From the eyes of an NPC

Recently, I was the NPC of the India Open Team in 51^st APBF Bridge Championship. Being a Bridge player, however, involved in the capacity of Management of Team, was a unique experience. I could see what the players are going through, from a 3^rd party prospective. We were very close to winning till the last round (only 6 VP off from the leader, and 2 VP off from the eventual winner).Here is a summary of my observations:

(There are different aspects of my experience. It will be too lengthy to put it in one post)

1. Handling pressure

Bridge players, particularly when representing the country, are under lots of pressure. Some of them, that I observed are:

• Adjusting to New environment
• Food, commute
• Unknown opponents, unknown style
• Pressure to handle the “sponsor”
• Logistical needs
• Fielding lineups
• Interpersonal issues between partnerships
• Blame game that goes on between players
• Handling personal disasters (on some boards)
• Too much of analysis between the rounds

Ultimately, all these go on to create unnecessary mental anxiety and pressure, which is definitely counterproductive for results.

Here is what we did and (couldn’t do)

Before the Tournament, the entire team met for a workshop (The intent of the workshop was coaching partnership, which I will write about later) where the entire logistics of the trip was discussed. Everyone had a complete picture of who is travelling when, where are we staying, how we are commuting to the venue etc. This was definitely helpful for the entire team.

While the venue was a 20 min ride from our place of stay, what we did not realize that the venue is in Seoul downtown and the traffic was crazy. A 20 min taxi ride took more than 45 mins. 2 VP penalty before we even sat down. We had a similar experience on the 4^th day, but that day, because of rain, the ride took more than 1 hour. After that, we accidentally discovered a toll road (longer, but took lessor time) and stuck to it.

During the Tournament, I parked myself in an area between the 2 rooms and that became the India Team Hub for the entire tournament. The team used to meet at this place after each round. Discuss why there was a drop (we kept the discussion to minimum).

I used to give the lineup for the next round, give a summary of the opponent’s system and remind the partnership of the defense that they play against those conventions(which was prepared beforehand).

In certain cases (specifically against New Zealand), I watched their previous match to find out their super aggressive openings, and super aggressive overcalls. Fortunately, Chotan-Kachchu was able to device a simple, yet very effective defense against their light openings with great results.

There are few things which we did as a team, which I think are best practices (other teams can learn from this team)

Avoided “Inter-Round” discussion. This is a natural tendency of all Bridge players (more often is counterproductive), specifically Indian teams. I personally think my biggest contribution was to cut down on all these discussions during the round (could have been better)

Cooked and ate together in the evening (a great de-stressor as well as bonding). Here also, we avoided post mortem as far as possible.

Kept drinking in moderation and everyone was off to bed by 11 PM (I was really amazed by the discipline the team showed on this particular aspect)

The entire team (barring Arun Jain who stayed close to the venue) played rummy as a de-stressor in the evening (again, something I would highly recommend).

One of my another critical role was to establish the channel of communication with the sponsor and kept the players insulated from the discussion during the game

All of these helped us to keep stress level to something manageable. I personally think the team did exceptionally well in managing their stress. Why couldn’t we win the tournament – coming up in next post.