Dubious Logic

When things go wrong...

Bridge: why do you play so badly? Or, something I should know a lot more about, why do I play so badly? I'm sure we've all had the experience; not just an isolated accident but of a sort of mental quicksand from which one is unable to escape. You're playing in your usual circle but you fail in contracts you should make, miss chances to defeat the opponents… or you're in a match against a local opposition who hold you in high regard but here you are, IMPs adrift with boards running out… Disaster follows disaster, poor results compound, even minor triumphs seem a long way off.

How does it happen?

Of course there are extraneous factors you can blame - fortunately you have a partner for such things. There's some truth in this of course. Ever notice that when a session 'in the tunnel' is over, how partners commiserate with each other; they both played badly. Mistakes are infectious. You only have to remember the rash of dropped catches in the first test match of the summer – once two or three went down, it became a habit. Pressure makes itself felt, so does tiredness. Playing bridge tired is strange but perhaps it's the same as working tired or driving tired – but at least you can look back upon it objectively (and safely). The strange thing is that when you realise you're tired and compensate, taking extra time, double checking, staying out of tight situations, you're doing better. It's before then that you were dangerous; dulled and forgetful, slipshod with your calculations – you have to realise stamina is a factor before the eyelids start slamming shut.

Playing under extra pressure – against opponents you don't like or after a bad result (or several) – has the same effect. The key words in the game are concentration and focus. Even if you are playing well you will, from time to time, have to defend against lucky contracts and declare poor ones. You have to keep focus not just to scrounge what you can from the deal in question but from those that follow. Perhaps you'd like to "play this hand for me":

You don't get to play four spades; you must attempt six. The lead is the club six which, given East bid the suit, may well be a singleton. There's not much to be done if it is and you are quickly put out of your misery when you play low from dummy, South wins the queen and returns the deuce, North ruffing. That's one down. North exits with a heart to dummy's king. What now?

Would it have done you any good to have won the club ace at trick one?

Stop! Even if it would you're not allowed to take you moves back so stop wasting time, effort and emotional resource even thinking about it. I'm sure if you were in four spades you'd have no problem from here. With North having ruffed, even if he started with four spades, you can now ruff a club high, draw trumps ending in dummy and take the rest of the tricks. And that would have been worth something. A few points on this deal (I can't bear to say what I did but I justly got none at all) but it would have kept some sense of internal order, maybe prevented the downward spiral. And partner, who had propelled you to this level, might reflect (though the contract was horrible) that on a better day it might have made and keep his optimism intact if nothing else.

Published Saturday 27.May.2006