As with every hobby, if it becomes your passion, you are spending a lot of time on it. That, and fact that time is the only resource that is strictly limited, is why I have tried several times to quit playing bridge. My wife was supporting me on this break-up with bridge, but I keep coming back. On top of sense of challenge, competition and aschievement that I get from this game, I realized, that there are some lessons for life that bridge is teaching which I am sharing with you here:
- It takes 2 to play bridge well. As in Tango, and very frequently in life, very difficult to succeed without partner. Succesful players around the world are parts of „succesful partnerships”. Playing it alone is still possible (individual tournaments), but satisfaction is low, as standard of performance is low.
- Succesful communication is about your partner understanding you. Not about you sending the right message. It is when your partner understands, your mission on communication is complete. Frequently in bridge, as in life, people tend to focus on „sending” part of communication vs
„receiving” one. And this causes frustruation, tension, bad results. Accept responsibility for making sure that partner „receives” right message and results will surely improve! - Being in control of your emotions means better decisions. As in life, bridge is offering many opportunities to fail, to make mistakes, and to feel embarassed about it. Or to feel angry, and try to recover, at the expense of opponents, or worse, at the expense of partner (yelling, blaiming…). At the end, loss of temper means almost always even bigger loss at the bridge table. Similar to life it is.
- Aiming for the sun (or moon) will at least take you to be among stars. Bridge offers great opportunitiies to play against world’s best. And sometimes even to win against them. It just takes
desire and ambition to get there (well, a bit of money too..). - Understanding yourself helps a lot. Knowing your strength and weaknesses improves your game a
lot. Your bility to calculate, to „read” signals at the table, to be patient, focused, in control of emotions. Or your explosions after mistakes, being tired after few hours of play, being tired in the mornings.. Knowing your assets and liabilities helps to use your assets to the maximum. - Challenging your brain pays dividends. A lot is written about declining mental capabilities once
aging, but the fact is, we can make the process slower by training our brain.
More on this you may read on www.lumosity.com.
Meet you at the bridge table. Or in life. Or both. Yours,Aigars