On March 24, the Intro to Bridge house course hosted American professional bridge player Zachary Grossack for a discussion Q&A and house course lesson.
According to Trinity junior Jacqueline Cole, “bridge is a four-player card game where partnerships compete in a bidding and trick-taking game." Grossack is the youngest Grand Life Master, the highest rank awarded by the American Contract Bridge League. He began playing at 9, and, in his 20 years of playing, has won multiple world championships.
The Q&A portion focused on Grossack’s career as a full-time player and coach who did not initially intend to become a professional. He also spoke on the general bridge community and the change it experienced post-COVID.
“Not a lot of people are playing it anymore … I think one of the big reasons is [that] to learn bridge … takes a while to actually learn the actual rules,” Grossack said.
According to an ACBL survey, about 15 million Americans aged 45 and over know how to play bridge, representing around 10% of the roughly 140 million Americans in that age bracket. The league itself reports having about 165,000 members.
Grossack quipped that while the average age of a bridge player just dropped from its historic high, “it is still 74 years old.” In terms of the modern game, a “lot of bridge players come in that are actually … your guys’ age,” he told the audience of students.
Coming straight from a national bridge tournament he played in Memphis, Tennessee, Grossack noted the burgeoning demographic of youth players he noticed. “It was the most young people from Europe [and America] I've ever seen, really ever,” Grossack said.
Several students asked about the future of bridge and how the game has changed over the years, especially over the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, most casual play shifted into online games, which Grossack explained was “not social at all.” He urged that the young players of the game teach their friends and share it with others they know.
Contract bridge, a trick-taking card game, is played on multiple levels from social clubs to regional tournaments all the way to national competitions. Compared to other games like poker, Grossack explained that “one of the reasons a lot of people don't want to get into bridge is that there is not a lot of prize money.”
Due to the game’s reliance on partnership, professional bridge players are hired to serve as partners and coaches in organized tournaments, where they can be paid between $500 and $1,000 per day according to the Observer.
The event was organized by Trinity senior Jacqueline Cole, the instructor for the course, who was introduced to the game at 9 years old while at a local bridge club with her mother. After taking a break during her middle and high school years, she found a keen passion for bridge again at Duke.
Cole ascribed her choice to start a house course to the fact that “bridge is a dying game,” one she wants to help preserve. After initially exploring options to start a bridge club at Duke, she opted to create a house course instead, as the steady attendance and homework were necessary for people to understand the rules, noting it would “require people to learn the basics.”
“Students are excited and coming to office hours and calling me on the weekends. I couldn't have expected that, but it's incredibly gratifying,” Cole said.
The game has many rules and variations that make it difficult to learn quickly. To reach a basic understanding of the game requires an investment of time, and according to Cole, reaching an intermediate level takes several years.
During the lesson portion of the event, Grossack covered the concept of finessing, a strategy meant to “maximize the hand.”
He described bridge as a “skill game” that has some element of luck because of the “percentages that go into” card distribution.
“Bridge is really fun right now … it’s made a very big comeback in the last year,” Grossack said. “There’s this kind of feeling of relief in bridge, and now we want to build it back up again to get people playing.”
A previous version of this story incorrectly described the game of bridge and Cole's introduction to the game. The Chronicle regrets these errors.
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Aviv Stabinsky is a Trinity first-year and a staff reporter for the news department.