The Future of Bridge – Part 3
The second suggestion that we made in the 1996 editorial was:
Bridge Pros should play against each other in exciting competitions as pros do in other sports.
Our thought was at the time that we would like to see events with top class all pro teams. In these events the incentive would be the prize money. You can see from the rest of the text that we wanted events without the weaker sponsors at least where we could watch top notch players battling it out. There have been some attempts at creating events with large cash prizes and there are some great invitational events on the “circuit” still today. In addition, in the latter rounds of the world’s top events most of the time there are usually opportunities to watch some truly exciting top notch bridge. I think the real problem we have today is to promote bridge so that we can get some publicity, see it on the sports channel etc. Is there any reason that bridge can’t get at least some of the excitement that poker has? Yes, it starts with getting the general population interested in playing but it also needs more promoted big events. I don’t know how to get there. I hope someone does.
The last suggestion we had, which I am sure will be controversial was
The fractious system of dealing with alerts, hesitations and misinformation needs to be improved.
Yes, it has changed over the years but it still is a problem. Everyone I know who plays bridge remembers stories of problems with the “rules” as much or more than they remember great hands they played. I know that I can still remember all of the ones that I have been involved with. The game needs to be “fair” but no sport is every completely fair. In the end someone makes a ruling, sometimes it is wrong, fans and players are upset for a little while (kill the umpire) and that’s that. We have to take care of those who are cheating but maybe we could find a way to make it friendlier when people do something wrong. I used to think that in most events there should not be appeals and they should be restricted to the top events only. That might help a bit. A simpler alert system might help too. We certainly don’t want to subject newcomers to most of this.
So by and large our suggestions did not come to pass. But there have been some very good things that have happened in the last 12 years or so. Things that are big improvements that I haven’t mentioned yet are, (in my humble opinion):
- seniors events
- school programs
- a wide range of events for youth and juniors
- huge expansion of online bridge
- online vugraph
- many wonderful bridge websites and bulletin boards
- bridge blogs and tweeters
- results online from home games to world championships
- tournament bulletins online
The Internet has played a big factor I notice. So there is a lot to be happy about. But I really hope that we can introduce others to the joy of this wonderful game and that it can get the visibility and success it deserves.
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Event proliferation is a fact of life — gone are the days when you showed up on a Saturday at a tournament and played the Open Pairs, because that was the only event there was that day. I’m nostalgic about that, because (a) I like stronger competition and (b) when you won something, it was really worth winning. These days, the paying customers want to buy lots of MP’s and whine if they have to play against anyone who is really good. The ACBL knows its market, at least to that extent.
Most of the positives on your list above result from the impact the Internet has had on the game — yet it is still woefully underused in N. America. France was using country-wide scoring for games in clubs, posted the same evening, 20 years ago. In Australia, by the time you get home from a tournament, the hand records and results are on the Net. Yet here, we wait after the game to peer at a scoresheet churned out from a dot-matrix printer (the ACBL must own the last few in existence!). Maybe it’s part of the ‘turn the clock back’ mentality being discussed by commenters on my blog right now, but the ACBL really doesn’t seem to be embracing the technology quite as enthusiastically as it might be.
I have commented on Larry King’s attempt to create a Pro Tour event for bridge. It flopped because sponsors could not be found. (Used to be we’d be great clients for booze and cig companies, but not now.)
I’ve looked into having bridge on TV. The problem is that while poker is an easy game to understand (especially Hold ‘Em), bridge is unintelligible to the average viewer. And it’s slow and boring, especially in the duplicate arena. The Cavendish was just on BBO and even I didn’t pay much attention. Sitting at a computer watching grass grow and paint dry is not my idea of a good time.
To make bridge a TV event we need to confine it to 4-deal rubber bridge with a mix of really funny, very astute and pretty commentators. Zia comes to mind, as does Sabine Auken, and her partner Daniela von Arnim , Gigi Simpson,George Jacobs, and perhaps some of our younger players like Gavin Wolpert and Jenny Ryman and their peers.
Another thing that must happen is that the system used by players in the TV game must be extremely simple, like 1950 Charlie (Goren). Conventions must be limited and treatments and carding easy to understand. And, the focus must be on HAVING FUN and MAKING MONEY playing bridge. The players have to joke and banter. Characters must develop like the Poker Brat, the Unibomber, Durr, etc., and all the players must be be a mix of ages and races so we have our own Tigers and Phils and Clonies. 1 minute background lessons can be pre-taped for insertion into the tapes at appropriate times. And celebrities must be integrated into the games.
Just my 2^