[jillybean]

Have other people ever ruffed with the wrong suit, finessed against the heart King holding AQxx in dummy and heart x and 3 good trump in your hand, protected a suit against a nt contract only to throw the high card away later giving count.

Completely idiotic play. I have a theory that apart from playing too fast, my over active amygdala is to blame. If you have experienced this, what causes it and how have you overcome it?

[Bbradley62]

Occassionally, when I'm playing in the wrong suit and I think it's partner's fault, I ruff with the suit that should be trump instead of the suit that is trump.

[dwar0123]

Count to 5 before playing to any trick. If you forget to count to 5, count to 10 the next trick. If you forget again count to 15, etc.

Eventually you will annoy yourself so much that counting to 5 will be the path of least resistance.

Counting to 5 will make most of these mistakes disappear.

[32519]

jillybean, on 2012-January-28, 14:06, said:

If you have experienced this what causes it and how have you overcome it?

I have seen this quite often, most notably at Match Point play. Your example of taking a finesse to AQx when holding a singleton and 3 good trumps is typical of what I see. Declarer is looking for the "perfect" hand layout and takes the not needed finesse in search of an overtrick and a top score. The opposite inevitably happens. Instead of an overtrick, the contract goes down 1.

How to overcome it? Think before you play. If the chosen line of play fails, is the contract in jeopardy? If no, go ahead. If yes, don't do it!

[Cyberyeti]

My partner decided the right way to make the overtrick in 6N was to ruff his Ax opposite x at trick 2. That was when I learned never to put my long suit on the right in no trumps.

[daveharty]

32519, on 2012-January-28, 15:17, said:

How to overcome it? Think before you play. If the chosen line of play fails, is the contract in jeopardy? If no, go ahead. If yes, don't do it!

The general advice is good, but the chosen example is not. At matchpoints, sometimes it is quite valid, even necessary, to risk the contract for the sake of improving one's score.

I think jillybean is asking about blunders. Once I was playing a 6D contract against the lead of a king in a suit where dummy had a singleton. I had the ace, but I spent a long time thinking at trick 1 going through lots of mental gymnastics to determine what the best line was. I eventually got myself so twisted around that I judged the best line was to duck trick 1 to increase my squeeze chances later. That probably wasn't a good idea, since I was off the ace of trumps. My problem in this case wasn't lack of thinking, it was simply thinking about the wrong things, to the point of missing the forest for the trees.

[Phil]

Yes, these plays happen. Even to good players. The causes vary, but they mainly happen due to:

1. Physical: Fatigue / low blood sugar.
2. Mental: Low motivation / going on tilt / not caring / losing focus / being psyched out.
3. External: Getting distracted due to the wedding reception in the conference room next door / your RHO's cleavage / the obnoxious lout at the next table.

You just have to fight through these things. Recognizing when it is happening is half the battle. When something happens the bring on this kind of environment, do something about it, leave the table and eat a piece of candy, get some water or just some fresh air.

[sasioc]

I'm very aware that I tend to do that sort of thing when I'm under a lot of pressure, eg I'm playing an important match or I'm being kibbed by someone whose opinion really matters to me. I haven't yet worked out what I can really do about it as the whole point of the problem is that I don't realise I'm in a state of mind where I'm about to do something absurd.

One quite funny example occurred a couple of weeks ago, when I was declaring and RHO got in and played defence's suit back. I "ruffed" with a non-trump from hand but LHO assumed I had actually ruffed and played low so dummy's 7 won the trick. I wouldn't even have realised I hadn't ruffed and would have called for a low card from dummy, but RHO was so annoyed at his partner's failure to play high that he started telling him off before I'd called for a card, waking me up to my own mistake!

[jillybean]

Correct Dave, I am talking about blunders. It's not about playing too fast, which I know I do and can control, and not about picking the wrong line of play.
It is the external influences in Phil's list of causes, any drama going on in my life at the time, and the pressure sasioc talks about, but to a lesser extent now than it used to be.

[ahydra]

I once was defending 4H, declarer leads a trump, I give a count signal with the 8 and partner wins the Ace, fires back a suit for me to ruff... only I now can't beat dummy's H6.

Actually, that's about the only recent blunder I can think of. Now I just need to tighten up my game and stop blaming my rubbish declarer play on "failing to spot a squeeze" - partner surely won't believe it much longer!

ahydra

[FrancesHinden]

You've posted this in the wrong forum, because everyone does it. I was just reading the February BW which includes a hand from the final of the US Trial when Zagorin miscounted his tricks in 3NT and went off with 9 top tricks. Even leaving aside that sort of grotesque blunder (which is rarer at top levels) all players do things which are way below their usual ability/standard.

One way to overcome it is to recognise when it is most likely to happen and force yourself to take extra time. Some of the most dangerous times are:

- the first board of a long session
- the last board of a long session
- the board directly after a very difficult hand (whether or not you got the difficult hand right)
- the board directly after a major disaster

[ahydra]

Might be something in that Frances. I've just returned from an ECL match where we got thrashed. I contributed to the telephone number of IMPs conceded with a blunder thus:

Partner leads HQ (my suit), dummy has 3 small, I overtake with K from KJ10xx. I return the J [not even best given I could switch to D to try for a ruff], decl wins Ace, draws trumps ending in dummy and plays another small heart and I ducked, hence declarer wins with the 9!

WTF was I thinking? Sure enough, it was the first board of the set. Take a little extra time!

ahydra

[ggwhiz]

I once defended 3nt after lho had opened 1♦ and came down with 3 small as the dummy. Pard won my opening lead and returned the ♦Q (ducked) to my ♦KTx.

I overtook and returned the T to pards J (stiff) and declarer ran the suit. Grabbed the Daily Bulletins the next morning and hit the road only to hear pard say "They wrote up this hand where someone else defended just like us." ummm NOT!

Avoidable? Sure but where else can I get my 15 minutes of fame at such a low cost?

ps. It was the last board of the set.

[mycroft]

I would expand Frances' list to: first round of the day (not just the first board) and definitely first round after dinner. Didn't think of the "hand after difficult hand" and "hand after disaster", but as soon as pointed out, I thought "oh yeah, right". Another one in that vein is "hand after huge result" - I don't know how many second boards I've pitched after I've picked up 500-into-partscore or "system-win to 7" or the like on the first board.

[Cthulhu D]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-January-28, 16:12, said:

My partner decided the right way to make the overtrick in 6N was to ruff his Ax opposite x at trick 2. That was when I learned never to put my long suit on the right in no trumps.

I have a bunch of policies about the order I put the suits in my hand down as dummy I haven't told partner about (If we're playing a suited contract, but I was bidding some other suits during the auction I put them as far away as possible, in NT I put my long suit second in on the left, particularly if I was bidding it during the auction etc), in an effort to field that sort of mistake and/or make it easy on partner.

I'm wondering if there are any other good ones.

My biggest idiot mistake was on the last board of the match, where after thinking for a long time about whether to open a marginal hand as unbalanced with hearts, 21-22 points bal or 17-19 points bal (yes the fact that none of those options include a 20 count has since been corrected), finally decided to go with 21-22, then pulled the wrong card out of the bidding box because I completely forgot our methods and instead made a bid indicative of a two suiter with diamonds and spades, which then resulted in us going off in 4S when 3NT was ice cold and losing the match 14-16. Sob.

[blackshoe]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-January-30, 15:25, said:

My biggest idiot mistake was on the last board of the match, where after thinking for a long time about whether to open a marginal hand as unbalanced with hearts, 21-22 points bal or 17-19 points bal (yes the fact that none of those options include a 20 count has since been corrected), finally decided to go with 21-22, then pulled the wrong card out of the bidding box because I completely forgot our methods and instead made a bid indicative of a two suiter with diamonds and spades, which then resulted in us going off in 4S when 3NT was ice cold and losing the match 14-16. Sob.

Stuff happens. On the subject of 20 point hands, Rosenkranz and Truscott opined, in Bidding on Target, that "there's no such thing as a 20 point hand; you either downgrade it to 19 or upgrade it to 21". I've found it reasonably workable.

[flametree]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-January-30, 15:25, said:

I have a bunch of policies about the order I put the suits in my hand down as dummy I haven't told partner about (If we're playing a suited contract, but I was bidding some other suits during the auction I put them as far away as possible, in NT I put my long suit second in on the left, particularly if I was bidding it during the auction etc), in an effort to field that sort of mistake and/or make it easy on partner.

Is there no rule about how suits should be arranged? I always thought it was trumps on dummy's right and the rest in rank order. Is that merely common practice rather than required?

I echo the "after a great board" sentiments. If playing two boards per table I'm always amazed at the number of rounds that go top-bottom for about a 50% outcome against those opponents. I'm definitely more susceptible to silly plays on the second boards where the first went well. My most recent example followed a nice 800, thanks to a good double by me and excellent defence from partner. The hand had taken a bit long to complete, and so we rushed onto the next. I was still trying to imagine whether we had any play for a slam our way, sorted my cards, noted I was dealer and quickly bid a weak 1NT with 4-3-3-3 shape. Only I actually had 0-3-3-7 shape....

[Cthulhu D]

flametree, on 2012-January-31, 05:10, said:

Is there no rule about how suits should be arranged? I always thought it was trumps on dummy's right and the rest in rank order. Is that merely common practice rather than required?

Turns out there is a rule (Law 41 D)! I did not know that (no-one had ever mentioned it and it's not something one thinks to look up for one's self)

[Cyberyeti]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-30, 18:20, said:

Stuff happens. On the subject of 20 point hands, Rosenkranz and Truscott opined, in Bidding on Target, that "there's no such thing as a 20 point hand; you either downgrade it to 19 or upgrade it to 21". I've found it reasonably workable.

We effectively have the same policy about 19 point hands.