[frank0]

Have you had any experience about your non-bridge friends or family members ask you about this game? What did they ask and what's your answer?

About 2 years ago a group of my friends asked me about this game and it took me about an hour to explain how the bidding works, what's declare/dummy/defender and how the trick is taking. After that I started to explain how to calculate the score like 3♠XX+3 and 5NTX-8 white/red, everybody was confused and no one had ever asked me anything about this game anymore .

[JLOGIC]

I think it's impossible

[Aberlour10]

Its simply impossible to explain the complexity of this game if an absolut "non-player" ask for. For most of them is bridge still a game for distinguished and bored ladies. I usually answer so >>>> You get the system description of this simple social play on single beer mat . For the system of the professional top pairs you need XXX pages:).That's all.

[helene_t]

I try to explain why the game is so fascinating:
- You can play against people with very different skill levels because it is still a challenge for the experts to get good score against intermediate players.
- You need so many skills: partnership trust, empathy, intuition for probabilities, ability to learn information encoding schemes, memory, visualization, logical reasoning.

I try to use terms familiar to the other people as opposed to bridge terminology. For example "raising the stakes" as opposed to "doubling the contract" when talking to gamblers.

[G_R__E_G]

I always start by asking if they've played euchre. Euchre is very popular in my part of the world and I'd say at least 75% of people are relatively familiar with it. Assuming they say yes I then tell them that it's like euchre on steroids.

[kenberg]

Sort of a combination of Helene's and GREG's approach. Mostly people don't ask, but if they do I check to see if "playing a card", "taking a trick", and "trump" have any meaning for them. Sometimes a person knows how to play 500, where bids are made, and that helps.

I think any explanation that goes on for more than a few paragraphs is likely to be be more than they had in mind when they raised the question. But I always feel I can explain to a neighbor what a mathematician does and what a bridge player does. They won't totally get it, but that's ok.

[diana_eva]

I usually start from a known card game, like spades or hearts if I know the people asking are familiar with those. And i skip the bidding completely, just try to get to the trick taking part.

So far I only convinced my son, and only bec he was grounded and bored to death - he would have tried anything

[Zelandakh]

On a general query as to what bridge is: "It's a card game, like whist but more complicated. Lots of fun when you get into it."

If someone wants to learn how to play, first teach them partnership whist if they do not know it already. This gets them used to how trick taking works in a partnership game. Then the bidding. For this I use a short crib sheet that the player can refer to quickly until they get used to things. At this stage I only refer to aiming for games and slams and the general strength requirements for this. The hardest part of teaching the bidding is very often the Milton Work count - those that hate numbers sometimes get turned off at this point. The final thing is the actual scoring itself which basically fills in the gaps without adding very much.

[S2000magic]

I describe the game backwards, and leave out a lot of details. One of the players will lead a card, players have to follow suit in order around the table, the highest card of the suit led wins, and that player leads the next card. That's a simple idea to grasp. Then I'll mention that there could be a trump suit, and that one of the players' hands will be face-up on the table. After that I'd describe the bidding in general terms (you and partner are trying to decide how many tricks you can win, and what suit should be trumps).

I would never try to explain the scoring to a non-bridge-player who asked casually. While it's unquestionably the heart of the game, I think that it adds too much complexity for a beginner. I'll mention the scoring, and that there are opportunities to increase the stakes (those familiar with poker, blackjack, craps, or even backgammon will find that a familiar note), but not explain any of the details.

[y66]

The one thing my wife knows about bridge is that the goal is to take your tricks. If she wants to know more she can ask questions.

[ggwhiz]

A simple question gets a simple answer from me. Let them lead the conversation if they want to know more.

I tell them some very basic stuff on trick taking and partnership and shift quickly into fun stories from tournaments and the hospitality suites. One I've used is to tell them about a local couple that went to 4-5 tournaments per year and never stayed in a hotel thanks to all the friends they made.

When we had our local Regional their house was full of these people and it was a 5 day party. That usually got their attention.

[CSGibson]

I describe the bidding by comparing it to the game show "name that tune" (where contestants will "bid" how many notes they will get to name a specific song, until noone wants to bid lower), and to describe the play, I ask what card games they are familiar with, and then use whatever their answer is as a basis for my comparison. I also mention that everyone is 30 years older than me, and I go into a story about meeting Bill Gates & Warren Buffett (the three of us together were worth over 100 billion dollars at the time, dontcha know....)

[Phil]

 frank0, on 2012-February-28, 01:55, said:

Have you had any experience about your non-bridge friends or family members ask you about this game? What did they ask and what's your answer?

I say, "its like quilting, only.....tougher".

[barmar]

As others have mentioned, I find out if they know other trick-taking games. If they know spades, that's extremely helpful: they know about trumps, and they're familiar with stating how many tricks you expect to take.

I tell them that it's similar, but you get to say "I expect to take N tricks if X is trumps" instead of it always being spades, and much of the complexity of the game comes from this auction. I also tell them about the partnership aspect, which adds a whole other level -- the process of choosing trumps involves coming up with a coding system to share information about your hands, while the opponents are doing the same thing. And when you're defending, you use the cards you play to help partner figure out what you hold, so he can defend better.

That's about all I go into about the mechanics of the game. I then tell them about being able to play against players of wide abilities, and not be totally overwhelmed. I contrast it with a game like tennis -- if one of us were to go up against a tennis champion, we probably wouldn't return a single serve. While I wouldn't expect to win a match against the Nickell team, I'd at least expect a few winning boards and to have fun while being beaten.

[mycroft]

It's like Schmier, only we use the full deck, and the bidding is a lot more complicated. Oh, and you can only trump if you can't follow suit.

What, isn't everybody's family Ukranian?

[BunnyGo]

You have friends who don't play bridge?

[frank0]

 BunnyGo, on 2012-February-28, 14:59, said:

You have friends who don't play bridge?

Most of them

[nigel_k]

I agree with Helene. What makes the game special is the wide variety of different skills you need in order to be successful. No need to get into the mechanics unless they actually want to play the game, and then of course it will take a while.

[mgoetze]

 kenberg, on 2012-February-28, 08:08, said:

But I always feel I can explain to a neighbor what a mathematician does

OK, a topologist is someone who thinks about things such as whether a donut is the same as a football, that's easy enough. But what does an algebraic geometer do? Or a category theorist?

[gwnn]

Run away?