[PhantomSac]

mgoetze, on 2015-December-10, 22:31, said:

That's the spirit!

You must be great at bridge!

[Trinidad]

Whenever I play with a new partner, inevitably decisions need to be made about partnership agreements. I am fine with most of what my partners suggest, and I have only one request: AKQ. In my opinion, it is by far the most valuable agreement a partnership can have: It has yielded lots of MPs and IMPs and has greatly enhanced the fun in the game.

Oh, I forgot to tell. AKQ stands for Always Keep Quiet.

Rik

[Jinksy]

PhantomSac, on 2015-December-10, 07:59, said:

I am probably one of the worst at post morteming relative to how I play. I cannot even remember hands 10 minutes after I play them unless they are extraordinary or if someone tells me something about them... I also hate talking about bridge at tourneys.

It doesn't matter, some people can remember everything about deals 50 years ago, don't be intimidated...everyone is different.

That's kind of reassuring. I can never hold a complete hand in my head (even my own).

And as Calvin (of & Hobbes) once said - 'You know how Einstein got bad grades in school? Well mine are even worse'.

[The_Badger]

I used to get intimidated how quickly some people could analyse both bridge and chess scenarios. Good luck to them for having the grey matter and neuron speed to do this but...I believe the reality usually is that the speedier minds also have the capacity to make more mistakes in the long run. Not all but many. It'll be interesting to see some statistical research analysis proving whether this theory is correct.

I play speed chess regularly against the computer at the equivalent of international master level, and lose many games as I am playing too fast, but it has heightened my 'feel' for the game considerably. Maybe if I regularly played 'speed bridge' I would develop the capacity to feel instinctively what the correct line of play is. I have always been an analytical 'plodder' which seems to have got worse with age

However, I am thankfully reassured that the tortoise won the race against the hare

[rmnka447]

The comment about the erroneous detailed analysis called to mind a long gone player in our local games. He was a reasonably good player probably somewhere between advanced and expert. His bidding and play were a bit uneven partly because of the convoluted bidding and carding agreements he had. Yet, he always had these detailed analyses that inevitably were used to justify why what he did was right even if it got a bad result. But he was a sociable enough person that you sort of blew it away as "Well, that's just ______ doing his thing!"

I was lucky to get to go to après cards get togethers with some of the best players in the now defunct local Friday Night duplicate club. We'd convene after the game at a nearby all night diner/restaurant/pancake house to rehash the game, eat, drink, and socialize. The best players were all pretty much able to reconstruct hands from the evening's play. Quite often, someone would have a question about how to bid or play a particular hand. We'd all get to give our opinion. Usually, these questions were to help a player gauge how to do better on that hand. Everyone would freely admit if they made an error or misplayed a particular hand. Even as good as they were, they were using the rehash to identify ways to improve their games or areas that needed work. And all, though fiercely competitive, they were polite and rarely said much at the table. For me, it was a great education about the game.

Personally, I'm not able to reconstruct more than a few hands in any session. Usually they're ones that have been particularly successful or dismal failures. My favorite partner is often able to reconstruct hands several days after the fact. The important thing is not whether you remember the hands but whether you find the right bids and plays when playing them.

[Zelandakh]

Jinksy, on 2015-December-11, 06:18, said:

'You know how Einstein got bad grades in school? Well mine are even worse'.

Just to point out that the idea that Einstein was a poor student (usually that he failed maths) is a myth. He was an exceptional student. He did have problems with authoritarian teachers and failed in some peripheral subjects on his first university entrance exam at 16. He then changed to a different school and achieved top grades in all subjects except French at 17.

Also, the quotation "It is not enough to be a good player, you must also play well" is from Tarrasch rather than Tartakower.

And finally, everyone knows that the only way to be respected on the internet is to be a smartass!

[gwnn]

Zelandakh, on 2015-December-14, 04:18, said:

Also, the quotation "It is not enough to be a good player, you must also play well" is from Tarrasch rather than Tartakower.

How do you know? I found sources for both online, which is why I mentioned both.
https://en.wikiquote...egbert_Tarrasch
https://en.wikipedia...elly_Tartakower

True, the second one has no direct source, so Tarrasch seems more likely.

[Zelandakh]

Because it has been linked with Tarrasch since the 19th century and only with Tartakower since Wikipedia? It is simple, someone made a mistake on the wiki entry. Happens all the time.

[gwnn]

Zelandakh, on 2015-December-14, 09:37, said:

Because it has been linked with Tarrasch since the 19th century and only with Tartakower since Wikipedia? It is simple, someone made a mistake on the wiki entry. Happens all the time.

OK I was trying to ask for your original source out of curiosity, maybe wasn't clear. Do you have it?

[Zelandakh]

gwnn, on 2015-December-27, 17:00, said:

OK I was trying to ask for your original source out of curiosity, maybe wasn't clear. Do you have it?

The earliest origin I know of is Leipzig 1888, with the specific quote being: "Ich sah ein, dass es nicht genügt, ein guter Spieler zu sein, sondern dass man gut spielen muss". It was later reported in the more familiar form, both in the German Vienna 1898 book ("Es ist nicht genug, dass man ein guter Spieler ist, man muss auch gut spielen") and the August 1898 copy of American Chess Magazine ("It is not sufficient to be a good chessplayer, one must play good chess"). Given that Tartakower was born in 1887, it would have been quite the story for him to be the original!

[gwnn]

I wasn't arguing for Tartakower at all, I was just wondering how you were so sure. Thanks.

[nullve]

nullve (mediocre chess player), on 2015-December-28, 05:18, said:

It is not enough to be someone who plays well, you must also play well.

[Zelandakh]

gwnn, on 2015-December-28, 03:09, said:

I wasn't arguing for Tartakower at all, I was just wondering how you were so sure. Thanks.

No problem, it is a good idea to check almost everything you read on the internet. We actually had the quote come up on BBF 5 or more years ago so the basics of the origin were still in my mind - I did need to refresh myself on the exact details though.