[qetzel]

Hi, I'm new to bridge and really enjoy it except that I've a lousy memory and just can't remember what cards have been played. Are there no tips anyone can give me other than just to practise? (I'm not finding that just practising is helping)....

[pescetom]

qetzel, on 2024-June-30, 13:59, said:

Hi, I'm new to bridge and really enjoy it except that I've a lousy memory and just can't remember what cards have been played. Are there no tips anyone can give me other than just to practise? (I'm not finding that just practising is helping)....

Yes, as I too am not great at memory (which initially involves cards played and then lots more stuff) but have worked on it and improved a bit.

Some tips:

1) practice memorizing a hand. Deal 3 cards, look at them, turn them face down and then write down what you saw. Deal 4 cards and repeat. Deal 5 cards and repeat... until you reach 13 cards and it is no problem (may take months or even years, do not give up. See also 5).

2) look at the key suit(s) once the dummy is down and don't just focus on number of cards and honours but figure out precisely which cards are unaccounted for and who might have each of them.

3) find a way that works for you of memorizing which cards have been played, and/or remain unplayed. This is probably the hardest of all, unless you are lucky enough to simply remember the precise cards played to each trick. Everyone has their own method and it's quite difficult to get the best players to disclose it.

4) during play, don't let anyone mess with your memorizing. Delay turning over your own card until you are comfortable with what has happened, have a stern word with partner if he auto-plays from dummy, call the TD if the opps insta-play.

5) study the possible distribution of of a suit in 4 hands (or 4 suits in a hand) and learn to recognise the most frequent distributions, have an idea of the frequency of each and start to form and refine hypotheses about how each suit may split around the table and how the four suits may split in a given hand.

[akwoo]

I'm assuming that OP has more basic problems than what pescetom is addressing.

First start by trying to memorize which aces have been played. Then kings. Now try to keep track of what the highest unseen card of each suit is.

Second, try counting the cards in each key suit. Do not try to count to 13. Rather, when dummy comes down, add up the cards in your hand and dummy, and subtract that from 13 - that's the number of cards in the two unseen hands. Count to that number. When you start, it will be hard enough to just do this when you are declarer and the suit is trump. Once you can count outstanding trump when declaring, start trying to count side suits where you have a lot of cards and might be able to run that suit after trump are drawn (if you're not at a NT contract). Alternatively, instead of counting the trumps (or whatever suit) opponents have played, count how many rounds both opponents follow suit, and when one shows out, figure out how many the other player has left

[smerriman]

There was a study done ages ago where strong chess players were compared to members of the public - shown a chessboard, then asked to recreate the position from memory. When it was a position that had actually occurred in a game, the chess players were light years ahead, memorising it perfectly in mere seconds. When it was randomly positioned pieces, they scored almost exactly the same as the public - they weren't memorising the position, but seeing the chess logic behind how pieces were interacting.

I expect a strong bridge player would equally be quite hopeless at memorising a randomly ordered deck of 52 cards.

While memory is obviously some part of it, I would think of it less as memorisation and more about focusing on the bridge logic, which you'll improve over time.

Start with something very basic - e.g. only the trump suit. Before you even play a card to the first trick, you should be thinking about how many trumps you're missing, what high cards the opponents may have, and what the most likely split will be. Once you've fixed that in your head and made your initial plan, then when something unexpected happens later - like someone shows out, or ruffs, or drops a high card that you weren't expecting - it's easier to refer back to your original logic and adjust things from there.

[qetzel]

Thanks very much all of you. Some very useful ideas and fascinating about the chess players. I have to become more confident at going at my own pace rather than the pace of more experienced players, but I'm finding that hard...

[DavidKok]

 smerriman, on 2024-June-30, 19:34, said:

I expect a strong bridge player would equally be quite hopeless at memorising a randomly ordered deck of 52 cards.

I can't speak for strong bridge players but on a club evening I can typically remember all cards of all deals, at least until the next morning or so. And while I've never tried I think memorising a randomly sorted deck of 52 cards would be an impossible task for me.

 pescetom, on 2024-June-30, 15:00, said:

3) find a way that works for you of memorizing which cards have been played, and/or remain unplayed. This is probably the hardest of all, unless you are lucky enough to simply remember the precise cards played to each trick. Everyone has their own method and it's quite difficult to get the best players to disclose it.

[...]

5) study the possible distribution of of a suit in 4 hands (or 4 suits in a hand) and learn to recognise the most frequent distributions, have an idea of the frequency of each and start to form and refine hypotheses about how each suit may split around the table and how the four suits may split in a given hand.

This is beyond the scope of this post, but this is one of the first things I learned when playing bridge. To me counting the shapes around the table was the very first card counting I ever did, and if there's interest I could maybe write a little more about it at some point.

[Knurdler]

I also struggle with counting.
The following article helped me to focus on what to count (not everything):
http://youth.worldbr...rke-marc-smith/

[akwoo]

DavidKok, on 2024-July-01, 10:52, said:

I can't speak for strong bridge players but on a club evening I can typically remember all cards of all deals, at least until the next morning or so. And while I've never tried I think memorising a randomly sorted deck of 52 cards would be an impossible task for me.

This is beyond the scope of this post, but this is one of the first things I learned when playing bridge. To me counting the shapes around the table was the very first card counting I ever did, and if there's interest I could maybe write a little more about it at some point.

Let me say for the record - I can't do either of these things on a consistent basis - in a good session I get the count right for 6 of the 8 hands where it matters (and maybe 3 of the 8 where it doesn't - on average I'm dummy for the other 6 out of 24).

And I was on the 0-2500 Micro-Spingold winning team in 2022 - so I'm by no means an expert but not a chump either.

So don't be scared off of playing if this is hard for you. Most bridge players never get to this level.

(Unfortunately, I have scared a few people off from a club by responding to "How did you figure out to keep that card?" with "I kept track of all the cards that had been played," to which I got a look of "I'm way out of my league and had better not play with these folks." Try not to scare off players from your club.)

[pescetom]

akwoo, on 2024-October-12, 14:34, said:

Let me say for the record - I can't do either of these things on a consistent basis - in a good session I get the count right for 6 of the 8 hands where it matters (and maybe 3 of the 8 where it doesn't - on average I'm dummy for the other 6 out of 24).

And I was on the 0-2500 Micro-Spingold winning team in 2022 - so I'm by no means an expert but not a chump either.

So don't be scared off of playing if this is hard for you. Most bridge players never get to this level.

(Unfortunately, I have scared a few people off from a club by responding to "How did you figure out to keep that card?" with "I kept track of all the cards that had been played," to which I got a look of "I'm way out of my league and had better not play with these folks." Try not to scare off players from your club.)

There are lots of abilities that work towards being a top player, good memory of the cards played and or dealt is certainly one. But it's not on its own sufficient to connotate a top player, as Davidkok (with or without false modesty) implies. Yes when I was with WBF at the Bermuda Bowl I was awestruck at how the best players took it for granted that partner would recall a hand played days earlier, with a hundred or more others in the meantime. At my much more modest level, I need the phone to remember more than the 2 or 3 most interesting deals at the end of the night. But while we have one player in my club who remembers all the deals played that night and the week before too, he is far from the strongest overall. It's nice to have memory in your genes, but you can always improve it with hard work unlike some other attributes.

[jillybean]

Just keep practicing.
I found that starting to track the honours and tens was a good start.
Remembering how many times a suit had been played. Did everyone follow?
Low spots - I didn’t necessarily count every card but watched for the one that mattered, could beat my low spot card.

Don’t let players like DavidK put you off ��

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,
#1 you dont need to memorize the cards, you only need to keep track of the rank,
if you control the suit or not.

#2 try to work with pattern, how suit break.

There are only 10-15 relevant pattern out there. quite often due to bidding
you can bring it down to 2-3, you need to differentiate.

#3 If you have a 8 card fit, the suit breaks either 3/2 or 4/1.
If you have a 7 card fit. the suit breaks either 3/3 or 4/2.

The main trouble / issue: Keeping the concentartion.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[jdiana]

I also struggle with this. Some people are able to visualize the unseen hands, but I apparently wasn't born with that gene. I've always kind of played by the seat of my pants, relying on some amount of card sense derived from playing trick taking games as a kid. I know I need to be more scientific about it - less Captain Kirk and more Mr. Spock - but I find it tedious so it's difficult for me.

Anyway, the article referenced by Knurdler is from Countdown to Winning Bridge, which is good. There are other books on the subject as well. Mike Lawrence has some very old software for PCs - https://michaelslawr...cd-for-pc-only/

Karen Walker has a couple of posts on counting:

https://kwbridge.com/counting-1.htm
https://kwbridge.com/counting-2.htm

You say that practicing hasn't helped but, like practicing anything (like a musical instrument), you need to practice with a purpose. You might try focusing on one or two of the specific techniques suggested by KW at a time, for example, and practice those specific things against robots. You can take all the time in the world and write things down on paper while playing the hands, if that helps, until it becomes more second nature.

Now I just need to follow my own advice . . .

[blackshoe]

Eddie Kantar has a new book out about counting.