I started playing bridge in college over 50 years ago, played online on and off. When I retired I decided to try my local bridge club at the JCC in Wilkes Barre just to have some fun. In the past fifteen months I have made many new friends and learned a lot about bridge but I have a long way to go. I would like to thank George Marcy, Beth Rosenthal and George Mansour for their guidance and help in learning the game. I look forward to years of fun and competition.
Played for my college at London University. Emigrated to the US in 1968 and played briefly for maybe five years. Then came a new wife, children and a busy profession meaning no bridge for 46 years until retirement three years ago. After 50 years in practice as a hematologist-oncologist and now with time on my hands, what could be more natural than to resume a consuming pastime? So over time I have witnessed Acol, Precision Club, Standard American and now Two over One. To me, bridge is a passion rekindled and sufficiently infectious that my wife, who never played until very recently, is now hooked.
I have no recommendations regarding improvement in my bridge experience as I am perfectly satisfied as is. To achieve my next bridge goal, I will have to live longer and attend more tournaments. There is no guarantee of the former despite my current good health and the latter is being planned.
My parents played bridge, but I played my first hand in the Fall of 1969, when I was a freshman at Florida State University. The game fascinated me to the extent that two semesters later, the University sent me packing, as I had not been attending classes and had failed them all. I was an A student in high school, and this understandably baffled my parents. I was just too young, I guess, and it was the first time away from home.
A year later I joined the U.S. Air Force, where I served for the next 10 years. I started playing more regularly during that time and became an ACBL member in the mid 70s. Still, in retrospect I played very badly, as I did not really take the game seriously. By the 1980s I had returned to university and had stopped playing altogether. I did not pick it up again until I was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the mid 90s. Three of my friends and I used to go to a bar where we played rubber bridge while we ate peanuts and threw the shells on the floor like all the other patrons. As before, I played indifferently and without much skill or passion, and afterwards I again stopped playing for another long stretch.
Fast forward to the Fall of 2017, when on a whim I played my first time at Valley Forge Bridge Center. VFBC is a fairly tough room most days, and it did not take me long to discover just how badly I still played. I am a lifelong scientist and academic and, as so often happens when I become interested in a new activity, my OCD kicked in full steam ahead. Since then I have taken a deep, scholarly dive into the game. I spend at least an hour every single day, often more, studying the game. I have accumulated about 150 books that I read and reread endlessly, working out many of the examples and quizzes presented.
Bridge has opened up a completely new chapter in my life. I just turned 68 and am approaching retirement in a couple of years. My personal life has been tumultuous at best, and this year I achieved bachelor status for the third time. I am not too proud of that. I wouldn’t say I have been unlucky in love, just not good at it. Only last year I at times reflected on what my future might bring, and whether I was destined to live life out more or less alone. I have those concerns no longer. I have met the most interesting, kind, and generous people at the tables. I have been blessed with new and deepening friendships, and I play with a variety of wonderful partners with a broad range of experience. Sometimes I am the mentee, sometimes the mentor. Give a little, get a little. Bridge has also given me a renewed commitment to what to me is most important in life, that we treat all others with care, kindness, and a deep reverence for their inviolable human dignity.
Bridge is the most sophisticated, multilayered, and difficult game I have ever encountered, and while I am continually reminded that after all, It’s only a game, it is so much more than that. This journey can be intimidating, but among the mundane and sometimes even discouraging results, from time to time there is a gleaming success that is inexpressibly rewarding and encouraging. Not the least of these occur when partner makes an exceptional play. I expect to be thoroughly challenged, entertained, and engrossed for as long as cognition remains intact. But as I have mentioned above, it’s the relationships I have been so grateful to have found that are the most rewarding.
It’s never too late to learn! I recently became a junior master – and I turned 89 a few days ago. I had played social bridge in college (you can guess how long ago that was). I met Julie, whom I married last November, three years ago. She is a Silver Life Master and an avid bridge player. I started watching her play with different partners early in 2018. She taught me bidding conventions (which were completely new to me), and showed me books on the subject. Charlie, who is a Gold Life Master living in the community where we live, started weekly bridge classes. Both Julie and Charlie are not only excellent players, but extremely patient with us newbies. I started playing just over a year ago – with Julie accepting me as her partner. I play weekly now, and am enjoying the challenge.
My parents taught me how to play when I was in my early 30s, but I didn’t try duplicate until a few years later. While many of the people in the club were lovely and welcoming, unfortunately there were enough players who made the experience unpleasant my wife and I stopped playing duplicate for about 20 years.
I went back to duplicate about 7 years ago when my wife got interested and opened her own club, called Ami Bridge in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, that focused on creating an atmosphere where players at all levels would feel comfortable and welcome. I really started enjoying the game and appreciating the competitive and social aspects. Even though I’m still working full time, I played consistently and enjoyed using tournaments as mini-vacations – and now 7 years later I’ve qualified as a LifeMaster.
After retiring as a professional pilot in Texas in 2007, I moved with my husband Earle to the small town of Berkeley Springs in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. After settling there, we made many friends, some of whom were bridge players. I knew nothing about the game and had no interest (I thought). One day in late 2010, my friend Marie Hardy invited me to a luncheon, and I went, not knowing that after lunch, bridge would be played. I watched a bit, then got thrown in on a round and was hooked. I started taking lessons and kibitzed my first duplicate game within two weeks.
In early 2011, I joined the ACBL (District 5) and played 2-4 times a week in sanctioned and social bridge games. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I could get even more of a bridge fix by going to some tournaments. I twisted Marie’s arm and she helped me talk our Life Master friends Larry and Sandy King into going to a regional with us. Thanks to their coaching and excellent team skills, Marie and I got our first gold in Pittsburgh in 2012. I made Life Master late in 2014, just before Earle and I moved to Bucks County, PA to live closer to family.
In Pennsylvania, I found my new bridge home at member-owned North Penn Duplicate Bridge Club in North Wales, PA. The directors and members were very welcoming and before long, I found lots of partners. I very much enjoy playing at North Penn several times a week; it’s a true community of interesting and fun folks. I’m also glad to be a member of District 4 and Unit 141. Opportunities to play are plentiful and the local tournaments are run well by volunteers who clearly care very much about giving players a quality experience.
I often say there are lots of similarities between flying and the game of bridge. Both pursuits require serious concentration and focus, and both are great diversions…you can’t really think about much else whether you’re flying a plane or playing a bridge hand. But there are two big differences as well. During my career, I was able to learn pretty much all I needed to know about aviation to be a successful pilot. But there is no way I will never learn all there is to know about the game of bridge! And the other difference? Well, even the worst mistakes at the bridge table are generally not fatal. Hopefully. But to be on the safe side, choose kind partners.
I feel blessed to be a part of District 4 and love that this district steps out in front with new and different ways to make bridge fun for its members and others who come to our area to play. I feel like our district leaders are out in front in many ways.
I just joined the Board of my local club (North Penn) and will be looking for ways to become more involved in Unit and District events. While I definitely don’t aspire to “running” anything, I’m a decent worker bee and take direction pretty well. In any case, it’s probably time to think more about giving back a little more to this game that has been such a big part of my life over the past 10 years.