bridge books and these are amongst the top ten of all time, imo. Partly because the analysis is first rate and partly because (afaik) Kelsey was the first to write such a format.

Thanks for the sugestions. I have no delusions about reaching expert level. I would be happy with being competitive at my local club rather than frequently feeling like the whipping boy.

[P_Marlowe]

AL78, on 2023-September-24, 02:38, said:

Thanks for the sugestions. I have no delusions about reaching expert level. I would be happy with being competitive at my local club rather than frequently feeling like the whipping boy.

Your best bet would be to form a regular partnership and do some training outside the club hours.
Forming a common understanding how to react in certain situations.

The club hours alone are not sufficient, at best you play 32 boards on a evening.
And it is late, both of you had a long day.

the training sessions need not be long, but should be focused.
Unopposed bidding can be done, asynchron, without costs at http://www.correctcontract.com

I also highly recommend the bidding table at BBO, in the good old Windows days, the hands got logged
for review, now it is not as simple, but the robots provide some interference, helping you with contested
auctions.

And if you do it in a nice setting with coffee / beer / wine, it may not feel to much like working.

[AL78]

P_Marlowe, on 2023-September-25, 06:03, said:

Your best bet would be to form a regular partnership and do some training outside the club hours.
Forming a common understanding how to react in certain situations.

The club hours alone are not sufficient, at best you play 32 boards on a evening.
And it is late, both of you had a long day.

the training sessions need not be long, but should be focused.
Unopposed bidding can be done, asynchron, without costs at http://www.correctcontract.com

I also highly recommend the bidding table at BBO, in the good old Windows days, the hands got logged
for review, now it is not as simple, but the robots provide some interference, helping you with contested
auctions.

And if you do it in a nice setting with coffee / beer / wine, it may not feel to much like working.

That is a good idea, I'll look into that site and suggest to her we practice outside of club sessions. We only play once a month and 24 boards once a month is inadequate for developing a good solid partnership.

[P_Marlowe]

AL78, on 2023-September-25, 11:32, said:

That is a good idea, I'll look into that site and suggest to her we practice outside of club sessions. We only play once a month and 24 boards once a month is inadequate for developing a good solid partnership.

You may also have a look at https://cuebids.com

This side is not fully free, you get a free budget each month, in case you need more, you have to pay.
The difference to correctcontract: Robots take over the 2 other seats, and your final contract gets evaluated on a DD basis.
But start with the free side, focus on uncontested auctions.

Building up a partnership takes time, needs discussion, you have to learn, how the other thinks about certain thinks,
is the glass full, is it empty.

[pescetom]

AL78, on 2023-September-25, 11:32, said:

That is a good idea, I'll look into that site and suggest to her we practice outside of club sessions. We only play once a month and 24 boards once a month is inadequate for developing a good solid partnership.

I'm all for partnership development outside of "competition", but not very convinced about the idea of practice against robots or a weak online tournament or some self-defined "expert" site. The two things that work best in my experience (at a similar level) are:
1) honest and sufficiently detailed post-mortem discussion of the last tournament (f2f or voice, whatsapp only if sufficient trust and presentation skill)
2) over a table (with tea/coffee/whatever is legal) discussion and play of new conventions and troublesome situations (with 13 cards in hand and opponents double dummy). You play the hand, discuss, then whoever has a doubt or a point to make switches a few cards and try again.