“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” —Aristotle

One can become a very fine bridge player through experience alone. This is what makes bridge and other card games so much fun to learn! We can improve dramatically by simply playing the game we love. Look around the card room and you’ll find that the better than average players in each game are usually the ones who have seen the most hands. 

While experience alone can make you quite good, hard work will make you even better. The best players have not only played a ton of bridge, they’ve also worked hard on their games away from the table. They read about the game, refine and practice their bidding systems and are tirelessly analyzing hand after hand.

As a pro bridge grinder in New York City, I was able to sit down and play bridge every single afternoon against some of the finest competition in the country. This experience was a gift and helped me improve dramatically. I took my job as a pro bridge player seriously so I was always working on my game. Reading, practicing, analyzing hands and asking questions of some of the world’s finest bridge minds. This experience and hard work made me into a very fine bridge player but there was one more thing I needed to learn to become the player I am today.

I didn’t truly unlock my potential as a bridge player until I realized I STINK AT BRIDGE! 

At the start of my pro bridge career, I had the good fortune to live with some of the best players in the world and they taught me so much. The best lesson, however, came on a random afternoon after one of our club sessions. I arrived home with a story of woe that started with “You won’t believe what my partner did on this hand…”. I proceeded with a story about my partner’s poor play on defense that cost us a game swing. I was perplexed to see the whole room (four world class bridge pros) shaking their heads at me. While they agreed that my partner’s play was awful, they all also agreed that this situation was entirely my fault and proceeded to show me why I should anticipate this issue and several ways I could have avoided it. It was tough love from my roommates, there was some laughter and some colorful metaphors thrown around about how hopeless I was (which was true for sure). It was completely mind-blowing for me at that moment. I simultaneously realized what had been missing from my game and what it really meant to be a “PRO” player. I was missing a crucial component for success in any worthwhile endeavor, honest self-reflection. 

This felt odd to me because of my experience at the poker table. When I started learning poker I was fortunate to know I was terrible. This knowledge coupled with the individual nature of the game made honest self-reflection seem quite natural. I could be brutally honest with myself about my successes and failures because I knew I was bad and I had no one to blame but myself! As my skill improved at the poker table I started to recognize the major difference between the better players and the bad players. The bad players were constantly complaining about their bad luck (or others’ good luck) and never challenging themselves. The good players were almost never talking about luck and were constantly thinking about how they could have played a certain hand better or differently. It’s this mindset that can take anyone from good to great.

The reason I was slow to realize this leak, was that I had way too high an opinion of my own bridge game at this point! I started playing when I was a kid and after 20 years off I was still able to get hired to play professionally!? “I must be soooo talented and smart!” (yuk!). Thanks to my friends, and their not so generous opinions of my skills, I was finally able to approach bridge the same way I approached poker, from a position of humility. Once I realized that I was “bad” at bridge, I could truly become better. I was astonished by how much more quickly I started to improve by simply adding this knowledge to my daily life. I would walk into the bridge club and say to myself “Try not to stink too much worse than normal today Rob”. If a mistake was made by my partner I first looked within. I would think of any way I could have been better and many times I would find these ways. I started to recognize the “bad players” at the bridge table would always be blaming partner for their mistakes while not recognizing their own obvious mistakes on the same deal. The good players meanwhile were sympathetic to partner’s mistake and frequently would apologize for not finding a different path. 

Self-reflection at bridge can be tough at first because you may make the same mistake I made in my story. You may see an obvious mistake that partner has made without noticing the less obvious mistakes that you made leading up to partner’s failure. The better you are, the more likely you are to come to these incorrect conclusions. If you are known to be a good player, you are more likely to be trusted in your analysis than an inexperienced player. As a result no one, including you, will dig any deeper into the deal. Don’t make this mistake! Be humble, don’t stop learning and allow yourself to go from good to great.

About the Author

Rob Barrington is a professional bridge player and world renowned bridge instructor. He is the founder of bridgelesson.com and teaches large online courses on that site and through his popular YouTube channel. Rob resides in West Palm Beach, Florida.