[thepossum]

Hi all

I have been trying to find a way to work out the biggest flaws (out of a few) in my game - let's say in MP
Some kind of categorisation of hands to identify and concentrate on the most obvious flaws, ignore bad luck etc. separate into bidding versus play, declarer vs defence, missed an obvious overtrick etc
I don't obsess over double dummy at all, and prefer to compare with the field after a small tourney
If I bid a modal contract, or one of two, and even play modally I am not too upset - I prefer the higher of two modes rather than the lower though
If I manage occasionally to bid a better contract than the field then I am very content
I can then concetrate on the rest where you messup the bidding, or misunderstand partner, or it is bad luck or anything, I can then focus on the weakest parts
It does seem a lot of work though. I know the best way is usually just to have a good partner and talk about it
etc

has anyone ever looked into that kind of approach
I always think that while bidding and play are important, if you totally miss one of a few good contracts it does not matter how good your card play is
I even thought of going further and analysing the impact on the MP score
But I don't realy want to destroy the fun of just playing and forgetting

[wuudturner]

The best way to identify your flaws would be to work with a mentor, one who is willing to spend the time analyzing your bidding and play, and then explaining where you went wrong.

My personal approach in the past when I did mentoring was to do challenge matches on BBO. I'd carefully write up, in depth every bid, every play I made. Explain what my plan was and why. I'd also spend time comparing what might happen if I made other choices, and why those alternatives would e worse. Then after seeing how my student played the hands, I'd explain where they went wrong, or sometimes, right. But what matters is the willingness to bgive an honest and accurate assessment of their play. A great thing about this approach, I it allowed me to get into the head of my student, and that helped me to understand their flaws. The problem with the challenge match approach was it took a fair amount of time.

Now, can you do something without help from the outside? Well, it is always possible. But remember that accurate self assessment is a terribly difficult thing to do. It is hard to be honest about yourself, as the study which said that most drivers believe themselves to be above average in driving skill. Similar things happen when you look at how you played or bid a hand. You can convince yourself that you did everything well, and just had bad luck. And luck is the problem with bridge. Did you just have bad luck? Or did you fail to play/bid in a way that would most often yield good results?

One thing you can do, if you have resources like the common game does for its players. As I recall, it breaks your results down as a function of position, giving you a percentage against the field when you are on lead, as declarer, etc. So if you consistently score low when it was you who made the opening lead, that immediately gives you a big hint.

Lacking even that resource, if you are willing to make the honest effort, you can look at every hand you played. First, ignore the rare cases where the file is in game, but one person got to a slam that happens to make. Your goal is not to win the game on every hand. Instead, your goal should be to consistently get to the same contract as the field. If you are not doing so, then you have a bidding problem.

Now look at every hand you declared. Did you make the same number of tricks as did the average person in the field? If not, then you have a play problem. Look at the hands where you defended. Again, your target is to insure that you are performing as well as the average pair in the field.

You want to objectively, honestly look at the hands where you had a problem. Again, this is a problem, because it is difficult for an individual to decide that something they did wrong was not just bad luck.

When I was learning bridge, I had the advantage of a group of friends, all of whom were willing to send out e-mails with problem hands. We would discuss what happened, and what we should could have done differently. We learned from each other, and grew better together.

If you do want to improve however, just playing and then forgetting a hand, going on to the next one is a sure way of never improving. It may be fun, but you will not grow that way.

[DavidKok]

Personally I split learning bridge into four pillars. There is some slight overlap, but mostly these skills can be trained somewhat individually. The four pillars are

• Declarer play
  
• Defensive play
  
• Bidding system
  
• Hand evaluation

For each of them resources exist to learn and sometimes to practice.

Declarer play is the one that is easiest to train on your own. I'm a fan of Bridgemaster on BBO, but many books exist as well, puzzle-style or written as an educational resource.
Defensive play lags behind a lot. There are far fewer resources, and your agreements and signals and tendencies depend on your partner. That being said a lot of the 'basics', which are really very advanced, like counting a lot (HCP, shapes, tricks, losers, entries) and combining information can be practiced solo. There are several books I really like for practicing defense. It takes serious effort though - first when learning, and then again when applying the learned knowledge. Thankfully defense gets easier over time, but it's a long road.
Bidding system highly depends on partner. If you are in a serious and committed partnership I recommend having regular system meetings to discuss what areas of your system you are happy with, unhappy with and unclear about. The goal here is to be on the same page regarding the meanings of bids. Something I did a lot when learning systems from scratch is to take any start of the auction, as an example let's say 1♣-(P)-1♥-(2♦); ?, and then start a list of all calls from 'pass', 'double', '2♥', ... '5♦' - normally I'd stop the list at exactly 5♦, since jumps to higher bids are exceedingly rare. Then, for every bid, fill in the meaning as accurately as you want (after all, it's for personal practice). This gave me better insight into my system, into alternatives and negative inferences, and also helped me identify similarities and fifferences between auctions.
Hand evaluation is woefully underrated, and it's nearly impossible to find good sources on it. This is also the area with the most low-hanging fruit. If your hand evaluation is better than that of your peers, it will come up regularly and gain regularly. I deliberately split this out from 'bidding system' to illustrate the freedom you have on any auction: a bid might mean "5(+) spades, forcing, promises the strength to play at the 3-level" but which exact hands meet that definition is up to you! Personally I always recommend people spend more time on their hand evaluation, because it's the most neglected of the four.


This is mostly orthogonal to your approach of identifying the biggest areas to improve based on your own games. Instead this categorisation might help you find resources based on where you might want to focus your attention.

[mikeh]

My own take is a little different from the two above…both excellent imo..posts.

First a comment on the OP approach. He says that he’s ’very confident’ if he bids to a better contract than the field. This is, imo, a very bad idea.

Bridge is a game of incomplete information. It’s also a game that involves some element of luck. Finally, on this point, a well designed bidding system will occasionally lead to a bad contract. The better the system, the less this will happen but it’s unavoidable. Show me your system and I’ll show you a hand it can’t handle as well as some other systems. Most systemic choices, in system design, involve compromises….enhance how one deals with some hands and you’ll impair how you handle some others.

So…sometimes one gets to a good contract through luck…occasionally through poor bidding!

Which means that evaluating one’s game by assuming that all good results were earned will blind you to a lot of mistakes.

You need to be as objective as you can when reviewing your results…the good as well as the average or poor ones. This is extremely difficult. It’s difficult for experts with a good grasp of bidding theory. It’s impossible for those whose grasp of bidding theory is still in development.

Hence the very strong need for a mentor. The mentor should be someone with a broad understanding of bidding theory…most who have that will also be good defenders and declarers.

The student has to shelve his or her ego. I frequently get asked for advice. Unfortunately a small number of those seeking advice then proceed to tell me why I’m wrong and they’re right…these people aren’t actually looking to learn…they’re looking for confirmation that they were right, usually because their partner told them that they were wrong, lol.

Putting that to one side, if you can’t find a good mentor (and imo even if one can), the most effective way of improving is to read…read…read some more!

On bidding, depends where you live and what’s the most common method that your partners know and your opps often use. See if you can find a couple of books by recognized experts. Ideally firm a partnership with someone equally willing to learn. Seek advice from local experts.

On play…read….read….read.

Most years, if I’m heading off to an important event, I re-read at least one of the Kelsey books that present 64 hands in 8 8 board segments, simulating a team game against strong opps. I think he wrote 3 of them and they’re readily available online as used paperbacks. They’re the best I’ve ever seen, and they cover both defence and declarer play in a very realistic fashion. Ignore the given but now antiquated bidding and don’t sweat the signalling…your partner will give count religiously and otherwise play standard…the wonderful part of the books is that it makes you THINK!

Most players will struggle with these books….they are a challenge even for experts, but they give an insight into both the beauty of the game and how to think.

There are other wonderful books. Reese and Trezel wrote a series of thin books, back in the 70’s iirc, on individual topics of card play. They were outrageously expensive at the time. I’m sure you can find them online, used. They’re aimed at a lower level than the Kelsey books mentioned above.

He also wrote a wonderful book called Killing Defence and its follow-up…More Killing Defence’.

But there are many, many good books out there. Woolstey’s book on Matchpoints deserves its status as classic, and so on.

But I’ll go back to where I came in. Virtually every bridge player beyond the pure novice thinks he or she is better than they are…part of the problem is, I think, that most such players literally have no idea how players better than themselves think! This is true at almost every level. I’m an expert by virtually anyone’s definition of the term but I’m still learning about the game from other experts…one of the pleasant aspects of this game is that WC players are usually happy to share ideas if asked….in Buenos Aires I saw Grue-Moss use what I thought was a great idea, and one I’d never heard of before…so I emailed Grue and he sent me his system notes on that sequence right away. Friends of mine who play a big club method sought advice from Hampson, and he was very generous in his reply, so….put your ego away….talk to the best players you know….sure, ask for explanations or clarifications…but refrain from telling them that they’re wrong, lol. They might be (some local experts aren’t that expert!) but the odds are that they’re more right than you are.

My last comment is that every aspiring player would benefit from a subscription to The Bridge World. It has many good features but if one wants to understand things like hand evaluation and (NA) standard bidding methods, The Master Solvers Club feature is worth the subscription cost by itself.