REBECCA ROOD'S MAILBAG..............

Dear Rebecca,

Like all men of my age who play naff bridge , I feel obliged to go home and go over each bad board I played that night.
Although this practice could be described as a pointless form of self abuse , I see it more as a way of cleansing my sins in the pursuit of improvement and self learning. However, the time I spend punishing myself eats into my sleep to such an extent ,  that I'm lucky to get three hours kip before my alarm goes off for work.
Now into my early sixties I find it harder and harder to recover from this madness of self-inflicted sleep deprivation. I spend all day at work looking and behaving like a zombie. This of course is exacerbating my inability to focus and concentrate on my bridge at night, resulting in even more errors and more painful analysis when I get home.

Yours desperately needing help , Wally



Dear Wally ,

It seems to me that you are locked into a vicious circle , or should I say cycle of disadvantage.
Lack of sleep is clearly responsible for your careless mistakes and bad boards. Why you feel compelled to review your performance is beyond me unless it has a positive outcome, which in your case the opposite is true. Learn to forget about bad boards. Learn to accept failure and defeat , and focus on improvement in other less stressful ways. 
In order to break this cycle of late night post mortems of where you went wrong, rip up your scorecard on leaving the club , and go straight to bed when you get home. Moreover, it is so much more invigorating to bollock others rather than yourself.....and this needs to be at the table when your partner is still aware of his crass stupidity and inane play. Also it is necessary to go into a state of self denial regarding your own mistakes , and if you do then you will feel so much better for it. Hell , most players at my club have mastered this amazing art to perfection.

Yours forever cocooned from criticism , Rebecca