![]() And a big reflection of that comes in the role that it carried in newspapers.īridge columns effectively tend to have an unusual shape: They’re written essentially to teach existing bridge players strategies with which they can use in future bridge games. This seems like a strangely complex game to have become a phenomenon, but it very much was one during the 1940s and 1950s. But why did bridge become enough of a phenomenon to show up in newspapers? Ask Charles Goren It’s the depth when everything is executed properly.Ĭharles Goren, on the cover of Time Magazine in 1958. It’s not the format that attracts players. In many ways, bridge is the real-time strategy version of a card game, in which the rules actually turn out to be really important to manage and understand what’s happening inside of the universe and you have to react on the fly.Īnother comparison point is board games that come with their own complex sets of rules. Lots of different types of video games exist-from simple-to-understand card games like solitaire, to side-scrolling games, to first-person shooters, and everything in-between. That Warren Buffett would get into a game like bridge (he apparently plays eight hours a week, which he can do because he’s Warren Buffett) very much reflects the kind of person that would get into a game like it-one that can see the depth of the strategy it encourages and how it flexes some strategic muscles, the kind that someone like Buffett, known for his business deals, might excel at.Ī good way to think about this in terms of video games. Even in a television format, where everything is being explained slowly by Goren and his cohost, Alex Dreier, you can feel completely lost.īut if you are familiar with bridge, you might find this to be the very thing that appeals to you, because of the level of strategy involved. If you don’t know anything about bridge, you may find the bidding process to be completely indecipherable, much in the same way that you might find a column about bridge to be full of jargon. ![]() was one of the contestants, which is about as bright as the star power gets on this show.) To give you an idea of how indecipherable this can be for someone who doesn’t already know how to play bridge, I’d like to share with you an episode from the first television series about the game, Championship Bridge, which aired during the late ’50s and early ’60s and was hosted by star bridge columnist Charles Goren. This is where the complications come in-the bidding process makes the game hugely challenging for new players to understand right off the top and requires a degree of skill, similar but not directly comparable to Texas hold ’em poker. Together, the two teams, teammates across from one another, try to make clear the value of their competing bids during an “auction” process. The cards are ranked aces high, while suits are ranked spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. What about bridge? Well, the thing that makes it more complicated is the use of a bidding system, in which two of the four players playing (you absolutely need four players) make a series of agreements, or bids, based on the quality of your hand of 13 cards. Like games you may be more familiar with, such as spades, hearts, or euchre, it relies on a “trick-taking” approach, which effectively means that the people with the highest card values win the hand.īut games like spades, hearts, or euchre are relatively easy to understand. Now, bridge-in its most common form, contract bridge-has been around for about a century, with an evolution that goes back centuries further. (via Greater NY Bridge Association) Explaining what makes bridge so appealing to certain types of people … and what limits that appeal to everyone else Noted bridge players Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. What about bridge makes it so appealing? And why did that appeal lead to a straight-up video game console licensed by the BBC? Today’s Tedium tries to figure it out. But, apparently that column is no joke to bridge players-when The New York Times dropped its bridge column in 2015, it led to hundreds of complaints. It was just a card game! But somehow this game had earned its place in the newspaper over something … say, more generally appealing. But of the many things that were in newspapers, one of the things I never understood was why most newspapers had a dedicated bridge column, next to the funnies and the crosswords. ![]() Today in Tedium: As you probably know about me, I used to spend years working in newspapers. Am I tempting fate again by resurfacing this piece? Of course. ![]() When I wrote this a couple of years ago, I expected a flood of angry messages and notes, but did not receive them. Hey all, Ernie here with a refreshed 2021 piece about everyone’s favorite card game, bridge.
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