On the Game of Bridge
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When I first began advocating the card game bridge to my friends, the silent indifference which met my entreaties was almost encouraging. After all, we the collegiate group were never short on unshakable conviction, and if the only resistance I was to meet would be a glazed look here or an earwax dig there, I felt optimistic. Now and then someone would point out that bridge is played by old people, to which would come my witty riposte that it must be the best card game, since the elderly are certainly experts on card matters. It was armed with this measured confidence that I continued to press my case, always at discreet intervals so as not to annoy, and eventually, here later in
I've known bridge and played it with my family for many years. Our parents taught my brother and I when we were young, presumably at the exact moment they realized we were no longer drooling homunculi. Enough with chasing tricycles or building ridiculous forts, they thought, our time has come. My father, mustached then and still a professor, laid out fifteen pages of charts and diagrams to be studied and reproduced from memory. We chanted the ascendancy of suits (Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades) to get bananas with our breakfast cereal. At the time we probably harbored some resentment at this method, but in retrospect I see the wisdom in it. With family, there is nothing like a well-instituted habit to keep people coming to the table. If you're going to be with these people for life, its best to have something to do in case Thanksgiving dinner turns to politics.
With friends on the other hand, or with mine at least, talking politics or anything else divisive is a source of entertainment. Bringing people together for a disciplined card game was going to be a challenge. To begin with, there were the inevitable beer and pot invasions, and any attempt to moderate them would only doom my fragile cause. I wasn't so worried about alcohol, as it took time to work its effects, but an outbreak of pot early in the evening would surely inhibit focus. The only solution, I reasoned, would be to dazzle them with the possibilities for strategic calculus that bridge allows, and hopefully we would come to moderate ourselves. Then there was the teaching method. Inexplicably, every instinct in me cried out for diagrams, charts, and memorization rituals. But perhaps I gained a bit of wisdom as the subject of said method of tutelage, and I decided to opt for a gradual, "lighter" plan. While stuck on the tarmac during a delayed holiday flight I sketched out two pages of basic principles, stage-whispering the occasional question to my mother seated up a row and across the aisle. Meanwhile I sent a flurry of text messages to our core group, securing an agreement to meet the night after I got back. In some of the messages I noted with small concern that a plan was developing to couple bridge with a feast. While I had no strong objection to a supplementary dinner, I envisioned with dread a cluttered table, with someone using my fact sheet to wipe their greasy fingers. Calm down, I thought, reminding the Gradgrind of my inner faculty committee that his was only an advisory role.
By the time of my return these and other concerns had stewed around in my mind to the point that I thought I was prepared for anything. As I waited in my apartment for my friends to arrive I put the two decks of cards, the score sheet, and my teaching dossiers on the table, carefully laying them at casual angles. I resisted the urge to check the information sheets for typos or inelegantly expressed definitions of finesse or false-carding. Soon the doorbell rang and there they were, bustling in from the cold bearing six packs, foodstuffs, and an encouraging enthusiasm. After some small talk that I endured by smoking a cigarette in heaving drags, we sat down to business. What followed left a snap in my step and a sparkle in my eye all the next day. I described a system as complete as the water cycle, as beautiful as a triangle—bid, play, score. Slowly we built up an understanding of each stage as connected to the others, while at the same time we went through the necessary process of rudimentary play, since practice is as important as theory. Soon revelations and insights burst from each of them like gushes from a Florentine fountain; mental landscapes of breathtaking intricacy were explored—glory was in the air! In my memory food wasn't there, which seems unlikely, but in any event neither it nor my skeptical roommate had any deterrent effect, and the time flew…We ended the night having played almost half of one rubber, with points above the line having reached astronomical sums, all of which would be laughable in a game of even basic players. But no matter: bridge night had clearly been a smashing success. Sure, pot and alcohol had had their limiting effects, but everywhere they had been combated by a determination to learn. I felt that my progressive teaching style was vindicated, and went to bed happily anticipating the following week's bridge night.
That next week, and in the weeks that followed, the manifold forces that sought to undermine bridge night began making their presence felt. At the same time my friends' learning progressed at a steady rate, and we began inching closer and closer to finishing a rubber, and when that milestone was passed, finishing a match. While I was perfectly cognizant of the nagging troubles massing themselves on the outskirts of our playing table, it seemed that the only option was to press ahead and buoy the spirit of the others. These troubles, however, were growing formidable. On the one hand, one player's girlfriend wanted to play, which was not innately objectionable but which would violate the time-honored and necessary convention of playing with four. In rebuffing these requests we exposed bridge night to her ire. In the same vein, another of our quartet was mentioning with increasing frequency that her roommates were growing jealous of bridge night's unchallenged dominion over Monday night. There were other "events" happening on Monday night too, they reminded her, and what was so special about bridge anyway? Wasn't it a game for old people? Pot too had begun rearing its disassociating head at alarmingly early times—people began forgetting whether play was ordered clockwise or counterclockwise, and confidence would sag as their memories abandoned them at crucial moments. This in turn brought us to a wall in terms of speed of play, which added my frustration to the pool of problems.
But underlying these degenerative elements was perhaps the greatest obstacle to bridge night of them all. In what would become the final evening of our failed endeavor, I saw clearly how futile, and perhaps how misguided the effort had been, the way some parents realize that TV is demolishing their ability to influence their children. It was ominous that we moved bridge night that week to a different location, if for good reasons at the time. When we gathered in the apartment it was late, so we ordered food in and ate at the table while trying to play at the same time, a slow and messy affair. Smoking cigarettes wasn't allowed indoors, and one person had to sit on an ottoman. I mention these details not because I believe that they caused what followed, but rather because they represented minor inconveniences which would not have derailed a venture destined for success. They were the inevitable accoutrements that attach themselves to failure. Without really cleaning the table after eating we continued to play at a pace slowed by conversation. While this had been a constant at our games, and while conversation is certainly part and parcel to a pleasant bridge evening, that night everyone was truly in a chatty mood. Everyone except me—I was trying to redirect attention but with poor results, and in letting my irritation show I did little to help my cause. While the others were apathetic to bridge that night, I was certain that the slow bleeding away of interest had to be stanched. This put us at cross-purposes and eventually I gave up, and the game steadily collapsed into full-blown conversation. It being a Monday night I began thinking about going home around
We soon deposited ourselves at a nearby place, where they resumed drunken and by turns sincere or enthusiastic conversation that I was unable to enjoy. I sat mostly silent, nursing my drink, and felt the itching sensation that something was lost. Soon it was quite late, and in somewhat offended fashion, I declared that I was leaving and that they were all crazy for getting that sloshed on a Monday. My departure was acknowledged but before I was out the door they were back to blah blah blah. Idiots, I thought, they'll regret this in the morning! Boy, oh boy will they be unhappy to be so hungover! Then they'll wish they'd stuck to bridge and mental landscapes and calculus and…As I trudged along in the brisk night air, I couldn't make sense of the disaster. Was it something I did that put out the fire of their earlier dedication? Was it something I didn’t do, some flaw in my pedagogy? I felt Gradgrind’s smug contempt bearing down on me: “Progressive” teaching style, huh? Teach by encouragement, eh? Hogwash!…I went to bed wracked with dismay and uncertainty, but when I heard about the rest of their night in the following days, it all began to make sense. After I left, serious and urgent matters were cast about for immediate decision! Visions of their destinies were trumpeted, plans for moving to remote locales laid, amorous feelings freely expressed! It was, in short, a night for the young. Bridge simply can't be adapted to fit the basic condition of young people—that our circumstances are in frequent evolution, that our view of each other is constantly being redefined, that our lives have simply not developed the routine aspect that those of families, or of old people, have. You see, bridge had been strangling our better instincts…yes, that must be it…But I'm not bitter about it, truly, I'm not. After all, with any luck I'll have children someday—and they won't be getting bananas on their cereal just for being pretty.
—JSL