Yardstick, Focus, and Balance

I have been so busy that blogging was slow for a while. I also found that doing so much thinking about performance enhancing techniques was taking my mind off bridge when I was playing. So for a while, I was just doing my own “getting better at bridge”. So looking at various aspects of the zone, here are a couple of things that worked for me.

Clear achievable goal:

"This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men”-- Captain J. A. Hadfield

For quite a while, I was very concerned about being accepted as a bridge player. Having not started as a youth and being a woman means you have no status. You practically don't exist in the world of bridge. Iit bothers me so very much , such that for a while, my only goal was recognition that I am in fact full fledged (brain and all) player. I found this was very much getting in the way of playing well at the bridge table, especially playing the last matches of an event. Having let go of that goal, I can now focus on what I can change, so my goal is clear: Become an oustanding player in my own eyes only. It is also achievable and it gives me that very important sens of control (Zone) as it does not depend on anyone else (neither partner, nor would-be-not partners, nor teammates, nor opponents).... More later on how I measure this..

Focus:

"Chess demands total concentration and a love for the game." -- Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fisher quotes link, compliments of Sartaj

Regaining concentration after an unsettling incident: Here is something that seem to work for me. One of the techniques I researched was using a word as mantra for relaxing your mind after something takes your composure away. I tried using various words related to bridge and others, like stop or cards.. but did not find them very effective.

Not long ago, I found that taking a MEANINGLESS word which I liked the sound of was exactly what I needed. I can now relax by repeating that word 3 or 4 times at most. It seems to enable me to think about NOTHING for a few seconds. Then I can redirect. My word does not mean anything, but it does roll of my tongue and my mind in a rounded kind of way, very nicely.

Balance between ability level and challenge:

As I don't get that many opportunities to play, I started playing with a robot. My aim was to practice:

• declarer play
• card reading
• focus styles

The robot gives me the time to study hands in more depth (robots don’t become impatient). It also give me difficult hands to play because I rarely end up in the contract I should be in. Something to do with robot style bidding which is not my forte. Becoming an outstanding player would mean I can hold my own in a world championship, so I have to work on these technical skills where I find myself lacking in: focus style, visualising hand patterns more clearly, knowing card combinations in advance, some areas of bidding where I am still unsure. The good thing is that bridge technical skills are actually not that complex. Well calculating probabilities is more difficult than making coffee, but fortunately the number of hands where complex probabilities really matters are not that frequent.

The only topic relevant to this blog is the focus style. So I expect to cover more of this in the future.