A Taste of Bridge: Bringing Our Full Selves to the Table

That morning started with a 6:30 a.m. call with my bridge coach, Morton, in Denmark (mid-afternoon for him).  On the days I have bridge calls, I usually get up an hour early to wake up my mind.

A hand above, B-28 (in the top left) is a practice hand that I reviewed with Morten. This practice hand is on BridgeBase.com, a popular bridge site.  BridgeBase has about twenty thousand players logged in 24X7, from all over the globe.

Basic Introduction:  Bridge, is a card game like Hearts and like a doubles-tennis match, it is played between two pairs, who are partners.  It’s a trick-taking game.  Imagine me as “South,” partnered with “North.” I control both hands, as shown in the diagram. 6Ss in the lower left indicates I need to win at least 12 tricks, with spades as the trump suit. Play proceeds clockwise, requiring players to follow suit if possible. You must follow suit and the highest played card wins the trick.  But when you run out of cards in a suit, you can play a trump card to win the trick.

Remember in a card deck there are four suits, Spades(S), Hearts (H), Diamonds(D) and Clubs(C), with thirteen cards per suit.

Analyzing hand B-28, I can confidently secure 11 tricks: 6 in spades, 2 in hearts, 2 in diamonds, and 1 in clubs. The challenge lies in the remaining trick. Ideally, I can only concede one trick to the opposing team (East-West)

I will need to guess what lay of the cards will help me win an extra needed trick.  That trick could come in Cs if the C-King is with E or in Ds if the D-Queen is with W.  So I have two chances to make 12 tricks — better than one chance. Good players can also spot that with 6 Ds in E-W hands when divided 3-3, 4th D of N is the extra trick.  The topnotch players can play the cards to test all three scenarios.

For Bridge Veterans:

The beauty lies in combining these chances. A finesse in either Clubs or Diamonds offers a 50% chance each, but combined, the success rate jumps to 75%. Additionally, a 35% chance exists for a 3-3 Diamond split in East-West hands, further increasing the odds. Most experienced players will know not to take C finesse without testing Ds first.

Expert Maneuvers: Playing the Percentages

BridgeBase, however, recommends playing A and K of Ds first, which gives a small extra chance of Q of D falling! If not, then lead the last D from S’s hand towards N’s J5 uncovering West’s holding. If West has the Q he will take it, leaving your J as a winner, your 12th trick. So you may think that if D finesse works what is the fuss? But look at the beauty of the expert play.

It turns out that if W has only two Ds, and E has 4 (45% probability according to the bridge encyclopedia) you will find that out when you play the third D.  And if W has no more Ds, then you will have no choice but to take C finesse!  You have just made a play where you have further improved your probability of 12th tricks, to much more than 75%.

Yet a complex hand like B-28 is only Level 3 difficulty, out of 5!

Morten said it starts getting easy after you’ve seen it a few times at the bridge table.  But for me, the real-life bridge hand moves too fast to remember unique situations, which are many. Just like basketball, bridge takes practice, practice and more practice.

Hope this has given you a taste of what playing bridge is like.

The bridge “workout” served as a prelude to my day.

After my 90-minute session with Morten, I played another two hours of online bridge with my local bridge coach and partner Debbie.  After just having worked hard to learn an intricate bridge technique, I thought I would now be super focused.  But I stumbled on the very first hand with Debbie. Then I reminded myself of what the Oracle of Omaha says. “Don’t beat yourself. Beating yourself is half the problem.”

The long-term benefits of bridge are better understood and often touted.  What makes bridge –which is often called the toughest mind game – interesting and addictive is its competitive nature every step of the way and because like the stock market, it’s impossible to predict how the 52 cards will be divided among four players.

Next, I had a three-hour Zoom call with the Finance Committee of Mathematical Science and Research Institute (SLMath).  It’s a prestigious institute producing most Field Medalists (often called the Nobel Prize of Mathematics).  Most of the board members on the call are sharp mathematicians or not. And I struggle to fit in with these great minds.   

The previous night I spent a few hours digesting the pre-read material of the call, with fifteen attachments and many spreadsheets and bar charts, till I dozed off. The next day, one hour into the meeting, I was still grappling with it. I did not want to be disruptive, as it did not seem others were having much problem.  

Without going into the details, an important issue was that the institute has an eight-figure endowment which has produced good investment returns, yet we were discussing short-term cash issues amounting to only a couple of hundred thousand dollars.  I summoned the courage to ask a pertinent question: “What is the problem that we are trying to solve?” That helped the experts think not just of how to answer my question, but also of possible solutions.  I was happy that I was hyper focused and was able to articulate my confusion, which also helped move the meeting along.

In board meetings and committee meetings, we have to bring our full selves to the table, just like in playing bridge.  The endeavor of bridge, is a never-ending sharpener of the mind.