[Fluffy]

I had a related experience on Thursday, when my partner got sleep and could not play the first boards.

I catched attention of a lady, who was chatting around whom I've never seen before, I asked her if she knew anything about the game, she doubted but said yes.
I asked her to sit for a bit, and she said: -ok, but I don't play any conventions, 5 card majors.


Thinking I was facing a total beginner I sit down wondering if I wouldn't do better with just the normal 40% for missed rounds.

First hand I preempted agresively on third position and they missed a game (glad she knew what a preempt was).
Second, she jumped to 3♦ over my 1♥ opening, I had no clue what was going on so I bid 3♥, she bid 4♥. Obviously the LOL on my left who had been present when we were talking about agreements, asked me what 3♦ was so what was, and complained that I had no answer.
So what was 3♦? She was making a strong jump shift!, she even complained when missdefence allowed me to make 12 that she should bid more. Her hand was not really strong: ♠xx ♥Axx ♣x ♦KQJxxxx ,680 was a top anyway.

Third one 1♠-(2♥)-3♠ and I knew it was invitational, so we got to the right spot, another top.
Opponents missed another game next board. Blatantly.


It turns out she had stopped playing after her childs were born some 23 years ago slowly turning to golf, but before that she was an international tournament director. I found it funny how she evaluated a 10 HCP hand as strong jump shift, and right she was, she made 8/13 tricks herself!, evaluating a hand like that comes from years of experience.


I couldn't get to see her card playing sadly, but with any lcuk she enjoied and now her childs are gone might take another stab at bridge.

[GreenMan]

barmar, on 2013-May-03, 11:21, said:

Studies have shown that you have a limited amount of conscious mental energy. If you have to use more of it to remember how to send or read a message, it's likely to be at the expense of deciding what message you want to send or what the received message means. Also, you're less likely to make a mistake when performing an automatic action than one that requires conscious thought.

Those are generalizations, in some cases the conscious thought may reinforce things, as you describe. But in general, your play gets better as more of the routine actions become automatic, and that requires them to be familiar.

This is true, but at that point at least we probably hadn't been devoting full resources to the game, at least not efficiently. By essentially forcing ourselves to be extra attentive on defense, we effectively directed more cognitive resources to important parts of the game, so our results improved. (Switching to a strong-club system just for the heck of it did the same in the bidding.)

[Zelandakh]

barmar, on 2013-May-03, 11:21, said:

GreenMan, on 2013-May-03, 10:52, said:

Interesting; a while back when my partner and I, neither of us much experienced at the time, decided to switch to UDCA, our defense immediately improved

Studies have shown that you have a limited amount of conscious mental energy. If you have to use more of it to remember how to send or read a message, it's likely to be at the expense of deciding what message you want to send or what the received message means. Also, you're less likely to make a mistake when performing an automatic action than one that requires conscious thought.

Those are generalizations, in some cases the conscious thought may reinforce things, as you describe. But in general, your play gets better as more of the routine actions become automatic, and that requires them to be familiar.

My experience of switching from Standard to UDCA a little while back was that it required practically no extra concentration at first. I simply played the opposite card to the one that was natural. That worked for a few months, at which point I started to find that sometimes the "normal" card was the UD signal. Then I went through a period where each card required conscious thought. So I agree with you, but do not necessarily agree that switching per se is when the concentration comes in. Quite possibly, GreenMan could have had a situation like mine, where not a great deal of extra effort was required for signalling but the extra attention give to them "just in case" means that concentration levels over the whole hand are improved.

[barmar]

I think the extra effort comes when you're frequently switching between methods. There's a player I would play with whenever we went to NABCs, and I convinced him to play UDCA. But he continued to play standard carding with other partners. The difficulty comes from remembering what mode you're in -- you have to frequently remind yourself "I'm playing with Barry, got to switch gears." Eventually he got with the program and taught some of his other partners UDCA, so it wasn't an exception he had to remember once or twice a year, and it became easier to switch modes.

[Gerben42]

There was an interesting "experiment" of this kind in the recent Dutch League Final. As Bauke Muller was not in top condition, he didn't want to play four-handed. So Jaap van der Neut, a previous multiple winner of the event, helped out. Although there were one or two misunderstandings, things went well and the team with the substitute won