Bridge dying?

[Phil]

If a game can't survive on its own merits, it deserves to die...

 

Bridge is a good game because its a hard game.

 

Pardon me if I don't want to bother with idiots who play the game because they think it lends them social status or like to ape some celebrity...

 

I rather have fewer players, but ones who actually appreciate the game for what it is.

I disagree here. Maybe this is naive of me, but I think bridge is such a great game that if you get people playing for any reason then many of them will see that and continue playing bridge for life for the 'right' reasons. That's why, although learning bridge is difficult, people who completely learn how to play invariably love it.

So do I. While I guess I like bridge because its hard, I'm not an elitist and I think bridge could use a shot in the arm from some celebrity exposure.

[croquetfan]

the key phrase is, I think, "making them feel welcome". When I first started playing club bridge I was told they will eat you alive (that's fine, losing is not a problem) and that they are very cliquey- a lot of sour faced old people making you feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, "mind you p's & q's etc.

The sad fact is there are a smattering of these sour-faced grumblers in every club and they need to be told that they are putting potential new players off.

Bridge is in a similar position to croquet: both marvellous games that are seen by outsiders as arcane, outdated, quaint, old, boring, too hard, too easy.

I take every opportunity in conversation to extol the virtue of the 2 greatest games in the world: I don't care if I am mocked, laughed at or ignored: I have introduced lots of people to both games.

Every bridge player should do likewise.

 

ps try association croquet. don't just settle for playing the second best mind/skill game there is!

[dbdance10]

Okay, so I'm a little late to the party here. But for what it's worth:

 

I'm growing a little frustrated with the ACBL's hand-wringing over the scarcity of young players. At the junior reception at each national tournament, the few young people typically in attendance are bombarded by Board members who beg us to share the magical secret of how to popularize bridge among our friends. But as was explained so clearly by so many of the above posters, the first step is hardly a mystery: hire a serious marketing firm.

 

Sure, there are other ways to reach out immediately to youth. But to me, it seems sadly clear that the reason that we have not successfully reached out to young people is that there is no real desire among either ACBL members or their leaders to do so. "Senior Regionals" are wildly popular, as are senior events in general. And even in forums where young players are theoretically welcome, the environment is hardly welcoming.

 

Many of my bridge friends are talented players between the age of 14 and 35 or so who have yet to achieve national acclaim. They are enthusiastic about the game and play regularly at local and regional (and some national) tournaments. Despite the inevitable "it's so nice to see young people" the first few times they play at a club, the locals often turn against these players. They psych too much. They claim too early. They play weird conventions, like transfers in competitive auctions. Some of them play... (gasp)... something called relay precision, and who the hell knows what's going on in those auctions. And don't even get me started on the ones who sometimes have to stifle a giggle when they play dummy. In short, they win a lot, and they do things that "aren't bridge." Whatever that means. The local ladies and gentlemen, bless their hearts, do not like playing against these young people. They fear them and find them disrespectful.

 

Okay, so many of these complaints are unique to really bad (or really cranky) fields. My friends should just play in more tournaments, you say? Sure! Two years ago, a few friends and I were playing the side events at the Reno nationals. Through a concerted effort (not a joke), we had accumulated approximately 280 points a piece. Life masterhood narrowly eluded us, and we were on a quest to achieve it before we died (or graduated). Here were our choices, as presented by the directors: we could play in bracket 13 of a 13-bracket KO ("our bracket"), or we could play in bracket 1. Ask us today, and we would take bracket 1 in a heartbeat. But at the time, we weren't quite ready to face the nation's top experts who happened to be out of national events that day. We begged to be allowed to play bracket 2, or 3, or 4, to no avail. So we entered bracket 13, "our bracket." Three out of four of our opponents withdrew at the half. Several complained to the directors, as one of our pairs was playing an absolutely absurd relay precision system. They were upset not because the system was illegal, but because we were playing it in bracket 13 for pete's sake. We won. Whoop-di-do. No one was happy. We would never get those two days of our lives back again. And the future was hardly brighter: unless we could find teammates with quite a few points, we would languish for years in the lowest brackets, or simply lose right away in bracket 1.

 

This prospect nearly scared me away from the game. Which is saying something. When I described his problem to various ACBL executives, it was explained to me that my problem really only affected a very small demographic. The bigger problem, it seems, occurs with teams that have accumulated too many points for their skill level and who seek to "play down." As I understand it, the ACBL is currently undertaking a concerted effort to address THAT issue (teams of LOLs who justifiably seek entrance into lower brackets), but there has been little or no movement on the flip side of the question.

 

This has turned into a rant. If you are still reading, my sincerest apologies. And if you are still reading and happen to have some authority re the bracket problem, please please please get on that thanks.

[NickRW]

So we entered bracket 13, "our bracket." Three out of four of our opponents withdrew at the half. Several complained to the directors, as one of our pairs was playing an absolutely absurd relay precision system. They were upset not because the system was illegal, but because we were playing it in bracket 13 for pete's sake. We won. Whoop-di-do. No one was happy. We would never get those two days of our lives back again. And the future was hardly brighter: unless we could find teammates with quite a few points, we would languish for years in the lowest brackets, or simply lose right away in bracket 1.

 

Ask us today, and we would take bracket 1 in a heartbeat.

 

Well. You obviously discovered your own answer.

 

If you aspire to playing well, a few hours of competition against players of the same standard and better than you is worth FAR more than a couple of days beating up players worse than you. In fact the latter, if anything, will worsen your game and make you lax.

 

I appreciate the problem however.

 

Nick

[y66]

Bridge has never felt more alive to me than while kibbing the recent U.S. trials. If this is what dying feels like, shoot me.

[dcohio]

 

Many of my bridge friends are talented players between the age of 14 and 35 or so who have yet to achieve national acclaim. They are enthusiastic about the game and play regularly at local and regional (and some national) tournaments. Despite the inevitable "it's so nice to see young people" the first few times they play at a club, the locals often turn against these players. They psych too much. They claim too early. They play weird conventions, like transfers in competitive auctions. Some of them play... (gasp)... something called relay precision, and who the hell knows what's going on in those auctions. And don't even get me started on the ones who sometimes have to stifle a giggle when they play dummy. In short, they win a lot, and they do things that "aren't bridge." Whatever that means. The local ladies and gentlemen, bless their hearts, do not like playing against these young people. They fear them and find them disrespectful.

 

 

 

I started duplicate just two short years ago. I'm now 31. As easily one of the youngest players at my club, I hear where you are coming from, but I say so what? When I first started, I had no idea what a psych was, or why my opponents were alerting all the time, or that I could ask what their alerts meant. But I didn't care, it never offended me. All it made me do was want to learn more. I learned what to do in these situations because of being exposed to them, not by being shielded from them. I would never want to play in a game where psychs were illegal, or you could only use SAYC. All that is doing is stifling the learning experience. I for one would be bored to tears playing in a game like this.

 

I admit, duplicate bridge is scary the first time you play it. You have no idea what a matchpoint is, or that by missing the one overtrick you could have gotten, you end up with a bottom board. If you were introduced via rubber bridge, you rattle off your 9 tricks in 3NT and are happy, but when you find out everyone else made 10 by taking the finesse and you get a 0 on the board, you are crushed. BUT you learn... you learn and you get better.

 

The first time you play against precision, and RHO opens 1C, and you are holding AQxxxx of clubs, you have no clue what to do... but you learn... you get better.

 

Now, there are those who never learn. They never get better. There is some sort of innate card sense that you need to play this game, and you either have it or you don't... it's not something you can learn. Those are the people that get scared away from the game because of the "sharks".

 

Larger clubs have no problem with this. The good young 0-300 players end up playing open games, and the ones who just like to play will play NLM games. Its the smaller clubs that only have open sessions where we end up losing the people who just want to play NLM.

 

Unfortunately, those are the people who keep the game alive. If all we attract is the young superstars, or people that "get" the game, we will languish. For every one JLall or Joe Grue, there's 1000 who will never make it... or not even want to play at that level. Those are the ones we need to figure out how to get and keep.

[shaztaz]

This prospect nearly scared me away from the game. Which is saying something. When I described his problem to various ACBL executives, it was explained to me that my problem really only affected a very small demographic.

 

It's funny how it doesn't feel like a minority to us. :) I've heard stories along this line so many times and it's happened to, as well. Minority or not, that does not justify taking no action to fix this problem.

[ehhh]

Bridge has no allure to big $ like poker or golf so young adults who are 20ish have little interest in investing time and effort into an activity that appears to have no possibility of a career or profession no matter how good they become at it. Uday has the right approach by appealing to the 40-60 age bracket first. They are career and fiancial secure enough to pursue what is deemed a leasurely past time.

 

Children as early as grade three are capable of learning bridge. I'm sure that one ex-primary teacher and par excellent bridge author will attest to this. Attention span can be an issue and extra motivation is a prerequist. Bridge doesn't have to be complicated at this stage. Get them to enjoy the game with a simplified version. Jude Goodwin's book, Teach Me to Play, is a great resource if it was updated to today's SAYC's weak approach and made available for reproduction to educators.

 

The ACBL has addressed the school age group but needs to sell the program to school boards. School boards in general shy at enrichment programs that entail cards. They do not however with chess. Chess therefore reaches far more young people than does bridge. It takes an adament bridge player in the educational field to promote bridge and sell it. Toronto and area has such a person with a great program. Attend the Toronto Easter Regional and you'll see just how successful Flo has been.

This is one reason District 2 has appointed her as Education Corrodinator.

[rduran1216]

Bridge will be "dead" in the US in 25 years tops, there shouldn't be any debate about this.

[Bbradley62]

I would love to see ACBL age demographics from thirty years ago compare to today's. I don't think there is a noticeable difference.

[blackshoe]

Bridge will be "dead" in the US in 25 years tops, there shouldn't be any debate about this.

 

I had a friend who used to say the US would be "dead" in 25 years. When he died about ten years ago, he had reduced his estimate to 15 years. I suspect he may have been close.

[benlessard]

Bridge is a closed circle activity. You can put any game in any public room and people will start looking and be curious. IMO playing games are inherent to human nature. Any game that is mostly played in isolated placed will simply not get the exposure necessary to reach mainstream. Go and shogi are the best examples there are Imo in the top 3 of greatest games and there is almost no Shogi players outside Japan and Go is nowhere near popular as it should be in north America and in Europe.

 

The rest is mostly irrelevent.

[helene_t]

I had a friend who used to say the US would be "dead" in 25 years. When he died about ten years ago, he had reduced his estimate to 15 years. I suspect he may have been close.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/world-to-end-saturday,20500/

[Free]

Bridge will be "dead" in the US in 25 years tops, there shouldn't be any debate about this.

The end of the world was a few days ago and bridge survived, why would bridge ever die?

 

EDIT: News flash, apparently it will die in October now... :rolleyes:

[whereagles]

In my country it's been dying. I don't think it will ever disappear completely, but it might reduce to a residual activity.

[xxhong]

Young players make a lot of money from Poker by their own ability or luck. Almost all young players lose money in almost all bridge tournaments in US. Also, among those who make money in bridge tournaments, most money are paid by rich clients, not by the game itself. In some sense, many professional bridge players are like tools of rich people in US to prove that the rich can win in bridge. Many with high respect to themselves wouldn't choose this career path, although bridge is a great game. The running format of Poker actually wins more respect from me.

IMO, Bridge began dying when rubber bridge is dying and great players became the tools of the rich.

 

As a junior player, i have tried to get other people interested in the game that are my age, but generally fail. People find the game too complicated, for insance when they ask me a simple question like how do you win even that is complicated. I know there are quite a few, bad, but interested young players that play on sites like yahoo etc. Maybe there is some way we could tap into that and get them playing club games? The internet is the best way to get young people involved, and without them the game will eventually die, and that would be quite a shame. I was wondering if anyone had ideas on how to get young people playing online or in real life, because it seems like they are more interested in other things. Alot of people dont even know what bridge is.

[JLOGIC]

lol

[billw55]

Bridge is a closed circle activity. You can put any game in any public room and people will start looking and be curious. IMO playing games are inherent to human nature. Any game that is mostly played in isolated placed will simply not get the exposure necessary to reach mainstream. Go and shogi are the best examples there are Imo in the top 3 of greatest games and there is almost no Shogi players outside Japan and Go is nowhere near popular as it should be in north America and in Europe.

I play Go, and I agree - one of the greatest games ever. Perhaps we can meet on KGS for a game sometime.

 

And yes, it makes a big difference to be visible. Particularly for Go, with very few players who will seek out a club meeting.

[Vampyr]

I play Go, and I agree - one of the greatest games ever. Perhaps we can meet on KGS for a game sometime.

 

And yes, it makes a big difference to be visible. Particularly for Go, with very few players who will seek out a club meeting.

 

I love games, and play lots of them. Go, to me, looks deadly dull. I am sure that I have got it all wrong and that it is a fascinating game once you start learning something about it, but there is really nothing I can think of that would induce me to go near a Go board in the first place.

 

If I feel this way about Go, there are probably people who feel the same way about bridge. But I'm sure I would have been more open to the game when I was a child. So perhaps the key in to get them while they're young -- expand bridge teaching in schools.

[nige1]

I love games, and play lots of them. Go, to me, looks deadly dull. I am sure that I have got it all wrong and that it is a fascinating game once you start learning something about it, but there is really nothing I can think of that would induce me to go near a Go board in the first place. If I feel this way about Go, there are probably people who feel the same way about bridge. But I'm sure I would have been more open to the game when I was a child. So perhaps the key in to get them while they're young -- expand bridge teaching in schools.

Two-person games are social activities and a lot depends on fashion and on the people with whom you play. In 70s London, Go was newly in vogue. About forty of us met regularly, in a public bar, to enjoy ourselves, and amuse other drinkers. Like Chess, you can learn the rules of Go in five minutes but it takes a long time to play well. Go is better as a mixer than Chess because it has a simple stone handicap system which retains the features of the game . .

[VM1973]

It's too hard to play bridge in person. I don't know anyplace near me where people can play bridge, nor do I know anyone else who knows how to play. When I lived in Los Angeles I used to play at the Bridge Academy in Tarzana. I started there when I was 17. I had fun, but let's face it... most people suck at bridge. Even simple things like taking a preference when you've bid 2 suits is too complicated for them. Most people on BBO are also hideously bad. I think the future of bridge is just people playing at home, alone, with the computer playing the other 3 people. It's rewarding because the computer isn't that good so you can always win, if you're careful and study a bit. I don't play bridge to lose or just to be social. I want to win.

[hrothgar]

It's too hard to play bridge in person. I don't know anyplace near me where people can play bridge, nor do I know anyone else who knows how to play. When I lived in Los Angeles I used to play at the Bridge Academy in Tarzana. I started there when I was 17. I had fun, but let's face it... most people suck at bridge. Even simple things like taking a preference when you've bid 2 suits is too complicated for them. Most people on BBO are also hideously bad. I think the future of bridge is just people playing at home, alone, with the computer playing the other 3 people. It's rewarding because the computer isn't that good so you can always win, if you're careful and study a bit. I don't play bridge to lose or just to be social. I want to win.

 

Luckily, you seem to play against idiots.

Good to see that this gives you a sense of accomplishment.

[VM1973]

Luckily, you seem to play against idiots.

Good to see that this gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Doubtless you meant to say "Too bad you always find yourself partnered with idiots."

It ruins the fun of the game. As I said, it's best to just partner with a computer. It probably won't play the conventions I want, and I can't convince it to play in a different form, but at least I won't end up playing in a 4-2 heart fit instead of a 5-3 spade fit because my human partner didn't think to return me to the first bid suit.

[losercover]

I learned to play bridge as a teenager in the late 50's. My friend's parents didn't get a TV until around 1960 and they spent their evenings playing cards or reading. I learned to play rubber bridge wit them and a few years later started playing duplicate.

 

My son grew up watching TV and playing video games. He was supporting himself playing online poker until the sites were shut down. I spend a Sunday playing 7 hours in a two session event and pick up a couple MP. He plays 10+ hours and frequently wins a few thousand dollars. He now occasionally goes to poker rooms and plays.

 

Where I live, most of the club players are retired and the decent games are in the weekday morning or afternoon. I still work and play occasionally on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the time at sectionals and regionals. A young person is not going to be able to take time off to play on the weekdays.

 

The Marin sectional offered free play for players under 18. This is a rarity. As a junior high student, table fees of $9 would put a dent in your allowance.

[rduran1216]

I consider LA to be a semi-major hub of bridge in the scheme of things for the US. You can't name 10 players under the age of 40 who are lasting, will be here in 40 years type players. There may be 4-5 for the entire 10+ million of us, but just check on the median age in any bridge club. When your average patron is 75 years old, and u can count the number of people under 40 playing in your club on one hand, the writing is on the wall.