To get good results at bridge, it’s not enough to play well — your opponents need to play badly; and if they won’t oblige, you’ll need to help them along. Some players do this the unethical way: they try to intimidate their opponents with officious behaviour, or else create a whirlwind of jollity designed to shatter their concentration. One player I know — I’m tempted to name him but I won’t — always manages to make the sort of cutting remark that leaves his victim unable to dwell on anything for the next hour. He once walked behind me before a match was about to start and paused to say, ‘Ooh, you’ve got a small bald patch.’
But none of this shoddy behaviour is necessary: there are legitimate ways of prompting opponents to make mistakes through the art of deception, and how much more satisfying they are.
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