Bridge to Nowhere

After slogging through a beast of a course last term, I am now enrolled in Economics for Dummies, a prerequisite to the MBA-level Economics for Bozos class that’s part of my regular program. I took economics as an undergrad, but since it has been more than 5 years since the final (way more, in fact), I do not qualify to skip this class, and so I am enrolled with 16 other dunderheads, most of whom are new to grad school, and all of whom have never had the guns vs. butter conversation so prevalent in intro courses.

Because it’s a preemie class, the work load is considerably lighter than the last few terms, where I’ve barely coming up for work or food from the time the syllabus is published until after the final is posted. So after 8 straight terms of bore-in-don’t-stop intensity, I now find myself in a place where I have some time in the evenings for interests other than Finishing This Dang Degree.

My reprieve is well timed, since we’re about to embark on our annual spring journey to Florida, soaking up the sun and pretending that we’re not still on Winter’s last pouting lip here in Chicago. Howard and I, looking for things we can do with my in-laws and also for ways to entertain ourselves later on, decided to take up Bridge. I’d heard many things about the game, and my in-laws are enthusiasts. What a nice thing, I thought, to pick up a game that is known & loved down in Florida, and that Howard and I can share with his family.

As it turns out, Bridge is less a card game and more a combination of Chess, Greek, Cooking, Power Aerobics and Mortal Combat. The books I read make me feel like I’m prepping for a Senate confirmation: give as much of the truth as you can without really saying anything while simultaneously trying to decipher the code that’s going on in the seats across the aisle. You want to be careful that you communicate everything you can to your partner without giving away too much. And don’t undersell: you’ll be sorry if it comes up later. It’s better to take the penalty than to let the other side walk away with all those voters, er, points.

Howard and I have split up the learning tasks, with me studying the bidding structures and Howard working on trick play. So while Howard gets to watch cards whiz by on his monitor, answering condescending questions (and how could we have done that better, hmmmm?), I struggle to translate passages such as this:

“Decide up front what bidding convention you will use, such as “Strong No Trump Rodwell” and remember that 4NT is a false bid, meaning you have between 16 and 18 HCP, and that your response to partner’s declaration is 5C if you have either 4 or zero aces.”

I have no idea what I just wrote.

My personal favorite is the follow-on to this comment, which suggests that partners decide in advance what ‘convention’ they’ll use to communicate during bidding, and that they must share that convention with their opponents. “Secret bidding is unethical in bridge. You have every right to ask an opponent what his bid means.” I find this hilarious. I can see it now:

Grandpa Rosen: 3 Diamonds
Me: What does that mean?
Grandpa Rosen (looking puzzled): It means 3 diamonds.
Me: Okay, thank you.

So glad I asked.

Despite the aggravation of the bid language and the skulk-through-the-grass-and-then-Kill!-Kill!-Kill! tone of the books I’m reading, I do find the game fascinating. This isn’t like Accounting or Real Estate, where the idea is simple, but the terminology has been deliberately stretched & morphed so that no reasonable person could understand it and the profits are left to those who do.

No, Bridge is more like tennis. If you ask someone how to win at tennis, they'lltell you that it’s important to get the ball over the net and inside the lines more often than your opponent. But really, it’s really all about getting your opponent to get the ball over the net and inside the lines less often than you. It’s about chipping away at his points and his confidence until he chucks his racket at the fence in frustration, after which it's just a matter of time before you're shaking hands at the net feigning humble surprise at your win.

So it goes with Bridge. Ladies and gentlemen sit down at the table, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ even when they don’t mean it, politely overlook each other’s errors and pretend not to know what everyone else is talking about during the bid, even though they know precisely what is going on. Play moves from bid to trick, whereupon each side tries to get the other to win fewer tricks than they do (rather than trying to win more tricks than the opponents). After a while, people shake hands, change seats and start over.

I like the dichotomy of it—using cards as weapons while behaving as if they were handkerchiefs, or playing tricks like barracuda while swimming like a swan. It’s the height of competition played at the peak of politeness. Pretty cool stuff for 52 pieces of plastic with odd artwork on them.

And if none of that works and I’m still spinning around in circles wondering why my partner said 2 spades when he really wanted to play diamonds, I can always just offer to play the dummy hand. I’m really good at that.

A the W(eak Two)*

*It’s a Bridge thing.