It’s been a long journey to Silver Life Master. I started playing in clubs in 1972, became addicted to the game, and had to stop cold turkey in late 1979. At that point, I was about 1.14 gold points short of LM. Except for one tournament in 1984, I didn’t play again for 20 years. When I resumed playing in 1999, it didn’t take long to make LM, but I wasn’t able to win consistently because I made too many errors.

There were four things that helped most in getting to the next level: First, I read (and re-read) Bill Root’s book How to Defend a Bridge Hand. I can’t overemphasize the need to become a competent defender. Looking back, it’s amazing that I won as much as I did in the 1970’s, with pathetically bad defensive skills. And this book is excellent – the perfect presentation for the majority of bridge players, who have a basic orientation to logical thinking.

Second, I learned how to stop making so many errors. It used to think it was just a matter of experience – the errors would gradually go away on their own, as I played more bridge. That wasn’t true. What made the difference is when I started to keep a mental list of my errors. Each time I made a mistake, I obsessed over it for a day or two, vowing never to make that particular error again, and adding it to the list. I suppose “list” is the wrong word, because I don’t actually review all my bad decisions, every time I’m about to make a new one. Rather, it’s a collection of resolutions that I’ve embedded in my bridge psyche. The key was not to just get more experience, but to make those experiences count by really caring about the bad ones.

Third, I learned to bid quickly. One of my regular partners dropped me because he always felt unethical when he watched my bidding hesitations. To fix this, I put myself in a setting (OKBridge, at the time) where I didn’t care whether I won or lost, and committed to making every bid with 10 seconds, no matter how difficult. Now that I’m in the habit, I allow myself to go over the 10 second limit occasionally, but only when faced with truly weird hands. This habit of bidding quickly has greatly improved my game. I not only don’t force unauthorized information on my partners, but I keep my opponents guessing. If I ever make a bad decision by bidding too fast, which is rare, I add it to the “list”.

Fourth, I continue to read and re-read books. Larry Cohen’s To Bid or Not to Bid, and its sequel Following the Law helped my competitive bidding tremendously. Winning Suit Contract Leads, by David Bird and Taf Anthias, has revolutionized my approach to opening leads. I read the ACBL Bulletin cover to cover each month, and I benefit from the more advanced articles. I especially like Ed Kantar’s articles, and each time I get one of his “Test Your Play” hands right, it boosts my confidence.

Looking forward, I think the best next thing I can do for my game is to find and cultivate good partnerships. Obviously, I’ve been trying to do that since 1999. But now that I’m (probably) retired from my software development areer, I’m going to put even more emphasis on finding and keeping good partners. I earned a lifetime record 45.53 master points (and went over 1000) in Lancaster, when I was able to play 10 sessions with two different established partners. With better partners and more playing time, I hope to make Gold LM in a lot less than the 16 years it took to make Silver.

I am proud to be part of the District 4 family. I was born in China and migrated to the states 20 years ago at the age of 27. I began to play bridge in my early 20s. I started with Charles Goren’s book, and I also studied the Big Club (Howard Schenken), and the Diamond System. I enjoyed them. After I came to the US, I played in a local club for a few years, but I could not find a compatible partner.

I stopped playing from the year 2002 until last year. My brother invited me to play bridge with his friends and I resumed the game. We formed a team and spent a lot of time together. My partner was a brand new player. I tutored him and he did pretty well. My brother partnered with another experienced player, and we won first place in the Grand National Teams and that inspired me. We are excited and we are going to do our best to see how far we can go in Toronto.

My partner and I had a chance to play with two other pairs in a team game at the 1984 Colorado Springs regional. With one pair we could play in a limited masterpoint swiss team game. With the other pair we would have to play in a Flight A Board a Match game. We chose the BAM game for the experience. I had about 45 points with 3 gold. My partner had about 600. The teammate that forced us to play Flight A had a little over 1000 points. In the middle of the round, we faced Barry Crane and Grant Baze. The rest of his team was Chris Compton and Rhoda Walsh. Barry reached the 30,000 masterpoint plateau at the tournament. Baze won the 1984 McKenney Trophy (now the Barry Crane Trophy) with Crane and Compton finishing 2nd and 3rd. Among the team members, to this date, they have won 13 of these trophies.

Back to the hands. Barry first doubled my partner in a 5 Diamond contract then likewise doubled me in a 4 Heart contract. We made both! We ended up 4th in a field of 31 for 15 gold points. Barry and his team won the event going away. When we left the table there was a somewhat perturbed discussion about the bidding in one of the hands. Only in bridge can a rookie play (and have a chance to beat) world and national champions.