Bridge

I've played a thousand or two hands of bridge lately, almost all of them against robots. I've tentatively decided that I'm not a big fan, at least of playing with robots. Bridge has some good points - it's challenging, complex, and difficult to master, but I have tentatively concluded that it lacks strategic depth. Of course I'm a pretty poor player.

This is mostly because I've failed to master what I consider the most basic skill of bridge, developing a clear mental picture of all the hands. Essentially this means counting all the cards that are played and using that and other information to get an optimal estimate of the remaining tricks. This skill starts with counting trump, and I can do that, at least as declarer, but counting more than one additional suit seems to overflow my registers. Any slight distraction tends to make me lose count.

So I should probably give it up.

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