The new face of bridge

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http://www.startribune.com/462/story/822774.html

The new face of bridge

The four-person card game is making a comeback among students and young adults.
Darlene Prois, Star Tribune Last update: November 19, 2006 – 10:20 PM


Club members at Mounds Park Academy
Darlene Prois, Star Tribune


Shane Swanson excels at helping clients identify their retirement dreams. Perhaps that's because the 34-year-old estate planning attorney has one of his own: He wants to spend his twilight years playing bridge.
"My ideal retirement day goes like this," said Swanson, who lives with his partner in a fashionable Minneapolis condo. "I'd get up, exercise, read the New York Times and play bridge."
Yes, bridge. Although the average age for players nationwide is 67, bridge hasn't yet gone the way of the wood-sided station wagon. In the Twin Cities, Swanson is among a growing number of younger players embracing the intellectually challenging, four-person strategy game with nearly endless play variations.
He has some heady company. Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett became close friends because of their love of bridge. Last year, they created a $1 million fund dedicated to teaching bridge to junior high school students.
The Internet also has increased awareness of the game. As many as 300,000 players worldwide log in daily to bridgebase.com, one of numerous bridge websites.
"Online play is a great opportunity," said Linda Granell of the Memphis-based American Contract Bridge League. "I can go online after work and play for an hour with a partner from Egypt or Israel or Minnesota."
And even when people start online, Granell said they eventually want to play face-to-face.
"It's a tremendously social game," she said.
Here's a sampling of Twin Cities players who have recently discovered the game of bridge:
Starting young
Two lunch hours a week, students at Mounds Park Academy chow down on cheeseburgers and chocolate milk between lively and raucous hands of bridge. Math teacher John Edmundson has coached a bridge club at the Maplewood school for 14 years.
"It tends to attract very bright kids who develop a camaraderie here they may not find anywhere else," Edmundson said. "The strategy attracts them to the game, and because it's a partner game, it builds their social skills."
In the past decade, about 20 students have earned letters in the activity by winning masterpoints at tournaments. Attending one is a learning experience, too, Edmundson said.
"I tell them they'll meet the sweetest old ladies there," he said. "They'll be so nice to you, and then they'll slaughter you. It's a phenomenally strategic game."
Love match
Shelly Hendricks, 29, and husband Matthew, 28, cite their love of the game as one reason they got married. The Minneapolis couple met while pursuing master's degrees in public policy at the University of Minnesota. Both were in their teens when their parents taught them to play.
The couple love to play with their parents, but since they live in Kansas and Ohio, the two teach the game to friends. First, however, they must help them overcome the common perception that bridge is played only by old women or smart people, Shelly Hendricks said.
"It's not difficult to learn," she said. "But it can take years and years of playing until you feel you're good at it."
Multi-generational group
Swanson persuaded four friends to take lessons together several years ago. The group of five, whose ages range from 33 to 67, meets twice a month, rotating hosting duties. A casual gourmet dinner begins the evening. The three men and two women first tried an inexpensive series of beginner lessons at the Twin Cities Bridge Center in Minneapolis, then decided that they preferred a lower-key home atmosphere. They recently split the $1,200 cost of an eight-week series of private lessons from Teri Blu, owner of the Bridge Center. Although they're serious about learning the game -- this is the second series of private lessons they've taken together -- they said it's their genuine enjoyment of each other's company that makes the investment invaluable.
"It's more of a social thing than anything else," said attorney Sid Kaplan, 67. "Sometimes we do more talking than playing."
Creating memories
Sisters Jill Driscoll and Jane Berg were hoping to replicate the lifelong bridge friendships their mother still enjoys when they recruited friends to learn the game with them. Two years later, the five women are getting no closer to becoming skilled players (a tattered "Bridge for Dummies" is always within reach), but they treasure their monthly get-togethers.
On a recent Thursday night, the women chatted over shredded pork carnitas in Driscoll's spacious St. Anthony Park kitchen before retreating to a folding card table in the family room.
"We only play about eight hands in two hours," said Berg, 37, a Minneapolis public relations specialist. "But we have great conversations."
Bridge is like "a book club with a twist," said fellow player Sally Hawkins, 47, a business analyst from St. Louis Park. "It forces us to get together and learn something."
The sisters said their mother is thrilled that her daughters are learning bridge.
"Her friends are jealous," said Driscoll, a 35-year-old mother of three. "They wish their daughters would play, too."
Darlene Prois • 612-673-4280 • dprois@startribune.com