TAKING STOCK AT BRIDGE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17701, 1 March 1923, Page 2

TAKING STOCK AT BRIDGE.

What sort of a year ljave you tad at Bridge? ~ „ If I had not kept accounts I should have been prepared to swear I had had a losing year. Adding up the totals Ffind I am slightly to the good, but it has been my worst year on record. Of course, I may have played,badly. You know what they say: "These; scribbling chaps may be able to write about Bridge; but they can't play for nuts. ' And vou may know the reason. It is not that we really play so very badly, but because *we are marked men. The mistakes we make are remembered against us where other peoples are forgotten. _ "Fancy," they say, "he professes to be an authority on the game and he 'did so ani sol" . How they chortle oyer our errots. \ •^ Well, we can't complain. After an, we get the last word. And if we. don't always parry out the excellent precepts we instil—well, there are persons who don't always practise what they preach and doctors who don't follow their own prescriptions. ; Personally I ascribe my poor financial results mainly to the fact that I have varied my points more this year than before. It has happened that I have had some vejry bad runs at the high game and some very good rims at me low game. ■ -a There is no dirabt if you play Bridg* commercially you shotfld stick to the same noints all the-time. • But what a bore it would he to ao it and what a lot of pleasure and fun one would miss I Whatever points yon play for, I advise you to keep accounts of your wins and losses.y _ , Accounts are a kind of Bridge barometer. They show how you are going on. You have a record of your fluctuations and they remind you of past mistakes. "How many points," yon ask yourSgJL, "have I lost through my own folly V OT course,: you won't forget the rubbers you had£ lost through sheer ill-lufik or the craSs stupidity of your partners. They have a way of biting into the memory. But be quite honest witn yourself and face your own blunders. •"' : v ~ "Quite apart from thq financial aspect, your Bridge accounts will'enable you, roughly, to take stock of your game during the .past year. Have yoji learnt by experience P Experience, it has been said, is the. name men give to their mistakes."*Who good player pr-ofits by his blunders. The bad one goes on matins; mistakes, not knowing he is makingj±hem. But the great point is, do you jJSfcact from Bridge the" utmost, enjoyment' it 1 can yieldP To do this affair amount of proficiency is necessary.. What do they know of Bridge who only Bumblepuppy know? —A; E. Manning Foster in London "Daily Mail."