[mike777]

Hi all

I am starting to play a bit of bridge again after years.

I am struggling to visualize my partner's and declarers hands. That is a nice way to say my defense is poor. Given bridge is a timed event any pointers on improving under time pressure?

Thanks in advance..

[pescetom]

A (re)read of "How to read your opponent's cards" by Mike Lawrence?
The assumptions about bidding and carding and both outdated and undocumented, but it opens your eyes nevertheless.

Of course this goes the opposite road of handling time pressure. I think the most important thing there is being aware when a break in tempo would give partner problems, and in that case knowing to avoid it whatever - decide an initial default choice and just follow it if time runs out before you really decide. Do not panic about time or some unexpected thought or event and override the default.

[mikeh]

See whether you can find a copy of Kelsey’s two books on defence. Killing Defence and, irrc, More Killing Defence

On a higher level, and with the problems split between declarer play and defence are his three ‘team match’ quiz books, but I’d not do those until you’ve absorbed the defence books.


As is often the case, the bidding given is archaic and was, even in its day, based upon methods common in the UK, so would be strange to many non-UK readers, but, as the bard wrote, the play’s the thing.

I expect you can find them online, though I often get sticker shock these days….if people were actually getting the listed price, my own collection must be worth a (very) small fortune, lol.

I think that, in terms of books on play, Kelsey is in a class of his own.

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2024-December-21, 14:35, said:

See whether you can find a copy of Kelsey’s two books on defence. Killing Defence and, irrc, More Killing Defence
....

I expect you can find them online, though I often get sticker shock these days….if people were actually getting the listed price, my own collection must be worth a (very) small fortune, lol.

I think that, in terms of books on play, Kelsey is in a class of his own.

I may have been lucky, but recently bought Killing Defence (fresh from print, not even second hand) from amazon for less than $20.
It's a great book, although hard to digest and not my first suggestion for the visualisation problem OP mentioned.

[mike777]

Thank you starting reading both Lawrence and Kelsey tonight.

[jdiana]

Book are great but (a) even with perfect retention, I'm not sure how well that translates to making quicker decisions at the table; and (b) the older I get, the less effective books are as a learning tool for me. I still read a lot and YMMV of course but I just don't have the same ability to concentrate and remember what I've read as I used to.

Defense is really hard to practice because it depends so much on having good agreements and being on the same wavelength as your partner. We have Cuebids to practice bidding and Bridge Master and other things to practice declarer play. It would be nice to have something similar for practicing defense but, again, so much depends on agreements, etc., and, so far, robots haven't been much good on defense.

I used to have the Vu-Bridge defense lessons and I thought they were helpful. I see that their current subscription model is $69.95/year for everything, so you can't just pick up the defense series a la carte. https://www.vubridge.com/UShome.php Not suggesting that you spend that much, but just mentioning it in case it's of interest.

Good luck! I'm thinking of venturing back to the club next year, after not playing for several years. If I do, I'll be in the same boat.

[jillybean]

I'm reading A Switch In Time again. When I played Obvious Shift a few years ago it was successful, I'm excited to be trying it again with a partner who is interested.
If nothing else, it makes me stop, focus and think.

[mike777]

jdiana, on 2024-December-22, 12:30, said:

Book are great but (a) even with perfect retention, I'm not sure how well that translates to making quicker decisions at the table; and (b) the older I get, the less effective books are as a learning tool for me. I still read a lot and YMMV of course but I just don't have the same ability to concentrate and remember what I've read as I used to.

Defense is really hard to practice because it depends so much on having good agreements and being on the same wavelength as your partner. We have Cuebids to practice bidding and Bridge Master and other things to practice declarer play. It would be nice to have something similar for practicing defense but, again, so much depends on agreements, etc., and, so far, robots haven't been much good on defense.

I used to have the Vu-Bridge defense lessons and I thought they were helpful. I see that their current subscription model is $69.95/year for everything, so you can't just pick up the defense series a la carte. https://www.vubridge.com/UShome.php Not suggesting that you spend that much, but just mentioning it in case it's of interest.

Good luck! I'm thinking of venturing back to the club next year, after not playing for several years. If I do, I'll be in the same boat.

Thank you and good luck venturing back, win!

[mike777]

jillybean, on 2024-December-22, 15:09, said:

I'm reading A Switch In Time again. When I played Obvious Shift a few years ago it was successful, I'm excited to be trying it again with a partner who is interested.
If nothing else, it makes me stop, focus and think.

A truly great book, I got here someplace. Obvious Shift really helps my defense as long as I visualize the hands, which is my big issue now....great book.

[HardVector]

In a more general sense, practice thinking of hand patterns. These patterns exist not only in the hand you are dealt, but also in the patterns of the suits around the table. Once you have identified the pattern of just one suit, it's often possible to figure out all the other patterns. Once you have figured that out, you can begin strategizing to win more tricks.

The overall concept above sounds complicated and difficult, but it starts with the hand patterns. The more you practice figuring out the patterns, the easier it becomes.

[mike777]

HardVector, on 2024-December-22, 15:31, said:

In a more general sense, practice thinking of hand patterns. These patterns exist not only in the hand you are dealt, but also in the patterns of the suits around the table. Once you have identified the pattern of just one suit, it's often possible to figure out all the other patterns. Once you have figured that out, you can begin strategizing to win more tricks.

The overall concept above sounds complicated and difficult, but it starts with the hand patterns. The more you practice figuring out the patterns, the easier it becomes.

excellent, will definitely do this, thank you

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2024-December-22, 15:35, said:

excellent, will definitely do this, thank you

The resolution is a good start
Analizing and continuously revising the split of all four suits around the table is essential, but also exquisitely difficult unless you have the DNA of an expert player to start with (and started sufficiently young for it to prevail).
But in any case we all have to try.
It helps to have a good idea of the most frequent splits and their a priori probabilities, not always intuitive.

[mikeh]

mike777, on 2024-December-22, 15:21, said:

A truly great book, I got here someplace. Obvious Shift really helps my defense as long as I visualize the hands, which is my big issue now....great book.

I played the full obvious switch for a while. You need to be careful: when you play obviously switch, it’s difficult to play a ‘meaningless card’ and you are then stuck with choosing to give honest information to partner or to mislead him….bearing in mind that an expert declarer is paying just as much attention to your carding as you hope your partner is doing. So honest info may help declarer more than partner and dishonest info is more likely to hurt partner than declarer.

Plus as eminent a theorist as Rodwell thinks it’s a bad method….at the risk of mis-paraphrasing him, I gather he said words to the effect of ‘why would I want to give attitude about a suit partner didn’t lead rather than about the suit he did lead?’ I think he was referring to the problem that occasionally arises on opening lead….you have rules that allow you and partner, on reviewing the bidding and looking at dummy, to determine what the ‘obvious switch’ suit is. You must then either discourage the opening lead, to say that you can handle and may want the switch or encourage the opening lead suit because you can’t stand the switch. The problem is when you hate both the led suit and the obvious switch suit.

Playing other methods your attitude signs, is solely about the opening lead…if you hate both the lead and the ‘obvious switch’ suit, you discourage. Partner may now have to guess well.

I think the losses on this are not as bad as the gains but I do think obvious switch suffered from the same problem as do odd/even discards. Unless one is a robot (not the BBO kind), it’s difficult to maintain tempo when, playing OS, you hate both the lead and the switch suit. All too often, and with no conscious intent to cheat, the OS player may dither over his card….a slow discouraging card tends to be ‘I don’t like either but I hate the lead more than the switch’ and a slow encouraging one tends to be ‘I don’t like your lead but I hate the switch even more’

Similar to the well known ethical issue with odd/even when one has no odd cards to encourage the suit you want led and no even cards you can pitch from another suit.

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2024-December-23, 14:49, said:

I think the losses on this are not as bad as the gains but I do think obvious switch suffered from the same problem as do odd/even discards. Unless one is a robot (not the BBO kind), it’s difficult to maintain tempo when, playing OS, you hate both the lead and the switch suit. All too often, and with no conscious intent to cheat, the OS player may dither over his card….a slow discouraging card tends to be ‘I don’t like either but I hate the lead more than the switch’ and a slow encouraging one tends to be ‘I don’t like your lead but I hate the switch even more’

Similar to the well known ethical issue with odd/even when one has no odd cards to encourage the suit you want led and no even cards you can pitch from another suit.

Violating tempo to disambiguate an agreement is clearly unethical as well as an infraction. OTOH I have always struggled to see why NA players (and even regulations) tend to demonize odd/even when so many other agreements are in the same boat and can be played honestly in tempo even hating the cards.
Here in Italy odd/even is standard and I rarely had anything to say about related slow tempo as an opponent or even TD, when I did the violation was usually quite obvious.

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2024-December-23, 16:17, said:

Violating tempo to disambiguate an agreement is clearly unethical as well as an infraction. OTOH I have always struggled to see why NA players (and even regulations) tend to demonize odd/even when so many other agreements are in the same boat and can be played honestly in tempo even hating the cards.
Here in Italy odd/even is standard and I rarely had anything to say about related slow tempo as an opponent or even TD, when I did the violation was usually quite obvious.

I play O/E with one partner. Fortunately he’s extremely ethical, plus we both try very hard to ‘make our mistakes in tempo’, but if we do have an issue I’m happy to say that we’ll both ‘go the other way’ rather than take advantage. Has only happened a couple of times and, iirc, we broke even on one of them. I wish I could say the same about all of our opps (not many play o/e around here but it does arise).

[bluenikki]

mikeh, on 2024-December-23, 14:49, said:

I played the full obvious switch for a while. You need to be careful: when you play obviously switch, it’s difficult to play a ‘meaningless card’ and you are then stuck with choosing to give honest information to partner or to mislead him….bearing in mind that an expert declarer is paying just as much attention to your carding as you hope your partner is doing. So honest info may help declarer more than partner and dishonest info is more likely to hurt partner than declarer.

Plus as eminent a theorist as Rodwell thinks it’s a bad method….at the risk of mis-paraphrasing him, I gather he said words to the effect of ‘why would I want to give attitude about a suit partner didn’t lead rather than about the suit he did lead?’ I think he was referring to the problem that occasionally arises on opening lead….you have rules that allow you and partner, on reviewing the bidding and looking at dummy, to determine what the ‘obvious switch’ suit is. You must then either discourage the opening lead, to say that you can handle and may want the switch or encourage the opening lead suit because you can’t stand the switch. The problem is when you hate both the led suit and the obvious switch suit.

Playing other methods your attitude signs, is solely about the opening lead…if you hate both the lead and the ‘obvious switch’ suit, you discourage. Partner may now have to guess well.

I think the losses on this are not as bad as the gains but I do think obvious switch suffered from the same problem as do odd/even discards. Unless one is a robot (not the BBO kind), it’s difficult to maintain tempo when, playing OS, you hate both the lead and the switch suit. All too often, and with no conscious intent to cheat, the OS player may dither over his card….a slow discouraging card tends to be ‘I don’t like either but I hate the lead more than the switch’ and a slow encouraging one tends to be ‘I don’t like your lead but I hate the switch even more’

Similar to the well known ethical issue with odd/even when one has no odd cards to encourage the suit you want led and no even cards you can pitch from another suit.

I guess it's worth conscientiously going through "what shall I do if they lead this that or the other?" during the auction.

I don't know about full OS, but attitude despite a singleton in dummy is surely a winner. And fiendishly hard to get a pick-up to agree to.