Every now and then you see a monster hand. Playing with Roxie in a special club game I pick up:

S: KQx H: QJ9x D: 9x C: K98x.

I am not against opening light, but balanced, aceless eleven counts don’t require any pushing (in second seat). It goes around to fourth seat and my partner bids Two Clubs. I have a monstrous hand opposite a two club opening, so I make a waiting Two Diamonds bid (which creates a Game Force). Partner bids Three Diamonds (a real suit). I have a real problem. I do have four hearts, and I can bid it, but I only have four hearts. I bid Three Hearts. Hopefully partner will bid 3 NT and then I can bid … I’m not sure. 6 NT should be safe, but I’d love to have 5NT as “Bid 6NT with a minimum, and 7NT with extras.” But I’d never seen used that bid in 37 years … now I’ve had two hands in under twelve months where I could use it.

Partner now bids Four No Trump. Ugh. Is that blackwood? Quantitative showing extras? I’m clearly not passing. Unfortunately in our version of Roman Key Card Blackwood my correct bid (assuming I think it’s blackwood) is Five Diamonds (showing no key cards). I’d hate for us to be on the wrong wavelength and playing in 5 Diamonds when 6 NT should be ice cold …. although it may only be cold if I’m declarer, and I wouldn’t be. (The opening lead could be a club through my king into RHO’s AQ). I wish my correct bid was five clubs, because then I’m sure I wouldn’t be passed. But I grit my teeth and bid Five Diamonds.

Partner bids Seven Hearts.

I was totally going to pull “Six” hearts to no trump, but should I pull seven? Well, now I’m sure partner must have four hearts (at least). Partner bid seven hearing I have no key cards …. so why ask at all? Partner must have AKxx(x) of hearts and a solid diamond suit. Either partner has the black aces, and I’m not sure what the point of key card was, or partner has a black suit void and was looking for the last ace to decide between hearts and no trump.

We don’t play Exclusion Key Card (the most dangerous convention), so hrm. In the end, I figure that this is a club game and any grand slam should be a 75% even when its as obvious as this. If I convert to 7NT and it’s right, I gain maybe 2 matchpoints. If we’re off an ace I give up 10-12. The only real issue is that sometimes 7NT makes when 7H is off, due to a bad trump break. But against that on a bad diamond break I may need to ruff the suit good (imagine partner with AKQxxx or AKxxxxx).

I pass, but not without some thought. If I get doubled I’ll run. (In fact, a clever expert versus another expert may double a making 7H knowing that 7N goes down … but against this pair I needn’t worry about that). LHO leads a diamond …

I’ve seen monster hands before, but Roxie puts down …. a kaiju. Calling it a monster truly understates how powerful the hand is.

S: A H: AKxx D: AKQJTxx C:A

When the opening lead doesn’t get ruffed and both follow to one round of trumps I quickly claim.

I’m still not sure what the 4N bid accomplished. Sadly with us playing 14-30 Key card, my five diamond response gives no real followup to ask for the heart queen (If we played 03-14 where five clubs shows zero, then 5 Diamonds would ask¹ … In hindsight I think that perhaps Roxie should have bid 5NT which typically shows all the key cards and then see what I do. But normally the response is to show kings, and she really wants to know that I have the Q (and hopefully J) of hearts, or Q of hearts and a black king.

Roxie just decided that I was likely to have the HQ or 5+ hearts, and hope for some luck, but I think she should have bid 7NT directly … a bad heart break would doom 7H, but 7N might make if I had the diamond nine! and both black kings or a KQ pair (all of which I had).

This is one of the hand where a relay system² (which lets you ask for Aces, then Kings, then Queens and sometimes even Jacks) would be useful, but the memory burden of that system daunts even me.

Checking the scores I am at least comforted to know that my guesses at the end were right. 7NT scored 14/15 (three tables bid it³) and 7H was 12/15, and the rest of the field were in various small slams (or 7D).

In any case, Roxie’s hand is now the new record holder. This hand was pat of TheCommonGame, which encourages clubs to all use the same hands (during the same day) so that multiple clubs can compare records (and experts who analyze the hands can share them wider) so presumably lots of people playing bridge yesterday picked up Hand #17 and went “Wow!”

Update — Apparently Schenken would handle this nicely, see comments.

1. Which way to order them is a hot topic. Eddie Kantar’s 200+ page book on RKC goes into great detail on this, and advocates swapping them around based on if the strong or weak hand is asking, but despite being able to quickly absorb new conventions and entire systems readily, I found myself very confused on reading it and normally just play Kickback (where you bid 4 Spades to ask for aces instead of 4 NT), which alleviates the issue by ensuring you always have more space. Kickback has it’s own set of problems, but I understand them. ︎
2. See my review of one such book. ︎
3. My hand opened once, which I imagine made 7NT much easier to contemplate. ︎

Weiter geht es mit Teil 2 des Illustrator's Diaries mit Franz Vohwinkel zu Skybridge!

One of the most unusual bridge books I’ve read is Kim Frazer’s Gaining the Mental Edge at Bridge. Unlike the vast majority of bridge books, there is practically no advice on bridge. This is all about “how to think” (a topic that I love enough to have a category in this blog for). Bridge forms the majority of the examples here, but apart from that these articles would not be out of place in any coaching symposium.

Kim was an international caliber shooter who took up bridge and later represented Australia in International events, so she has definitely “walked the walk” in two separate sports. There are chapters on focus, positive mindsets, mental preparation, rehearsal, match preparation & fitness, relaxation, goal setting and tracking.

The book itself was interesting — I don’t think much of it will come as a surprise but having it all done in a nicely packaged book (and providing references to sports journals, etc for more information) is good. I’ve started to try and build up a routine for the playing of bridge hands (still more forgotten than observed) so as to reduce the number of stupid errors. In fact, the first night (on BBO) I did it, I think I played well and then I went and forgot to look at the checklist this week, didn’t use it, and had a large number of errors. (The checklist is just a routine to do at the start of each hand …. say “Focus” to start the routine, note the board information (dealer,/vulnerability) count the HCP, decide on my opening bid (should it pass to me), and my likely continuations, responses.

I normally do this (in some shape) on most hands, but not in a formalized way. But (as per the book) I wrote out a checklist and used it, to good results (the times I remembered).

While thinking about this training, I realized that I could run a quick experiment on the chapter on goal setting and tracking using … Slay the Spire. I mean, while this book is aimed at Bridge it is not specifically for it, and right now my StS play is much more prevalent. (And is a solitaire game). Consider it a training run.

So — what are my goals? I’d like to improve my win rate (a win defined as “Beating the corrupt heart at ascension 15” (which is what I normally play at). There is a “Victory?” where you win without getting to the heart, but I consider that a loss. It means I’ve forgotten to claim one of the three keys required to unlock the fourth act.

Control Data

Anyway, the first part of goal setting was to set a record keeping standard. I decided to review the last 50 runs I had for each of the three main characters I played (I do not particularly enjoy playing Watcher, so I rarely do). Fortunately StS keeps a record of runs, so I pulled out some basic information (like which floor I died on) and put them into an excel spreadsheet.

Here are the stats:

Died during….	Character — Ironclad	Character — Silent	Character — Defect
Act I (Exordium)	10	7	3
First Boss	6	7	6
Act II (The City)	11	16	21
Second Boss	3	3	5
Act III (The Beyond)	3	3	5
Third Boss	2	4	1
Act IV Elites	1	1	3
The Corrupt Heart	3	4	4
Victory!	11	5	2
Checksum	50	50	50

It struck me as odd that the Second Boss and Act III numbers matched, but I doubled checked and its just a coincidence.

First thought — I won at a 12% rate, which was lower than I thought (I would have guessed I won at a 20% rate overall), but perhaps I am just deluding myself. I do think I had some bad luck (a certainly have a better than 4% win rate as defect!) so I would expect over the next 150 games to improve the rate in any case. The book states that I should set a goal that seems difficult but achievable. Let’s try for a 25% win rate overall (doubling the control).

I also need to build a checklist for the game, so I did. (Commentary in Italics)

• Start of Act
  • Examine the floor layout, pick likely path and alternates if I get good/back luck.
  • Note who is the end of act Boss!
  • (Act I only) Decide on Neow’s gift (a special bonus you get at game start), re-evaluate
• Checklist for each fight/event
  • Upon revealing the enemies, decide on how dangerous this fight will be (win easily, win but take significant damage, likely die, etc).
  • Note relics that I have that may have an interaction
  • Set out my goal for the fight is (Not just winning while taking as little damage as possible, do I want to set up relic counts for the next fight, etc).
  • Decide on general fight strategy …. if I will likely be using a potion(s) (In general the fight strategy will be set by how my deck is built and not change much from floor to floor, but I wanted to explicitly call out this step).
  • Per Turn Checklist:
    • Examine hand, enemy action (if varied)
    • Is my luck good/bad enough to change strategy? (Maybe I’m getting killed an need to drink a potion or assume a good draw next turn….or maybe things have gone well so I can shift from “just win the fight” to “win the fight and set up my relics counts”)
    • Determine candidate plays, pick one (may iterate if plays draw cards).
  • (For events this is basically the same, but simplified since the fight is “picking which event outcome to take”)
• Post fight analysis
  • Did I accurately judge the fight? Did I miss anything that I could have done better?
• Post-fight rewards
  • Examine offered rewards
  • State how each option affects my deck. Do I need it to cover a weakness (a specific enemy/elite), or to solve a general problem (front loaded damage/scaling damage/blocking).
  • Double check for good/bad interactions. Look at your deck and relics when deciding!
  • Decide which is best and take it (or skip).
  • Determine a rough “State of the game” (my ‘equity’ in the game). (Don’t need an exact number, but has it gone up or down).
  • Adjust strategy based on state of game. Pick next floor.
• Post-game analysis.
  • Record tracking information
  • Write up a quick summary as to why I think I won/lost
  • Think of at least one positive and one “need to improve”

Again, I probably did a lot of this automatically, but there are a few things I’m calling out to myself — Making sure to double check potions and relics (because forgetting to use them is a big mistake).

Things to track:

I’ll track everything as before, but also keep track of my mistakes and notes. (For the above, I didn’t show it but I also noted which enemy I died to).

“Oops” Mistakes — Playing too quickly (if I make a move I want to “take back” then that’s a mistake. You can quit a fight and restart, but I’ll only do that if I make an actual misclick. I’ve been somewhat casual about that, but the real goal of this is to slow down and think more — which is the one skill that translates directly to bridge). In order to make this more “Apples to Apples” I’ll divide this by # of floors which isn’t an exact measure since not all floors can have them, but is at least reasonable.

Why did I lose — For my losses, I will categorize them as follows. I’ve decided to assign points to each category, with a total of 10 points.

1. Too Aggressive — Taking an upgrade when I should have rested, and in general not respecting that.
2. Too Passive — The downside of that is not recognizing when I’m poorly placed and need to be taking more short term risks to be able to face the next boss, etc. Note that I think I can be too passive and aggressive in the same game (obviously at different times).
3. Gross Oversights — I missed something and it got me (missed a relic interaction, etc). I’d really like this number to be low … that’s the point of the checklist. These are things that get me killed or a huge chunk of HP.
4. Math mistakes — Sometimes you have to just run the numbers.
5. Bad micromanagement of fights — Small errors in fights that cost a HP here and there, missing subtle interactions.
6. Bad Luck — Sometimes you just don’t get offered great cards, you bottom deck the fights, etc. Things that are outside my control. In theory there should only be points in this category on half (or less) of my games, but sometimes you just lose without doing anything wrong. (Negative Points means I had good luck and wasted it), so if I assign less than 10 points, I’ll dump the rest here.

When I win I will assign a “Good luck” score, how much was it just destined (because I got great cards/relics, etc).

As I normally do, I will rotate characters (Ironclad, then Silent, then Defect), just to match the controls.

Final thoughts (before starting)

Just looking at the stats was useful, because I have noticed a few things:

I play Act I too aggressively as Ironclad. Ironclad’s “schtick” is that he does a lot of damage and heals a bit after fights, and I clearly rely on that too much and end up dying in the first act (or at the first boss) much more so than other characters. My Ironclad win rate is higher (caveat for small sample size), but many of the runs are short, quick deaths.

I may be too passive with the other two characters …. For the silent/watcher (who don’t automatically heal) my play gets through Act I but am not well placed and die in Act II. I suspect I am not taking enough fast damage or all out attack.

I need to respect the Second Act more and start looking “past the first boss” when I think I have it beaten.

Let the games begin.

Update — After thinking about it (and playing a round of games while I was editing this), I think that “Bad Luck” should probably average 3. Jorbs only wins 70% of the games, so assuming that 30% are unwinnable at my level of play seems reasonable. (He’s on a higher ascension, but a better player). I’m not going to agonize over it too much (especially since it would lead to negative thinking, a “no-no” in the book.) I had a few games where things just didn’t seem to line up….