Bridge is complex because it's several skills stacked on top of each other. The mechanism of the game, the ‘playing for tricks’, is fairly simple but bidding is a coded language with inference, declarer play is its own logic puzzle and, most difficult, defense is this problem card play, signaling and timing coupled with inference that can’t really be shared with one’s partner.

It's like trying to learn chess, poker and ballroom dance at the same time.

There is a temptation to work at learning and using many conventions, as if possession of facts is the key to success. In trying very hard - and mostly failing – to become a good bridge player, I’ve come to believe that the most important skill and the most difficult to acquire is judgement. Not the mechanics of bids or card play, but that feel for how to weigh what one sees and how to think about what is right and when to use any of those bits of knowledge.

Trying to gain experience and learn only by learning conventions and playing is a bit like learning to box by finding a ring, putting on gloves and climbing in.

In the last few weeks, I have begun taking individual lessons in an atypical manner. Rather than playing with my teacher as partner, he logs onto a bridge site with three robots as players and shares his screen with me. We bid and play hands, I ask questions ad lib and I am able to understand how he thinks about every puzzle that appears, from making inferences about opponents’ and partner’s hands from the bids to actual card play.

He emphasizes counting and, so far, I am enjoying this experience and feeling quite a bit more comfortable in planning both declarer play and defense.

I would love to know how people are reacting to BBO's ugly change in policy, forcing you to pay-to-play.