[FrancesHinden]

I've been thinking about why bridge partnerships split up, or more particularly why they can stay together for years. I have a theory about the most common reason for break-ups, but I only have limited evidence to back it up.

I'm writing an article on partnerhips for a local bridge newsletter and I want to use the results of the poll in it.

Based on your experience, why do bridge partnerships break up?

(
comments -

I don't want to include professional players who change teams/partners due to a better financial offer, but I would be including clients who decide to stop playing with a particular pro

"Non-bridge" also includes someone falling in love with a different player and changing partners to play with them; or when a bridge player sleeps with their partner's spouse

Different objectives also includes the amount of time/work they are prepared to put into the game, to practise, to discuss system etc
)

[mikeh]

I have been a part of several attempts at serious partnerships, and my experiences have included:

1. the two players evolved in skill at a different rate.. primarily due to willingness to work at the game, but also due to temperament. One of us (me) wanted to move on. My former partner has essentially dropped out of the game.. nothing to do with me

2. work commitments

3. loss of interest after attaining success but then having two bad experiences....both partners were depressed after years of effort led to disappointment. This partnership may be reviving, but on the basis that we will not work as hard at the game... while we hope to play some good bridge, it will no longer be a top priority in our lives, as it was between 1995-2000.

[Rossoneri]

Having played for only 5 years so far, these are my experiences:
- My first regular partner was the one who really brought me up to speed and taught me a lot, sadly after half a year or so, he had to come over to the UK due to some issues. We still enjoy playing together online though, and we partnered each other whenever he returned for holidays. Now that I am in the UK as well, our barrier is still physical as he's in U of Cambridge and I'm in U of Warwick...

- The other regular partner I had after that gave up and dropped out of the game, partially because I was a bit demanding, but mainly because he realised that playing at a relatively high level was just too stressful on him. He has since stopped playing.

- The last partner that I played with on a regular enough basis before I left Singapore had work commitments hindering him mainly. The other problem on my side was that there was a bit of a skill level mismatch, though that was mainly a consequence of him not having enough time to dedicate to practice.

Hope this helps! I would personally be interested to see the conclusions of your "study" as well.

[helene_t]

One real-life p and probably also one or two bbo ps sacked me because I was not good enough.

Two real-life p's and one bbo p I sacked because of temperament issues, mainly ethics.

Three real-life p's I lost when I moved to England. OK I still play with all of them on rare occasions.

One bbo p I sacked because his motive for being on BBO was to chase women (yeah I am paranoi, I know)

One bbo p with whom I used to play a lot I haven't played with for more than a year. I think it's mainly a time-zone thing.

[ArtK78]

I have had several long-term partnerships and some that looked like they would be long-term but ended prior to reaching that point.

In my long-term partnerships, the partnerships either have continued or, in two cases, they ended due to my partner moving away. These moves predated internet bridge, and neither of these former partners participates online. In one case, I have played with a former partner on a few widely-scattered occasions when one of us managed to travel to the other's locale. In the other case, the former partner moved cross-country and gave up the game for a considerable period of time. I see that he plays with his wife occasionally at NABCs and in the World Mixed Pairs, but I haven't seen him in many years.

There have been a few partnerships that I have started with the intention of forming a long-term partnership, but it became apparent after several months that there were some philosophical differences that were impossible to overcome.

My longest-lasting partnership to date is still in existence, but my partner is spending more and more time playing with his son, who is a developing player. So while he and I play frequently online, our live bridge dates are becoming less frequent.

[jdonn]

I think the most common reason is lifestyle change for one person. Marriage, new job, moved somewhere. There are certainly a number of possible bridge related reasons, but I thnk that's less common.

[awm]

Real life getting in the way might be most frequent. People move away, people have changing work or family or health commitments which force them to spend less time on bridge.

What I've noticed happening a lot though, is a sort of "drift." Most people maintain more than one partnership (quite possibly more than one serious partnership). Say A+B are a pair, but for whatever reason B is unavailable to play in some upcoming big event. So A asks C to play, they play together some beforehand to practice, do reasonably well in the big event and have a good time. So now A+C are a partnership. They play together on and off, maybe friends try to get both of them for a team, and thus A is playing with B less and less. Likely sometime during this process B tries to get A for something, finds out she is already playing with C, and then asks D to play...

So it's not the case that the A+B partnership was ever formally ended, but they both now have other partners and tend to play more frequently with them. They might still play occasionally together.

Certainly for "short-term" partnerships it is frequent to end because of style issues (too aggressive, different bidding system, etc) but usually if a pair has played together a bunch already these issues won't break them up.

[whereagles]

Mostly, stuff builds up because of the lack of self-cricticism and then a particular hand comes up which causes the rupture.

[jdonn]

whereagles, on Dec 1 2008, 05:28 PM, said:

Mostly, stuff builds up because of the lack of self-cricticism and then a particular hand comes up which causes the rupture.

Lol. I'm so glad we have you around

[kfay]

I've only been involved in one partnership breakup I would say and that was the result of several factors which include but aren't limited to:

Difference in bidding style. He's a gadget freak, I'm not.

Difference in skill level. When I first started playing with him I was much worse but now I feel like I could be in a different world from him, but only if I play with other people who are better than me now.

Difference in attitude. He was often negative and would get pretty hostile over bad results.



For my answer to the poll I said 'difference in bidding style' but I'd also say 'difference in temperament'. These, like JDonn said, are really just kind of issues for partnerships that haven't been together for years. Who knows why they break up. Presumably it's a mixture of some personal issues and maybe something like having an elite team in sports hire a new coach because, even though they make it to the league finals every year they don't win.... they're just trying to get over the hump.

Difference in skill level I don't feel like is a huge issue. I still play with friends of mine even though they are complete novices because they're my friends. Would I form a serious partnership with them? No. But I'd play with them in some tournaments for fun.

[mikeh]

I am going to add to my original list.

When my most successful (and most labour-intensive....which is no coincidence) partnership ended, I started another with a very strong player.. who has become a very good friend. We enjoyed some success, losing the finals of our team trials by 14 imps our first year, but I eventually realized, about two years into the partnership, that I was still in mourning for the loss of the earlier partnership. Every time we had a questionable result, I inevitably worked out how my former partnership would have handled the hand, and always (often erroneously) felt that we would have done better. I found myself criticizing partner at the table... very unfairly. So I told him that I was having real issues with my approach to the game and that he should find another partner, which he did. We still play casually: I play more often with him than with anyone else, and we have remained good friends.

My wife told me that she could see this anger building in me during the relevant time and that I was grieving the loss of the former partnership... I rejected that idea at the time but eventually recognized that she was correct. And, I regained much of my enjoyment of the game once that happened.

[Sadie3]

My first real partnership ended when my husband overheard my "partner" talk to some other bridge players about how he was trying to teach me and to be patient with me. I was crushed. That partnership had lasted about two and a half years of which a significant portion was online where we had taught each other 2/1 with over 50 pages of typed partnership notes and agreements. We were an East Coast/ West Coast partnership and experienced moderate success in that our 2nd regional we won a blue ribbon qual in an open pairs event. Our third regional was the end of our partnership. Both of us had returned to playing bridge after at least a 25 year leave for career and families.

My second partnership ended when my partner succumbed to a long term illness and I truly miss this partnership. Our partnership agreements were less intensive but much more solid than my first attempt at a partnership.

My third partnership ended mutually. My partner was (still is) a wonderful teacher and good friend and enjoys bringing newer players up to speed. When he is in teaching mode, he plays his best.

I play with several good players and a couple of them are in the "possible regular partner" category but I do not think I have found the right one yet.

[han]

I voted for non-bridge.

I'm not very comfortable discussing bridge partnership break-ups on a public forum to be honest, perhaps an indication that I take this game too seriously.

[FrancesHinden]

han, on Dec 2 2008, 12:03 AM, said:

I voted for non-bridge.

I'm not very comfortable discussing bridge partnership break-ups on a public forum to be honest, perhaps an indication that I take this game too seriously.

To be clear, I wasn't necessarily asking for your own bridge partnership experience, but your observations of other people as well. I know of more partnerships that have broken up, and why, than just ones I've been part of.

Sometimes the 'why' can be difficult to find out if they aren't good friends (or the grapevine isn't working that well). Hence the poll.

[kenrexford]

In my experience, the most common reason is stylistic or skill. I have seen a large number of partnerships (I have been in them myself) where two players have divergent styles and perhaps also divergent skill levels. At first, the two compliment each other. Over time, however, the differences start to magnify. For example, the agressive bidder might become more aggressive because he or she is shocked by the "contant underbidding by partner." The conservative bidder, in contrast, become more conservative, shocked by the "constant overbidding by partner." Other differences have the same type of development.

[TimG]

I wonder what it takes to make a bridge partnership, at least for your purposes. If I play with someone off and on for a few months and nothing ever comes of the partnership, was there a partnership break-up or did it never really form?

I think partnerships fail to form primarily because of bridge reasons, be they different skill, different style, preferred system, different objectives, different temperament (which is sometimes a good thing), etc. But, that once partnerships form, the non-bridge reasons (family/relationship, career, geographic move, etc.) predominate.

[blackshoe]

Mostly non-bridge reasons, from what I've seen. Sometimes differences in temperament or skill.

[Cascade]

I think the answer might depend significantly on the experience of the players.

For less experienced players then skill level would be a major factor. The partnership may have started off with similar skill levels but one partner or the other progresses at a different rate. I know of several partnerships that have ceased with one member progressing to a higher level and the other content playing at a lower level.

For more experienced and better players with less difference in skill level and less room for improvement skill level is a lesser factor. As far as I am aware I have not stopped playing with any regular partner in nearly 20 years because of skill level. I think factors outside bridge are much more likely to cause a break up with this group. Although style and other at the table issues unrelated to skill can obviously cause a break-up. These factors do affect weaker players too.

[jdeegan]

One partnership principle espoused in my part of the world by our leading local player of the day, Oswald Jacoby, is the pitcher-catcher notion. The good and stable partnership consisted of one of each - a temperament matter. The pitcher creates most of the action, and the catcher helps field it - I hope the analogy also makes sense in Cricket.

This doesn't mean the pitcher is or even need be the better player. Jake liked to gamble on MP pair events. In his later years he formed a partnership with a (then) 20 something local girl. Taught her to play. Then bet the two could beat all comers in tournament pairs events. She, as you can imagine, developed into a very good player, and Jake won a lot of money and had a lot of fun gambling.

Later on, I formed an occasional partnership with the same woman with me in the pitcher's (Jake's) role - now there is a dropoff in skill level for you!. Even so, our bridge chemistry has been exceptional, and our tournament win percentage over the years has been remarkable in regional and large sectional events and, I think, reflects this. I must admit that it sometimes feels odd to be the pitcher in a partnership where one's partner is so much the better bridge player - my first encounter with a steppingstone squeeze (not identified by name at the time) was at the table when she apologized for having missed one on the hand she had just finished playing.

[paulg]

I was never very involved with the elite when I lived in England so I was unaware of how much partnership change occurred, but it always appeared pretty small.

Then I moved to Scotland. Here, the elite players (who are probably not quite so elite) have a very high level of churn in partnerships. It is how I imagine the professional scene works, except that there are no professionals! Players make agreements to play for one or two seasons, and then everyone gets on the merry go-round and finds a new partnership.

Reasons for change appear to be boredom, commitment to the game, external commitments and realising that partner is a complete idiot. The latter is normally mutual and the principal cause.

Paul