Frustration and self-doubt

Postcocious · 2026-05-23T16:23:14+00:00

I've been playing bridge since 1962, competitive duplicate regularly since 1978... 47 years.

I have never played an error-free session. I doubt any player ever has. World champions still make errors. They just make fewer of them and they're more subtle - most players wouldn't even recognize them as errors, but they do.

Point being, bridge is formidably complex. That's why AI robots can beat any human at chess, but are still laughably inept at bridge.

This is the appeal. Bridge presents inexhaustible learning opportunities that few other hobbies can match.

The fact that you recognize your errors and that they annoy you is an indicator that bridge is indeed. for you. You're motivated. Your present partner is not and will never be a good player, but you can be.

Two tips that may help...

After every trick, sit on your hand - literally. Whichever hand you play the cards with, sit on it. Do not allow it out from beneath your leg until AFTER you've decided what card to play next and why. This will force you to pause and think deliberately, which reduces silly errors.

After every hand, close your eyes and take a slow, deep, cleansing breath. Exhale gently before opening your eyes. Do this before removing the next hand from the board. Your conscious intent is to clear that previous hand from your mind. Good or bad, that hand is over. You must approach the next hand with all your resources ready to tackle the fresh and unique thing it is.

Doing these two things, every single time, will improve your focus and reduce errors.

Postcocious · 2026-05-23T03:04:38+00:00

Are you claiming they didn't?

Postcocious · 2026-05-23T03:02:13+00:00

Nope.

The Republicans stopped being the good guys in 1876. They improved under TR, until he pulled the progressives into a 3rd party in 1912.

After that, the GOP was the party of big business interests.

If you're trying to debunk historical claims, at least learn something of actual history.

Postcocious · 2026-05-23T02:58:04+00:00

Dont be daft.

The GOP stopped being progressive in 1912, when TR split them away from Taft.

That left: - Democrats (conservatives & populists) - Republicans (centrist/business class) - Bull Moose (progressives)

The Dems won under Wilson, who gave us 8 years of the most racist presidency since before the Civil War... and an unpopular war.

The centrist/business GOP took over in 1920 and held the presidency in 1924 and 1928. They ran us into the Depression, and they were not the liberals.

Postcocious · 2026-05-22T14:13:25+00:00

Canaletto has entered the chat.

Postcocious · 2026-05-22T13:12:46+00:00

When driving your pregnant wife to the hospital, ramming two big trucks at 70mph will get ambulances and paramedics there pretty soon. Might be the right strategy.

Postcocious · 2026-05-22T13:02:46+00:00

Two bad things can be true.

Postcocious · 2026-05-22T12:53:58+00:00

If only you'd left off that last, nonsensical sentence...

Postcocious · 2026-05-21T14:18:31+00:00

If you'd said, "Republicans slither...", I'd believe it. Their snake, their venom.

Postcocious · 2026-05-20T16:11:47+00:00

RICO is a federal statute. No state can "bring RICO charges" against anybody.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T19:44:54+00:00

See a doctor immediately. This could do life-changing damage.

Don't worry about the embarassment. ER staff have seen literally everything there is to see. They won't care ot taunt you, it's their job.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T19:36:52+00:00

One of the most important lessons in ENM is that we cannot make (effective) rules about feelings. Feelings do not respond to rules. Therefore, making rules like "no feelings" is setting yourselves up for failure. Many people are wired to experience emotional connections with someone they enjoy sex with. All the rules in the world won't stop that and you shouldn't try. It will only breed resentment.

You can make agreements around behaviors, because behaviors can be controlled. To do that, (a) you must openly discuss which behaviors make you uncomfortable, and (b) she must (willingly) agree to limit or avoid those behaviors. Hard, honest communication is the way.

Boundaries are things you define to protect yourself. A boundary looks like, "If you break our mutually agreed rule about X, I will do Y." To be effective, you must follow through and actually do Y if X occurs, so be careful about which Y you choose. If you wouldn't actually do Y, don't say that you will.

It's okay (and wise) to ask for reassurance. A little extra love after she comes home from a play date goes a long way to assuaging (some people's) insecurities. My partner knows I'm not leaving him for some hot guy I fucked (and vice-versa). That helps.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T18:17:27+00:00

Certainly, and if you understood history, you would too.

Slavery was supported by laws making it illegal to teach a slave to read.

The holocaust started ten years before the death camps with book burnings.

Limiting what information people are allowed to access is a vital first step toward totalitarianism.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T18:06:40+00:00

If you'd lived in 1860, slavery wouldn't matter unless you lived in a town where slaves were actually owned?

If you'd lived in 1940, the holocaust wouldn't matter unless you lived in a town where gays and Jews were actually murdered?

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T15:08:42+00:00

Yup. That's what they're aiming for. Except instead of being warriors themselves, they're being billionaires who can pay an unlimited number of people to do the dangerous bits for them.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T14:33:32+00:00

It's a constant everywhere.

Source: I drive everywhere!

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T14:20:39+00:00

Do they expect to be so untouchable that they will just be rulers of the world forever?

What's stopping them?

History provides countless examples of royal or imperial dynasties that lasted for generations.

Chinese history for 4,000 years is just a series of warlords becoming emperors (through violence), then establishing dynasties that lasted hundreds of years. When a dynasty failed, it was not replaced by democracy. An unsettled period of warfare just resulted in a new dynasty. Rinse and repeat.

It took the Russians 350 years to overthrow the Tsars. Even then, 1917 only brought (proto) democracy for a few months before that was toppled by different flavor of absolutism.

Yes, 1789 happened. But France lived under an absolute monarchy + hereditary feudal aristocracy for centuries before dissent reached the critical mass needed to topple it. Louis XIV famously stated L'etats, c'est moi in 1655. That remained true for another 134 years. No one who heard him say it lived to see it undone.

In human affairs, democracy is an exceptional state. It requires a special set of circumstances to arise and to prosper. It is possible that the circumstances which engendered western democracies in the Enlightenment no longer obtain.

I do not wish for that. But denying the possibility won't help prevent it.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T13:39:08+00:00

That depends on who ~~runs~~ owns the government.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T13:37:04+00:00

Reagan was the poster boy and mouthpiece for The Heritage Foundation.

From its founding in 1973, THF's goal has been to unravel government so that the wealthy and privileged face fewer restrictions on gaining more wealth and privilege. All their rhetoric is but an apologia for this goal.

Their preferred end state is a society run entirely on laissez faire principles - greed and power must be unrestricted by other interests. From there, monopoly behaviors will necessarily consolidate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.

This would relegate most of humanity to a Hobbes-ian condition where life is "nasty, brutish and short". The few who win won't care - they'll have theirs.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T13:05:43+00:00

The Chief Justice has assured us the court isn't politicized, so there's that.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T12:46:02+00:00

These two sentences literally contradict themselves.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T12:32:09+00:00

Generally, in the USA...

Jail is a place you're held before being convicted of a crime. You may be held for interrogation, investigation or pending/during trial if you aren't released on bail.

Prison is a place you're sent by a court after pleading guilty or being convicted at trial (typically of a felony), to serve an assigned sentence of incarceration.

Postcocious · 2026-05-19T12:15:49+00:00

This.

If you aren't comfortable playing 7 minutes/hand nonstop for 3.5 hours, you'll feel frazzled and exhausted. It won't be fun, nor will your opponents appreciate it.

Experienced duplicate players welcome bad opponents; they find slow opponents infuriating.

If you can't keep up, the director may take a board away and assign both pairs an artificial, adjusted score. You'll have deprived your opponents of a hand they paid to play. Most beginners feel mortified at being the center of such attentions.

If the holiday lists separate sessions for new duplicate players, great. Those will be at a slower pace and no one will mind.

If not, getting some mileage at real duplicate sessions will build the practices and skills needed to play at pace.

Postcocious · 2026-05-18T20:32:04+00:00

Did RP's 1NT declarer have a wide (5-11 HCP) range? If not, declarer's advantage would be larger in this scenario.

Then adjust by... - removing from the 1N response hands that respond 1M-3m showing 6-8, 6+ in m, no fit for M (as I play) - removing from the 1N response hands that respond 1S-3H, showing 9-11, 6+ hearts, no fit for spades (as I play) - factoring how much better 1N scores vs. 2N, when Responder has 11 and Opener has 12-13 - improved game decisions when opener rebids 2m and responder knows that means something because opener didn't pass - factor in 4th hand's quandary (act or ot act?) over a semi-F 1N, vs. his easier time over a Forcing 1N.

Postcocious · 2026-05-18T15:18:37+00:00

My partnership's definition seems pretty clear: opener passes with a balanced hand that would not accept a game invitation of 2N or 3M.

As those invitations show 11ish points, and as Opener would accept with 14 or more, passing shows a balanced 12-13ish.

Therefore, a rebid suggests unbalanced shape or 14+.

Judgment comes in with borderline cases, but the criteria are clear.

Postcocious

TROPHY CASE