The Bridge Club

"Because it's the second greatest game ever invented, after baseball," I assert when asked by friends unfamiliar with bridge what has prompted me to return to the table three times a week for three hours a sitting after a forty-two-year hiatus. "And with the advent of technology and bidding system modifications, it's even better today," I might add.

"If that's true," retorted one recently, always eager to accentuate apparent contradictions, "why did you leave in the first place?"

"There are two reasons," I replied. "First, back when I was twenty-eight, I was very much a perfectionist, which is not an enviable trait for a serious bridge player who presumes to know what he is doing. The notion that even a world champion could make a mistake which under the scrutiny of a postmortem seemed inexplicable was of little comfort to me when I was racking them up with alarming frequency. One egregious miscalculation at a critical moment during a tournament in Natural Bridge convinced me I needed a break, although it lasted a lot longer than I anticipated.

"Second, the arc of my life was curving upward. The first of my three children had just been born. I was taking on greater responsibilities in my family's furniture business, which included a considerable amount of travel. And I was testing a new avocation, soon to become an obsession: long-distance running. Nowadays grandchildren time, while delightful, is purely optional; my son has grasped the reins of company leadership with confidence and authority, easing me gently towards retirement; and my road rage has succumbed to weak knees. In other words, I've got many empty hours to fill -- or squander.

"As for expecting to play an error free round of bridge, just as maturity has made me more tolerant of humanity's inherent flaws, so have I come to realize that my ceiling of achievement in this humbling game is composed not of glass but of rigid steel tiles and that I had best forgo the urge to conquer and embrace it as a simple pastime."

Recent reports indicate that I'm in the demographic sweet spot for contemporary bridge playing; the average age is seventy-one, a milestone I reached sixteen months ago. But, as one might expect, as its population has grayed, so have the raw numbers declined.

According to the Association of American Playing Card Manufacturers, in the nineteen-forties the game could be found in forty-four percent of American homes, a testament to its social component, intellectual engagement, and low cost of entry (one deck, a table, and four chairs). Today that figure has shrunk to ten percent, which equates to thirty million individuals, three million of whom indulge at least once a week.

If you think that's still a lot, consider that in the U. S. Texas hold 'em claims eighty million, many of whom engorge themselves daily in online gaming and ESPN tournament broadcasts. While internationally bridge maintains a supremacy over poker -- with an estimated two hundred million acolytes compared to one hundred million -- both are far surpassed by chess, whose practitioners may number as high as half a billion.

One wouldn't want to expose himself to accusations of snobbery, but in the words of a Manhattan bridge club owner, as quoted by Edward McPherson in his 2007 book The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats: A Newcomer's Journey Into the World of Bridge, "It takes thirty minutes to teach Texas hold 'em, and in an hour you can be as good as fifty percent of the people playing the game. That would take years of study in bridge." While the comment was intended as an endorsement of bridge, it was followed by a suggestion to McPherson that he write "a book about something people actually want to know about, like poker."

The essence of bridge was elegantly summarized by none other than tennis star Maria Navratilova who in the foreword to a popular teaching guide wrote, "It's a cerebral sport. Bridge teaches you logic, reasoning, quick thinking, patience, concentration" and teamwork.

By combining cognitive training and socialization, it may also have health benefits. A University of California, Berkeley, study in 2000 found that exercising the area of the brain associated with bridge skills -- memory, visualization, and sequencing -- stimulates the immune system. Researchers have also discovered that a higher frequency of playing card and board games correlates to increased brain volume in regions that are affected by Alzheimer's disease.

Two of the smartest fellows in America are accomplished bridge players: Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Buffett once said he wouldn't mind going to jail -- if he had three cell mates who could make up a competent bridge foursome. 

 

One hundred and eighty years after it graced the opening pages of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe's analysis of the linkage between mental acuity and the card game that was the predecessor of bridge remains definitive: "Whist has long been known for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous . . . The best chess player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies a capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind."

Whist, itself a descendant of trump or ruff, originated in London in the early eighteenth century, and maintained popularity among the British nobility for two hundred years.

In its basic form, four players comprising two partnerships are each dealt from a fifty-two card deck thirteen cards face down except for the last, which is exposed and and whose suit cards (spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs) are designated trump and thus of higher rank than the remaining three. The player to the left of the dealer begins by placing a card of his choice on the table, after which the other three lay down cards clockwise in succession, following suit if possible or, if not, throwing away unpromising cards or playing in the trump suit. Each set of four cards, or trick, is taken by the highest card in the suit led or by the highest trump, with the objective being for each opposing partnership to collect as many of the thirteen tricks as it can.

In the late nineteenth century, bridge, possibly a variation in name from biritch, or Russian whist, emerged as its own game with the addition of an auction, whereby each player announces in turn the trump suit and the number of tricks he intends to take until the other three pass (i.e., concede), and a dummy, the player who, after his partner has won the auction, exposes his hand when the first card is played.

On the evening of October 31st, 1925, while en route to Havana from Los Angeles aboard the SS Finland, the railroad heir, champion yachtsman, and card game enthusiast Harold Vanderbilt sat down with three friends, and essentially invented modern contract bridge. Just as one takes for granted current marvels like flying behemoths and the smartphone, so do bridge players accept the intricacies of the game they love with hardly a nod at the intellect responsible for their gestation. 

Rather than awarding a partnership extra points for merely collecting the requisite number of game (nine, ten, or eleven, depending on the suit) or slam (twelve or thirteen) tricks, Vanderbilt required it to earn the bonus by bidding, or contracting for, the game or slam prior to the play. Since this enhancement made slams more risky to attempt, he increased the rewards. At the same time, he introduced severe penalties, called doubles and redoubles, for partnerships that might make unreasonably high bids, often just to keep their opponents from buying the contract. 

Vanderbilt's notoriety and his social connections were instrumental in the rapid spread of the game in the wake of his innovations. In later years he developed a universal system that included artificial bids, wrote several books on the subject, served on committees that drafted U.S. and international rules, and promoted a prestigious national tournament, personally donating trophies to the winners.

In 1930 that honor went to Ely Culbertson, the most colorful and flamboyant character ever to pick up a bridge hand. Born in Romania in 1891, the son of an American mining engineer and a woman of Russian nobility, he attended Yale, Cornell, the Sorbonne, and the University of Geneva, but was largely self-educated and fluent in seven languages. After his family fortune evaporated in the Russian Revolution, he eked out a living in Paris and New York City with his card playing savvy while snaring a glamorous wife and partner, Josephine Dillon, a renowned bridge instructor. 

 

Marketing the couple as worldwide experts, Culbertson launched a diversified enterprise that included The Bridge World magazine, a best-selling textbook, a company to manufacture bridge supplies, a teachers' association that grew to six thousand members, and a series of international competitions. Among his many contributions to the science of the game were a proprietary method of hand evaluation, a menu of original conventions, and a scoring system for duplicate bridge.

When the prevailing establishment sought to undermine his growing dominance, Culbertson challenged a representative, Sidney Lenz, to a high-stakes match at the Waldorf-Astoria, offering five-to-one odds. The New York Times reported on each hand, while six Western Union telegraph operators stood on call twenty-four hours a day, cabling results across the Atlantic. Culbertson's victory reaped him lucrative radio, film, and newspaper contracts, as well as $10,000 for the royalties on miniature manuals inserted in Chesterfield cigarette packs.

He needed every penny. He traveled to Italy to buy neckties, was known to spend five thousand dollars in an hour on new shirts, drove a Rolls-Royce and a Duesenberg, and owned five homes, including a forty-five room mansion in Ridgefield, Conn., surrounded by cottages, lakes, and an enclosed swimming pool.

In 1936, as Culbertson was redirecting his energies toward international arms control, a rising star burst upon the scene with the publication of Winning Bridge Made Easy. Elaborating on the conception of his mentor, Milton Work, thirty-five-year-old Charles Goren introduced the Ace-4, King-3, Queen-2, and Jack-1 point count evaluation model to an enthusiastic audience, and swiftly elevated himself to authoritative stature. 

His second bestseller, Contract Bridge Complete, released in 1942, solidified his reputation and entrenched his Standard American bidding system as the most accessible, effective, and utilized in the world where it remains today eighty years later. Goren became a bona fide celebrity. He wrote a syndicated newspaper column, appeared on the covers of Time and Sports Illustrated magazines, surfaced as a guest on "You Bet Your Life," hosted his own "Championship Bridge" television show, and was the favorite partner of Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Sharif.

He won thirty-four national championships, took home the inaugural Bermuda Bowl for world preeminence in 1950, and authored ten books which sold over ten million copies. Although a stroke and failing eyesight forced him into retirement at the relatively young age of sixty-five, twenty-five years before his death in 1991, for at least two generations, my mother's and mine, the name Charles Goren was synonymous with bridge.

Once I outgrew the juvenile simplicity of "War" and "Go Fish," the card game most cloaked in nostalgia for me is "Casino," which I learned from my grandfather, who loved it for its fast pace and the opportunity it presented him to demonstrate his mathematical dexterity. As for bridge, I'm not sure who planted those seeds. I've often credited them to a teen-age counselor finding fertile ground in a nerdy eight-year-old camper, although, looking back, that seems hardly plausible. Whatever their origin, the buds were nurtured by Goren curricula and study.

Somehow, while I was perfecting my theoretical game, in the middle school grades I managed to lasso three fellows who were as awkward as I at both competitive sports and charming the opposite sex and thus had plenty of free time to complete my foursome. Several times a week, Rob, Macey, David, and I would gather at one of our homes, most often David's, whose parents' front room featured a spacious window overlooking Boonsboro Road one-half block east from the house I grew up in (but no longer inhabited) on Greenway Court. For a couple of hours we would play round-robin tournaments, switching partners after eight hands while tabulating individual scores in order to crown a daily champion.

Macey's father (also Macey), a cigarette-loving urologist who advertised his profession by tagging "2PPCME" on the vanity license plates attached to the new cars he traded for every other year, was an avid bridge player himself, and introduced his son and me to the duplicate format, wherein every deal stands on its own. The cards are kept segregated, so that at the conclusion of play they can be replaced in thin pockets in a plastic container, or board, and passed to the next table. Every partnership pair receives points based on how well it scored compared to all others who played the same hand, thus eliminating any advantage associated with holding stronger cards.

 

While our occasional forays into the realm of serious gamesmanship readily exposed our flaws, they instilled in us confidence that we could hold our own with the best of the local crowd, and were good training for the next chapter in my burgeoning bridge career.

In 1999 Stephen King named his collection of 1960's themed narratives after the marvelous signature piece, Hearts in Atlantis, defining the era as the intersection of Donovan Leitch's sentimental paean to the lost continent and the other card game that spawned as many devotees as the proverbial weed. According to the protagonist, Pete Riley, after one semester nineteen of thirty-two boys on the third floor of Chamberlain Hall at the University of Maine "had either moved or flunked out, victims of hearts," which his best friend Skip denigrates as "Bridge for real dopes," compared to Whist, which is merely "Bridge for dopes."

 

 

As Pete describes it, with four players the ideal number, all fifty-two cards are dealt out, and then collected in thirteen tricks, the deuce of clubs being led first. Each hand contains twenty-six points: one for each heart and thirteen for the Queen of Spades, dubbed the Bitch. The game ends when a player accumulates one hundred points; of the remaining three, the one with the lowest score is deemed the winner, and in Pete's and his buddies' low-stakes contests entitled to a payout of a nickel a point from each loser.

During my college days, hearts was always the last resort whenever my bridge regulars preferred its faster, mindless pace or spurned my supplications in pursuit of grades or women. Several gambits increased the complexity and heightened the thrill, but discouraged us from wagering our paltry allowances. We played in two-man partnerships, which enabled us to inflict severe penalties on our opponents. Three danger cards were passed to the player on one's left, vastly improving his holding until he retrieved the three that were foisted on him from the other side. A player (or team) could attempt to "Shoot the Moon," that is, to garner all twenty-six point cards (thirteen hearts plus the Queen of Spades), which could then be assigned to any opponent's scorecard; failure, however, by even one point meant a huge spike in his own total, perhaps costing the game.

Night after night "quartets of hearts-playing fools" are lured by the irrepressible Ronnie to fill every table in the third-floor lounge in Pete's freshman dorm . . . "ragtag scholarship boys who had to buy their texts in the used section of the bookstore" risking their futures on the luck of the deal. One by one they succumb to the addict's irrational squandering of time and money in a futile quest for continual gratification.

Kirby suffers a mental breakdown, and attempts suicide by swallowing two bottles of baby aspirin. Trunk in hand, Frank heads home to take a maintenance job at a lake resort and possibly face the draft, because, he says, "I ain't doin nothin but playin cards." Brad, hit with "the Bitch" three times in four hands, punches a guy over a Coca-Cola, and ends up on disciplinary probation. Kenny bugs out, scrawling "I quit" across a Queen of Spades lying on his pillow. 

 

Pete himself fails his pre-Thanksgiving Geology, History, and Calculus exams, and is on the verge of flunking out when he is redeemed by three watershed events. His three-month love affair with the "extraordinarily pretty" Carole is abruptly terminated when she decides to drop out to care for her alcoholic mother, leaving him with the parting admonition: "Get out of that stupid card game." He and his hearts-playing mates break into uproarious laughter as they watch Stokely, a crippled fellow resident hobble on crutches back to the dormitory through a driving rainstorm -- until he slips, rolls downhill into a creek, and starts to drown; Pete and his buddies rush to his rescue, save his life, and are ultimately humbled to learn that Stokely's disability is not congenital but the result of a car accident that killed his father, mother, and sister. As the semester draws to a close, Pete uses his hearts' winnings to hire two tutors -- one for himself and one for his friend Skip -- and both survive through the benevolence of their instructors, who, not wanting to condemn them to a Vietnam casualty list, Pete surmises, confer them passing grades.

 

While the depth and breadth of the affliction consuming King's collegians are grossly exaggerated, his evocation of a time, place, and culture that abide as the soul of our generation, his rendering of our friendships, cruelties, dreams, and disappointments, and his illumination of a society on the cusp of war and revolution are exquisitely real.

I remember only one fraternity brother, chain-smoking Tony B., actually flunking out of Washington and Lee during my tenure, although it is unclear whether that was attributable to his many hours at the card table or to the multitude of other distractions that kept him from cracking his textbooks -- including mashing the driver's side of my brand new Ford Fairlane GT when I was foolish enough to loan it to him for a road trip to Randolph-Macon Woman's College.

 

Tony was a lot smarter than he looked -- or behaved. Duly chastened, he got his act together, re-matriculated, earned a handful of degrees, and enjoyed a long career as a well-respected physician.

 

After graduating college and returning to Lynchburg, somehow, between family responsibilities (which included a wife but no children as yet) and the obligations of a job (one year of school teaching before a leap into the furniture business), I found the time to retry my hand at duplicate bridge.

My former high school comrades having abandoned me for more enchanting locales, the good Dr. Macey took me under his wing, either recruiting me as his partner or hooking me up with one of the native novices (or aspiring experts). In serious bridge there's usually a pecking order; better players want their peers sitting across from them. I was fortunate to fall in with a cohort of young engineers and executives whose skill level was equal to mine. At times, we would give the upper echelon a run for its money.

Back then the Lynchburg Duplicate Bridge Club had its own unofficial Hall of Fame: Fi Lonergan, whose love of the game was manifest in the long hours she devoted to teaching it, in the professionalism with which she offered advice after an opponent's error, and in the speed and accuracy with which she could calculate and total one thousand scores after three hours of intense competition; Carlisle Stinnett, dean of the firefighters cadre of bridge wizards, who with his laconic sidekick, Watt Gilliam, took his greatest pleasure from soundly trouncing my friend Macey, which he accomplished with numbing consistency while never failing to instruct his victim as to how he had gone horribly wrong; W. C. Canada, a white-haired gentleman best described as a sedate version of Back to the Future's Doc Brown, whose level of expertise may have suffered by comparison with these other luminaries yet whose visage glowed with rapture at every bid or play; and of course the cunning curmudgeon, Orion Templeton, retired naval commander, patriarch of his family's paving company, who, reveling in his contrariness and rarely at fault, reprimanded his partners with a twinkle in his eye while chasing bridge games wherever he could find them, including at the fire station, where he staked out a permanent seat.

For some strange reason -- perhaps because he saw me as an impressionable Pygmalion whom he could sculpt to his own specifications and who was too intimidated to object to his barrage of unsolicited lectures -- Orion latched onto me as a favorite. His sprawling ranch house off Old Trents Ferry Road was regularly the site of the traveling team games we played over a season, where, comfortably ensconced in his basement, we enjoyed a striking view of his tennis court. Since he was a man of substantial girth -- and one of the first persons I ever knew to undergo a gastric bypass -- I often wondered whether he actually ran after the ball or simply ordered his opponent to hit it directly to him.

I was playing with Orion in a tournament in Natural Bridge when I committed the grievous mistake that convinced me I would never master the complexities of this intriguing game and compelled me to throw down my cards in frustration and disgust and swear off wasting my time now and perhaps forever. I bid a grand slam, contracting to take all thirteen tricks -- which is so seldom accomplished that one should be almost certain of success before attempting it. When Orion, the dummy, laid down his hand, I studied it, and determined the proper course of play, which, however, I failed to execute. The outcome of the match hung on that deal; needless to say, we lost.

After I left him, Orion persevered, burnishing his legend as a true champion of Lynchburg Duplicate Bridge. In the sixties and seventies the Club met on the third floor of the YMCA Building on the corner of Sixth and Church Streets, for which I assume it paid a nominal rent. Later, I understand, it became somewhat of a stepchild, moving from hotel meeting rooms to church basements to whatever venue could accommodate twelve card tables and a tiny budget. 

 

In the early 2000's Orion purchased a former day care center on Wiggington Road, remodeled it, and donated it to the City of Lynchburg provided the City maintained it and made it available to the Lynchburg Duplicate Bridge Club at basically no expense. The Templeton Senior Center opened in the Fall of 2004. Today it is a community gathering place for many activities besides bridge, including canasta, mahjong, Zumba, yoga, cardio workouts, public interest discussion groups, and art classes. Unlike most of the other three thousand clubs across the U.S., the Lynchburg Unit has no occupancy costs; thus it is able to keep its fees low, offer frequent special games that pay more master points, sponsor a semi-annual tournament, and bank a hefty reserve. 

 

 

I can truthfully attest that I did not hoist another bridge hand for all those long years I was in hibernation, although I scouted the weather daily with a diligent examination of the newspaper column. I was tempted a few times by generous invitations to the Club's annual Christmas party, but after three or four polite rebuffs, my former mates concluded I was a lost cause, and fell out of contact. Even the pleadings of my mother, who played at the Club into her eighties, landed on deaf ears. Looking back, I realize that giving up the game I had played without interruption since the age of twelve was no different from my decision to refrain from the consumption of meat and chicken: after three weeks I never missed any of them. Alas, the appropriateness of the analogy was doubly confirmed when abstinence in both cases proved to be temporary.

Aside from the aforementioned lifestyle changes, what lures me back to the bridge table are my phone (of course) and four lovely ladies. Stranded in a coffee shop one sultry afternoon while my friend JSG and her daughter AEG peruse the shops along the picturesque waterfront of Beaufort, NC -- where we are in a placid holding pattern en route to depositing the latter at Camp Seafarer -- I pick up my Android, and search for bridge sites. I find not the more sophisticated and ubiquitous Bridge Base Online (BBO), which I will discover two months later, but one equally serviceable. I download the app, and within minutes am hooked. It only takes me only a few weeks to familiarize myself with the bidding practices that have vastly improved the modern game: five-card major suit openings, Jacoby transfers, weak two-bids, weak jump shifts, negative doubles, support doubles, key card Blackwood, and part score sacrifices.

I'm ready to play again, but with whom? I've gotten wind of several party games around town, one all male, one coed, one with couples, but am not inclined to be intrusive, especially since I'm hardly aware of my own skill level, much less that of others. Then, at a Christmas Day gathering, a little bridge banter prompts Marty, Naomi, and Nancy to reveal that they are looking for a fourth to replace Nancy's ailing husband Bill. We choose Oakwood Country Club as our site, settling first in the Ladies' Locker Room Lounge, after which, despite its remoteness from any embarrassing encounters, we are summarily banished to the Grill Room Solarium.

There, as the bright sunlight belies the February chill, Marty pulls from a bag four yellow boxes filled with an array of small placards. "What are those?" I ask innocently. "Bidding boxes," reply the three women in unison.  

Unlike forty years ago, when players announced their bids, now each in turn extracts one of the thirty-five possible choices from his box, and lays it on the table where all bid cards in a round can be seen. It's odd that this apparatus which was invented in Sweden in 1962 didn't enjoy widespread acceptance in the U.S. until around 2000 since its benefits are so obvious: it is language neutral, reduces noise in the room, prevents bids from being overheard at nearby tables, eliminates information being inferred from the tone or inflection of one's voice, and keeps the auction visible until it is concluded.

While I enjoy the company and appreciate the opportunity to test my prowess against humans as opposed to robots, after a few rounds I conclude that rubber bridge -- in which mistakes can often be overcome by the luck of the draw -- offers me neither the competitive challenge nor the sense of accomplishment which can be gleaned from the more rigorous duplicate version.

Enter the gracious and charming Frances, another dear friend who, unbeknownst to me in spite of our long acquaintance, is a regular at the Templeton Center. When I explain my history and renewed interest in the game, she entreats me repeatedly to partner with her -- just once. Why am I so reluctant to acquiesce? Am I afraid that my game won't be up to par? Am I worried about how this old upstart will be received by all the veterans there? The real reason, I suspect, is that once won't be nearly enough and that this initial step will launch a habit -- however benign -- not easily governed. My forebodings are soon justified when my oath to limit the diversion to one time a week gradually erodes to two and finally to the maximum three. 

 

 

Every Monday afternoon and Friday morning forty-eight to sixty-four persons gather at the Templeton Center for three-and-a half hours to slake their thirst for duplicate bridge. (The numbers decline by a third on Wednesday evening.) About sixty percent are women, and almost all of both genders are over the age of seventy, which is understandable, since what demographic segment other than the retired could devote this much time to pure leisure during working hours?

These folks come from all walks of life: engineering, law, health care, business, teaching, sales, construction, administration, civil service (I've previously mentioned fire stations as an incubator), and homemaking. One's level of education or IQ is a poor indicator of his skill at bridge. Rather the keys to success seem to be a good memory, a disciplined temperament, a logical mind, and an instinctual "card sense" or insight which allows one to visualize the holdings concealed behind his partner's and opponents' inscrutable expressions; it can't be taught but can be polished and perfected through study and practice.

Once I disabuse the inquirer of the notion that there's gambling involved in these games -- in fact, the fee for one session is three dollars, ten at tournaments -- their eyes glaze over with the unspoken question: just what are they all playing for? The answer is no less mystifying. Games sanctioned (or approved) by the American Contract Bridge League award master points to pairs finishing from first to tenth place depending on the number in play. As a person accumulates points, he moves up a scale of artificial rankings, the most coveted of which is Life Master, earned after his total reaches five hundred, including at least twenty-five won in sectional or regional tournaments.

 

Technology has made its mark on duplicate bridge. Cards are shuffled and dealt into boards by a programmed machine which also prints out hand records which can be distributed and analyzed at the conclusion of the game. Scores at each table are entered into portable devices called Bridge-Mates, which tabulate one's result and ranking instantaneously while consigning traveling score sheets and the mathematical wizardry of the Fi Lonergans of the world to obsolescence.

Without moving to a distant community or a retirement complex, it's rare that a seventy-year-old should find himself immersed almost overnight in a novel social milieu. The Lynchburg Club is always looking for more members; aside from their shrinking life expectancy (I once joked that the first order of business is to give the hospital report), more players make for more interesting games. Thus I am welcomed with open arms, and within a matter of weeks have acquired a flock of new friends, as genuine, amiable, and good-humored as any I have met, that is until the boards are distributed, at which point ruthlessness trumps repartee. The reversal is of course short-lived, and, after the last hand is folded, harmony is swiftly restored among this congenial cast of characters:

Clough, his surname and, as I learned from a telephone call to his house, the appellation by which his wife summons him, as opposed to the proper one, which in his telling was miraculously recalled by Dr. Jerry Falwell when they crossed paths in a bank lobby three years after their one and only encounter in a grocery store;

 

Dave, a veteran of the fireman's corps and an inveterate quipster, whose habitual refrain is how boring our lives must be if bridge is the best we can come up with, who relishes semi-psyching opponents into impossible contracts, and who never passes on an opportunity to charm the ladies ("I haven't heard that sound in thirty years," he lamented when one moaned at a difficult hand.);

Phil (or Dr. Phil, as I like to call him), Prospect's most prominent citizen, a former mathematics professor now living his dream to spend his waning years as a "bridge bum," who enticed me to accompany him on a road trip to Danville, little knowing I would be shoehorned for three hours in the smallest of Smart Cars between him and the reams of sheet music he hauls around for his impromptu piano concerts;

 

Jo Ann, a kindred spirit in that she once operated a retail store and -- how shall I say this tactfully -- we've both had more than one spouse (although she's happily attached to Sam now), who performs the thankless job of helping players find partners (for bridge, that is) with aplomb and efficiency and to whose insistence that I accept a ten dollar reimbursement for driving her to a tournament in Williamsburg I reluctantly yielded after remembering her eloquent letter to the editor denouncing gun control; 

Ed, brewer of the obligatory coffee (regular and decaf), which, paired with a superfluous but tasty chex mix, keeps us fueled every Monday and Friday, who first flummoxes partners and opponents with audacious bidding, then rescues himself with dexterous play, and afterwards, like me, though at several decibels louder, feels compelled to resurrect every recently slain king, queen, and jack;

 

Jo, christened by my mother "the smartest woman she knows" for her proficiency at directing a three-table duplicate game, actually the product of her years in the classroom controlling restless students with theatrical sternness while imparting their lessons in a gentler, kinder manner, as was demonstrated just the other day when, after I made a defensive misplay, she almost whispered: "We needed to get a spade trick";

 

Julie, proud new Life Master, whose vow never to marry unless presented with a long-stemmed yellow rose was upended when her Match date Tito showed up flower in hand, who, having thus been swept off her feet, decided to tie the knot while floating over Poplar Forest in a hot air balloon, and who chose bridge with "a bunch of guys" at the Student Union at Montreat-Anderson Presbyterian School over Billy Graham's Sunday School class and now practices it faithfully if somewhat inconsistently;

 

Mike, a youthful minority of one in the Medicare ineligible category, who wandered in one Wednesday evening in search of social interaction and became a fixture, whose year-round short-sleeved attire leaves me shivering, and who packs a quiver of mediocre jokes, including the one about the eager fellow who sits down to dinner with his girl friend's parents and, determined to make a good impression, blurts out: "I'm here to talk about politics and religion";

Gloria and Ron, an atypical bridge couple, in that they will often split up, Gloria pairing herself with a partner more suited to her higher skill level, which Ron proudly acknowledges, then reunite for Gloria's ongoing tutelage, which seems to have had minimal effect over the years, as Ron has directed more of his attention to his flourishing hand-crafted birdhouse business;

 

And a host of others who shall remain anonymous, not from a lack of space, which has never restrained me before, but rather from my journalistic failure to observe or elicit from them any biographical quirk worth chronicling, for which most are probably grateful.

The onset of the pandemic in March and the ensuing closure of public facilities like the Templeton Center left bridge players around the world as bereft and desperate as substance abusers wracked by pangs of withdrawal -- at least those like me who are unwilling or unable to adapt to the virtual alternative. As restrictions began to ease, Ed preempted the moment, and opened negotiations with Ronnie, the Center's manager. Together they devised a safety protocol that would permit the resumption of a limited game: maximum of three tables (twelve players), each consisting of four card tables conjoined to maintain physical distancing, two placed at opposite ends of the large room, one in the side room; mask required; temperature check and Covid interrogation upon entry.

Hallelujah! We're back.

Today Jo and I, sitting South and North, will play five rounds of five boards each against five pairs of East-West opponents; our score will depend on our result compared to that of the other North-South pairs. Since each board is played only three times, the best one can record on a board is two, the worst is zero, and defeating one pair while losing to the other yields a one, or average.

Our first opponents are Ann and Jim, who appears clad in enough protective gear -- mask, shield, gloves, and boots -- to repel any and all virus, bacteria, radiation, and stray gunshots that might penetrate the premises. None of it slows him down, however, as he bursts from the gate with a cold top board, running a string of diamonds that forces me into a couple of erroneous discards and allows him to collect all thirteen tricks at a meager 1NT contract.

The tables are turned on the next hand, when their own club discard enables me to make an overtrick at 5H, where I have to abandon my slam attempt after Jo reveals that her opening bid is lacks even one ace. I'm certain I have doubled us into a zero on the third board when we cash only two Aces and Ann, holding an eight-card suit, wraps up 5D, but apparently I'm not alone; we get one point. On Board Four, I surrender a trick with a poor defensive play, but Ann promptly gives it back, making 3NT exactly when one other made four; we get one-and-a-half. She recovers beautifully on the last hand of the round by leading the only card -- a low spade from Jxx -- that defeats Jo's 3NT contract.

Our second set is against Gloria and Ron, two of the Club's best. On Board Six, however, Ron leaps into an ill-advised 3NT, which he is able to bring home only because of our poor defense: holding AQ87, I don't signal loudly enough for a heart return from Jo late in the play, thereby forfeiting the setting trick; we get zero.

But after that we run off four top boards. On Seven, opposite Jo's 1NT opener, holding six to the Ten with only five points, I transfer to 2H, which she makes. On Eight, after Ron's weak 2S opener, I overcall 3C with a four-card suit, and bid 3NT when Jo responds 3D; I make five when Jo lays down six of her suit and the defenders set up two spade tricks for me by cashing their AK. On Nine, the Flickers pass our 2S which Jo makes while the other two EW pairs push to 3H. On Ten, after Jo opens and jumps in diamonds, I gamble on 3NT, hoping my Jxxx will stand up against Ron's intervening heart overcall; I make five when Jo produces the singleton QH, and Ron inadvertently allows me to win a baby heart trick.

Another tough team, Ed and Jim, follows the Gloria and Ron, but we get lucky. Board Eleven features some contentious bidding. In response to Jo's 2D Flannery bid, showing a hand with four spades and five hearts, my five-card spade suit propels me to four spades. After two passes, Jim makes a bid he doesn't expect to make, but will prevent us from scoring game: 5C. Holding four clubs to the King, I should double; instead I compete to 5S, which in hindsight is destined to fail. Ed, however, decides to bid his own six-card suit, diamonds, at the six level, no less, which we double and set three tricks for a top.

We score well on three of the next four boards. On Twelve, Ed's ten tricks at 2D are one less than the other pairs'. On Thirteen, my Ace lead is trumped when Ed's dummy is void in hearts -- "That suit has two Aces," he says -- and Jim makes an extra trick, giving us only one-half point. On Fourteen, however, one overtrick at 3NT is not enough, and on Fifteen, Jo's coming up short in the bad 1S contract I leave her in turns out better than I expected. We get one-and-a-half on each board.

Despite their sweet demeanor, our next opponents, Frances and Andrea, have their knives sharpened and aimed for the jugular. On Board Sixteen, against a solid 3NT contract, I make my best lead, the top of a diamond sequence. As we approach the end position, my fourth diamond is established as the setting trick. Having cashed eight tricks and forced Jo and me to make some difficult discards, Andrea advances the QC; looking at three small clubs in the dummy and Kx in my hand and knowing that Andrea cannot have the Ace, I inexplicably put up the King; alas, it crashes under Jo's Ace, after which she must surrender the ninth trick. We get one-half.

On Board Seventeen, a five-one spade break dooms Jo's 3NT contract, which she can make by saving a stopper in the suit and an entry to dummy and by playing on hearts to establish her ninth trick. Also, on Eighteen, it appears she can make 3C by drawing the two outstanding trumps -- which split three-three -- and thus avoiding losing each individually. We get two more halves.

 

On Nineteen, holding 1NT opening strength against Frances's 2H, I defend poorly, not leading my best suit . . . twice, and she makes it. It's good (or bad) enough for an average, one point, as is Jo making three overtricks at 3NT on Twenty, in which after passing I make a key 2C bid to show a stopper.

We need a strong close against Doris and BJ. On Board Twenty-One, I pick up a powerful playing hand, AKQxxx in hearts, Ax in clubs, 10xxxx in diamonds. When I get to 5H, which I can make, BJ sacrifices at 5S. I'm too gun shy now to double, but setting her three tricks earns us one-and-a-half. On Twenty-Two, we take advantage of two five-one splits (hearts and clubs) to hold her to nine tricks at 3NT, and score another one-and-a-half.

On the last three boards, we rack up three tops. On Twenty-Three (4S) and Twenty-Five (3S), Doris finds herself in two contracts that are impossible for her to make, regardless of her play or the defense. On Twenty-Four we hold BJ to ten tricks at 3NT when apparently others are making more.

I estimate an above average finish, and am pleasantly surprised when Jo announces we are first with thirty-two match points, a sixty-four percent game. When I sat down with my note pad, I resolved to report the outcome however the cards fell. Some days are just like that.

We put away our boards and bidding boxes, rise from our chairs, say farewell, and make our way to the parking lot, rejoicing in the knowledge that, whether we won or lost, there is no more satisfying form of entertainment or escape from the turmoil of a troubled world than a few hours spent with our friends at the Bridge Club.

REFERENCES

Owen, David. "Turning Tricks." The New Yorker, September 17, 2007.

Saraceno, Jon. "A Bridge to Brainpower." AARP Bulletin, 2015.