BBO Discussion Forums: "Bridge is for old people" - BBO Discussion Forums

barmar, on 2012-October-10, 09:20, said:

I am certainly no prodigy but this is something I did without giving it much thought as being unusual at the time. I had 2 books with 2 different bidding systems. I liked some parts of one system and some from the other - so I sat down and worked out how to get the bits I wanted to work together. I think this kind of process is actually pretty normal for children that enjoy strategy games and problem solving - there is always a better way of doing things!

Simple reason why there aren't more younger people playing. Lack of exposure. What proportion of the kids today actually get exposed to the game in any form through parents, schools, universities, friends, the media?

Here in the UK it is in a handful of schools thanks to one or two teachers - there is no formal teaching program and schools aren't generally keen on cards as they fear it promotes gambling (an issue to be addressed). There is next to no media exposure. Some learn through parents, but again, no more than a handful.

There was one man who had the ability to get the game across to a mass audience - Bill Gates. If Windows had bundled with it a free cheap Bridge game (like the crappy solitaire thing), it would solve the exposure issue at a stroke. It wouldn't have to be good, it would just have to pique the interest.

People have talked about pyramids and the drop off you get at every level. Well if we are starting with hundreds or thousands of people being exposed, it is only natural we will end up with only a handful of players actually playing at the sharp end. We need to expose MILLIONS to it.

nigel_k, on 2012-October-10, 13:06, said:

Kia ora
Well, that's because the game is run by old white people for old white people. There are no youngish people on NZ Bridge committees, bringing new ideas. If they did, they would be scorned by the old school who are quite happy with the status quo, revere it even.
I think the lack of youth players is because you need a critical mass to get going. Young people playing, and doing well, would be role models for new youths coming into the room. But the percentage under say 30 is just so few.

I taught juggling for years, and originally it was all just geeky young men. Eventually a tomboy or two started coming, or brother and sister, girlfriends, and they changed the atmosphere and subconsciously gave approval to other young women. An old person joined the group and I made a special effort to keep them, help them fit in, and then we get a few more ... (Same probably for other ethnicities, and also for social class.)

Sadly, the majority of bridge players like the group to be well-off, well-dressed, retired white folk, preferably playing the same system as them.

barmar, on 2012-October-10, 11:10, said:

A better analogy is learning chess openings. Kids learning chess will definitely create their own systems, experiment, copy. But they can get playing chess without having to study and memorise openings, whereas bridge requires a lot of system knowledge just to play with a partner.

regards

To my mind, people who say that the complexity of learning puts people off have it exactly backwards. Most young people who get interested in bridge do it because its complex.

You start of playing games like draughts, chinese chequers, Settlers of Catan, monopoly, warhamer etc. Then you realise that these games have limited space for personal development, as they are all basically solved games. Bridge, chess, go etc have the attraction that they are basically impossible to solve as a player. There is not an optimal strategy, and you can always improve as a player. If someone beats you, you always could have played better.

A similar thing applies in computer games. People start of playing relatively simple games, and go on to more compex ones.

Its basically the same impulse that drives people from pop music to classical music as they get older. Pop music is pretty simple, but sooner or later, if you are a music lover, you get board with simple and you want something more complex. With card/board games, you only get to want something more complex by playing the simple games and getting board with them.

dwar0123, on 2012-October-10, 16:26, said:

I guess it is a main point. We main purpose of ACBL policy is to make grandmas happy for expencies of younger people.
Probably it is not too surprising to have label "Bridge is for old people" after all.

the saint, on 2012-October-11, 04:21, said:

I have to admit, this never occurred to me but now you mention it I'm amazed that he hasn't done just this! One of the great things about bridge is the social element (in my top three reasons for why I prefer it to chess) and this wouldn't be present in such a game, but like you say it doesn't need to be good. Perhaps the idea HAS occurred to him but he is hesitant to do so because that would make the game *too* mainstream.

phil_20686, on 2012-October-11, 04:55, said:

Complexity is certainly what keeps people playing the game - there's absolutely no scope to get bored or grow tired of it! However, I do think that complexity is at least a factor in keeping (young) people away. In chess you only *really* need to know a very few things: the objective - to capture the opponent's king and how each piece moves. After that you can almost teach yourself. The cardplay in bridge is similar in that you can learn on your own, but the bidding you need to be taught (whether by literature or another person.) You can play chess online with a very rudimentary understanding, get beat over and over but still learn. With bridge, young people will play pickup bridge online, get abused by Turkish 'experts' for making a ridiculous bid, and give up. I know people this has happened to. The bonus with chess (if you can call it that) is that your opponent isn't going to shout at you for making a bad move - he'll just win.

As for me, I have to say when I started playing the game I knew the stereotype that it was a game for older people but I didn't realise how true it was! When I wanted to start getting competitive it surprised me a little that there were so few young people on the scene. I am regularly the youngest person at my club by about 20 years and am probaly 30 years below the median. I recently played a green-pointed congress and was the youngest player in the event out of about 200 pairs. I was quite taken aback.

Complexity may play a part, but I agree that exposure is a much bigger factor. Compare the game of Go. It has very simple rules for such a complex game, and it is quite easy to have an absolute beginner playing within ten minutes. Sometimes bypassers ask us, is it easy to play? We reply, it is easy to play, but difficult to play well. I don't think I could honestly tell a nonplayer that bridge is easy to play.

Yet, Go is still very obscure in this country: I am quite sure that far more people in the USA will recognize bridge by name or visually, than will recognize Go.

mike777, on 2012-October-10, 22:14, said:

Definitely in favour of more violence in bridge. And sex.

phil_20686, on 2012-October-11, 04:55, said:

Can you fail to get "board" with board games? Isn't it a requirement?

broze, on 2012-October-11, 09:53, said:

Bill Gates was interested in making money and keeping Microsoft's dominant position by working out what the "next big thing" will be. It has (apparently) turned out to be search engines and mobile devices and it is safe to say that Microsoft did not maintain their position in either direction. If Bill Gates thought there was money in including a bridge program with Windows then I am confident he would have done it. It would have meshed well with their Game Zone project too. The simple truth is that bridge computers are just not ready for this yet and bridge is too small of a market to justify their developing such a program.

broze, on 2012-October-11, 09:53, said:

Once you know a form of whist, bridge is not really complex at all. Not in the sense you mean of getting started anyway. Taking your chess analogy, you can play chess knowing how the pieces move, sure; but there is no way you can ever reach a high level without studying theory - openings, endings, middlegame themes, etc. Opening theory is basically the chess equivalent of bidding theory. I can teach someone how to bid in a basic way in a day, indeed have done so and proceeded to put the newly taught player into a League game on the same day. I think it would be almost impossible for me to teach someone how to play the Dragon variation in a day to a point where they could take part in a chess League game and have any chance at all.

Similarly, do you think Bob Hamman is likely to learn a whole new class of ending now. Surely he has seen pretty much every theme there is to see at some point. What complexity is there left aside from new ideas in bidding theory, most of which are banned in the majority of competitions anyway? So I can see scope to become bored with bridge but if you ever reach that point you are already a world class player and probably want to continue for the competition rather than the complexity.

Incidentally, you may think that it is different when you lose at chess but when you play in a team this is not always the case. I am reminded of a time as a child when playing against the best team in our league. All of their players won quickly but I hung on and eventually forced a won ending. Directly after the game I was amused to hear the opposing Captain say to my opponent "How could you lose to him?" There was clearly some more to follow too but they moved away and I missed what they said. So yes, you can take some abuse in chess too, albeit less without the anonymity of the internet.

broze, on 2012-October-11, 09:53, said:

When I started playing I had no idea at all that it might be considered a game for older people. Indeed the basic rules have many elements which are very appealing to young geeky types. When you find out the bidding is sending information it is like a code to be cracked. Find the optimal information exchange. Then you learn about preempts and you want to be able to open destructively on as many hands as possible. Then refine this to the most effective ways of being destructive. Then you realise that your own methods are equally vulnerable to such tactics and need to find the best way of countering. It is like cryptography with different meta-levels but with a reward at the end of it. On the other hand, playing SAYC with a 70 year old stranger in an environment that looks down on someone turning up in the latest youth fashion and accessing their mobile between rounds is somewhat less exciting for the average teenager.

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-12, 02:36, said:

The big difference here is the system restrictions in bridge. A comparable situation in chess would be if the national organization(s) pursue a policy that basically says:

1) the majority of our paying members prefer certain openings;
2) they get cranky when other openings are played against them;
3) ah, we will keep them happy by protecting them with a rule;
4) ergo, openings outside their comfort zone are disallowed;
5) the remaining players find themselves restricted to their opponents' favored openings.

This would be absurd in chess. The players would laugh uproariously at such a proposal. If the USCF enforced it anyway, droves would quit. But in bridge, the policy is preexisting; so instead this may happen slowly, gradually, spread out, and so is not noticed.

grrr, I just can't help ranting at system restrictions.

billw55 maybe this thread would be interesting to you:
http://www.bridgebas...idding-systems/

There were some very good points made whether this analogy stands up.

It is for old people ; as said before it is run by old people with strong emphasis on deterring youth. No phones, no T-shirts, no innovation. But the main reason is that technology has made it obsolete. Bridge is essentially a pastime, and the number of recreational options available has exploded.

Intelligent people in work now work longer. I used to finish in time to go home, have dinner, and go out for the evening. My son now gets home much later and would not have the time, had he the inclination. Maybe if bridge is to survive, it needs to have a perpetual scoring system so people can go to the club for an hour or so when they want, drop out any time, get the results by phone(mobile) alert when the computer has analysed the period they played. But the shrinking size of the playing population will never allow it. Maybe online bridge will be the only medium term survivor.

Long term, bridge is dead. The few who take it up will no longer find sufficient like-minded fellows to form a viable club. They will adopt other social pastimes. The fewer that play, even fewer will be new people that start. I don't think it matters. I will be dead, too.

fromageGB, on 2012-October-12, 06:46, said:

I don't know if it's this acute, but such an option would be most welcome from my perspective. It's difficult to find 3-4 consecutive free hours.

gwnn, on 2012-October-12, 06:39, said:

Indeed, I reread that thread and still find it interesting. The post I made near the end of it still sums up my thoughts on the subject. It also agrees with Josh's position that the ACBL tailors its policies to its older members, despite its sometimes-stated desire to bring in more youth.

billw55, on 2012-October-12, 07:56, said:

Of course, the older members have the money.

fromageGB, on 2012-October-12, 06:46, said:

But that problem should affect all pastimes, shouldn't it? Is chess declining as much as bridge has? Poker has gotten more popular, hasn't it? Is that because it works well on television?

Bridge takes more time to learn than most other games, so it's hard for the "instant gratification" generation to pick it up.

Atlanta Jr bridge appears to be doing fairly well, indicating to me that the game can prosper in a younger crowd if more emphasis is given to doing so.

I play because I loved the game. We played around a kitchen table, and played crappy bridge for 15 years. Then I moved 2000 miles away, and started a job as a bank teller. I was talking to a lady who made lots of deposits of $1 bills, and asked if she did yard sales or something. It turns out that she owned a bridge club, and when she learned that I knew the game, she invited me to play. This was around 10 years ago, when I was 23. Despite playing forever, I didn't know simple conventions like stayman, or negative doubles. It was a sharp learning curve.

Even as a younger player, I have been playing for 25 years, and learned the game as a child. Anything this complex, it probably takes learning as a child to really spark interest - as an adult, you have to whittle down your interests much more to accommodate job, family, etc.

I'd guess that the complexity of bridge does draw many of the young people who play it today (it drew me, though I'm not that young at 43). (I played Texas Hold-em for a while, but online, that's just math.) But when bridge was the social game played in kitchens and living rooms everywhere, I suspect few of those people were after the complexity. On the two occasions that I've played rubber bridge with older social players, I think Stayman would have surprised them. They didn't discuss systems or conventions, and pretty much just told each other what their bids meant. It was kind of like people playing chess who know the basic movements but don't know castling or promotion, or that it's important to control the center of the board. They could have fun playing each other, but they'd get destroyed by serious players.

So the complexity may continue to draw the geeky minority, but it won't bring back a majority playing for social reasons. My guess is that was lost when the 60s generation consciously discarded many of their parents' customs as being too square. Since bridge was their parents' favorite game, and it even had associations with country clubs and the like, it was rejected along with formal dress, hats, and the Charleston.

I grew up playing lots of card games: euchre, pinochle, canasta, rummy, and more. I never learned bridge because my parents didn't know it. Most other games we could learn to play by reading Hoyle, but on bridge, the rules and the scoring don't even start to tell you how to play the game. I tried reading through it a few times over the years, but I'd get lost in the details and never get a feeling for what the game was about. That was the case until I picked up a couple of Goren's books at a library sale. He was entertaining enough to draw me into the game and convince me I wanted to learn it. Then I found the ACBL's tutorial program and discovered that a lot had changed since Goren's time. Oh well. They were still good reading.

I've been playing against Bridge Baron for a few years now, and holding my own against it, but the thought of playing in a tournament is still daunting. I'm solid on SAYC, and even on some extras like Extended Stayman and RKCB, but I don't have a partner, so what if I get paired with someone who pays a strong club or a weak 1NT? I'll be lost. And there's all the stuff that doesn't happen on the computer: alerts, announcements, how to use the boards and bidding boxes and so on. It's like there's a whole new game to learn before taking that step. I'll do it one of these days, but I'm leery.

Anyway, there's a lot to learn compared to most games, for the player coming to the game cold without the opportunity to grow up watching people play.

Mhoram, on 2012-October-17, 15:12, said:

If you ring up a local club and tell them you need a partner, they will find someone suitable. You can't find out until you get your feet wet! Try a novice game or supervised duplicate, and you won't find it's a huge shock to the system.