What is ‘the mental edge’

Welcome to Having the Mental Edge – a collection of articles on mental management primarily for bridge players. 

Bridge is a game with many facets. To be successful, a player needs to achieve a high degree of skill in each of these facets—whether it is technical ability, partnership understanding or agreements, concentration, match fitness and stamina in a long tournament, and other factors which go into being a good bridge player. I believe having strong mental skills is simply one of these facets.

It is now widely recognised in sport that strong technical skills alone are not enough to win. While the players who are successful must possess strong technical skills, they must also pay attention to other areas such as mental training and preparation and allied areas like nutrition, recovery and so on. Strong mental skills allow sportspeople to perform at their best. 

While these articles are written with bridge themes, competitors at all levels in other sports and card games might also find the articles helpful in dealing with mental factors in their chosen game. 

Since I was originally an international shooter, I have also included a variety of articles on shooting that I and others have written over the years.  Some of the shooting articles relate to technical skills, training and so on.

Enjoy!