My mom has played bridge for 50-something years - she loves playing bridge. She’d easily be a Life Master if she would have ever traveled out of town to play in tournaments when I was a kid - but she didn’t want to travel w/o my dad. My dad couldn’t care any less about bridge - he's played it before but now he says he doesn't remember the first thing about how to play & has no interest at all in remembering.
My mom says she doesn’t care about not being a Life Master. I know how much she loves playing bridge so I think she’s convinced herself that it doesn’t matter just like she convinced herself she didn’t want to travel w/o my dad to be one. She didn’t want to b/c she didn’t want to rock the boat. That’s the generation she’s from – that’s what she was taught & accepted for herself. She was completely free to do that or not.
I think she would be happier now if she rejected what she was taught. I don't know - it's just what I think - maybe she really doesn't care. How could I possibly know the truth of it? There’s no way to know for certain now b/c that’s not what happened.
I know she could have traveled out of town if she really wanted to. I think it was more important to her at the time not to upset my dad then to ask for something she really wanted. My dad might have bitched & moaned a little bit about it - but he would have given in & she still could have gone w/o him.
If she says it doesn't matter to her now, why should it matter to me?
While I was growing up my mom played bridge w/ other ladies at different places around town. She always had someone asking her to be their partner. Even when she wasn’t out playing somewhere, she’d play in the kitchen by herself, playing all four hands - she was still doing that until I showed her how to play online. I remember trying to learn bridge when I was a kid but it just seemed too complicated - too many rules to learn. So I never learned to play bridge & my mom never forced me to learn - even though she loves the game.
Now, at 45, I asked her to show me how - I just wanted to know - I got the time & I know I have the patience now. It took about a week or so to get comfortable with the bidding process - it’s pretty much the same concept as Uker as far as trump and suits go - except for the jack thing. Bridge is way more involved since you play w/ the whole deck – but the concept is almost the same.
How to play bridge is not the difficult part to learn - the bidding before you actually play the hand takes much more patience to figure out & to understand. The people that play a lot of bridge often don’t like when someone doesn’t know how to bid properly.
Bridge is a partner game & like life if you don’t follow the guidelines everybody else has decided on being the best you’re going to get yelled at for not playing correctly, either by your partner or the opposing team. Everybody wants everybody else to conform to the established norm & that’s no different in life than in bridge. Somebody is always ready to tell you when you’re doing something wrong.
There have to be some rules b/c w/o rules there is no game - but beyond the basic rules of how to play the game - everything else is a matter of opinion to what's the best way to play the game.
Life is a game w/o rules - except for the ones people have made up. It’s the only game w/o defined rules. Life just is – you can make up your own rules if you want to. You can follow the ones other people made up or ignore them - all that takes care of itself during play. Life doesn’t need rules b/c the object of the game isn’t clearly defined – there is no clear winner or loser. It totally depends on the game you think you’re actually playing.
Other games must be defined by rules that at the very least explain how to play the game - like baseball. Eighteen guys can stand together in a field w/ a ball & a stick - but somebody has to decide what to do next - just like somebody had to decide they needed a ball & a stick to play.
What about the rest of it?
Somebody had to come up w/ the rules of play.
They've been changing the rules of baseball ever since they started playing - but the game is basically the same. The more complicated the game the more rules are needed to be established. Bridge is a lot less involved than baseball & life at least seems way more involved than both.
If life is not a game - why does there seem to be so many rules?
Bridge is easier to figure out.
For bridge the bidding process is basically table talk between the players. It's a 2 on 2 game. All 52 cards are dealt to all four players - 13 total cards for each - everybody sorts their cards into suits - each suit has a ranking order that goes - Spades, Hearts, Diamonds & Clubs. Whoever deals starts the bidding, which is all about deciding on what trump is going to be for the hand.
Based on your hand you bid what you want to be trump - for the most part. You are supposed to have at least 13 points in your hand to make an opening bid. It’s a rule that’s not really a rule b/c you can actually open w/ less. The rule is really only to help your partner know you have a decent hand - it also allows your opponents to know. If you follow the rule, your partner has a better idea how to respond to whatever you bid.
There are also rules for how to respond to an opening bid. They call the rules for bidding. conventions & there are quite a few of them to learn. You don't have to play all of the conventions, but you need to let your partner know which ones you do play.
To get the point count of your hand you total the points from aces & face cards or having only 1 or 2 cards in a particular suit. Aces are 4 points, Kings are 3, Queens are 2 & Jacks are 1 - you can only really count Queens or Jacks as points if you have 3 cards in that suit b/c the Ace or King will take them during play if you only have 1 or 2 in that suit. So to make up for that - if you have 1 card in a suit you count that as 2 points & if you have 2 cards in a suit you count that as 1 point – regardless of what they are. There's a couple other rules for counting points depending on how the cards in your hand are distributed - but that's good enough to get started playing.
I don’t really like counting my points exactly, so I give myself a rough estimate based on how the hand looks & it works just fine. The more you play the easier the counting of points gets.
There’s a particular way to bid your hand, which varies based on your order in the bidding. The dealer bids first, then the opponent to the left, then the dealer's partner, then the opponent to the right. They break the positions up into North & South versus East & West. The bidding usually starts w/ 1 of a particular suit & you can also bid No Trump, meaning you don’t want any suit to be trump.
If your opening bid is more than 1 of a suit you are following some sort of convention as far as your partner is concerned & if they don't know which convention you are playing it will be difficult for them to respond.
Since there are 13 cards in each hand, there are 13 tricks to win for each hand. They call the bidding between you & your partner a contract. The ideal contract puts you & your partner at game, which is slightly different depending on the suit or non-suit bid.
After each hand is played out - all 13 tricks - a point score is awarded to the winning partnership based on the final bid that was made & whether or not they made it or not.
For Spades & Hearts a bid of 4 Spades or 4 Hearts puts you at game, which means 10 total tricks b/c the base is always 6 tricks since there are 13 total tricks in a hand. A 1 Heart bid would mean you think you can take 7 of 13 tricks.
For Diamonds & Clubs you need to bid 5 to be at game instead of 4 & for No Trump you only need to bid 3. The points are based on whether you make what you bid or not & a losing bid gives points to the opponents. The point totals are more for winning bids then for losing bids, so it’s to your advantage to win the bidding whenever possible.
You can win more tricks than you bid - never less.
Spades & Hearts are worth 30 points per bid. A 4 Heart bid - that’s 10 total tricks, is worth 120 points. Each game is won w/ 100 to 120 points. A 3 No Trump bid is 9 tricks & worth 100 points - 40 for the first & 30 for each trick after the first. Clubs and Diamonds are worth 20 a trick which is why you need to bid 5 to be at game. If the final bid for the hand is 2 Clubs and the team makes 5 Clubs, they get 40 points towards game and 60 extra points that will be added to the final total once one team wins two games. Only the bid points count towards winning a single game.
Rubber Bridge is just between 4 people - first team to win two games usually wins b/c there are more points awarded for winning two games & all the game points & extra points are totaled after the two games are won.
Duplicate Bridge is played with more than one table & everybody plays the exact same hands - they just get passed around the room & the total points everybody gets in the room for all hands decides who actually wins. You're playing against everybody.
Since everybody is playing the same hands, the bidding will be slightly different as will the playing of the hands. Some people will make their bids & some won’t & some will bid higher than others. It just allows more people to play - more like a tournament.
Over the years many different conventions have been developed to help the bidding process between partners get them into a contract as close to game as possible w/ each hand. Though it’s not always possible to be at game - that's the goal for each hands bidding process.
Sometimes you have to play 1 Diamond or 1 Spade or 1 No Trump. The conventions along w/ opening w/ at least 13 points helps your partner & your opponents know what to bid. Your bid doesn't necessarily express what you have in your hand b/c the conventions sometimes mean something different then what they seem.
You’re not supposed to make an opening bid of Spades or Hearts unless you have at least 5 of them in one suit plus at least 13 points.
Diamonds or Clubs you can open w/ only 3 as long as you have the 13 points. You shouldn’t open No Trump unless you have a well balance hand w/ at least a 2 or 3 of all suits & not just 1 of a suit - plus 17 points or more. All the different conventions complicate the process & the point values for certain conventions vary slightly between players. The more you play the easier it gets & the more you learn what all the conventions mean.
The dealer bids first then it goes around the table until 3 in a row Pass. During the bidding there’s also a bid of Double which can mean several things depending on when it’s bid. Whoever bids Double is either bidding that the last bid won’t make it - which then doubles the points won or lost at the end of the hand.
A bid of Double after an opening bid of 1 of a suit is usually telling your partner to bid something other than what was just bid if the next player doesn’t bid anything. You're never supposed to Pass a Double from your partner at the 1 level of bidding. If the other opponent bids before you that let's you off the hook. You still can bid, but you don't have to.
Say somebody bids 1 diamond, I say double, the next player passes, I want my partner to bid a Major - 1 Heart or 1 Spade if they have at least 4, if they don't then I'll know how to better bid my hand when it comes around again. By knowing the convention I know they don't have 4 Hearts or 4 Spades in their hand & so do the opponents. Since I doubled they don’t need to have 5 to bid.
Hearts & Spades are considered Majors - Diamonds & Clubs are Minors. Each bid reveals what you have in your hand to the table, which helps the next player decide what to bid based on their hand. It all sounds more complicated than it is, but I know why I didn’t have the patience to learn it when I was a kid - especially when I could just play Crazy Eights or Go Fish or War.
The bidding conventions all take a little while to learn but it’s not really too difficult - anybody who really wants to learn to play could do so quite easily.
Once the bidding is done the winning bidder’s partner becomes a dummy hand - meaning the partner doesn’t play their hand. Instead the hand gets laid down for everybody to see once the player to the left of the winning bid plays the first card for the first trick. The winning bidder is the player that started the bidding in that particular suit. If I start 1 Heart & my partner finishes w/ 4 Hearts - I play the hand b/c I started Hearts & my partner’s hand is the dummy, which is also called the board.
Once the opponent leads a card for the first trick & my partner's cards are laid down - I play those cards along w/ my hand however I want. The rest of the hand is played out like you would think. You have to follow the suit of what is led unless you don’t have any, then you either use a trump card or throw away another suit.
There are some tricks to how to play a particular hand but you can do it however you want - if you make your bid you played the hand well - if you don't you either didn't play it well or you bid it poorly.
Those are all the basic rules of playing bridge & like w/ any card game the better hand you are dealt the more fun it is to play.
The cards play themselves for the most part the majority of the time. It’s a bit like chess w/ cards. How you play your cards may make the difference between you getting that 1 more trick you need to make your bid.
Once the hand is dealt, you have to play the hand you get - you have some options w/ how you bid the hand w/ your partner & how well you bid your hand will determine how easy it is to make your bid - sometimes there isn’t anything you can do if you bid too much & sometimes there is. If you don't make a bid of 4 Hearts & you only make 2 Hearts - they say you are down 2 & the opponents get the points. The more you play, the more you learn how to bid & play the hand you are dealt - which makes playing bridge kind of a metaphor for life.
Everybody that plays goes down 2 every now & again & ever now & again everybody makes a Grand Slam - taking all 13 tricks. If you don't bid it you don't get all the points for making it. Taking 12 tricks is called a Small Slam.
My mom taught me all this & we played for a couple hours a day for a couple months. After the first month I was comfortable enough w/ how to play that I didn’t really want anymore advice on how to play my cards. I told her I would ask if I had a question about what to do. The bidding takes longer to figure out & there are certain tricks to how to play a hand that also help - like finessing tricks.
Finessing a trick is when you have an Ace in your hand & a Queen on the board & you aren’t sure which opponent has the King, so you lead the Queen into your Ace hoping the opponent in between has the King. Sometimes it works & sometimes it doesn’t. You only overtake your Queen if the King is played, otherwise you let the Queen ride. If you don’t try it - it could make all the difference in getting that one extra trick you might need.
Me & mom would play all the hands - just the two of us - I bid her partners hand & she bids mine. We tried not to pay attention to the other hand while we’re playing out the hand so it simulated a real game as much as possible. Since she was teaching me it didn’t matter - we played it like we would if we didn’t know.
I've also started playing online to get the feel of really playing w/ a partner. I’d go along w/ rules & conventions as much as I could stand - but I play more loosely w/ the rules in my bidding to make it more enjoyable for me to play. If you don't enjoy playing - what's the point of playing in the first place? Sometimes this pisses off my partners b/c as they like to say - I'm not play proper bridge. Some partner's don’t care. Sometimes even the opponents like to chime in & tell me - but I don't care. I bid the way I want.
Usually the people that complain take playing bridge very seriously & they don't like to lose. I don't care so much about losing. Winnings definitely more fun - but if I care about winning it's just as much a waste of time as caring about losing.
Nobody wins all the time - except me - b/c of my way of thinking about it - I have fun playing whether I win or lose a hand b/c my goal is to have fun & playing my way is always more fun - so I always win as far as I'm concerned - even when I lose a game.
To me it’s just a state of mind & I’ve done it enough now that I know how to do it no matter what game I’m playing.
I'm sure it'd be a little different if there was a lot of money on the line - but there usually isn't. I been to Vegas plenty of times & won & lost money – mostly lost. It didn’t really bother me to lose b/c I still always had fun while I was playing – but it’s definitely more fun to win than to lose. I just learned how not to care about losing money. I always knew I had more money or I would make more too – so that also helped take the sting out of losing. Like I said – it’s a state of mind.
My mom takes playing bridge pretty seriously - I just don't. That's just the way it is. I'm never going to take playing any more seriously than I do now – after learning how to play & playing for a while it just really doesn’t interest me enough to keep playing.
While we were playing in the kitchen & my mom was teaching me some of the tricks to playing - like finessing - after a while I pretty much knew all I thought I needed to know to be able to play. I didn't really want any more lessons - I just wanted to play. She couldn’t stop herself though & she kept repeating lessons over & over that I already learned.
That started getting annoying after a while. I had to keep telling her to let me play the hand my way & that if I have a question I'd ask. She still couldn’t help herself. She would keep telling me what I should play. I know she thinks she’s helping me, but really she’s not. I had proven enough times that my way was just as good as whatever she was suggesting - even though it's not proper bridge - by winning my bids.
She was having a hard time letting go of teaching me her way & I was getting tired of being taught something I thought I already knew how to do & had already proven. I wanted to play my way or I just didn’t want to play anymore. I was already starting to get bored w/ the game anyways.
She showed me how to play & I appreciated that - she taught me all I needed to know to be able to play the game & now I wanted to play my own hand.
It took me a while to convince her to let go & let me play. I know she knows, but she still tries to tell me what to do. I also know she just can't help it - she's a mother - but I never did like mothering – not even from her. She just can’t seem to stop herself.
It got better eventually - she started catching herself & stopping herself on her own. I had to keep telling her if I had a question I’d ask - if I don’t ask then just let me play. I know I’ll learn what to do & what not to do just by playing. Her advice is only really helpful when I want it - but when I don’t - it only ends up annoying me.
We recently stopped playing in the kitchen & started playing together online. I let her play the hands & I just hit the buttons. She never really used a computer before & it scares her for some reason. So she would play & talk the whole time about what's happening & I would watch & listen.
This way worked a lot better for me - I was learning more quickly this way than the other way & w/ less frustration. I let her play the hands however she wanted & I learned from how she played.
Eventually, I started getting tired of playing like this too. I know I'm never going to like bridge the way she does - it's impossible. I just don't really find it all that interesting or fun.
I'm glad I learned how to play b/c at least now I know, but it’s really kind of boring to me - maybe if there was some money on the line.
I played online for a little while on my own - every now & again - just to see how I felt about it - but I couldn't play for very long - it just didn't interest me enough. I can understand why my mom loves it b/c I loving playing video games that much. It's the same love - but different. I wouldn't want to take that enjoyment away from her any more than I would want anybody to take playing video games away from me.
I've been showing her how to play online by herself & she's finally getting used to using the mouse. She likes to say she’s ready to tickle her mouse when she wants to play now. She's able to start the computer on her own & get online all by herself now too.
At first, she was a little nervous about using the computer for some reason - she always thinks she's going to do something wrong. She didn't think she'd ever use a computer - but now that she has she's not as afraid of it - she's finding out how easy it is & how there’s really nothing to be afraid of. She could even get her Life Master points if she wanted w/o ever leaving the house – but she still says she doesn't care. She thanks me now for forcing her to learn – but I still haven’t been able to get her to google anything.
The whole process made me realize why God is silent. After all the years of telling people how to play the game of life God must have just got tired of all the bullshit at some point. Maybe God got bored & just decided to stop telling us how to play the hand we’re dealt. Maybe we got tired of God telling us. Maybe God knows we already know all we need to know. Maybe we decided we do. God keeps dealing out hands - so God obviously doesn't want to take the game away from us. Whether there is or isn’t a God - it’s still happening.
In life just like bridge some people have made up a bunch of conventions that aren’t really rules though people act like they are & if you don’t follow their conventions you're going to piss some of them off - usually the ones who are taking it all too seriously - usually the ones who are the most afraid to lose.
They might tell me I'm not taking it serious enough & maybe they're right - but they don't really know any more than I do about it - maybe there really aren’t any rules - just a game to play.
Life is either a game or it isn’t - if it isn’t - why make up all the rules?
It sure feels like a game to me. I don’t really care very much anymore whether it is or isn‘t - I do think it should be a lot more fun to play than it is regardless if it’s a game or not. I do care about that aspect of life - I do take that seriously – not so much that anyone would notice – except when they’re trying to make it less fun for me to play.
If I say the only thing I take seriously is that I don't take life seriously - can that be true?
Life like bridge is really only fun when you have a good hand dealt to you - otherwise, it kind of sucks. I can perceive both sides of it & depending on who you are playing w/ can make all the difference.
I think I had a pretty good hand dealt to me - not great - but better than most based on what I perceive is out there. A few years ago I started playing my hand differently than I ever did in the past - even though I knew I had a lot of points in my hand. I wasn't happy & I thought there had to be a better way. Some might call it a mid-life crisis. I certainly didn't think of it as a mid-life crisis – I was only in my late thirties - it was more of a mid-thirties awakening to me. It was a Vision Quest of sorts. To prove to myself there was a better way then what I was taught & I believe there is. I’ve proven it to myself.
I'm still not sure I can say I'm really happier now than I was. I’m definitely more at peace. I had been happy plenty of times in the past – since it never lasted how do I actually know I ever really was. Maybe I only thought I was.
I'm actually kind of bored w/ the game life seems to be – maybe that’s b/c I’ve already done everything I really wanted to do. At least now I'm not afraid of anything anymore & that is a big relief. I still have fearful thoughts every now & then but now I know how to dispel them w/o much effort. My mind is more at peace now than it's ever been - I remember what I used to worry about & think about & now I don't think or worry about that stuff. If a thought I don’t like does creep in my mind I just blow it right out.
Life really is a state of mind.
In bridge you know while you’re playing the game that there will be another hand - but w/ life there always seems to be a little bit of doubt, especially if you really don’t like the hand you’re currently playing.
When you lose the doubt - the fear goes w/ it & so does the worry. The truth of it has to be experienced to be believed – but if you don’t believe it’s possible you’re less likely to experience it - the sooner it's believed the sooner it's experienced.
You can always play the hand you’re dealt differently than people tell you - you can play it your own way if you really want to & while that doesn’t always seem to be easy to accept as true - it must be true if there really is a God who cares about the players in this game of life. If there isn’t a God – then nothing really matters. Deciding what God is other than the Cause of everything is always going to be a matter of opinion here. For me – God doesn’t have rules. God just made a game for all of us to play.
I realize it certainly doesn’t always seem that way based on perception alone - you might think you have been dealt a really shitty hand & that might even be true. But there must be a reason & in my mind if you were dealt a shitty hand it’s only b/c you’re the one who can play it. You have to realize that’s true first in order to be able to play it w/o all the pain & suffering that goes along w/ playing a shitty hand. If other people have done it – so can you.
I can always find a way to rationalize why the world is the way it seems - it’s in my best interests to do that in my best interests & that should go for you too.
What I think is best for me is best for me & that's how I always play my hand. I’m always right for me.
What other choice is there really?
To play or not to play is not the question for me.
Only question is - do I want there to be trump or no trump?
