It was the T20 World Cup final and all club members had gathered to watch the event on the giant screen. Padma, Prabha, Kaushik and Kingo arrived early to have their usual chat and then proceed to watch the match. Padma said we should look at T20 in 3 parts, the first 6 overs are slog, then accumulation for 10 overs and then slog in the last 4 overs”. Kingo, the aggressor, observed that it was not winning strategy to play it like that. You have to bang bang from ball 1 all the way if you want to win.
Kaushik observed that this was similar to Swiss league or pair event strategy. The first few sessions are cautious aggression and if you are doing well, you continue in the same way. If you are doing badly in the middle, then you throw caution to the wind and try some anti-percentage play to see if you can qualify or get into the pairs prize list.
Prabha observed that the people only remembered the errors from the last session. People tend to forget errors from the previous sessions and only remember the ones that happened in the last session and say that if this had happened, we could have qualified. If people discuss errors from all sessions, then it is a fair discussion. Otherwise we are just blaming the person who erred in the last session. The winning strategy is to avoid unforced errors throughout the event.
Kingo added,”Being fresh and alert for all sessions is very important. People tend to get tired by playing continuously. This leads to silly errors at the table which are easily avoidable. The other issue is arguing (not discussing) about deals in the middle of the tournament. It generates more heat than light. It just spoils the mood for the next session. One bad deal leads to another and in the process, instead of a recovery, the position of the team or pair worsens.”
Kaushik added that importance to making and playing partials accurately should be given the same level of importance as games and slams. People tend to ignore partials and in a closely fought match, even garbage IMPs lost on easy risk free overtricks can make the difference between winning and losing a match.
Everyone concluded that a cordial environment within the team and partnership is critical to winning
Tailpiece: Goofy who had been listening to all this, suddenly got into action and said that isn’t participation more important than winning. I thought that was the Olympic spirit. Everyone nodded and moved on to watch the match.
