Learning or Teaching Bridge… Not an Easy Task!
— Rajendra Phansalkar
12th July 2012
The other day, I read that the world’s richest person, Mr. Bill Gates, donated one million dollars to the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) to support facilities that help newcomers learn the game.
Mr. Gates, a keen bridge player himself, once confessed with a smile, “Bridge is one of the last games in which the computer is not better.”
Ever since I learned that Bill Gates plays bridge, I’ve started feeling a little richer myself!
The Challenge of Teaching Bridge
There’s plenty of literature available for beginners who want to learn bridge, but very few good teachers—because teaching this game is no easy task. Bill Gates, the business tycoon, clearly understood that, and his generous donation was a thoughtful gesture in support of better learning facilities.
When someone wants to learn a new sport, they’re usually expected to have watched others play it first. Bridge is no exception. A newcomer should spend some time observing the game and getting a sense of its basic ideas before diving in. Trying to learn bridge without knowing any other card game is like trying to learn football without ever having kicked a ball!
Take cricket, for example. Before anyone starts learning it systematically, they already know what batting and bowling are. A cricket coach would surely send a student home if that student didn’t even know what a bat, ball, or stump is. Unfortunately, a bridge coach doesn’t have that luxury—he needs students more than students need him!
Most people who decide to learn bridge lack the patience to simply watch and absorb the game’s basics. Even when they do make the effort, they gain little unless they have a thick skin. Unlike in many other sports, absolute silence is expected while a hand is in progress, and everyone sits around with the seriousness of surgeons. When the deal ends, there are often arguments or little verbal skirmishes, and any beginner brave enough to ask a question is likely to be silenced by some irritable veteran.
Such, alas, is the plight of the beginner bridge player.
The Bridge Enthusiast
The situation of the bridge coach—or, as I like to call him, the bridge enthusiast—isn’t very encouraging either. A bridge enthusiast is usually someone who knows just a shade more than the others in his circle. Over time, he begins to believe he’s an expert, though in club tournaments he usually ends up in the bottom half of the results sheet.
His love for the game, however, knows no limits. His greatest concern is gathering enough players for weekend sessions or holiday matches. When the group runs short, a beginner is often recruited—sometimes almost forced—to fill the empty chair. The poor newcomer is then thrown straight into the deep end, exposed immediately to the mysterious art of bidding.
Now tell me—would you teach grammar to a child who’s only one year old? Of course not! Grammar comes much later. When we learn a language, we first pick up words, then phrases, then sentences. We listen, observe, and only once we begin to feel the rhythm of the language do we start studying its grammar.
Most bridge enthusiasts who take on the role of coach, however, forget this. They know that bidding is the language of bridge—the only permitted form of communication between partners during the game—yet they insist on teaching it first. Each bid has its own defined meaning, its own rules, its own grammar.
So when thin-skinned beginners, still bewildered by the cards themselves, are taught the grammar of bridge before they can even “speak” it, the lessons quickly turn into a one-sided monologue by the enthusiastic coach, punctuated only by the yawns of his exhausted students. Before long, confusion spreads. Even the sound of snoring cannot stop the lone enthusiast from continuing his lecture!
Why Learners Give Up
Sooner or later, the training sessions end—usually when a touch of common sense finally prevails. Only a rare few, driven either by blind faith in their bridge mentors or by a true hunger to learn, survive this stage and become genuine bridge players.
The rest, who form the majority, give up after a torturous struggle to grasp the complex meanings behind each bid. And once they give up, they don’t stop there—they begin spreading every sort of nonsense about the game, discouraging anyone else who might have been curious to try.
This combination—a poor public perception of card games and a shortage of skilled teachers—is, I believe, the main reason bridge hasn’t become popular among young people. In India, for instance, more than sixty percent of bridge players are senior citizens—perhaps because by that age, they’ve finally developed the one quality every bridge learner needs most: a guaranteed thick skin!
The Ageless Beauty of Bridge
Fortunately, age is no barrier to this wonderful game. People in their eighties or even nineties still play actively—and some of them handle the cards far better than their grandsons, who may excel at writing complex software but often misjudge the missing trumps on a bridge table.
Bridge has no certainties and no absolute rules—only a few guidelines. The rest depends on your judgment, skill, and intellect—qualities that losers often dismiss as common sense.
And one more truth: when you play bridge, never expect to escape blame for a mistake. No matter who you are—your age, your gender, your status, or even your relationship with your partner—you will be criticized. As a beginner, you may faithfully follow your partner’s advice, covering an honor or drawing all the opponents’ trumps, and yet still find yourself blamed for losing a single ruffing trick. If you truly wish to improve, you must learn to listen through your partner’s sarcasm.
During the “post-mortem” of each deal, focus only on what’s said about bridge—and for the rest, thank the Almighty that you have two ears!
Even Bill Gates himself, when he ducks the first round of a suit and loses a certain winning ace, is not spared criticism at the bridge table. And if India’s Ambanis or Tatas ever take up the game, they too will discover that on a bridge table, wealth and status offer no protection from blame.
----------------------------------------
🎴
Bridge remains one of the rare games that tests not just skill but patience, partnership, and resilience. Perhaps that’s why it attracts those who have lived long enough to laugh at themselves—and to play on, no matter the criticism.
------------------------------------------
Comments
Post a Comment