Mid-week Bridge Learnings and Observations

Standard of play around the world particularly in Europe is outstanding with teams from Asia coming on strongly. The play in the Seniors event is particularly strong with many instances where Senior teams outbid and played their open counterparts. In the Open the greater pressure being applied may be one of the causes of the differing results.

It is not merely enough to play defensive bridge, pressure must be applied to the opponents and an offensive approach (despite its risks) are extremely important. In almost all instances where a pressure bid was not applied by our team that was applied at the other table significant numbers of imps were lost.

Bidding is massively important at this level. These comments come from the South African team which on card play and defense felt it was on par with the rest of the field but that the bidding and bidding judgement (not necessarily system) is what did them in.

Bridge is clearly a partnership and team game particularly with respect to team dynamics and psychology. The struggles of a number of top teams are directly attributable to the challenges of keeping 3 partnerships and 6 individuals in the right frame of mind for top bridge despite their individual talents.