[sceptic]

Hi all,

I was sitting here wondering what makes a good bridge player.

What sort of qualities do you need

What sort of qualities do you NOT need

You may not have an opinion on what makes a good bridge player, but you may have some opinions about what makes a bad one, I am interested in your answers, so please don't be shy lets hear your opinion.

[xx1943]

sceptic, on Jun 3 2004, 12:47 AM, said:

Hi all,

I was sitting here wondering what makes a good bridge player.

What sort of qualities do you need

What sort of qualities do you NOT need

You may not have an opinion on what makes a good bridge player, but you may have some opinions about what makes a bad one, I am interested in your answers, so please don't be shy lets hear your opinion.

Here are some hints for you. Look at this books. They are bit older, but lost nothing of their importance.

CHARLES H. GOREN: PLAY WINNING BRIDGE with any partner EVEN A STRANGER

S. J. SIMON: WHY YOU LOSE AT BRIDGE

Charles H. Goren: BRIDGE IS MY GAME

There are newer books for sure. But I don't have any space in my bookcase to buy them.

[whereagles]

The single most important quality of a player is his ability to concentrate and play at his best level for the time of the match.

Technical skills like imagination, perspective, memory, work and training capacity, induction or deduction all come into second spot if the player is unable to keep his problems away from the table, stay calm and play sensible Bridge throughout the whole session.

A good competitive attitude is the main factor to become a champion. It is the same in all sports, as any sports professional can tell you.

[Free]

Imo there are several qualities which make a bridge player wonderful:
1) concentration, without this you play auto-pilot and you'll make lots of mistakes. This is why marathon matches are good for the mind imo.
2) know a bidding system and play it like it should be played. If you're good you can win with any system you want (not sayc ) as long as you play it right. You can see all over the world experts playing different systems and win.
Playing a system right also means you have to evaluate your hand as good as possible, and you have to completely trust your partner that he also doesn't make mistakes!
3) the ability to place cards in player's hands. Some contracts have only 1 winning line of play (or defense) and if you can find out where certain key-cards are you're a step ahead. Ofcourse you need to know how you'll play on, like how to squeeze, how to throw-in,...
4) always willing to learn more.

What qualities does a player NOT need:
1) thinking you're always right
2) thinking you know everything about bridge
3) yelling at partner so he loses his trust in himself
4) trusting opps more than partner
5) playing complicated systems when you can't even remember what your girlfriend's phonenumber is.
6) 2.5 promille in your blood

[luke warm]

in bergen's 'points schmoints' there's a list of qualities it takes to be a good *partner* (not necessarily player)... i wish everyone would read that, especially my future partners

a good player counts everything, all the time, out of habit... a telltale (to me) sign of a bad player is how he talks about other players, especially those whose abilities he'll *never* reach... also, a bad player tends to point out his partner's errors at the table, a good player will rarely ever do this (unless it's a training session)... 2 opponents are quite enough, nobody needs 3

and i guess whereagles hit it when he said that the really good player can play very well for an extended period of time... can consistently maintain a high quality of play over a long match

[doofik]

When a partner makes an error does saying "WHY??????????????" count as a good partner or a bad partner? Cause I've learned this from someone and I can't get rid of it

[Chamaco]

Italian Master Enzo Riolo (former european champion) said:

"If one sits at the table to demonstrate to be smart, then he'd better give up any hopes in bridge; if he sits trying to make less mistakes than the others, maybe he has some hopes"

[inquiry]

Experience and powers of observation.

[aisha759]

All of the above makes a person a good bridge player, so I won't repeat myself.
You wanted to know what makes a bad bridge player..... well obviously the opposite of all of the above and some more
One thing i feel deeply about, are the hand hogs, who think they are such experts they wont allow their partners to play for fear of their poor abilities.... to me thats a very very bad bridge player...

Aisha

[Free]

aisha759, on Jun 3 2004, 04:41 PM, said:

One thing i feel deeply about, are the hand hogs, who think they are such experts they wont allow their partners to play for fear of their poor abilities.... to me thats a very very bad bridge player...

Aisha

Sooooooo true!

[Rain]

aisha759, on Jun 3 2004, 09:41 AM, said:

All of the above makes a person a good bridge player, so I won't repeat myself.
You wanted to know what makes a bad bridge player..... well obviously the opposite of all of the above and some more
One thing i feel deeply about, are the hand hogs, who think they are such experts they wont allow their partners to play for fear of their poor abilities.... to me thats a very very bad bridge player...

Aisha

Not just hogging the play....some people hog the bidding too, trying to "bid" for partner. That's just an egoistical hog in action. hehe

Rain

[whereagles]

Not true. Real hogs are actually good players, because they understand that a palooka at the helm is likely to make serious mistakes. Better to play a 50% 4♠ in the 4-3 fit than to let pard mess up entries and go down in a cold 3NT.

HOWEVER.. there exist many hog wanna-bees, who don't have a clue how to "steal" a hand from pard nor how to play it. Those guys can be unpolite and that's probably who you're thinking of.

[bglover]

A good player can be so many things.. A talented declarer, a superb defender, a great bidder or a combination of all three. However it doesn't require s/he be all three but some combination of the three is a great start.

A bad player (assuming its someone who has played the game for a goodly amount of time) is someone who is a bad partner. Someone who knows the agreements but refuses to follow them. Someone who refuses to follow partnership agreements is sure to create bad feelings in a short period of time and won't have any partners for very long.

Some of the best players I know cannot hold partners for this reason. They don't play within the "rules" of the partnership. This kind of goes to the comment about a hand-hog but it's beyond that. It undermines the foundations of trust and without trust you can't have a good partner because you are always at his or her whim.

The most talented players do not make the best partners always. It's the most cooperative ones.. the ones who want to make the "partnership" work. The ones who trust each other and know they can rely on each other.

Personally, I wish my temperment at the table was better (I have a patience problem) but i try to balance that by being the very best partner I can be. I follow all agreements to the letter and try to have a truly "cooperative" partnership to the best of my abilities (and even try to let my partners play the hands more cuz I don't think declarer play is my strong suit). Despite my occasional outbursts I have over the many years only lost one partner due to them. Since I've been on BBO (almost three years now) I am still playing with many of the same people as when I first got here, many of whom are much better players than me. It's not because of my charming personality (trust me I know this!) but because they can rely on what I am going to do. They may be able to find a better player than me but they know my game is not wild. I am pretty much the same reliable partner day in and out (assuming I've had enough sleep but that's a different story...).

[the saint]

The one correlation I have noticed between very good players and any one personality trait is that they all have very rapid sense of humour. If you think about it this is quite logical because humourous wordplay requires the same sort of combinations of logical and lateral thinking that bridge does.

Or alternatively you can take Michael Rosenberg's view on the whole matter - all bridge players are bad, the winners just make less mistakes.

[Yzerman]

I believe 5 main components in becoming a good bridge players;

1 - Ability to learn from ones own mistakes
2 - Ability to 'think outside the box'
3 - Judgment
4 - Visualization
5 - Partnership skills

Declarer play, defense, and systemic bidding methods all require the above stated skills.

I wrote a brief lesson on judgment a while back, some may find this interesting;

Judgement Lesson

Regards,
MAL

[flytoox]

Yzerman, on Jun 3 2004, 05:46 PM, said:

I believe 5 main components in becoming a good bridge players;

1 - Ability to learn from ones own mistakes
2 - Ability to 'think outside the box'
3 - Judgment
4 - Visualization
5 - Partnership skills

Declarer play, defense, and systemic bidding methods all require the above stated skills.

I wrote a brief lesson on judgment a while back, some may find this interesting;

Judgement Lesson

Regards,
MAL

Hi, Mal,
Thanks for your nice article. I like it very much. However it seems it is not finished yet. Will you write more on it and if yes could you please post it here and let us share it?
THanks again.
Hongjun

[luke warm]

doofik, on Jun 3 2004, 01:10 PM, said:

When a partner makes an error does saying "WHY??????????????" count as a good partner or a bad partner? Cause I've learned this from someone and I can't get rid of it

lol... well jols, i guess it all depends on your partner and what he thinks/knows you mean by it... i suspect that doing that might be better in real life than online, mainly cause this medium lends itself to misunderstandings fairly easily

personally i like to wait until the session is over and go over bidding or play problems in private, away from the opps or specs... it seems to me that the very best partnerships are the ones where an onlooker is hardpressed to tell who's winning by the way they treat one another... kind, courteous, supportive...

i remember i was kibbing mike and somebody a few months back and mike said something i'll always remember... his partner, who had already made more than a few mistakes, made some comment about a bid or play mike made... in my opinion it wasn't an error anyway, it just didn't work out... anyway, mike said "now partner, have i said one word about any of your ridiculous bids or plays?"

i laughed till i almost fell outta my chair... that's what i'm talking about, i guess.. no matter *how* "ridiculous" partner's bidding or play may seem, in public is not the time to bring it up... in my opinion

[Trpltrbl]

Judgement and tablefeel.
Can't be learned, either you do have it or you don't.
Experience might make up for a little bit, but that takes years

Mike

[NotButter]

You want to become a good bridge player?

Give up duplicate (I won't even begin to talk about what on-line bridge does to your game) and go play in a decent rubber bridge school for 12 months.

If possible, get staked, but you need to lose some of your own money as well.

NotButter.

[bglover]

Hear here! I've stated same thing on other threads before.. Fine advice.