Bridge to Review-itha

Hi,

So in a two-day rush I finished up The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats: A Newcomer's Journey into the World of Bridge by Edward McPherson.

Before we go any further, I'd just like to say up front that I'm totally going to come up with a tasty drink called the Backwash Squeeze and then drink it constantly. I feel like it'll be a cloudy martini of some kind...

OK, so back to the book. You've got this freelance writer who decides to write a book about bridge and so he joins a Manhattan bridge club and starts getting involved. He travels about the country interviewing top players and attending various tournaments. Some are for cash, other for "Master Points" (a sort of lifetime score managed by the American Contract Bridge League), and some are just regular weekday games for fun.

Of course, the biggest question in the book is: what is the future of Bridge? Bridge is a product of the 30's and was a very popular pastime right up through the 40's and 50's. These days, even though Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are partners, the game doesn't attract very many young people. I myself knew very little about bridge until I read this book.

I think part of the problem is how codified the whole thing has become. The author tries to explain the basic rules of bridge at the start and basically admits that he probably won't do a good job. The actual play of bridge is a lot like Hearts or Spades. You play cards to win tricks. What complicates matters is the auction ahead of time. The partners bid on how many tricks they think they will take in the hand. If you make it, you get points, if you fail, your opponents get points. Which again, seems fairly straightforward, until you realize that the bids aren't just bids, they're also a set of signals used by the partners to pass information about their hands back and forth. The weird thing about that is that the rules of bridge state that you can always ask someone what their bids mean. All of this and a truckload of specialized jargon and I can see why people might not be terribly interested in learning how to play.

Still, the book is a fun read. I probably liked Word Freak a bit better, but this provided a pretty interesting look at a game that I didn't know much about. Also, it really makes me wish that we had private gaming clubs for RPGs the way they do for bridge. The author describes some pretty swanky establishments and I think it'd be nice to have an elegant place to play D&D.

later
Tom

Bridge to Review-itha

Hi,

So in a two-day rush I finished up The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats: A Newcomer's Journey into the World of Bridge by Edward McPherson.

Before we go any further, I'd just like to say up front that I'm totally going to come up with a tasty drink called the Backwash Squeeze and then drink it constantly. I feel like it'll be a cloudy martini of some kind...

OK, so back to the book. You've got this freelance writer who decides to write a book about bridge and so he joins a Manhattan bridge club and starts getting involved. He travels about the country interviewing top players and attending various tournaments. Some are for cash, other for "Master Points" (a sort of lifetime score managed by the American Contract Bridge League), and some are just regular weekday games for fun.

Of course, the biggest question in the book is: what is the future of Bridge? Bridge is a product of the 30's and was a very popular pastime right up through the 40's and 50's. These days, even though Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are partners, the game doesn't attract very many young people. I myself knew very little about bridge until I read this book.

I think part of the problem is how codified the whole thing has become. The author tries to explain the basic rules of bridge at the start and basically admits that he probably won't do a good job. The actual play of bridge is a lot like Hearts or Spades. You play cards to win tricks. What complicates matters is the auction ahead of time. The partners bid on how many tricks they think they will take in the hand. If you make it, you get points, if you fail, your opponents get points. Which again, seems fairly straightforward, until you realize that the bids aren't just bids, they're also a set of signals used by the partners to pass information about their hands back and forth. The weird thing about that is that the rules of bridge state that you can always ask someone what their bids mean. All of this and a truckload of specialized jargon and I can see why people might not be terribly interested in learning how to play.

Still, the book is a fun read. I probably liked Word Freak a bit better, but this provided a pretty interesting look at a game that I didn't know much about. Also, it really makes me wish that we had private gaming clubs for RPGs the way they do for bridge. The author describes some pretty swanky establishments and I think it'd be nice to have an elegant place to play D&D.

later
Tom