[xcurt]

keylime, on Apr 13 2009, 01:30 PM, said:

I think what makes Larry and I function so well, is that there's a genuine friendship, and we are each other's favorite partner.

Besides that, our style is so similar.

Both of these matter a lot.

There was one very good player I tried to play with. We played a pair game where we doubled the opponents, making, on about a quarter of the hands. We pretty much realized it wasn't going to work out right then.

Also, I find I cannot play well unless I'm rooting for partner to make the right play every time he/she has a tough decision. An infrequent partner once commented to me that she felt I got good results with people like <$a_specific_random_player> because I was easy to play with and really wanted partner to do well. I had never understood before how much you can depress your partner's apparent skill level by making things difficult for him or her. So I would add that a number of breakups are the outcome of a lot of partner torture. You see the breakup, but the rot in the relationship set in many sessions (months, years) before. That option isn't in the poll AFAICT.

Life also gets in the way -- I haven't played live bridge since '01 for life and work reasons.

[keylime]

Let me offer an example of how good I have it with Larry.

I can't remember which tourney it was, but Larry goes down in an ice cold contract. I mean, it's diamond series ice cold. I didn't utter a word - then again when I'm the dummy I'm either listening to music (when I am allowed to) or reading the comics or letting my mind wonder so I wasn't really paying attention.

Three boards later, I chunk a 3NT hand. A good, chunky, shank job of 3NT where if I count my winners and develop the correct side suit, I'm making 4. Instead, I make 2.

So as I mark my minus 10 imps for going down in a game, Larry says to me something like: "Dwayne, you're not supposed to imitate all of my greatness." Talk about disarming the anger I had over chunking an easy hand.

We ended up winning that KO match by 47. And, I hope that in D.C. at my home national, when I make the next LM rank, he'll be the one across the table to steer me through. I hope it's similar to how I made LM a few years ago - to go out and win when you need to.

[sireenb]

Cascade, on Dec 1 2008, 11:15 PM, said:

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.

That is so true - I went through this many times. I voted for 'different objectives' because from day one I wanted to win and compete nationally and internationally whereas my partners in the early days just wanted a bridge evening out and did not have further ambitions. They usually ended up telling me to find a more serious partner.

I have been playing with my regular partner for over 20 years. We started as partners for the mixed pairs only. He had another partner for open events and I was a sort of 'standby' when his partner could not travel to tournaments. In those days I changed my 'open' partner every few months. That was very frustrating and it made me appreciate my mixed pairs partner even more, despite our volatile temperaments!

I have two other long-term partners. I have been playing with the same partner in ladies' events on and off for twenty years. I have been playing with my third partner for over ten years. Why did those partnerships last? Because they both play to win, and love to read and improve their game!

I tried many non-starter partnerships that did not work because of different styles, different approaches to the game, etc.

My current partner and his previous partner eventually split up for a different reason than any of the ones you mentioned. We come from a small country with a very small bridge-playing community. They had difficulty forming a competitive team with another pair willing and able to travel. So they decided to play with their best 'second' partners and form a team that way. That decision was taken many years ago and since then our team has regularly won the national open team trials. Over the years the secondary partnerships drifted into main partnerships.

[sartaj1]

I think that in any bridge partnership there is an underlying tension.

The tension covers ability, ego, temperament, behavior, compromise, self doubt.

Sometimes, an event occurs which breaks open the dam and the deluge is too hard to handle in one hit. On other occassions, the tension grows with time and starts eating at one or both ends till it bursts through one day.

[mike777]

The game of bridge is not conducive to long lived bridge partnerships. Out of perhaps a million bridge partnerships worldwide in the last 20 years, only a tiny tiny fraction still exist.
Let's come back in twenty years and see if Keylime and Larry still play alot together.

To use JanM's analolgy, relationships break up because they were shaky to begin with but the vast majority of relationships are shaky to begin with by definition.

[babalu1997]

I would like to add the point of view of a player who only plays online.

And I started from nothing playing online. The first day I logged on I was told not to come back, and yes, there are places online where one can play and the acme of expertise is the (in)famous stolen bid double.

I was interested in more. I have played with one partner with whom i always score well and when i asked him to get a 2 over 1 book and learn he said he played for social reasons, there were also time-zone differences. We have never stopped playing and I am happy to find him online-- he has also gotten used to the fact that I will bid conventions with no agreement (oh, btw , partner, that was a bergen raise lol). We have also agreed that he will bid a slam on the last hand-- so when he says last hand, i know it is a slam, lol.

But, in addition to general mixture combination of skills, compatibility, availability, there is one fact which i would like to add.

I would wish a partner who says, when next? And, who says when next every time. Yep, Friday at 8, send email if any changes.

Also-- postmortem. the postmortem, together with the set time to play again, will allow me to make preparations to correct some of the last blunders.

[1eyedjack]

I suspect that the relative frequencies of causes of partnership breakups is likely to be a function of the length of time over which the partnership has survived prior to dissolution.

A short-lived partnership is likely to break up for bridge reasons (probably any of them ranking reasonably pari passu). A long-lived partnership for non-bridge reasons.