Many elements contribute to success at bridge. Frank believes that two areas account for the difference between players who do well consistently and those who struggle.

(1) A winning player has rock-solid fundamentals. The best part of an expert's game is that he never — never — boots a simple situation. Give him a basic bidding problem or a textbook exercise in dummy play and he will get it right. If you never make errors in basic technique, you will have an edge over 90% of your competitors.

(2) A winning player keeps avoidable errors to a minimum. Bridge is a game of mistakes. Nobody has ever played a perfect session, nobody ever will. Everybody makes mistakes. Winners make the fewest. This quote is attributed to Bob Hamman: "All players are poor players, including some good players." Hamman wasn't being opprobrious; he was just acknowledging that we all have shortcomings.

Many types of errors are common: mishandling suit combinations, forgetting to count, missing inferences. Maybe the majority of errors stem from lapses in concentration.