Learn to Play Bridge
It’s not only good for your brain but also a great way to meet new people
Never mind the obvious benefit of taking your brain out for a vigorous stroll. The real beauty of bridge is the other players.
When I mention my passion for the world's best card game to the uninitiated, the subject of little old ladies always arises. Certainly, that contingent is represented. Crafty little old ladies. Cunning. But the truth is, the bridge subculture is diverse: Bums, brainiacs, and billionaires (ask Bill Gates and Warren Buffett what they do for kicks) fill up local bridge clubs, national tournaments, and online bridge parlors. Learning to play bridge will allow you to match wits and witticisms with an array of folks whose only other commonality is that they tend to be pretty clever.
You don't need to be a genius to become good at the game, though. Judgment and the ability to focus are greater assets than sheer mental muscle, and both develop with experience. The basics of bridge can be learned in an afternoon. It's a trick-taking game, like spades and hearts, but with a few extra layers that make it much more interesting. Cheap or free lessons are available online and at many community colleges and bridge clubs. The American Contract Bridge League will point you in the right direction. Many novices prefer to hone their skills with computer programs such as Bridge Baron ($65).
All it takes is three friends and a pack of cards to play a standard game of bridge. But for the real thrill of competition, try duplicate bridge—in which you and a partner rack up points for outsmarting other teams playing the same cards (hence, "duplicate"). Some online bridge parlors, such as Bridge Base Online or OKBridge have free games, but these are tepid substitutes for live play. With about 3,200 bridge clubs in North America, the ACBL can help find one near you. Clubs typically charge a small fee (generally about $5) for three hours of play, and that often includes snacks. Clubs are eager for new members and will usually help you find a partner. There are thousands more clubs worldwide. You'll no doubt find a warm welcome at every one.
Reader Comments
learn to play bridge
Bridge is for the Young at Heart. It is especially great for the young in years as well. Teaching kids bridge is not just about teaching the rules of the game itself but about teaching the application of math and logic skills, social skills, and ethics. There are youth tournaments held around the country via local ACBL units, the Youth North American Bridge Championships, and the School Bridge League. There are college scholarships available to youth bridge players through ACBL and local organizations.
bridge and
yes, by all means Bridge will keep you alert and sociable into old age with the perspective of a nice death from falling off a chair at a bridge table arguing with partner why he did not return diamonds.
But do avoid tough competition bridge which is full of one-sided off balance people who constantly grade everyone around them from idiot to expert, with massive disdain for the majority.
However, Bridge will not do for real balance in life. You also need a hobby for your legs, a job to support you and a social life beyond bridge.
What's Trump Anyway?
My contrarian view is--based on age (89) and fifty years of playing sociable bridge--that learning to play bridge is one of the best things you can do to have a happy old age. BUT the repeated advice to immediately seek out ACBL lessons (for MOST people) is a mistake. As a purely sociable player, my motto is, "It's better to have played bridge badly than never to have played at all." Ask your bridge-playing mother or grandmother to let you sit in for a month or two and THEN go for bridge lessons if you wish--buy instruction books with coded cards for practice hands. The bad habits you learn will be more than offset by the danger of being turned off by formal ACBL lessons too soon.
A little secret (not dirty): "the ACBL's own statistics indicate that 87.9 per cent of bridge players learn how to play from friends and family"--a quote from my about to be published book: Bridge Table or What's Trump Anyway: An Affectionate Look Back at Sociable Bridge. It's "herstory" of bridge, a feminist word from the 60s for history told from a woman's viewpoint, complete with an account of the menus and recipes for ladies' lunch, an integral part of ladies-only sociable bridge since the 1890s.
For appalled ACBL-ers, here's my book's epigraph, from a popular culture classic, Middletown in Transition, by Helen and Robert Lynd, published in 1935: "It is conceivable that [bridge] never would have been anything but the sport of an esoteric few, had its growth depended entirely on the male [i.e. serious] world. Its development, however, has been primarily in the hands of women [who govern sociable bridge]."
If you are amongst the compeitive people who are as ego-driven about leisure as work, the "esoteric few" -- take lessons. If you just want to insure for yourself a lifetime hobby, a way to meet people, a guarantee (scientists are saying)of living long and mentally alert, a distraction from your woes, the key to a happy old age (Talleyrand and Somerset Maugham said it)take my advice.
Finally, playing bridge is the PERFECT hobby in this recession/depression--costs virtually nothing to pursue. In fact, one of the reasons bridge playing became a frenzied fad in the 30s was THAT depression. It was the no-cost, fashionable thing to do, and one shared by all classes from lower through socialites.
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