Deal Of The Week: September 7, 2023
I don't have a bridge hand to show you this time. Nor do I have a cool play or an interesting bid or even a funny story. I have a way for you to improve your bridge without playing, without reading, without watching others play, without talking about bridge, without taking a lesson, without even thinking about the game. No bridge, at all, and your bridge will get better. I guarantee it.
Go visit this site, pick one of the 40 games, and get hooked! Then try a different game and master that. Then try something else. With 40 games to choose from, you'll find one or two or five that you like, perhaps almost as much as bridge.
And as you learn the strategies of these games, you will exercise your brain's logical powers, and when you return to bridge with an upgrade in logic, you'll be amazed at your improvement.
The 40 games include a clone of Sudoku (called Solo), and many other games originally published by Nikoli (the Japanese puzzle publisher that first publicized Sudoku) appear in this collection, and each game can be tailored to your own skill level, with different sizes and difficulties. Originally a computer website, the games in the collection have been ported to tablet and cellphone versions which work quite well.
Each game has very simple rules, usually a half-dozen or fewer, and a simple objective. In the easiest puzzles, you'll be able to solve them by trial and error. Once they get larger and/or more difficult, the rules will become the axioms from which your brain will discover theorems that derive from these axioms. Here is a simple example:
In the game called Unruly, you are presented with a grid of cells which must be either white or black; like a Sudoku puzzle, a few of these are pre-set for you as a starting position. The rules are: 1) three consecutive squares horizontally or vertically cannot be the same colour (diagonally is fine), 2) Each row and column has exactly the same number of white and black squares, and 3) No two rows and no two columns will have exactly the same sequence of black and white squares.
These three rules become axioms, the unquestionable truths of the game from which we logically derive theorems that help us solve the puzzle, such as 4) Any two consecutive squares of the same colour must have squares of the opposite colour on either end to avoid breaking rule 1, 5) The unknown space between two squares of the same colour must be the other colour, also to avoid breaking rule 1, 6) Once a row or column has 50% known squares of one colour, the rest must be the other colour, to conform to rule 2.
In a small puzzle, theorems 4-6 may be enough to get you to a spot where the rest can be filled in. Maybe you get to a spot where you can guess the rest and go back if you reach a spot where it is clear that you are wrong; there are undo buttons that record everything you do and allow you to go back to where you were. But it is better to keep discovering theorems that might help you advance toward a solution than to guess! Once I get to the point where theorems 4-6 reach a dead end, I start on more advanced theorems:
7) In a row or column that has room for only one more cell of one colour, there will often be empty cells that cannot contain that colour, because filling in the rest with the other colour would break rule 1, 8) In a row or column that has room for only one more cell of one colour, sometimes it is possible to say with certainty that that last cell of the colour must go into this range, allowing you to colour the empty cells outside that range in the opposite colour, 9) When rows and columns are completed, start watching for similarity with other rows and columns that are nearly complete, where rule 3 may help you get out of a jam.
The theorems are getting more complicated but help to point the way to a solution. Getting into the habit of thinking like this, especially when learning a new game, is like weightlifting for your logical muscles. You'll have good days and bad days, and sometimes you'll discover that your favourite theorem has a fatal flaw and must be adjusted! But all of this will improve your ability to think in terms of true or false in a world where everything seems to have some quantity of both.
And when you come back to bridge, your brain will try to approach it using the axiom/theorem method, and the results may surprise you. Suddenly you'll see that a certain play cannot succeed, instead of simply having a vague pessimism about its chances. You'll know in the final tricks of a hand which of your cards are relevant and which can be safely discarded. All because you spent some time having fun working out the logical circuitry inside your head, without playing any bridge at all.
And it is completely free! No need to even download it; it runs on a browser on your computer. To play it on a tablet or phone is possible by downloading the app indicated on the website for your type of device.
But don't be lazy. Try the easiest versions first and then slowly increase the size of the puzzle or the difficulty. Don't rebel against thinking! If you actually get a headache, take a break and come back when you feel better, but don't quit because thinking is uncool, or not fun, or tiring (it's not, it only seems that way if you go too far up the difficulty scale before you're ready). Get into mental shape, and watch your bridge improve!
(A McBruce tongue-in-cheek Facebook post from August 2021....) Plans for the memorial service of Maki Kaji, the Japanese man who founded the puzzle magazine Nikoli, which first popularized Sudoku, are under way. A special hall will be rented for several hours even though the service itself will be quite brief. Two dozen friends and family, wearing large cowboy hats in nine distinct colours, will take their pre-assigned places in the hall's nine-by-nine grid of seats first, and then 59 other invited guests will choose a beret of one of nine colours and enter the hall one by one, seeking a seat that is not in the same row, column or 3-by-3 area as anyone else with headgear of the same colour. When conflicts emerge, the cowboy hats are not allowed to move, but the berets will need to shift in order to get everyone seated and let the service begin. The initial placement of family members has been set by Kaji as one of his final creations and promises to give the 81 attendees a good mental workout. After the short service, there will be a large maki sushi feast for all, with nine distinct roll types cut into nine pieces for each attendee, about half of them placed on a square plate in a conforming pattern, the other half served separately and to be first placed by the attendees to complete the pattern before being eaten. The maki sushi pattern, also created by Kaji, is much easier to solve than the memorial service layout, since sushi is best eaten fresh.
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