bridge is dying. Period. Go/Weiqi/baduk is the game to go!
Netcraft confirms it
Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
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Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#12I wonder if the pastimes in the USA that are most at risk are, on average, ones where you cannot use your phone and get exciting photos or video to post on your social media. After all, people are still meeting in groups to do things like hiking or cosplay, where they can present a glamorous image to other people via social media.
Poker is as un-photogenic as bridge, but seems to be doing fine. Of course the demographic and venues it's played in are very different.
Chess is also not a super photogenic sport but is doing fine. Even the local offline chess club is teeming with people both young and old.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#13I wonder if the pastimes in the USA that are most at risk are, on average, ones where you cannot use your phone and get exciting photos or video to post on your social media. After all, people are still meeting in groups to do things like hiking or cosplay, where they can present a glamorous image to other people via social media.
I doubt this is the cause. Certain hobbies just grow and shrink. You could get plenty of social media photos photos of lawn bowls for example, but that’s still an aging audience.
Yes. For sports Padel is ultra-hot now. Came out of nowhere and exploded. In Netherlands there are 6-year long waiting lists to join a club.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#14My favorite game in high school and college, which I played twice a week, at one of the clubs in Bucharest, until 1983, when sometimes in the fall Elena Ceausescu issued an order to close all clubs and remove all mentions of bridge, from all media (we used to have weekly articles published with games analysis). The (un)funny way I found out about this was by my going with my partner to play, one night, and finding th…
I might be missing something, but what was wrong with the game bridge? Why did the leader of the nation hate it?
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt this is the cause. Certain hobbies just grow and shrink. You could get plenty of social media photos photos of lawn bowls for example, but that’s still an aging audience.
Yes. For sports Padel is ultra-hot now. Came out of nowhere and exploded. In Netherlands there are 6-year long waiting lists to join a club.
Great game. Wish it would catch on more quickly in the US, there are basically no courts in the northeast.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt this is the cause. Certain hobbies just grow and shrink. You could get plenty of social media photos photos of lawn bowls for example, but that’s still an aging audience.
What confuses me is there are more old people than there used to be. So in theory "older people stuff" should be thriving. But lots of hobbies / activities / associations are percieved as dying off as elderly members are not replaced. I wonder why.
It's almost like there's another dynamic where each generation is resistant to the pastimes of the previous one, as they make the participants feel old, so they feel the need to invent new ones.
It would be interesting to compare Florida residents with those elsewhere on the east coast to see if they are actually preserving more of these things than we think.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#17My favorite game in high school and college, which I played twice a week, at one of the clubs in Bucharest, until 1983, when sometimes in the fall Elena Ceausescu issued an order to close all clubs and remove all mentions of bridge, from all media (we used to have weekly articles published with games analysis). The (un)funny way I found out about this was by my going with my partner to play, one night, and finding th…
I might be missing something, but what was wrong with the game bridge? Why did the leader of the nation hate it?
Perhaps she lost badly in a tournament?
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#18Not sure in which age-segments, but it's a pity because it used to be an important social activity for the elderly.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#19I have no interest in bridge, because the rules appear to be designed to maximize cheating. Even if you're using a bidding screen, there's no practical way to close all information side channels during in-person play. And bidding screens do nothing to enforce an even tempo, with this being left to subjective judgement. Regardless of whether it happens or not, cheating is so easy compared to other tabletop games that I would always suspect it, which would stop me from enjoying the game.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#20I wonder if the pastimes in the USA that are most at risk are, on average, ones where you cannot use your phone and get exciting photos or video to post on your social media. After all, people are still meeting in groups to do things like hiking or cosplay, where they can present a glamorous image to other people via social media.
Chess streamers are popular these days. If you can make chess engaging on social media, you can do so for anything.