[llorton]

This was originally posted in a slightly different form on the Reddit subforum for bridge where it received, for that forum, a goodly number of responses. I much rather play F2F but I've decided to play on BBO to get a wider experience.
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I am a relatively new and only semi-experienced bridge player. I had some idea of the mechanics of bidding and play of the hand from years before when I had enough time to play rubber bridge. About 18 months ago I started re-learning bridge, duplicate bridge this time.

Bidding seemed a bit more approachable; there is a set of accepted bids and rules how to use them. Bidding seemed quite complex but more organized, requiring to learn and use at least a basic set of bidding conventions – and so I set out to do that.

Most beginners of my acquaintance seem to emphasize learning how to bid. Learning conventions seems easier and useful but the reality is that in any afternoon’s play, the more arcane situations that need all these bids occur rarely – and thus the importance of many conventions is marginal. The play of the hand seemed much more mysterious. There are some much smaller set of ‘set plays’ - finesses, throw-ins, squeeze plays, etc. - but rather than being easier than bidding, hand play seemed to be a much more mysterious and arcane art - certainly less understandable.

And that’s how it turned out.

There are almost an infinite number of distribution patterns possible for the 52 cards to be distributed in the four bridge hands – and even the declarer has knowledge of only a part of these cards. So the declarer must infer the pattern of distribution of the opponents cards from the opponents bidding or lack of it and the play of the hand. And then base the play of the hand on that inferred knowledge. Play of the hand is much more difficult to understand and apply than the rather clear-cut situation of using conventions.

So, for the last few months, I’ve spent a good deal of time on learning to infer my opponents holdings from what they say (by using Mike Lawrence’s books) and recognizing the patterns in card distribution and applying some knowledge of play of the hand (by studying Root’s “How to Play a Bridge Hand” and “How to Defend a Bridge Hand”).


It seems to me that the ability to bid and to play relies on knowledge and skills that quickly become an unobservable part of one's card playing ability. There is a huge gulf that must be crossed between biginner and solid intermediate and this gulf doesn't have clear cut paths. Even worse there are millions of questions that occur to players crossing that gulf that almost defy simple answers. I often read question and answer pairs in this sub-forum, which is devoted to novice and beginner, that are incomprehensible.

In the book 'Thinking Fast and Slow', Daniel Kahneman posits that any person eventually integrates any oft-repeated action, either mental or physical, into mental shortcuts that don't require conscious thought. Think of how a skilled tennis player can see a ball coming, run to a specific spot and execute a beautiful, perfectly directed return, while an unskilled beginner will still be consciously adjusting their hand grip. The expert player's abilities are casually thought of as 'muscle memory' but obviously the collected abilities that coordinate the messages from signals to the eyes to the parts of the CNS that control muscles and the actual responses of the muscles are not stored in the muscles but somewhere deep in the central nervous system as quickly accessible shortcuts.

As any bridge player integrates knowledge of patterns and experiences into their brain, they can much more easily and quickly recognize what is meant by bids, how to play a hand and - most importantly - a skilled player really forgets just how far he or she has come in understanding what is going on. Often I see very new declarers see the dummy go down and they sit just frozen without any idea how to proceed while we, with even just some few months of experience can 'see' how to manage the contract. The enormous gulf between beginners and even skilled intermediate players becomes invisible to the skilled intermediates because they have integrated the necessary knowledge into their cns.

Even on this this novice-beginner forum on BBO more experienced players attempt to help out but the answers too fiten quickly escalate into, what is for me, an incomprehensible mass of jargon and references that I, as a decent beginner, just cannot make heads or tales of. This isn't a situation of not knowing what one doesn't know but, conversely, an situation of skilled and intermediate players not realizing how incredibly much a good intermediate player does know and the knowledge gulf between them and an advancing player.

This is why the books by Mike Lawrence are so useful to me. He teaches the actual steps in analysis of recognizing what is going on. He teaches how to think. Bill Root's book on play of the hand similarly attempts to teach how to think about hand play. His chapter One is 19 pages of description and analysis how to recognize patterns of distribution and how to manage their play. I can't count how many times I've gone over those same 19 pages to try to assimilate those unnamed patterns so I can quickly recognize them in the few seconds after the dummy cards go down.

Learning and playing bridge is hard exercise for my central nervous system.

[ASC87]

I read this on Reddit. I am also interested in the neurocognitive evidence of Bridge. I wrote a piece in a local magazine about how Bridge demands strategic thinking, memory, and social skills. It's fascinating to see how it engages multiple cognitive processes that can stimulate neural pathways related to problem-solving and planning. At the same time, the partnership aspect of the game encourages social interaction and emotional regulation.


Source: Spades, synapses, society: the link between Neuroscience and Bridge
Neuroscience shows Bridge challenges strategic thinking, problem-solving, planning, & cognitive flexibility
https://tribune.com....ence-and-bridge

[blackshoe]

Declarer play is hard; defense is harder. Bidding is, generally, easier than both.

On bidding, as a beginner I would start with a basic system with few conventional agreements. Learn how to bid "naturally". Basic conventions: the takeout double and Stayman. Next level: Jacoby and Texas Transfers. Go slow. Make sure you know what you're doing with any convention you add before you add more. Consider not just the initial conventional bid, but all of the follow-ons, including what to do about interference.

There are many books on play and defense. The Root books are excellent. So are books by Eddie Kantar. Andrew Garnett's Defensive Communications: An Advancing Player's Guide to Leads and Signals is the only book on defense that I've seen that gives complete examples, trick by trick, of the play of an entire hand and the signals given at each trick.

[jillybean]

 llorton, on 2024-October-24, 09:11, said:

Even on this this novice-beginner forum on BBO more experienced players attempt to help out but the answers too fiten quickly escalate into, what is for me, an incomprehensible mass of jargon and references that I, as a decent beginner, just cannot make heads or tales of. This isn't a situation of not knowing what one doesn't know but, conversely, an situation of skilled and intermediate players not realizing how incredibly much a good intermediate player does know and the knowledge gulf between them and an advancing player.

In any thread you will often see the discussion morphing into complex, idocentric treatments and methods.
While it’s good to note there is a better version of Jacoby, It would be best for the discussions to concentrate on what the average club player is playing, not tournament players.
Play of the hand is difficult, everything in this game is difficult. I like the bridge master practice hands on BBO to test my play.

I do think it is useful, vital perhaps, that you review the hands with you partner. Posting hands on here where you didn’t get to the best contract is good , especially if the responders are reminded to stick to basic systems.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

[thepossum]

Disclaimer. I am nobody
I always get anxious commenting on such threads but you have me hooked
Firstly much neurocognitive benefit of Bridge is confounded by the social - that's for real bridge, but even online I guess
For me evidence suggests that Bridge ( along with other such pursuits in life) I need to have considerable knowledge and experience without worrying about too many details, go with the flow, let the brain act freely, and hope nobody or nothing interferes with thought processes. Suggesting possibly very high order cognitive functions easily disrupted
Everyone knows 1) I am not an expert to give advice, just experienced in something and 2) I hate filling my head with unnecessary complications and think things are more about experience and feel
Like I feel I am quite good at judging hand patterns now. My results even possibly back me up. But could I explain why I thought that. I doubt it. let alone write a book on patterns
Caused me problems in all kinds of disciplines. Firstly hoping for a nice set of rules and steps to follow. And secondly being able to explain my thought processes
It is very easily disrupted for me. All manner of things can destroy any chance of thinking/feeling a hand through properly
My limited cognitive theroetical knoweldge on anything is to fill my head with stuff without trying to process it too hard, then just do stuff and eventually the brain will train itself. Or do I mean the mind
I actually enjoy defence most because the responsibility of declarer often causes enough anxiety to damage cgnitive processes, and dummy is often boring except for an occasional break and chance to relax
I know I am nobody, certainly no expert. But have a life experience in many complex fields requiring huge experience and judgement. Overcomplicaton can kill it
My bias was that any alleged benefits are social. What limited research I could find in a brief question to ChatGPT backed up that hypothesis
And I should disclaim that social benefits require a friendly group of people round a table too

[thepossum]

 thepossum, on 2024-October-28, 06:32, said:

Disclaimer. I am nobody
I always get anxious commenting on such threads but you have me hooked
Firstly much neurocognitive benefit of Bridge is confounded by the social - that's for real bridge, but even online I guess
For me evidence suggests that Bridge ( along with other such pursuits in life) I need to have considerable knowledge and experience without worrying about too many details, go with the flow, let the brain act freely, and hope nobody or nothing interferes with thought processes. Suggesting possibly very high order cognitive functions easily disrupted
Everyone knows 1) I am not an expert to give advice, just experienced in something and 2) I hate filling my head with unnecessary complications and think things are more about experience and feel
Like I feel I am quite good at judging hand patterns now. My results even possibly back me up. But could I explain why I thought that. I doubt it. let alone write a book on patterns
Caused me problems in all kinds of disciplines. Firstly hoping for a nice set of rules and steps to follow. And secondly being able to explain my thought processes
It is very easily disrupted for me. All manner of things can destroy any chance of thinking/feeling a hand through properly
My limited cognitive theroetical knoweldge on anything is to fill my head with stuff without trying to process it too hard, then just do stuff and eventually the brain will train itself. Or do I mean the mind
I actually enjoy defence most because the responsibility of declarer often causes enough anxiety to damage cgnitive processes, and dummy is often boring except for an occasional break and chance to relax
I know I am nobody, certainly no expert. But have a life experience in many complex fields requiring huge experience and judgement. Overcomplicaton can kill it
My bias was that any alleged benefits are social. What limited research I could find in a brief question to ChatGPT backed up that hypothesis
And I should disclaim that social benefits require a friendly group of people round a table too - sorry just my training, knowledge, experience and hypothesis - without being a so-called expert

[pescetom]

 blackshoe, on 2024-October-27, 16:58, said:

Declarer play is hard; defense is harder. Bidding is, generally, easier than both.

On bidding, as a beginner I would start with a basic system with few conventional agreements. Learn how to bid "naturally". Basic conventions: the takeout double and Stayman. Next level: Jacoby and Texas Transfers. Go slow. Make sure you know what you're doing with any convention you add before you add more. Consider not just the initial conventional bid, but all of the follow-ons, including what to do about interference.

There are many books on play and defense. The Root books are excellent. So are books by Eddie Kantar. Andrew Garnett's Defensive Communications: An Advancing Player's Guide to Leads and Signals is the only book on defense that I've seen that gives complete examples, trick by trick, of the play of an entire hand and the signals given at each trick.

Hmm. I envy US players the Andrew Garnett book, unfortunately Italian players have no such equivalent despite a richer set of signals.
As for your order of difficulty, not so sure.

It is certainly easier to reach a level of recognized competence first in bidding, then Declare play, last in Defence.
But the mean level of bidding in clubs is low and the need to be understood by whatever partner is available is more important than the ability to learn or merely practice more profitable agreements.
Competent Declarer play is easier to learn than competent Defence, but in the long run all players with any hope become competent at Defence whereas few become excellent in Declarer play.
Nevertheless one defends half the time, so any experienced player is going to look fairly good and attract partners.
Ultimately most of this is academic, but if one is ambititious then top level events are decided more on bidding than anything else, given the uniformly high level of defence and the limited opportunities for superior Declarer play. In my experience those with innate bidding skills tend to find defence both tedious and difficult to master, so motivation and focus are particularly important here.

[akwoo]

I'm not a top level player, but I give up on average around a board and a half (e.g. half a board 3 times) every session on defensive mistakes (not bad guesses; actual mistakes). Yes - I got this number by going over hands afterwards, and I'm not counting mistakes too subtle for me to understand.

Cutting those out, and the declaring mistakes as well, would be enough to make me a top level player, though not at a level to actually win the top events (rather than being somewhat competitive in them).

I don't play enough to know when to bid 5 over 5, which is where the big bidding swings come from.

[blackshoe]

akwoo, on 2024-October-28, 19:10, said:

I don't play enough to know when to bid 5 over 5, which is where the big bidding swings come from.

Just remember that the five level belongs to Nigel Guthrie (who unfortunately passed away a while back).

[jillybean]

 blackshoe, on 2024-October-29, 20:15, said:

Just remember that the five level belongs to Nigel Guthrie (who unfortunately passed away a while back).

 nige1, on 2022-May-11, 18:02, said:

mikeh 'Imps. Friendly team game. You and partner are the strongest pair in the game, but your opps have 20,000+ mps so are not by any stretch weak players. You pick up 853 AKJ2 A95 754. Edit: partner deals, nobody vulnerable, and opens 1D. RHO passes. You respond 1H, LHO bids 1S and partner makes a support double, passed to you. Your style is to open almost all 11 counts, but his support double wasn't mandatory if he has a really bad hand. Jxx xxx KJxx AQx would open but usually pass over 1S. Our 1N opening would have been 14-16. So he will often have around 12-13 hcp, but could have more with some shape. With your 12 hcp you're certainly interested in game but xxx in spades is not good, and 3433 shape isn't great either. The lack of a raise in spades is a little worrying, suggesting spade values for partner, but west may have extra length and/or strength. At this point, you may belong anywhere from 2D to 3N to 4H. You want to involve partner, but how?
1N is often the best call even with no stopper in a suit bid by the opps. Partner would show his support before bidding 1N: say QJx Qxx KJxxx Ax. But 1N is a big underbid even ignoring the obvious spade flaw. It's how you'd bid with Kxx Kxxx Jxx Kxx. 2N has the same stopper flaw, only worse: while 1N needn't promise a stopper, I think 2N pretty much has too. It's right on values but too misleading on stoppers. 2D is too little and risks playing in a weak 4-3 fit (with 4333, he'd open 1C so he has at least 4 diamonds). He will always pass 2D unless he has a big hand…more than you'd need for game. 3D is about right on values but short on diamonds. It's main upside is that it may encourage him to bid 3N.

So how about 3H? Many bridge players have an unwarranted aversion to moysian (4-3) fits, but sometimes they are the best fit possible. 3H doesn't invite 3N as much as does 3D, since partner will think we have 5+ hearts, but it's right on strength. And it may well be the best game.
So you bid 3H.

P 4H all pass
You await dummy with interest


The opening lead is the spade Ace, suggesting the King. RHO plays a low spot. They play udca but it's not clear what this is supposed to suggest. LHO switches to the diamond 6. We're in a decent contract. I could ruff a spade or two but I have entry issues and a trump worry. Ideally I'd like to run diamonds at some point, but this shift could be a stiff. It can't hurt to win this in hand. Small from dummy and RHO produces the expected 10. I can afford to lose a diamond ruff so long as LHO is ruffing a loser, not an honour. Plus if he does ruff, that might usefully shorten his trump. So at trick 3 you play a second diamond…to which you're pleased to see LHO follow, completing a high-low.
If the heart Queen is onside, no more than 4 times, we can pull trump and run the minor winners, making an overtrick without even bothering to ruff a spade. So it seems right to run the heart 10. It holds, with neither opp playing anything but a low spot.

What now? You could finesse again. If RHO has Qxxxx you ruff a spade, and play diamonds, pitching a spade when he ruffs in. You will score 3 diamonds you let him ruff a second time), a spade ruff, the top clubs and 4 trump in your hand, so would survive. Meanwhile, you make 11 tricks otherwise if the heart Queen is onside. But this is imps. You've reached an excellent 4-3 game, and while they may match it at the other table, this is the sort of hand where non-experts can struggle. So you stop to ask yourself the most important question there is when it looks as if things are going well: what could go wrong?

What if LHO has Qxxx in trump? You lose the second finesse and back comes a spade, forcing you to ruff in dummy. You have no entry back to your hand to draw trump. You cash a top diamond and LHO ruffs, cashes a spade and exits a club. You are in dummy with void void xx Axx opposite in hand void AK void xxx. You've lost 3 tricks. You could ruff a diamond high, pull the last trump, but now you have a club loser. And playing clubs let's LHO score a ruff.

This takes a little time but it can be time well spent…..or not, should the heart Queen be onside. Can we deal with Qxxx offside? After the heart 10 held the trick, come to the heart Ace, both following. Now play a diamond.
- LHO can ruff, but if he returns a heart to bstop the spade ruff, we have 4 trump, 4 diamonds and the club AK. If he gives us the ruff, we simply play another diamond winner, pitching our last spade. He scores two trumps and a spade but we have the rest.
- If he plays a club, we win in dummy and play another diamond, driving out his last trump while preserving a spade ruff. Note that we're safe if hearts were 3-3 all along.
- If RHO has Qxxx in hearts, we embark on the same approach…we run diamonds through him. He could pitch spades, but once LHO fails to ruff a diamond, we're in complete control. I will leave the details to the reader.

+++++++++++++++++++
Thank you Mike
3♥ deserves the bidding Brilliancy prize
A lesson in imaginative bidding and delicate declarer-play

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