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It recently occurred to me that there are certain areas of card play, especially declarer play, that are never addressed. These are the nitty gritty, nothing special hands which make up 95 % of hands. People make huge errors on these hands without even thinking anything of it because they can spot an entry shifting squeeze a mile away.
The truth is if you read lots of books, or hands on the forums, or whatever, you do not get a realistic sample, and you get good at squeezes and such, but still learn nothing about stuff like which honor to win at trick 1, how to make the opponents mess up, or even stuff like proper PSEUDO squeeze technique. Basically there are a ton of situations where people don't realize what they're doing wrong, and they don't want to ask.
I want to try and show people what they're missing. I am offering to analyze 10 hands, trick by trick, from your point of view and what you should be thinking about / what you should do differently. The first 10 people to apply can get in. You can apply and then create this set of 10 hands later, that's fine, no great rush. All that I ask is that you play 10 hands of your most serious possible bridge, no distractions, and ideally with your regular partner, but not really necessary. People playing online are so used to being able to say "well, I was distracted, it's impossible to play my best online" etc. That kind of thinking just facilitates you to continue to play losing bridge, or not be able to introspect properly. I don't want any excuses, in fact there will probably be almost no dialogue between us, I will just send you a (long) analysis of the 10 hands. Try not to be dummy a lot
I will not say ANYTHING about the bidding, no matter what it was. Contrary to popular belief, bridge is much more about not making cardplay errors than people would like to admit. Yes it's really that simple, don't drop tricks and you will win every time. The fact is most bidding judgement scenarios are much like a coinflip, there is not very much to consistently getting those right, plus you will inevitably get some wrong. We are probably talking about 1-2 % here and there, not a big deal.
However cardplay errors are not subjective, it is just wrong, and people routinely give up a HUGE edge there (like taking a 20 % line instead of a 100 % line, whatever, even giving them a tougher time defending so that they misdefend ~5% more often because you did that). Who cares if you open this 11 count, or invite or jump to game with this hand, if you are routinely dropping tricks left and right (which everyone is?)
Once you are a part of the top 4 teams in the bermuda bowl, you can start addressing your bidding again and saying stuff like "good judgement on partials is what seperates the best from the rest." Maybe it seperates Italy from USA or vice versa, but what seperates YOU from winning is simply that you make too many mistakes ROUTINELY in cardplay.
So apply here, email me the 10 hands in some reasonable amount of time (but not pressured, like 1 month to get em in, I don't want to incentivise people to give me a bad sample of hands under time pressure, that is not what this is about). No excuses, no discussion of the bidding unless it's something I need to know (use the alerts pls), bidding will only be used to draw inferences in the play/defense.
This is open to anyone of any level, everyone makes routine bad card plays, even strong experts. If you are a complete beginner, that's ok, though my analysis might be much less specific and more broad since that's what's needed at first.
Also, as a good faith gesture I want everyone to apply to say "I will not do ANYTHING out of the ordinary in the bidding for the next 100 boards, because that's all Justin wanted." If you are about to make a fancy bid, remember that you can't, you primsed me! Just doing that in the bidding and making your cardplay much more solid will make you win 4x as much, no joke. I think once you do this you will realize how important routine cardplay situations are, and how unimportant fancy bids are. It will be hard to admit to yourself that you are really making this many mistakes every deal, but just be honest with yourself if you want to get better. Stop reading these fine judgement whatever hands on the forums, spend more time going over your own hands or posting hands you're not sure about. This should be a good start, obviously I'm biased but I think this could be a great learning opportunity to anyone of any level.
Finally, when you send me the 10 hands just make sure to tell me what kind of defensive signals you use. Signalling will not be the main importance of this unless you are already a strong expert, but obviously I will need to know. If you know your opponents signals, sending that to me is necessary also.
