Quiz time: bridge

[jwgh]

I just read a piece in the New Yorker in which contract bridge is described as a dying game, with the author of the piece saying that at a recent bridge tournament he was he was the youngest player at 52. This came as a surprise to me, as I spent lots of hours in college playing bridge -- although, as I come to think of it, most of the people I played against learned to play either from me or from the people who taught me. (There were colonies of bridge players in the math department and also in the student-owned co-op I lived in.)

I haven't played much since then, although there was a while where I played online with friends from college every so often, but even that has trailed off.

Anyway:

[Poll #1056351]

Bridge questions, comments, and anecdotes are welcomed in the comments.

Also, I promise this is not part of a plot to lure my unsuspecting friends into the ways of bridge-playing. (Unless they want to be lured in, of course.)

Comments

[jwgh]

For reasons that are unclear to me, I was convinced for many years that math grad schools were lousy with people playing bridge. As far as I can tell, that's not actually the case. (Maybe it's just because most of the bridge players I knew were math majors. A similar sort of incorrect generalization had me convinced that Mello Yello was served at all math functions, when in fact I think it was served exactly once at a Math DUG [Department Undergraduate Group] meeting I went to once.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I've only played bridge a few times, during my short stay in Seattle, with other netrek players, if you can believe that. I find the game itself somewhat interesting, but the conventions for bidding is the worst feature of any card game i have played.

[jwgh]

Bidding conventions are kind of a meta-feature of the game -- not part of the basic rules, but invented by people as they tried to cram more and more information into the bidding rounds. The guy who wrote the New Yorker article thinks that the bidding arcana might be a big factor that has led to bridge's decline. (I also wonder if the fact that it is a game that requires exactly four -- no more, no less -- people to play makes it harder for it to spread.)

If I were teaching people new to the game how to play I would leave out the conventions -- you can derive a lot of the basic ideas from common sense anyway. (The problem with this approach is that if they play with other experienced bridge players those players will expect them to know at least the most common conventions, but what the hell.)

There's a book called Building Bridge by Bo Schamelan, Arnold Fisher, and Richard Lederer that I think is an excellent introduction to the game -- fun to read and explains things clearly and in a logical order. I read it when I was first learning, then, a couple of years later, found out it was out of print and bought a bunch of copies used, most of which I have given away.

[jwgh]

Many strategic games that have been around for a while have concepts that newcomers won't immediately understand. (A really simple example: it's possible to play Hearts for a while without understanding that it's often strategically desirable to play a bunch of low spades to force the queen out. I'm also certain there are levels of strategic thinking in chess that I simply have no concept about.)

I think the problem with bidding systems is that it's impossible to make sense of them without a pretty thorough understanding of how bridge works, which only comes after you've played a bunch of games and had some discussions with a more experienced player. But bidding is literally the first thing you do in bridge, so the newcomer either bids somewhat randomly or has to use a complicated table like this. Both options are confusing and neither is much fun.

(But there are other ways to approach it.)

[djswifty.livejournal.com]

Many strategic games that have been around for a while have concepts that newcomers won't immediately understand.

Boy, the people I've tried to teach Canasta.

[jwgh]

Oh, man, I don't think I even remember the rules to that game.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Bidding conventions are kinda like playing Scrabble against people who have memorized all the two-, three-, and four-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary. It's less of a game and more of a nerd dick-size war.

[jwgh]

After I played bridge for a while there were people in my family who refused to play Hearts with me any more, because I had learned to count cards and they felt that gave me an unfair advantage. I suppose that's another example of the same sort of nerdishness you describe.

I think bidding conventions are kind of neat in a Core War kind of way -- the idea is to maximize the amount of information you exchange with your partner while simultaneously interfering with your opponent's communication. So if there's a convention that is designed to convey a certain piece of information then there may be other conventions that are designed to prevent your opponents from putting that first convention into play. At the same time, bids have actual practical meanings (in terms of how many tricks you'll have to win), so the conventions can't be completely arbitrary ... although they can seem pretty random.

Of course the rules state that you have to explain what conventions you're using, and your opponents can ask what the meaning of any particular bid is, but this is not always as helpful as one might like.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

You don't have to use the conventions if you don't want to. You'll lose, but that's because you've denied yourself an avenue of communication with your partner.

To anyone reading this thread, Alfred Sheinwold's "5 Weeks to Winning Bridge" is one of the best books I'm aware of, and I mean that precisely as unqualified as I said it.

[djswifty.livejournal.com]

I played bridge for exactly one summer in college, during a time of massive romantic upheaval -- I had a terrible live-in girlfriend; my roommates were competing for the same woman -- but we played nearly all the time. I don't know if there's an inchoate metaphor here, but, y'know, probs.

[jwgh]

Hmmm, as I think of it, my naked bridge incident occurred at a time of upheaval which included an unreciprocated crush. Interesting.

[saucypunk.livejournal.com]

I was about to have a great story about a terrible date i went on in college where he took me back to his parents house and they all tried to teach me bridge (all being him and his parents and possibly a grandparent), but I think that was actually an entirely different card game. Although maybe it was bridge.

[saucypunk.livejournal.com]

I think it was actually Euchre. Sorry for my lameness :-)

[twillis.livejournal.com]

The Big Guy is a fairly serious bridge player. He tried to teach it to me, but I Just Didn't Get It.

Then again, I am fuzzy on the rules of "Go Fish", so this is not surprising.

Anyway, he has a trophy he won a few years back at an ACBL tournament held here in KC, and his partner was in his early twenties. And he says that there were a lot of college-aged aggressive players who were intent on killing all of the old people. But we tend to be behind all the hot new trends here, so maybe Bridge For Old Fogies Only hasn't caught on here yet.

[satedkate.livejournal.com]

i will bring my cards AND my conventions.
i loves me the bridge. haven't had the opportunity to play with actual live people since my days hanging out at coffee kingdom in worcester, home of the 5 hour bridge game.

[jwgh]

All we need is two more people!

My mom taught me

[notr.livejournal.com]

when I was around 12 and I got bored with it fast and never got interested in playing. She also played bridge solitaire A LOT. I don't even remember whether my parents found other bridge players in Dallas, but I'm pretty sure I've never heard them mention playing since they moved to Nashua.

In my old failure analysis job, my second-level manager was a statistician and he'd always have bridge puzzles written on his blackboard to discuss with the several other statisticians who worked for him.

I do have one weird little affinity related to bridge: I played just enough games of it, and plenty of rummy and 10-card gin, to get used to holding large hands of bridge cards, so I've always found poker cards to look and feel very awkwardly chunky.

[anavolena.livejournal.com]

my parents reteach me bridge about once a year. they are passionate players. heck, my mom's in some sort of contract bridge association with crazy points and stuff. although they really only ever play with friends and family, no competitive stuff.

[flummox.livejournal.com]

I miss bridge. Until the moment I quit my job @ Intel, I was involved with a lunchtime game group where we'd sit in the cafeteria and play as many hands that we could get in. Some days there may be only three of us (we played a variant that allowed for 3 players, not as fun), and some days we'd have enough for 3 full tables. It was all the luck of the draw.

The makeup of the group was probably half the participants were a generation above me, and half were in my generation. From what I heard, the bridge club the officially organized bridge club for Portland was almost all at least my parents age.

[plant-geek.livejournal.com]

my nana likes bridge- i think she taught me once, but i don't remember how to play- i think it is an old person game