[Codo]

As others had mentioned before, there are different issues:

1. How to cope with a loss in a hand/round/Segment: Stay focused, don´t care too much about the bad ones, remember their faults and hope that there are more. Stay positive.
For me this is known- but not easy to do. I am surely not as good as I should be in this area.

2. After you lost a match/league/k.o/BB
Get depressed, decide. You are guilty, you did all the errors, you are scum. Or: All others are guilty, esp. partner, teammates, bad luck.
In both cases: Get drunk, think about buying a rope, stop playing bridge. take it serious. It is not just a game. They destroyed you. These lucky bastard.

Some time later (sometimes minutes, sometimes weeks) look over the hands.
See your faults. Get to know that all had been guilty. (At least normally). Maybe it was really bad luck. Maybe you gave all you have and there are better players then you around (unlikely, but possible). Try to beat these lucky bastards next time. Try to be less emotional, more focussed and well prepared.

[Rebound]

I have serious problems with my ability to concentrate, as some here can certainly confirm, so I do make some terrible errors.

I recently went to a local small tournament after not having played much for some time. In a 2-session open mp event, my partner and I managed to be well placed after the first session. In the first two rounds of the second session I grossly misplayed two easy hands. In a swiss on the final day, with a few consecutive victories in hand, my team faced one of the best teams there. At my table, we got off to a great start. I told myself, "All we have to do is avoid a major disaster and we'll win this one." Well, on the last board I singlehandedly created a disaster that resulted in our defeat. I kicked myself around a lot after the game but we had a sweep on the next round. I it was painful, I admit, but it only made me more determined to kick butt next time.

Clearly, the above could not be considered "serious bridge" in the sense that I agree that if you are serious, you need to get a single partner, practice a lot, and play in the toughest events you can find. Unfortunately, I might never reach the level of being able to play "serious bridge" simply because I concentrate so poorly. Playing almost constantly allows for much improvement but I still lose focus too frequently even then. But I take almost any bridge game to be serious in that I want to play my best and I get equally hard on myself then as when playing in competition. I have played with one or two of the posters here and played like I didn't know what I was doing on more than one hand. But I am determined to play as well as I can on each such occasion.

To me, what it comes down to is your own expectations. If you want to win, and if you feel you have the ability, all you need is your own determination to play better bridge next time. Perform activities designed to improve your ability to concentrate. Even if this is away from the bridge table it will improve your game. Accept that you will make mistakes and use them as a learning opportunity. I agree that basic errors like miscounting trump must never happen in serious competition, but that's all down to concentration.

[sathyab]

awm, on Nov 6 2007, 01:25 PM, said:

Typically my goal is to play well in various events; if I feel that I played my best game I'm usually happy even if this didn't result in a first place finish. For national-level pair events, making the final day or placing in the overalls can be a better goal than winning the whole thing.

I've been using the same metric for quite some time, i.e, performance in top-level pair events as a measure of one's progress and also as a goal to aim for, but it's not a universal yardstick by any means. I frequently attend Nationals which my regular partners don't. When I look for new partnerships, it's always the same question I have "Tell me about your recent performace at the Nationals". On the other hand, quite a few of them aren't impressed by my 1500 MP's, for it places them in lower brackets in events like Spingold and Vanderbilt which seed teams. I tell them I didn't have the time or the inclination to attend all the Bracket VII KOs in all those regionals to accumulate MP's by the bushels.

Some day instead of an aggregate number of MPs and BRP Q's, they'd tell us how many Blue Ribbon Pair Qualifiers you acquired in Open events like Pair events or Open Swiss teams versus Bracketed KOs.

[sathyab]

Yogeshdg, on Nov 8 2007, 08:41 PM, said:

You drink a bottle of wine,go to bed and wake up the next morning for a fresh start.

Reminds me of a signature in an ex-colleague's e-mails, a quote attributed to Napolean. "Have champagne, in victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it" !