I had a couple of very hot days in New York at the beginning of the week, and then I flew to northern Michigan for a two-week vacation at my friend’s lake house. We’ve been coming up here since middle school; it’s one of my favorite traditions. I’ll be teaching some classes and private lessons from here, but I’m making plenty of space to enjoy myself. One of my friends is teaching his daughter bridge, so hopefully we can find a fourth!
With summer here, I’m struggling to find the balance between studying bridge and letting off some steam and relaxing. I have made working on my bridge game the priority of the year, so I don’t want to just take two weeks off. The Nationals are coming up and I want to be in top form. But am I best served taking a break and recharging the batteries or doubling down on my preparation?
My strategy is to find a happy medium. I’m teaching while I’m away, so that keeps bridge on the brain. I love to read on vacation, and I’m rotating between bridge books and novels. Greg and I are doing lots of work on Cuebids and setting up some set matches. I think it’s the right approach, but I’m far from sure and would love to hear your thoughts.
I noticed that my reports from tournaments have focused on hands where I did something wrong. I’m rather pessimistic by nature, and focusing on mistakes—areas where I need improvement—makes sense to me.
However, I was thinking about this passage from With Winning in Mind: “I see far too many athletes reinforcing their bad performances by thinking and talking about them. Every time you talk about a bad performance, you improve the probability of having another one just like it in the future.” He suggests the “Feast or Forget” technique: when you do something well, reinforce it by saying, “That’s like me!” When you do something bad, forget about it.
But one also needs to be introspective and honest about mistakes so one can learn from them. I’m not sure what the right balance here is. But I do need to take the time to celebrate my successes. So here’s one from a recent game on BBO. (You can follow along with the play if you click the link.)
Thinking of my hand (North) as the Master Hand, I wanted to ruff a club or two. Ideally, I could give up 2 clubs, cash the AK of hearts, ruff 2 clubs, and throw a diamond on the third spade and not have to worry about the jack of diamonds.
The defense at this point was obliging, cashing a second club and breaking the diamonds for me—the ♦9, no less, solving that suit. When West didn’t take the ♦A, they gave me an extra chance. I took the top two hearts and cashed 2 top spades. I had to make a pitch on the third round of spades. It looks natural to hold onto my diamonds—I’m going to use the ♦8 to knock out the ace and set up my king. But I can do that if I stiff the ♦8. And if the ♠J falls, I can pitch the other diamond and then cross-ruff. Which is exactly what happened. +170 was 93% of the matchpoints
I encourage you to share your progress in the comments. We’re all in this together!!
Have a great week.