Clever tricks
Susanna Gross
It may be a truism, but winning at bridge has far less to do with executing dazzling coups than with not making elementary mistakes. I spend so much time looking for opportunities to pull off the sort of ‘brilliancies’ I read about in books that I often forget to concentrate on...just concentrating. As a result I lose the plot mid-hand, and end up doing something embarrassingy silly. Indeed, one of the reasons I feel a compulsion to keep playing bridge, week in, week out, is because I want to redeem myself, both in my eyes and the eyes of others.
Of course, professional players thrive on other peoples’ mistakes; it’s how they make their living. But they don’t just sit back and wait for errors to happen — they lure their opponents into making them.
Below, the professional was Zia (South), probably the best rubber bridge player the world has ever seen. I won’t name his unwitting victim (East). The hand comes from the ‘Big Game’ at TGR’s:
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