Bridge

The Greatest Card Game You Probably Shouldn't Play, But Can I Interest You?

Placing Bridge into The Hundred Most Influential Games of the 20th Century shouldn’t be hard. The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) has shrunk, but still has 130 thousand+ members paying them to play a game they could play for free. (And that isn’t the only league in the U.S. The American Bridge Association also exists, due to segregation and racism).

Newspapers featured a daily Bridge columns for decades. Before Poker dominated ESPN, they played Bridge when there were only a few channels, with pros and celebrities playing for real money. (I really can’t recommend watching that video, though).

The Marx Brothers play Bridge in Animal Crackers. Bridge plays a prominent role in Agatha Christie’s “Cards on the Table.” I saw my uncles play it and on the Cosby show.

Harold Vanderbilt’s updates that created (Contract) Bridge arrived like an evolutionary extinction event; a comet wiping out the Whist, Auction Bridge and related card games. (Euchre and Pinochle survived in regional niches, as if huddling in caves). Bridge was the game for the smart set and all over the culture.

Yet Bridge has been ‘dying’ for most of my life; Bridge players have speculated why for just as long. My college team were the youngest players at local tournaments when I started. Now that I am retired …. I’m still one of the youngest.

Some of the decline is obvious. There are many many! more games and other forms of entertainment vying for time and eyeballs. During college, there were precious few video games. Now they are ubiquitous, in everyone’s pocket.

But the true reason is that Bridge is one of the most complex games to learn.

The rules for Star Fleet Battles run for hundreds of pages, in that 15.A.1.b.iii notation that I imagine the tax code invented. Yet for all that, the rules cover everything. Got a question? There’s a great index. Every fact is where it should be.

The rules of Bridge aren’t complex. You deal cards, you take turns bidding until everyone passes. You play thirteen tricks, and you score it up. Most of the Laws of Contract Bridge cover errors: “What if someone bids out of turn?” “What if a card is dropped?” “What if someone revokes (doesn’t play to the led suit when they have a card of that suit)?” If you want to learn the rules (and ignore the corner cases), Wikipedia has you covered. I can teach the basics in ten minutes.

Bridge’s complexity doesn’t reside in rules; but in strategy. Bidding is a language. And — just as there are different languages in different countries — there are multiple bidding systems. Standard American, 2/1 (pronounced “Two over One”), ACOL (in the UK), Blue Club (Italy), Polish Club, Precision. And even with in a single system, there are variations, like dialects. But the biggest similarity and challenge between Bridge and Languages:

To learn well, you need a mentor who already speaks it.

Most games work with a table of novices. You read the rules, setup the game and discover the strategies as you go. Even Magic the Gathering — where the rules are just a small part of the game — all the cards clearly explain what they can do. You can figure it out.

Not so Bridge bidding. Sure you could invent one, but then you can’t play with the millions of others around the world.

One introductory bridge book (I forget which) said “If you dropped someone on an island with a chess set and Bobby Fisher’s games, they could be a pretty good chess player when you picked them up. But you can’t learn Bridge by yourself.”

Nowadays every chess patzer can access a computer analyst stronger than the world champion. Bridge computers aren’t laughably bad anymore. (Just bad). Partially that is because no company has put the money into making a bridge computer as a PR coup (like IBM did with Deep Blue) but the complexity of bidding plays a part.

Modern publishers do everything in their power to remove (or reduce) barriers to entry, things that make people quit in frustration. Almost all video games have tutorial modes or guides or pop-up-boxes. Those that don’t have a good reason to expect you don’t need it.

You can also play on easy mode and ramp up as you go.

Bridge is language immersion from day one. Bridge dumps you in the water and whispers ‘swim.’ Your first fifty hours? Mostly confusion.

For example, A not-complete list of the meaning of “two clubs” in different contexts (all in a single bidding system):

• “I have a hand twice as good as normal (maybe no clubs, or great ones),”

• “Do you have four or more hearts or spades?,”

• “I wish to go to game, having either long clubs or a balanced hand,”

• “I have a good club suit, and a hand that is anywhere from average to average+, but not too good.”

• “I don’t know, any suggestions?”

Bridge bidding attempts to maximize your score (for the cards you have) and there’s a logic behind it. The two main questions are “Which suit should we play in?” and “How High should we bid?” You can see that sometimes a two club bid focuses on one or the other, sometimes both.

Even a simplified introduction to bidding (like this series ….) involves thousands of words and only covers a few of the situations listed above. Real languages also have logic (via grammar); but also gray areas, idiomatic meanings, and exceptions. Some things you just have to memorize.

After I’d been playing for five years, I ran into a much stronger player at a board game convention and asked “When will I understand all of the auctions?”

“Never.”

It’s not my fault. The Bridge World magazine includes a monthly feature where they ask dozens of World Class players a what-if:

Sample from Bridge World’s “Master Solver’s Club” — There is no right answer.

(“Bridge World Standard” is another bidding System, used in these polls).

The experts rarely agree because no system can cover every situation. It’s like Codenames. What single word would you use to convey three clues (say “Igloo,” “Watermelon” and “Beige”).

Not everyone will pick the same word. Bridge bidding doesn’t cover that much scope … but also only allows fifteen words.

Another factor that makes bridge difficult to learn: weak feedback. Sometimes the wrong bid (or play) works and the right one fails. It’s hard to learn quickly when bad play is rewarded.

In Chess, even if your blunder won; the computer will tsk tsk and provide a refutation.

So … those Bridge columns existed not to introduce people to the game, but to help those who already played.

It doesn’t end with the bidding. The card play has a language on defense, made richer because (unlike most card games) you can see half of the deck. One person (“dummy”) puts down their cards after bidding. Their partner (“declarer”) calls the cards.

“Bridge is a game where four people get together so that three of them can play cards.” — Quote at my College Bridge Club. Image from Wikipedia.

In order to play well, the other two players (“defenders”) have to coordinate and communicate during the card play. Despite what the movies show¹, you aren’t allowed to cough or point.

Legal signals are based solely on which cards you play, and in what order. What does it mean if your first club is the four and your second club played is the two (as compared to the two then four)?

Say it with me: “It depends on context.” That context might include on the prior plays, the bidding and the cards you can see on the table. And sometimes you might play them in the ‘wrong’ order because declarer is also watching. All of this leads me to the conclusion:

Bridge is dying because it only shines once you’ve invested a few hundred hours.

For some that number may be lower … or higher! Having already played tournament Chess for several years, the learning curve in Bridge didn’t scare me. But most people who showed up the first week of Bridge Club in college never returned.

All of which is to say that Bridge is a lifestyle game — it can absorb as much time as you give it; to the exclusion of other games. Once you’ve slogged through those first however-many hours, you’ll find delights.

Consider the game you love the most. The game you’d (almost always) play. How much would you play if you could play as much as you want?

One local expert played bridge 3+ hours a day 355 days a year for over a decade. (Probably closer to 1500 or 2000 hours per year). He drove to the club and paid $10 daily for the privilege.

Others pay professionals to play with them — either to learn or just to try and win.

Bridge is not worth playing once or twice a year, particularly when starting it. It’s a classic Miyagi situation, either an enthusiastic “Yes” or a firm “No” is the right answer. Playing Bridge “so-so” squishes your enthusiasm, just like grape.

But once you’ve acclimated … Bridge is dying, but even a small tournament (called a “sectional”) can have over a hundred players. The overall result list for my most recent tournament includes a national champion, an international player and coach, players I’ve known for decades, and novices venturing out for their first tournament.

Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” lamented that Americans don’t do things together. News to Bridge players.

Ironically, I suspect that Tournament Bridge (also known as Duplicate) is at least part of the reason for the game’s decline. Getting four people around a kitchen table takes … a table and a deck of cards. Maybe you didn’t know as much “Standard American” as that newspaper column, but as long as all of you had a rough idea, it worked well enough.

Kitchen bridge has random partners, so if there’s a national champion, sometimes he’ll be on your side. And when he’s not, you might get better cards.

Not so in duplicate. When you pick up a bad hand you are only comparing with people who got the same bad hands: The hands are “duplicated” and played multiple times, using specialized card holders to restore them at the end of each play. This reduces the luck in the game, but that was part of the charm. And the partnerships are arranged by the players, not random².

The cards (not shown) go back into the red case in the middle after each play, and are then moved to the next table.

As the Rueful Rabbit (from Victor Mollo’s classic “Menagerie” series) describes:

“Think, too, of the thrill of putting it across the experts! You can’t get the better of them at golf or tennis or chess … But it happens at bridge. Sometimes, the champions are too good or too clever and beat themselves. Sometimes you hold all the cards, which makes them very cross indeed. And sometimes, if you get into the swing of it, you can manage to be lucky.”

— R.R. from “The Rabbit Takes Charge,” Bridge in the Fourth Dimension.

Contra R.R., “Kitchen Table Players” indeed balk at paying to lose to Sharks. And in Duplicate getting good cards won’t help you win, you have to do as well (or better) than the other players who get the same hand. Much easier to win at Rubber Bridge precisely because Duplicate is designed to reduce the luck factor.

Part of the reason the U.S. went gaga over Bridge quickly is because it was simpler (although still complex), but also gambling. You could win just by getting good cards. When I started Duplicate Bridge I was appalled by the lack of prize money, but various cheating scandals in major “mind sports” (including Bridge) have shown the rationale. Still …

As another of Mollo’s creations — the Hideous Hog — proclaimed over fifty years ago “Playing Bridge not for money is immoral.” Part of the Hog’s attraction is that he’s Hideous; but he’s usually right.

Incidentally, Mollo’s stories are worth reading even if if you only have the most superficial interest or knoweldge of Bridge. I maintain that they are the pinnacle of writing about any game. Not only is Mollo is a master wordsmith, with a keen eye for human nature, but also because Bridge has one of the greatest pleasures humans can experience — arguing over blame.

The post-session tradition (both in the Menagerie and real life) include dinner, drinks and regaling others with the injustices inflicted on you by “Center Hand Opponent” (aka partner). Just try and claim bad luck after a game of Chess.

Even if you barely understand the card play, its amusing seeing Mollo’s creations snarl and seethe. You’ll pick up something of bridge, and understand a bit more about humanity.

For all the teeth I’ve gnashed, I’m pleased to report that (some) youngsters still joyfully dive into the water. I’ve played against a teenager taking a gap year to compete in World Championships and a pre-teen who won the Under 16 Worlds, among others.

(“Played against” being a euphemism for “got smoked by.”)

I understand if you never stick your foot in the water. I understand why local bridge clubs have declined from running forty sessions a week to five sessions. The world looks quite different than when Vanderbilt codified the rules.

Still, I maintain that Bridge is a First Ballot game in the Twentieth Century Project.

(If this has inspired you to at least see how warm the water is: your best bet is to find a club and see if they have lessons or the optimistically named “Learn Bridge in a Day” class. Also see the ACBL’s New to Bridge page).

1. An anecdote attributed to one of the Marx Brothers — “What signals do we use?” “Just nod and smile.”

2. There is a type of tournament where you change partners every round, but it is incredibly rare. I think I’ve seen on session of an “Individual” movement in the last decade.