[42]

Hi!
Last weekend I was out to play a big mixed major event. I made bad mistakes that I usually do not make, lost concentration, frustration grew and things became worse.
The conditions were:

a.) time and sleep factor: we got up very early in the morning, went 6hrs by car, of course discussing the system (we chose to play Polish Club some weeks ago), tourney started at 14.00, 1. round 30 boards, 1,5 hrs break with a big "forced" dinner, 30 more hands.
I decided to go to such events 1 day before the tourney.

b.) discussing during tourney: The start was not brilliant, we had strong opps who found for example a cheap sacrifice which was not standard on the score sheet. After my 1. real mistake partner asked "why didn't you blabla", I started to think about it, felt uncomfortable and soon made another mistake, partner was even more unamused.
No discussion during a tourney, play every hand as if it is the first.

c.) feeling injustice: opps ( a couple) played a convention, explained that 4♣ shows a 2-suiter with ♣s and ♠s satisfying the rule of 18, around opening values. They played 4♠, dummy came down with 6pts, husband said: "rule of 18??? It is 16". TD came and the usual procedure started: the husband became loud and told that he NEVER said a word about the rule of 18, the wife said nothing, on the CC stood only that 4♣s shows ♣s and ♠s. Result stood (4 ♠-1), very bad score for us.
Against 3NT I lead the 3 from K6432 with no other entry. Partner won with the A, his J killed dummy's 10, opp played the Q and I ducked. Partner was angry that I didn't take the K but did not see that the suit was blocked (he had AJ98).
?? I have no idea how to handle that.

d.) social manners: another pair had a big, very bad quarrel after a bad result for them. My partner found that amusing and funny, I cannot stand such behaviour -> next board I made another mistake, bad score for us.
Also no idea what can be done.

e.) atmosphere: the general tone was more harsh than friendly. TDs had a military style of giving advices or telling decisions.
2 other pairs of my local club did not even find a "hello".
Of course wishes everybody to win and play as good as possible, but it is a hobby and a game, not war.
I can act differently, but what can I do not to let it influence myself?

f.) High expectations: Some weeks ago we also played a bigger mixed tourney with nearly the same pairs and came in 3rd. So the expectation was high on both sides.
I told my partner for the ladies competition that I occasionally play really bad (last year we were 4th), due to different reasons, I am scared I will do in november, too. She said that she loves me and just wants to have a nice weekend with me


g.) brain self-defense: After those more-than-usual-mistakes I felt that my brain is completely empty, refusing to remember anything on technics or system. There was a strong wish to escape.
Breathing technics to calm down? Go to toilet to have a short break?

h.) personal relationship: When I look at the result of this tourney, the pairs on top were married, mother and son, standard partners and/or long time friends. I feel also very well playing with a partner who likes me in general and will be on my side, no matter of my bridge skills. That does not mean that I do not like playing with others!!
Sometimes lovers cannot play together because they mix bridge problems with everyday or relationship problems...

i.) theory and practise: I noticed a difference. To understand the theory and to handle it on the table (or to remember...) is difficult.
Play as often as possible with a STANDARD partner?

k.) routine: I do not often go to big tourneys. It is a matter of time and also money.
Routine lowers stress. Is online training a way?

Please don't take this posting as frustrated lamenting. It is easy to give up but I prefer the way to work on things.
Brain research prooved that the brain needs for learning (that is what it does most of the time)
- energy and water
- a positive atmosphere
- a certain heart beat frequency
- partnership instead of pressure
- of course a special "landsscape" for a special thing like bridge.
Personal experiences in comparable situations play also a role.

So I ask you, the experienced competitors in major events and experts:
What do you do to handle the stress or don't you feel stress?
How do people compensate the stress? (Biting nails, argue with partner or opps, praise themselves, teach others at the table, smoking or having a drink etc., analyse a squeeze in every 2. hand , ....)
Do you agree with my "solutions" above?
Are men "tougher" than women?

Thank you
Caren

[Chamaco]

Wow, many factors here !

I am sure many things can be done, but, at least from my chess playing experience, one thing that worked was to:

- go to play after physical exercice (my best results in chess tourney were when I went to play right after swimming, still wearing my swimming clothes LOL!)

- eat something (a cookie or whatever) every, say 45-60 min.

When you are under stress for time longer than 60 mins, you need something to eat (and drink), to have maximum concentration from your brain.

When you are weak, and consumed much energies, it's easier to fall into bad mood, negative thinking, get upset, etc etc.

[42]

Thanks Mauro!
I had much more problems with the psychological factors.
For the physical part: I drank enough water, ate appleslices and cookies and chocolate from time to time during the tourney. The days before I made my walking, my body felt ok

[helene_t]

Ron Klinger's "Improve your bridge memory" offers some advice. For example:
- Make yourself comfortable. Change clothes during long events, you're more comfortable with a clean shirt.
- Do not eat a heavy meal just before the tournament.

[Gerben42]

Quote

I decided to go to such events 1 day before the tourney

If work and money allow you to. I know, big if. If you arrive the day before you have a big advantage.

Quote

No discussion during a tourney, play every hand as if it is the first.

Just tell your partner before the tournament. I had this in the 2nd league. It was almost impossible to play like this, even with screens. With Alex I had the agreement to not say anything during the round. This was great. Tell your partner and if he needs a reminder, give a very firm one.

Quote

Against 3NT I lead the 3 from K6432 with no other entry. Partner won with the A, his J killed dummy's 10, opp played the Q and I ducked. Partner was angry that I didn't take the K but did not see that the suit was blocked (he had AJ98).
?? I have no idea how to handle that.

Ducking was completely reasonable, Caren. Just to let you know, you were in good company. Partner had no right to be angry. I know you like to play with this player but if he wants the best from you tell him how to get it. By shutting up.

Quote

d.) social manners: another pair had a big, very bad quarrel after a bad result for them. My partner found that amusing and funny, I cannot stand such behaviour -> next board I made another mistake, bad score for us.
Also no idea what can be done.

Call the director and cool down for a minute. This is hard.

Quote

Atmosphere: the general tone was more harsh than friendly. TDs had a military style of giving advices or telling decisions.
2 other pairs of my local club did not even find a "hello".
Of course wishes everybody to win and play as good as possible, but it is a hobby and a game, not war.
I can act differently, but what can I do not to let it influence myself?

Be yourself. Unfortunately in the scene there are too many who are unfriendly. Don't join them. To see how things CAN be, play a big tournament in the Netherlands for a change.

Quote

I told my partner for the ladies competition that I occasionally play really bad (last year we were 4th), due to different reasons, I am scared I will do in november, too. She said that she loves me and just wants to have a nice weekend with me 

Then do so. Nothing to fear but fear itself. She wants to play with you. She knows that you make mistakes. So? We all do. Don't kill yourself about it.

Quote

When I look at the result of this tourney, the pairs on top were married, mother and son, standard partners and/or long time friends

Didn't help me much I'm afraid... I think although we were not so stressy my partner still had to recover from the debacle in Riccione...

[hrothgar]

I'd like to echo a couple earlier comments

1. Be careful about what you eat. This is an endurance contest. You need to avoid sudden sugar spikes and crashes. If I'm playing seriously, I really prefer to nibble throughout the day. COmplex carbs are your friend.

2. Whats the old saying about a sound mind in a sound body? Given my beer intake, its kinda hypocritcal to talk about this, but being in good shape helps a lot

[Al_U_Card]

This is so easy, it hurts.......(please remember that at any given moment, you have about 12 billion wrong choices and perhaps only one right one)

I always try my best and never do anything wrong on purpose.

If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.

Being a good partner often gets better results than being a good player.

Have you and your partner repeat as often as necessary

[cherdano]

Some random remarks from my own experience:

Do not follow the play when you are dummy, take a break! I got this hint from the forums here. Makes it also easier not to discuss partner's play of the hand right afterwards.

When you have made a mistake, and you think it affects you -- try to take a quick break if the tournament schedule allows for it. If you don't feel the need to go to the bathroom, needing another cup of coffee is always an accepted excuse among bridge players...

Btw, slightly related, what I really hate is when my partner has forgot a convention, our side becomes declarer and I immediately have to tell opponents because he misexplained/forgot to alert. Of course I do it, as opponents need to know, but I still hate it.

Arend

[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2005, 03:00 PM, said:

cherdano, on Sep 21 2005, 09:59 AM, said:

Do not follow the play when you are dummy, take a break! I got this hint from the forums here. Makes it also easier not to discuss partner's play of the hand right afterwards.

This is a good one. I must say I have not learned to follow this tip yet though I wish I could.

There is a bi deal of suggestions that can be found in the literature about chess and how to handle competitive stress.

Actually it seems (as it should) that it varies very much from player to player.

Botvinnik used to stay all the time at the table, never losing focus.

Smyslov instead liked to wander around when it was not his turn to play, while loosely analzing blindfold but taking basically a break.

Najdorf was famous instead to relax by bugging everyone around him with funny jokes or bragging about what a great move he found.

and so forth...

Perhaps Justin you might want to follow the footsteps of Capablanca who instead preferred to flirt with pretty women

[cherdano]

About all these remarks about doing sports beforehand, eating not too much/not too little: I think there is really little general advice except you should consciously be aware of it, and that you have to find out yourself what is best for you. For example, one of Germany's best go players just refuses in between the rounds of a go tournament (and some of these go from 9 am to 10 pm), and I am sure it is right for him. It would be wrong for almost anybody else.

This may sound weird, but for me part of the fun of competitive bridge/go tournaments is finding out more about myself -- under which circumstances am I able to play to the best of my abilities? I think you have to accept that this is a learning process, and that sometimes you will go wrong.

Arend

[luis]

Dealing with stress is hard.
There's no silver bullet, it depends on you and your pd to know how to handle the stress in a tournament.

Some tips:

- When pd does something unusual and it results badly encourage him/her to keep being creative, if you punish creativeness you will have a bored and worried pd trying to get average results.
- Try to find an excuse for your pd mistakes, when there is none and pd blames himself say something like "yes, that was quite terrible, lol". When pd knows he made a mistake you win nothing trying to give him a lesson he already knows about the mistake and he will not do the same twice so you don't need to dig deep in his already troubled mind.
- If your pd answers questions defensively then may be better not to talk to him, some players take comments and questions as offensive. Recognize if your pd is in such category and then talk only about non-bridge issues.
- From time to time praise yourself saying things like
"What a great double I found"
"If I bid 3♠ they bid 4♥ and it makes"
"I was inspired to pass if I overcall I can go for 1400"
"I preempted with 0 how crazy I am"
Even when those comments are silly pd will mentally think that you can create good results and pd will be aware that you are positive. This creates a good atmosphere in your partnership.
- Eat lots of sugar, sugar is fuel for the brain the more sugar you get the longer you can think about complex positions.
- Every time you get a normal average result that could be better with an unusual lead or very unusual bid or play say "sorry pd I could have done this and that". Even when it's not logical you will make pd understand you noticed a missed chance. Your pd wants you to be a winner.
- Try to make pd laugh, laughing decreases stress level a lot you don't have to be a clown but from time to time there're some funny things in bridge. Yesterday playing with screens an opponent asked me about a bid that his own pd made! I raised the screen and told "hey this guy is asking me about your own bids, can you give me some tips so I can help him?" :-). In another deal the cards were old and the king of hearts was barely recognizable so from dummy I called "The phantom of hearts please". Then in 3NT where declarer was able to make 13 tricks on good breaks I held a poker of 2s I cerefully kept my 2s and in the 4 card ending I claimed "all mine" showing the four 2s :-).
- At IMPs play squeezes for overtricks pd loves to see you play nicely even when it's only for 1 imp, I can bet you will make a thin game later after pd bids it and says "you are playing so nicely I couldn't pass"
- Consider the opponents bids and passes in all your comments and actions, sometimes pd is under pressure for example after 4♣ X pass your pd bids 6♥ and this goes down 1, don't say something like "why 6?" pd was under pressure and did the best he could say something like "nightmare hand, bad luck" or "I would have bid the same" you are not winning anything from saying thinks about bids that are due to judgement.
- When you know you have some conventions or agreements that are very clear use them to full extent and make comments about how confortable you were able to bid thanks to the agreement you had. You have to avoid an atmoshere were both you and your pd are afraid of a missunderstanding.

Etc etc :-)

[SoTired]

some things i have noticed:
- over eating is the biggest killer- your brain becomes very lazy
- drinking coffee is a most useful things
- breathe - shallow breathing when trying to concentrate can cause your blood to be only 92% full. A few deep breaths brings that back to 100%. Try to keep it there
- bid and play slowly. If you seem to be playing poorly, slow down even further. I noticed this by the top pros. Even when they had an obvious choice, they took a long time studying it.
- On the other hand, trust your first instinct. Especially when reading the opponents. Your subconscience mind may pick up suttle body language that your conscience mind can't define.
- Go to the bathroom and splash cold water on your face is surprisingly effective

Concerning partners. If your object is to get the best results, then never mention partner's mistakes. EVER. You won't be able to fix any system problems in the middle of an event. Just circle the board for later discussion. If your partner starts in on you, don't discuss it. Just stop them with a "You know I don't play well when you talk to me like that."

Concerning opps: Smile big and frequently. Always greet them. Complement them when they do well. You will be surprised by how much better it helps you to play. I don't understand this one either, but it really does work.

[pclayton]

Great post. I really like discussing the intangibles of this game.

a.) time and sleep factor: we got up very early in the morning, went 6hrs by car, of course discussing the system (we chose to play Polish Club some weeks ago), tourney started at 14.00, 1. round 30 boards, 1,5 hrs break with a big "forced" dinner, 30 more hands.
I decided to go to such events 1 day before the tourney.

Usually a good idea, but unless you are a senior or have some stamina problems, the 1st day of a tournament shouldn't ever be a grind. Frankly, long drives are great to discuss partnership methods and to build rapport. And for petes sake, don't ever eat a big dinner or drink between sessions.

b.) discussing during tourney: The start was not brilliant, we had strong opps who found for example a cheap sacrifice which was not standard on the score sheet. After my 1. real mistake partner asked "why didn't you blabla", I started to think about it, felt uncomfortable and soon made another mistake, partner was even more unamused.
No discussion during a tourney, play every hand as if it is the first.

No, no, no. Smile throughout. I will make one exception to this rule, however. If its the 1st session, and I haven't played for a week or so, my pard and I will sometimes overanalyze the results of the 1st round (2 boards) to get my brain thinking and fully engaged in bridge.

c.) feeling injustice: opps ( a couple) played a convention, explained that 4♣ shows a 2-suiter with ♣s and ♠s satisfying the rule of 18, around opening values. They played 4♠, dummy came down with 6pts, husband said: "rule of 18??? It is 16". TD came and the usual procedure started: the husband became loud and told that he NEVER said a word about the rule of 18, the wife said nothing, on the CC stood only that 4♣s shows ♣s and ♠s. Result stood (4 ♠-1), very bad score for us.
Against 3NT I lead the 3 from K6432 with no other entry. Partner won with the A, his J killed dummy's 10, opp played the Q and I ducked. Partner was angry that I didn't take the K but did not see that the suit was blocked (he had AJ98).
?? I have no idea how to handle that.

LOL - play 5th best leads or don't worry about it Never get upset about a poor result, and never get emotional about a director call.

d.) social manners: another pair had a big, very bad quarrel after a bad result for them. My partner found that amusing and funny, I cannot stand such behaviour -> next board I made another mistake, bad score for us.
Also no idea what can be done.

Over here, we have zero tolerance for issues like this. You shouldn't have to endure their acrimony.

e.) atmosphere: the general tone was more harsh than friendly. TDs had a military style of giving advices or telling decisions.
2 other pairs of my local club did not even find a "hello".
Of course wishes everybody to win and play as good as possible, but it is a hobby and a game, not war.
I can act differently, but what can I do not to let it influence myself?

Then do your part and make the game pleasurable for others. The best players are frequently the friendliest.

f.) High expectations: Some weeks ago we also played a bigger mixed tourney with nearly the same pairs and came in 3rd. So the expectation was high on both sides.
I told my partner for the ladies competition that I occasionally play really bad (last year we were 4th), due to different reasons, I am scared I will do in november, too. She said that she loves me and just wants to have a nice weekend with me

Well thats nice. Expectations can ruin performance. One card at a time, one hand at a time. Let the results take care of themselves. I've played terrible and scored 65% and played every card perfect and scored 48%. A lot of things are just out of your control, accept it.

g.) brain self-defense: After those more-than-usual-mistakes I felt that my brain is completely empty, refusing to remember anything on technics or system. There was a strong wish to escape.
Breathing technics to calm down? Go to toilet to have a short break?

Go outside if the movement allows a break during the session. Drink lots and lots of water during the session. A full bladder increases mental performace ( I got this one from my regular pard who is an MD. He learned this trick when studying during med school). A Coke can give you a temporary jolt of concentration.

h.) personal relationship: When I look at the result of this tourney, the pairs on top were married, mother and son, standard partners and/or long time friends. I feel also very well playing with a partner who likes me in general and will be on my side, no matter of my bridge skills. That does not mean that I do not like playing with others!!
Sometimes lovers cannot play together because they mix bridge problems with everyday or relationship problems...

If your partner isn't your friend (even if its your spouse, your sibling, relative, whatever) then you shouldn't be playing with him/her.

i.) theory and practise: I noticed a difference. To understand the theory and to handle it on the table (or to remember...) is difficult.
Play as often as possible with a STANDARD partner?

I have two partners that I play 99% of my sessions with. We are pretty good players (but not stellar) that always do well at regionals. Agreements can always make a partnership more than the sum of its parts.

k.) routine: I do not often go to big tourneys. It is a matter of time and also money.
Routine lowers stress. Is online training a way?

On line bridge probably makes my real life game a little worse.

[Al_U_Card]

luis, on Sep 21 2005, 10:12 AM, said:

Dealing with stress is hard.
There's no silver bullet,

There may be no magic bullet (except for STD's) but the Silver bullet is definitely Coor's Light.

[keylime]

My two big things was 1) staying in the moment and 2) being relaxed AT THE TABLE.

To help do both, I eat Skittles at the table. It allows me to go somewhere else for a few minutes and has served me well.

I personally try to eat a lot of pasta the day before a 2 session event or such. Very similar to a marathon runner's diet.

[whereagles]

The ability to keep concentration and play at ~80-100% of your capabilities for 3 hours is what separates good players from champions.

Tiredness can be fought by improving your physical condition with regular exercise, but concentration is much, much harder to train. The will to win helps you keeping alert, but it's not enough. You have to try and keep alert as well.

I can't really give any advice on how to acheive this, but I can tell you it's not impossible. I've been trying to cut down my percentage of silly mistakes, and in 3 years went from 2-3 per session to 0-1.

The tougher the match, the more likely it is I make that 1 expensive mistake. Add another one from (a good) pard, and that might very well be 20 imps in the end...

[Al_U_Card]

Before the last round or two (or 3 to 4 hands) have pard get up with you and take a brisk walk. Ideally you will talk about where to have dinner (or get that Silver Bullet ) but a question about a system bid (not one that one of you messed up in this session) while walking will get you back to the table refreshed and renewed. A lot of games have been lost on the last few boards due to sleepiness......

[inquiry]

How to deal with stress?

Take up something relaxing like bullfighting, mountain climbing without safety equipment, or bull riding.