You can always tell a beginner, or a poor player, at the bridge table — they’re the ones who start cashing their tricks as soon as dummy comes down. Any reasonable player knows the importance of stopping to think: of counting winners and losers, and working out a strategy. But it’s the mark of a really good player to never entirely trust their first thoughts. As Tom Townsend once advised me with his usual pithy wit: ‘Think of a plan. Now think of a better one.’
Eric Rodwell makes precisely this point in his brilliant book The Rodwell Files, which I’m reading at the moment. He warns us to double-check our decisions to ensure we haven’t missed something — maybe something an opponent can do to foil us, or simply a better plan. But it’s surprisingly hard to do — and he admits he sometimes falls short himself, even when playing in world championships.
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