Bridge Road Warriors 2014 #32

“Every Olympic athlete prepares differently. For me, I am 100 percent into the sport. And if I decide to really make a crucial career decision to say, ‘This is something I want to do,’ I want to leave no stone unturned in my preparation” – Apolo Ohno

 

The pleasure of practice is a dubious one. The long hours of preparation can be quite tedious, and I must often fight laziness and self distraction in order to achieve my long term goals. I practice hours on both BridgeBase and BridgeMaster, the superb Declarer training software available from the same. I also spend a fair amount of time utilizing Bridgesqueezescomplete.com, where I practice the exercises derived from Clyde Love’s brilliant book. It seems that I still have a long way to go before I reach my goal of unconscious competence as a card player.

 

While the frequency of my errors has diminished over the many years I have been competing, there seems to be no end to the different types of mistakes that I may make during any given session. Sometimes, I cannot believe how difficult accomplishing the simple can be. Alan Sontag’s observation that the experts achieve by not screwing up the easy hands is a certain truth – and one I have taken to heart.

 

I do take great pleasure in solving the most difficult of problems successfully, and when I do, I must be wary to not let overconfidence betray me on the next hand. There will be time enough to celebrate after the session.

 

Even on the worst of days at the table there are moments of triumph for a hand played well, they are the incentive to come back and try again tomorrow.