Lessons Learned

I have reviewed the hands from my lovely 21% game. Two hands jumped out.

On the first, I was invited to game in spades. Holding 14 points (and 4 spades), I declined the invite. On the second, I decided not to compete to 5 spades over 5 in a red holding 5215 distribution.

Both times I opted to pass. Both decisions were in the minority, and both were losing decisions.

I have always known that I'm on the conservative side of things. I know that I'm getting better, and approaching "normal". This means that I need to push myself to be a little bit more agressive.

On Sunday, I played in the Intermediate/Advanced club weekly tournament. One of my former teammates, from this spring's I/A teams tournament, asked me to play. Thanks to some excellent bidding and defense on her part, we managed to win the tournament by several IMPs.

I did catch myself making one very noticeable mistake, though fortunately it did not cost us a trick. I bid 1NT on the way to opponents bidding game in a major. I was very careless on defense, which is unfortunate as my play mattered far more than my partners.

Before the hand was even done I was kicking myself. Hopefully I'll sit a bit straighter next time that happens.

Overall, I can't let the highs (2 first places) or lows (one dead last place) from last week get to me. I need to take the long view, and work on improving my overall game. Bridge is a game where the best and the worst will both have highs and lows. If I play each individual hand well and work on improving, my results will be good in the long haul.