[StevenG]

pescetom, on 2026-August-16, 09:28, said:

I think you would be able to sit comfortably two groups of 28 people in that same room, with a dividing screen. A bridge table in line with others occupies a lot of space, 5 square metres is a minimum and uncomfortable too (the room width is also often not a multiple of table space width, as your club noted and partially overcame).

You wouldn't need to seat all those people, because nobody would turn up to play under those conditions.

[pescetom]

StevenG, on 2026-August-16, 09:32, said:

You wouldn't need to seat all those people, because nobody would turn up to play under those conditions.

That's what the old timers at the club told me in 2019, when f2f play was forbidden and I offered to organize tournaments on BBO instead.
50% tried to play the first tournament (after herculean efforts to teach them how to use internet in the first place) and many but not most of those overcame the "peculiarities" of signing up for and actually entering a BBO tournament.
Within a year it was 60% playing twice as many tournaments as before and having a great time, as well as learning how to bid without actually seeing each other ("we don't understand each other any more, can you help?" ).

I don't believe you any more than I believed them then.

[jillybean]

I fear we are getting off track.
I'm beginning to like this idea — a lounge-type setting: the Kiwis and Ozzies could hold the game in a local pub, or on the beach, while the Brits stick to their pubs (minus the beach, of course). Players could sit wherever they like, and with whomever they choose (N/E, S/W).
Something to revamp and make the game attractive is needed — it would certainly attract Juniors.

[pescetom]

The posh rowing circle here has a reading room off the bar: people will walk in with a coffee or beer and read the newspapers or a book or just stare into their phone or admire the lake. Nobody talks. It's a comfortable place to be. That's the kind of atmosphere I am thinking of.


As for juniors, where I am now they have done a phenomenal job of getting bridge into the schools and we encounter several teenage pairs at the evening tournaments. They play cheerfully face to face at tables but their eyes only really light up when they get the hand analysis on their phone. If you offered them to bid and play on the phone instead of with paper cards I bet they would be enthusiastic. And if you gave them the chance to sit near someone their own age they would jump at it