Lucky works for me

I was musing some time back on the topic of luck, the fickle mistress of the bridge player: She comes when she pleases. Along of the side of luck.

My club game was going along, not very well at all. I had been sitting iddle for a while, and I was waiting for the cards that gave me an opportunity to raise our score.

Then came this hand. Not worth to give as a problem.  It is not partificularly difficut, though I guess our opponents did not think so at the time.

The play was

S5 S2 S9 ST

S4 S8 SK C2  (upside down attitude signal as it turned out)

For lack of a better plan

D7 4 6 9

C3 5 K A

And that was the end of the hand. I played DA and a D and W returned JC but  had to give me a major suit trick in the end.

Well I could not wait to see where the C9 was to tell you the truth.

So the morale of the story is: luck come in all sorts of shape, defensive errors, lucky lie of the cards... But you have to be there to collect it. And then being there, make sure you give it the opportunity.

Adventures at the club

Bridge can be fun at the local club.
I was dummy on the hand, and partner tried her best to make the hand.  It was certainly highly entertaining.

The contract is 4♥ . Your go:

♣ J 6 3 A

♣ 4 T 9 7
♦ 3 8 5 2    

☻ (This is what happened at the table so I am going along. But if you put up the T, that will hold)

As for me, I will be maybe doing some vugraph for the Australian playoffs in a couple of weeks.

I also did that last year for the women  playoff . You would never know that counting to 13 could be such a challenge. Australia seems to have lost its touch. (Well apologies to my australian audience, but think about it before getting offended).

I must say that playing in any final can be tiring and players are bound to make a higher number of mistakes then.

Which comes back to my earlier post:

Have plenty of sleep when you play in a tournament, because if you end up fighting for the top spot, you want to be the one who is still awake.

(There is a this fun post on bridgetopics. worth a read for sure What Bocci has to say)

The best advice I have received

My earlier post brought 2 things to mind: 2 things that were at play on that club game, on the hand I posted in the previous post.
In quest my quest to become a better player, I have always welcomed the advice of others, especially if the others have demonstrated serious performance skills.

The first one was given earlier in my bridge life. It made sense then, but nowhere like it does today.
So that most important advice was given by Tim Seres, at the matchpoint pairs event in Surfers where my partner, after making a great deceptive play, lost his focus and played the wrong card.
Tim said:
"Concentration is the most important thing to improve. It takes work, it takes practice. Learn to concentrate on the cards, to not let anyting distract you, practice at every game you play, until it become second nature. It took me years of work, day after day."

Those whose have witnessed Tim play can vouch for it ability to remain unruffled. His talent was immense but most noticeable was the fact that he never wavered. His deameanor remained the same regardless of outcome.

The second advice was not given directly to me. It was more a case of a player telling me about something he had done systematically in a bid to improve his performance. Nonetheless it  made its mark and the impact on me has been huge.
For every hand you play, whether you are defending or declaring, assign a hypothetical shape to the opponents. If you are defending, assign a shape to declarer. If you are defending, start by assigning a shape to tle player on lead". This is something that you have to keep doing until it becomes second nature

And of course, be sure to readjust your thinking as more information becomes available :)