WHY YOU REALLY LOSE AT BRIDGE...........................(By Carp)

• S.J. Simon wrote a book on this very subject, but his explanations revolved around the notions of too many players having poor technique and lousy judgement, flawed logic and analysis, alongwith a lack of discipline, skill and tactical awareness.
• So what about the rest of us who do have the necessary attributes to win at bridge but never seem to deliver? Surely, there has to be other explanations that go beyond the cliches "it wasn't our day" or "luck always seems to desert us".
• I think I have the answers to explain why this situation arises. Out there are malevolent forces at work conspiring against us...... the chosen few...... making sure we are always just outside the prizes.............never to experience rostrum glory or silverware success. Indeed, we are eternally cursed to become the victims of nature's cruellest laws. We are destined never to be blessed or walk on water, have a charmed life, or have our prayers answered. So what are these damnable laws that mercilessly compel us to just miss out.
• Icarus' Law "The higher you climb the greater your fall". This law locks in just when you think you are on the flight path to glory, and the sweet smell of success is in the air. Whenever you think you are really flying and on cloud nine, having reached the top table with just one round to go.......you are about to discover the reality of peaking too soon. As the sun comes out during that final round, you see your wings suddenly melting as one bad board follows another. Now your final round zero score sends you plummeting down the order......to yet again experience the pain of missing out on the prizes.
• Murphy's Law "If anything can go wrong it will". This manically pessimistic outlook reflects a law attributed to a little known but competent Irish bridge player, who found himself in a rock solid grand slam, doubled and redoubled. On fumbling with excitement to pull out a high trump card, he allowed a small trump card instead to drop face up on the table. The opposition insisted this was the card that had to be played, whereupon they snatched the trick to defeat the contract. Not long after, he thought he had won a knockout teams final by brilliantly bidding and seeing home a small slam on the last board, only to discover that his team-mates had played that board earlier on.......but the wrong way round. This resulted in the board being scrubbed, and the match lost as a result. Murphy from that point on always feared the worse, and the law made sure that all his fears turned into reality. From some of us the Murphy's ghost has become our constant companion.
• Sod's Law There's no universally accepted definition of this law, but for many it's essentially a comic explanation of ironic misfortune. Some examples often cite players, who in moments of crisis, experience forces beyond their control, which compels them to do things that their logic and expertise rejects. For instance, you recognise that a particular board is going to have a significant impact on your results. Suddenly, the law takes hold, and you develop a thought that what you are about to do will be wrong. Yet despite this gift of insight you go ahead with this thought anyway! Immediately after the ensuing disaster, you are quick to explain to partner that your actual bid and/or play of the cards was based upon the absurb logic....... that the less likely outcome was the one more likely to occur........but of course it didn't. Although it may seem to some that Sod's Law and Murphy's Law appear the same they are not. Sod's law only operates on higher levels of probability and/or absurdity. Murphy's law has more to with the manifestation of one's fears.
• So now you know what forces are out there conspiring against you and I.......always making sure that we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory over and again. S. J. Simon's book, excellent though it is, certainly failed to acknowledge the existence of these laws, which in my eyes was an unbelievable oversight.