[pclayton]

After playing this stupid game for about 30 years I just recently had a revelation about counting and following the play. I've always been a better kibitzer than player in watching the hand and being able to analyze whats going on.

Therefore what I have done is during the play to take my eyes totally off my hand and focus exclusively on whats happening with the other three.

For sometime I have done this during the bidding. If we are out of the auction, I will fold up my cards and use all of my resources to build up a picture of the unseen hands. Now I do this during the play.

When you stare at your own hand, you become transfixed on non essential information and have a tendency to miss important elements of the play.

So, during the play, keep your cards unfanned and try to anticipate whats going on. Only open your hand after youve made a decision. Select a card(s) and immediately unfan your cards again.

Try it. I think you'll like the results.

[mikeh]

A good tip.

Another and related tip was expressed by Bob Hamman in the book written with Manley. Too many players ask themselves: 'what should I do now?'

That is the wrong question.

Ask, instead: 'what's going on?'

Paraphrasing that: I like to tell advancing players to ask: 'what do I know so far?'

Neither question can be answered by looking at your own hand. Both require remembering and LISTENING to the auction, and remembering and THINKING about the cards played, and the apparent intentions of the other players, deduced from their play to date.

If we work out, even tentatively, what is going on, and, certainly, if we can summarize what we know, then the question of what to do now is usually easy to answer.

[kenrexford]

I do something related that might help. It dawned on me one day how easy it is to reconstruct hands after the game during the post-mortem. This is not simply because the hand was played out. It is because of the way of thinking about the hands. So, I started by describing my hand to myself, in a sense. "So, I have Q-fourth, stiff, Ace-King fifth, three small." I then put my hand face down on the table and handled the bidding as a problem, not as a real-world experience. This forced me to analyze the bidding differently, strangely. I'd then extrapolate the same way of thinking out into other aspects, like what RHO seemed to have, restating dummy to myself, etc.

The bid problem? The post-mortem esoteric nonsense sneaks into the real world. (LOL)

[mike777]

This is all excellent but I would go even more basic for nonexpert players.
1) Try and remember what contract you are in. Is it No trumps or suited? yes it is easy to forget.
2) Try and remember how many tricks you have taken, yes it is easy to forget how many you have and how many more you still need whether on offense or defense.
3) What was the opening lead and what inference can you draw? In the middle of the hand do you remember the opening lead and what it meant? Ok this is more advanced but it really helps.
4) In the middle of the hand what was the bidding, did you forget that LHO overcalled 2 clubs? Would rho really pass and never bid if they held 7Hearts, etc.

[dicklont]

Thanks for sharing.
I really like this tip and will try it next time I play.
Maybe I'll even report the results here, who knows.

[matmat]

I've been doing that for years... my bridge is still awful.