A sportsman great, I do not make

It is often said that one characteristic of great sportspeople is their capacity to focus on the 'moment'. They do not dwell on the setbacks of the past. It is a trait I wish I possessed.

I learnt to play bridge about twenty years ago with a number of aims, one of which was to improve my concentration; to fine tune my focus. It has worked to a degree but by no means absolutely.

Playing bridge involves an etiquette similar to golf. All competitors should be polite and genteel and take setbacks as well as triumphs with equanimity. Privately you might wish to separate your opponent's head from their shoulders and at times you might wish to perpetrate something even worse to your own partner but on the surface all should be sportingly fair, full of grace, behaviour characterised by modesty and good humour. It's a tough standard few of us achieve without exception.

In last night's game we were matched in round 2 against two men who mostly are pleasant opponents. I'd never known either of them to be difficult with us. They could afford these high standards against us as they usually play very strongly at our table and get the better of us in play. Last night, however, we took the player in the West seat down in a slam contract he thought he should have made. Indeed he could have made his contract but the fact is that he didn't. That should have been the end of it but West, annoyed by his defeat, believed that my partner, in the South seat, had mislead him when he asked her to explain my card play. West expressed that opinion petulantly at the table. This is a breach of etiquette. If West believed that he had been unfairly disadvantaged by South's response to his question it was open to him to call the Director (a sort of manager cum adjudicator of play) and request a ruling.

West made no attempt to call the Director. I'm sure that was because he knew that no breach of rules or unfair play had occurred. My partner had answered West's question correctly but the fact that the card play on that hand forced me to depart from our usual playing agreement was just one of things that arise when playing bridge.

That's where I should have left the matter. I should not have taken the bait of his aggression. West was in the wrong and I should have stayed mute. But I didn't. I responded with a sharp retort that was only marginally less a breach of etiquette than West's petulance. Having lost my cool I then started to mull over the incident. This is my weakness. Well, it is one of my weaknesses. Now I had another two and half of hours of card play to negotiate and all the while my concentration was shot. I felt myself red in the face and no doubt my blood pressure had risen and all while I had to continue playing to the best of my ability as the other East/West pairs took their turn at our table.

In those circumstance my play usually falls away and we (South and I) end up with a low score for the night and an even lower position in the field. Late in the night, in the second last round, I made two errors of judgement that contributed directly to very low scores for two hands. For the rest, though, my score sheet indicated that we weren't doing too badly despite my mind being off with the pixies. Or should that be off with the demons?

It turns out that we finished second in the North/South field with 58.80%. This is a score which wins plenty of nights and is as high as we been placed in quite a while. We were pretty happy. What about the offending (offensive) West? He and his partner finished in the lower half of the East/West field with a percentage well below what they typically achieve. Justice was done in our minds.

Yet again I will urge myself to show restraint in future. But I'm only human. A sportsman great, I do not make. I know I'll take the bait again some time.