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At my going-away party at the Miami Valley
Bridge Center, just before leaving for my two-year stay
in Sweden, 1998.
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In
1984, circumstances developed in which I began learning
to play bridge. So, there I was learning to play the very
game with which I previously couldn't have imagined wasting
time. I will be forever thankful for finding myself in that
unlikely situation, however. Bridge is the most fascinating,
fun, frustrating, exciting, hateful, interesting game in
the world. I played bridge heavily from 1984 to 2004 and then got involved with Scottish Country Dancing. Now I play much less frequently, and not at sanctioned games at all. Maybe I can get back into it when I retire ...
In my opinion, duplicate bridge is much more exciting
and interesting than party (or "rubber") bridge
for the following reason. In party bridge, whether you
win or not depends very heavily on the cards you get,
but in duplicate you can get no points at all for the
entire evening and still win. That is, winning in duplicate
depends on how well you play the hand you get; if you
can play it better than all of the other players sitting
your direction (who will be playing exactly the same hands
as you against different opponents), then you'll win.
In this way, the element of luck is largely removed from
the game. It doesn't matter what kind of cards you get,
what matters is how well you play those cards. So, if
you're a party bridge player, give duplicate a try. |
