Developing a Credo:
The ACBL Bulletin had an amusing story a few years back. It seems that to eliminate acrimony at the bridge table, a married couple devised a code of saying "I'm sorry" when the other person made a mistake. From this, everything went along swimmingly for a few sessions until they hit that hand where the husband said, "I'm sorry" at the end of the hand, and the wife swelled with righteous indignation and said, "You're sorry!"
Amusing, yes, but inevitable also. For when one spouse said, "I'm sorry," regardless of what others heard, what they were really saying was, "I noted your error and won't make any further fuss about it." Which is all very nice as long as we agree about who committed a boo-boo, and not so nice when there is a disagreement.
T'other day, I read this witticism in the Frank Stewart column on OKbridge: A husband and wife playing bridge is an argument waiting to happen. Very good. All of which leads me to say that there IS * NO * GIMMICK * THAT * WILL * SHIELD * A * PAIR * FROM * ACRIMONY. Please don't misunderstand me. I have not said every pair is fated to have acrimony at the bridge table. Not by a long shot. I said there's no gimmick that will prevent it. What I'm saying is that there is no substitute for good-hearted, courteous, decent and humane people. And I readily acknowledge that they do exist and do not invite acrimony.
My credo: Let's be tolerant of the errors that are not easily seen in the moderate haste of play. Let's be ready to go over errors that could have been foreseen.
I don't cotton to the two extremes -- don't say anything unless it's complimentary and let's haggle every time we just may have lost a trick. I can't buy the former partly because the sensitive and conscientious who might try to abide by it are put at a disadvantage while the roughnecks vent their displeasure with impunity, and partly because it simply is not the way people play duplicate. Okay, there's a little ol' lady in Missoula, Montana who's never broken that code. Good for her. But you know what I mean. It's just not the way people play. They like to say, Didn't you see my signal, or Couldn't you see the need for a shift to diamonds, or You could have made it if you'd watched the discards, or How many points did you think I had, etc., etc. This is simply part of the ambience of duplicate bridge, and I look on it as more hypocritical than genuinely intended when someone adduces a credo of saying only complimentary remarks
Nor do I think it's all that necessary to be restricted by such a namby-pamby code. We're not so fragile that will break on the slightest hint that we didn't play as well as we might have. Of course some people are abusive in their criticism, and that cannot be condoned, but I cannot believe that their rudeness should become justification to silence decent, courteous and soft-spoken people.
And I consider the other extreme an abomination. I don't care if it's a partner or the opponents. It just kills the game. It takes a lot of time, it's tedious, it can kill a partnership especially when one is more interested in humiliating a partner in front of the opponents than in enlightening anyone, and not least, perhaps indeed, the worst offense in criticizing a partner is that the criticizer is the one in error, but not demonstrably so without a few minutes of analysis. But now you've got to get on to the next table. And if you look at the hand and bring it up a week later, your presumed guru has forgotten all about it. I have seen that a-plenty. The people you were critiqued before, perhaps humiliated before, are long gone, along with your partner's memory
I have said elsewhere that people aren't all that good in their quickie analyses, you know, the ones who tell you who could have made what in any denomination as you tuck the cards away and flip the board? Those guys. They're not that good at analyzing. I find -- on hands of any complexity -- that I have to look at 52 cards for a few minutes before I'm prepared to say what contracts could be made or defeated, and I don't think it's because I'm slower than those given to quickie analyses. I think it's because I like to feel I'm making a valid statement when I say a contract I can be made or can be defeated. Perhaps half the analyses are valid, but since the correct analyses don't come with ringing bells and flashing lights, we don't know which half until we take the time to analyze a hand ourselves.
So I say that if the most productive play or bid wasn't easily seen at the time of decision, we'd do well to chalk that up to "the way it goes" and get on to the next hand. We'll have company if our bidding and play is sound, even if not every board is a "good board". But if simple reason or observance of simple principles would have steered you right, then I suggest it behooves you to be able to face this and acknowledge your error. You're asking a lot of a partner to put up with misplays that you have no intention of correcting. You're asking a lot when you say (substantially), shut up and let me play my way. You're asking, indeed, to be dropped pretty quickly unless you're married to that partner.