What is the most coveted – and possibly most difficult to develop -- of all bridge skills?
A good example of its benefits was this deal from the finals of a national championship:
Our opponent was the late Reece Rogers, who was declaring 6H and needed no losers from his trump suit of ♥Qx opposite ♥AK10xxx. He cashed the ♥Q, all following, and led a heart toward his long suit. After a moment’s thought, he gave a slight shrug and played his ♥10, finessing my original holding of ♥Jxxx and scoring up his slam.
Your first thought might be that Reece had peeked into our hands or perhaps overheard another table talking about the 4-1 break. At best, it seemed he had made a very lucky, anti-percentage guess.
Reece, however, was relying on more than just luck. Although we had passed throughout the auction, my partner had made a short but noticeable pause for thought after the 1H bid on his right. It suggested that he was considering a bid, and since it couldn’t be based on high-card strength (declarer and dummy had 34 combined points), Reece reasoned that it must be a distributional hand. He trusted that inference and played my partner for a singleton trump.
What Reece displayed and what every bridge player hopes to develop is an elusive quality known as “table feel”. It’s the ability to pick up on small, non-verbal clues from the opponents and make logical assumptions about what they’re thinking and therefore what cards they hold. Those who are good at it seem to have a knack for finding honors, reading distributions and knowing when to go against the odds.
Poker champions are masters of table feel. They look for “tells” -- changes in behavior or demeanor – that give away an opponent’s assessment of his hand. The most common tells come from facial expressions, posture and movements of the eyes and hands. Some poker players claim they can even sense changes in their opponents’ breathing, perspiration and complexion.
Table feel and bridge law
Bridge players are free to make the same observations, but are bound by ethical considerations. You can gather and act on clues from your opponents’ behavior, but you can’t stare at them or try to elicit reactions. Unlike in poker, it’s not legal to intentionally vary your own tempo or mannerisms to create a false impression. If you happen to pick up on tells from your partner, you must take care not to act on them.
According to bridge law, any conclusions you draw from your opponents’ remarks, tempo, mannerisms or other behavior are “at your own risk”. That means that if you’re wrong about why an opponent hesitated or flinched or sighed, you have no redress.
Your opponent, however, must have a legitimate bridge reason for his actions. If he huddles and then passes, for example, “I was just daydreaming” is not an acceptable explanation. The law says that if his hand did not warrant such thought, and if he could have known that his hesitation might work to his benefit, the director can adjust the score. For this to happen, you have to prove that you were damaged by the false inference.
Table feel is a powerful asset, but there are no guarantees. On the 6H deal, my partner could have held a distributional hand with ♥Jx and Reece would have gone down in a cold slam. He wouldn’t have asked for an adjustment, though, because he knew the risk of playing a hunch, even one he believed had good odds of being right.
In the next issue:
Tips for developing your table feel
“Remember this: It is never too late to start studying players as well as plays.”
- P. Hal Sims (1886-1949)
Every great player has an attribute known as table feel, which is an ability to pick up on subtle clues from the opponents’ behavior. It can’t be learned from a book, but with practice, you can become more adept at this form of card reading. Sims was famous for his table feel, and as he advised, developing yours is worth the effort.
The first step: Pay attention. Table feel is often called “table presence” because it’s based on an awareness of everything that’s happening before, during and after the bidding and play. You have to get into the habit of watching to take advantage of the hints your opponents are offering.
Understand what you can use. You’re entitled to notice and draw conclusions (at your own risk) from your opponents’ behavior. That includes intentional actions -- spoken remarks and pauses for thought -- as well as subconscious signals such as posture, nervous mannerisms, tone of voice and general demeanor.
Be a passive observer. You can be sensitive to the “table action” without actively looking for it. It’s rude (and improper) to try to gauge a player’s level of tension by looking into his eyes. You cannot watch the back of an opponent’s hand to see where he is detaching a card. You can, however, draw inferences from how fast he makes his decision and the way he puts the card on the table.
Know what behaviors communicate information. It’s often helpful to have an idea of your opponents’ skill level and state of mind, so look for clues before you even start playing. Listen to their conversation and watch their body language to determine how relaxed and confident they are. These observations may also tell you whether or not they’re having a good game.
Once the auction begins, the most obvious evidence comes from changes in tempo. Everyone at the table knows a bidder has a problem when he huddles for several seconds before choosing his call. Harder to read – but just as informative – are momentary pauses and rapid bids. All of these tempo breaks are authorized information for you, but not for the bidder’s partner.
Body language and other subconscious “tells” tend to be more reliable because they’re involuntary. A player may be telegraphing his reactions to the auction and the strength of his hand without even knowing it. These are common emotions you might see during the auction:
Disinterest (a weak hand, lack of support for partner’s suit) – Looking away from the table, slumped or leaning back in his chair, cards held low or placed on the table.
Eagerness (a good hand, a desire to bid, approval of partner’s bidding) – Straight posture, leaning in toward the table, holding cards high, slight head nods, intense inspection of his hand or the bidding cards.
Worry (about his own bids, partner’s or yours) – Fanning cards, touching his bidding card after it’s already on the table, darting eyes, long exhales of breath, nervous mannerisms (fidgeting, shaking feet and legs, drumming fingers on the table).
Everyone is different, so a mannerism that suggests enthusiasm
from one person may be a sign of nervous tension in another. To accurately
interpret these behaviors, you need an understanding of human nature, a bit of
imagination and, most important, an ability to analyze the context. More about
this in the next issue.
© 2018 Karen Walker