[kgr]

I misplayed these two hands and I think it should be obvious to play them better.
The play is not expert, but I hope some expert can give me a clue why I'm doing this wrong and how to do this better. In both hands the opps did give me a possibility to make the contract.
Both are buttler.

---

West did lead a small ♥. I decided to play ♥A, play a small ♠ from dummy, hoping West would return another ♥, then playing another ♠ from dummy and hope for an end-play. This worked:
- ♥A
- Small ♠ from dummy for West's ♠K
- ♥ for ♥K
- Small ♠ from dummy winning in hand (East ducked with Axx).
EDIT: I cashed HQ before playing D.
- Small ♦: West took ♦K and I ducked.
- West returned ♦Q.
=> I took ♦Q with the A and played ♣T from dummy. Afterwards I realized that I should have ducked again. Probably I was too convinced that West had ♦KQ.
West had: Kx=xxxx=KQx=KJxx

next deal:

---

West did lead his singleton ♥.
I took the Ace in dummy, played ♣K from dummy taken by West with the ♣A.
West returned a ♣, I took this in hand...
and finished ♠.
I didn't even think to play the 3th ♣ and discard a ♥ from dummy.

Why is my play at the table so much worse then I should be able? I try to focus, but it feels like I could do better. Maybe I'm too lazy .
These two hands came after each other. The hand before I did go down in 3NT with ♥KT opposite ♥Jx, a small ♥ lead and taking the wrong decision. I don't think this mis-decision influenced the play of the above hands, but maybe the disappointment was somehow influencing my focus.

[MrAce]

I did not check hand 2 yet but on hand 1, you give 2 spade +2 diamond tricks so you need to hold your club losers down to 1.

Play as you did including taking the ♦ Q. Now they can not score more than 2 clubs tricks regardless of how clubs divided.

Do not touch clubs, cash your remaining ♥ and exit with your last diamond. now they will have to play clubs themselves, before or after cashing the spade A. Regardless of who wins the 3rd ♦

Say E won 3rd ♦, cashed his spade A, and played a club, you play low from hand incase East has both KJ. Say it did not work and W took it with J, now he is endplayed, will have to play either a club to your AQ hook, or ruff and sluff.

EDIT: Yes ducking the ♦ Q also works, but instead of letting yourself frustrated for not doing it, if you focused you could still recover from it the way i explained above

 kgr, on 2014-March-22, 05:43, said:

Why is my play at the table so much worse then I should be able? I try to focus, but it feels like I could do better. Maybe I'm too lazy .
These two hands came after each other. The hand before I did go down in 3NT with ♥KT opposite ♥Jx, a small ♥ lead and taking the wrong decision. I don't think this mis-decision influenced the play of the above hands, but maybe the disappointment was somehow influencing my focus.

Don't worry, all you need is the attitude you already have (willing to improve) and more practice. I have done much worse of those mistakes, and i have done them A LOT! And i still do mistakes A LOT after 30+ years ! So do others. What you have to accept is that this game is a game of mistakes and who ever makes less, looks good, wins more. This should be the starting point to not let disappointment affect your focus/game. Because if one believes that he/she should not make any mistake then even a small one will distract their focus or motivation during the session, which is the BIGGEST mistake, much bigger than the ones you made in those hands imho. Trust me, you will be fine

[PhilKing]

Hand 1 - win the second diamond, cash the trump and the heart and exit with a diamond. The contract is solid even lacking the ♣9. Elimination 101.

Hand 2 - no one is immune to tilt, and I think you have to accept that was the case here. You see it in every sport however good the player. After a bad board, maybe you should have a routine for mental regrouping (eg the Meckwell bathroom break).

[kgr]

 MrAce, on 2014-March-22, 05:59, said:

I did not check hand 2 yet but on hand 1, you give 2 spade +2 diamond tricks so you need to hold your clubs losers down to 1.

Play as you did including taking the ♦ Q. Now they can not score more than 2 clubs tricks regardless of how clubs divided.

Do not touch clubs, cash your remaining ♥ and exit with your last diamond. now they will have to play clubs themselves, before or after cashing the spade A. Regardless of who wins the 3rd ♦

Say E won 3rd ♦, cashed his spade A, and played a club, you play low from hand incase East has both KJ. Say it did not work and W took it with J, now he is endplayed, will have to play either a club to your AQ hook, or ruff and sluff.

 PhilKing, on 2014-March-22, 06:04, said:

Hand 1 - win the second diamond, cash the trump and the heart and exit with a diamond. The contract is solid even lacking the ♣9. Elimination 101.

True, but ducking the ♦Q if even easier? I wonder why I can't do this at the table

[kgr]

 PhilKing, on 2014-March-22, 06:04, said:

Hand 2 - no one is immune to tilt, and I think you have to accept that was the case here. You see it in every sport however good the player. After a bad board, maybe you should have a routine for mental regrouping (eg the Meckwell bathroom break).

I'm trying to focus on every hand. One of the best tips I saw on BBF was hand visualisation by counting distributions. I try to do that, but in practice I'm only doing this on 1/4th of the hands.
I realize that focus is the best way to improve my bridge, but I'm not doing it good enough

[MrAce]

 PhilKing, on 2014-March-22, 06:04, said:

Hand 1 - win the second diamond, cash the trump and the heart and exit with a diamond. The contract is solid even lacking the ♣9. Elimination 101.

I think he played 2 rounds of trumps already, only trump A is out.

[MrAce]

 kgr, on 2014-March-22, 06:16, said:

I try to do that, but in practice I'm only doing this on 1/4th of the hands.
I realize that focus is the best way to improve my bridge, but I'm not doing it good enough

I edited my post by adding some more stuff.

But as i said there, you need to practice more. You claim you can focus on only 1/4 hands, try to make it 2/4 and then 3/4 and so on. But if you let your emotions affect you each time, just because you can not do it on all 4/4, you are extremely reducing you chances to improve from 1/4 to 2/4 let alone all 4/4.

 PhilKing, on 2014-March-22, 06:04, said:

. After a bad board, maybe you should have a routine for mental regrouping (eg the Meckwell bathroom break).

This is a very good advise. Everyone has their own. For example i remind myself all the matches that we lost, due to me feeling down and making another mistake, just to see later that the board i thought was a disaster actually was a win for us and we lost because of the next board or boards which i butchered. My mind still being stuck in that board which i thought was a disaster. When i remind this to myself, it makes a cold shower effect and i usually move on to the next one in much better shape than i used to.

[MrAce]

 kgr, on 2014-March-22, 06:12, said:

True, but ducking the ♦Q if even easier? I wonder why I can't do this at the table

No, not if W has 5 hearts and 1 less club holding something like Kx xxxxx KQx KJx

Assume you tried to cash 3rd ♥ and East ruffed with A and played a club, which W won and exit with ♦ K, and exit again with ♦ Q if you ducked K

I think you played just fine until you cashed the last ♥

[ggwhiz]

I don't use it myself but if I remember correctly Bridge Master play problems have a feature where say you have a 2-way finesse for a queen but a 100% throw in play as in #1 (with a double club finesse though), the queen moves so you always lose if you take an inferior line.

Perhaps a couple of those with your morning coffee would help with your pattern recognition.

[whereagles]

being able to focus for 3-4 hours is the hardest part of this game.

the good thing is that managing it will gain you a lot of points without having to increase overall skill level