Other Important Stuff Flashcards
Paying Attention
Paying attention is not a convention but it is as important as a convention - paying attention is being acutely aware of what is going on around you - being totally present in the moment - being aware of what your partner just did or what your opponents just did and attempting to determine the strategic significance of those behaviors - paying attention is “not” leading from the wrong side or trumping your partner’s winning trick or forgetting what the trump suit is or playing too fast or messing up transportation - things we have all done because of “fatigue” or “distraction” or “absent-mindedness”
Leave history to the historians - you can’t change history but you can improve the future
It is popular to look immediately at history after playing a hand - that’s great if it does not distract from focus on the next game - however I find that when history tells me that I did not do well, that failure distracts me from focusing fully on the next game - so I ignore history while playing
Isn’t analysis of past games the key to improvement?
The best analytic tools can be found on BBO - you can replay (card by card) each hand you played - you can also replay (card by card) any other player who did better than you (role model) - best practice is to look for general rules you can use next time to improve your game and not focus on specific dumb mistakes that are usually caused by not fully paying attention
Optimism versus Pessimism
In an ideal world we would view positive and negative contingencies from a neutral perspective, however in practice we tend to lean toward optimism of pessimism - in my humble opinion and experience, leaning toward optimism generates better playing energy and results - pessimism has a strange way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy
