Learning or Teaching Bridge….not an easy task !
The other Day I read that the World’s richest person Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation donated 1 million Dollars to ACBL(American Contract Bridge league) for setting up the facilities which will help new persons learn Bridge.Mr. Gates who is a good Bridge player himself , is keenly interested in the game and has said in the confessionary style that
“ Bridge is one of the last games in which the computer is not better."
Ever since I came to know that Bill Gates play bridge, I started feeling wealthy !
There is plenty of literature available for beginners to start learning this game but there are not many good teachers because teaching someone this sport is not an easy task. The business Tycoon precisely realized this and as a good gesture contributed from his side .
When someone wants to learn a new sport he or she is supposed to have observed people playing that sport and they are expected to know certain minimum things about it.. Bridge is also a sport and is no exception to this expectation. If someone wants to learn Bridge, he/she is expected to observe the game for sometime and know certain basics things. Trying to learn bridge, without knowing about any card game is similar to try to learn a football without ever having any experience of kicking it…… Take the case of cricket…… Before someone starts learning cricket systematically he already knows what is batting and balling. Any cricket coach or a trainer will surely ask person to quit if he doesn’t even know about a bat ,ball or stumps. Unfortunately bridge coach does not have this liberty or privilege to treat a beginner in that manner because he needs students more than students need him! Most persons who wish to learn bridge don’t have patience to go through the process of observing the game and getting themselves acquainted about basic things. Even if they opt for that and make sincere efforts they gain little unless they have a thick skin. This is because unlike in many other games ,one is supposed to maintain absolute silence when the game is in progress with everyone sitting there with serious faces. When the deal is over invariably there will be some argument or minor verbal fights and the beginners who are kibitzing and have some queries are silenced by some rude person. This is the status of the beginners who want to learn.
The status about coach or a trainer or guide whom I name “bridge enthusiast “ is also not encouraging. Bridge enthusiast is the one who knows bridge a shade better than rest of the people with whom he regularly plays the game. Over a period of time he proclaims himself expert though on most occasions when he participates in the club tournaments, he is in the bottom half. His love for the game has however no boundaries and his only worry will be about organizing assembly of his bridge group on weekends and holidays ! Whenever they run short of players they need someone who can be taught bridge. A beginner many times is almost forced to play the game at odd hours and is directly exposed to the complex bidding. Now tell me …Do you teach grammar of the language to a kid when it is just 1 year old?.... Of course not. Grammar part of the language is learned by the kid much later .When we learn a new language we first learn new words of that language while learning alphabets, then we understand some commonly used sentences….then we observe and listen to the language people speak and only after that if we get some good feel, we start to learn the grammar of that language. Most bridge enthusiasts who play coach, however ignore this though they know that “Bidding” is the language of bridge. It is the only permissible mode of communication between the partnerships while playing the game. No doubt Bidding is as basic and important in bridge as grammar in any language but that does not mean one should first teach bidding part to the beginner. Each bid in the process of bidding has certain pre-defined meaning and some rules and is like a grammar .Now when the beginners with limited exposure and still thin skin are taught directly grammar in the adverse conditions, learning process almost becomes a monolog of an enthusiastic coach followed by yawning of the beginners. Within a short span confusion spreads. Even the snoring sound cannot stop the sole enthusiast!
Training or teaching session gets ultimately aborted when a better sense prevail. Only very few who will have either blind faith on their bridge guides or a real hunger to learn this sport, become bridge players. The rest of the people, who will be in majority will give up after torturing experience of understanding complex meanings of various bids. These people not only give up but after giving up they start spreading all types of nonsense about the bridge game which repeal many prospective new players. A bad perception about card game coupled by lack of good trainers for the game are the main two reasons for “ why bridge has not become a popular sport” among the youngsters . The common scene in India is, more than 60% of the persons who play bridge fall in the category of “senior citizens” may be because by that time they have a guaranteed thick skin!
Fortunately age is no bar to this wonderful game.…People who are 80 or even 90 are also active on the bridge table and some of them are superior in card handling skill compared to their grandsons who are excellent in their studies and developing complex software but often err in judging correct distribution of the missing trumps on the bridge table. There are no certainties in the game and so no fixed rules ….only some guidelines and rest is your own judgment or skill or intellect to which losers call common sense.
When you play bridge …Never expect that you will not be blamed for any mistake you commit. Irrespective of who you are, your age, your sex, your status or your relationship with the partner on bridge table you will be criticized. As a beginner you may be playing seriously and might have covered an honor as per instruction or might have removed all the trumps of the opponents as per another lesson of your partner coach. You will still find that your partner is blaming you because you had 4 carded king and you lost one ruffing trick in the dummy. If you want to improve your game you will have to listen to your partner’s sarcastic comments. During the postmortem of the deal you better understand only “what is said related to bridge” and for rest of the utterance thank almighty that you have two ears !
On the Bridge Table even Bill Gates does not have a privilege of not getting any blame when he ducks first round of suit and loses his sure winning Ace!
In India we do have “Ambanis” and “Tatas” and we too can have good coaching facilities for this fascinating game but on Bridge table if they err they will also not be spared ! .
-------- Rajendra Phansalkar
12th July 2012
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