In other news, the board game, wargame, TCG, and roleplaying space continues to grow, and local game stores are becoming difficult to find space to play in.
Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#22I 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.
The really big decline in popularity of bridge was in the 1950s. My wild guess is the rise of TV had something to do with it.
This secondary decline described in TFA is happening within a smaller, more dedicated player community. Maybe it's the competition from other games.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#23My 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?
"""
Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, outlawed bridge, popular with the intelligentsia, and shut down clubs where the card game was played. “They were worried that when too many intelligent people got together, it could easily develop into something else,” mathematician Mircea Mihu said.
"""
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-28-mn-69-sto...
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#24My 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?
My guess, authoritarian communist regimes do not take kindly to any private gathering spots for the general public. People were expected to go to work, go home, keep their mouths closed.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I might be missing something, but what was wrong with the game bridge? Why did the leader of the nation hate it?
""" Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, outlawed bridge, popular with the intelligentsia, and shut down clubs where the card game was played. “They were worried that when too many intelligent people got together, it could easily develop into something else,” mathematician Mircea Mihu said. """ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-28-mn-69-sto...
But it was replaced by a chess club. I assume that similarly intelligent people play chess.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#26I 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…
Part of the game is not to close the side channels of information. conventions for calling are very much part of the game. calling 1 Club vs 1 No Trump is a purposeful signal.
Its a fun game to play if you don't take it too seriously
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#27bridge is dying. Period. Go/Weiqi/baduk is the game to go!
Go is a 2 player game that is much less social than bridge - similar to chess in that regard.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
""" Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, outlawed bridge, popular with the intelligentsia, and shut down clubs where the card game was played. “They were worried that when too many intelligent people got together, it could easily develop into something else,” mathematician Mircea Mihu said. """ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-28-mn-69-sto...
But it was replaced by a chess club. I assume that similarly intelligent people play chess.
Chess is a 2-player affair only, and not conducive to conversation.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#29I 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.
The really big decline in popularity of bridge was in the 1950s. My wild guess is the rise of TV had something to do with it. This secondary decline described in TFA is happening within a smaller, more dedicated player community. Maybe it's the competition from other games.
I think it’s mostly the decline in people coming over to people’s houses. Bridge as a game relied heavily on kitchen bridge and it just isn’t that common for most people to have people over every week for a game anymore. There is also the fact that the rules of the game are fairly complex and many people take weekly lessons for months in order to understand the basics of how to play.
Re: Evening Club Bridge Is Dying (2015)
#30I 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.
Poker is much more appealing in terms of video presentation though. It’s easy to setup a high tension situation the user understands and make it fun to watch. The card play is more complex in bridge and you’re likely to have some people not understand what’s going on at all if you try and create a tense moment.