Progression

I'm coming to one of those moments in my progression where I question whether I'm really moving forwards at all.

I'm largely over the triathlon timeout I had in the spring. I'm back, more or less, to where I was in the early winter. Maybe what's getting to me is that there's still so far to go.

I'm counting, but not as often as I'd like. The hands were I count deep into the hand are always rewarding - I know what's going on in the last few tricks, and can see how it's all going to play out. Alas, this doesn't seem to happen as often as I'd like, and sometimes, I stare blankly as trick after trick rolls by. Maybe it'll come with more time and more work.

Most of the mistakes I'm making lately are on "easy" subjects, at best. Some of them are completely idiotic - miscounting trump, not ruffing a loser in dummy before drawing trump, stuff like that. Stuff I wouldn't bat an eyelash at it if were a bridge problem, away from the table. Ok, yesterday I drew a complete blank on a basic 2/1 auction (I couldn't recall if 1H/2D/2H promised 5 or 6), but even that kind of thing will come with repetition.

Granted, I probably won't be able to play 100 hands a week for a good long time (BBO says I've logged 67 in the last 7 days, which is high for me). My reading has slowed to a crawl. Really, I have no real reason to think that my game should be growing by leaps and bounds.

I'm still hungry, though. I (rightly or wrongly) believe that I have the ability to be world class at this game, someday. Someday. My ambition (hubris?) makes me want to get on to the difficult lessons, rather than screwing up the easy stuff over and over again, like I am now.

I'm not getting very many results right now, but that's not the source of my frustration. Results have come in the past, and will continue to come. Today more than most days, it seems like the road ahead is very long, and I'm not exactly sure what the next step is.