No Trick; Bridge Is for Kids

Long a favorite of the, ah, mature crowd, bridge is gaining popularity with younger players who have gotten hooked on the card game through the Internet.

The change is evident at this week’s North American Bridge Championships, expected to draw 8,000 players from all over the world to the Anaheim Marriott for nearly 15,000 games of contract bridge.

The competition is for honor, not money, and for star-gazing. Two celebrity players--Warren Buffett and Bill Gates--are rumored to be swinging in Sunday to play a round.

The Internet has “changed bridge considerably,” said Michael Calhoun, spokesman for the American Contract Bridge League, which is sponsoring the tournament, the biggest of its kind. Young people logging on to sites like e-bridgemaster.com or okbridge.com are playing against each other or the computer, Calhoun said.

They have skewed the median age at bridge tournaments, Calhoun said. It used to be 60; now it is 40. While most of the four-person tables are still occupied by the older set, a quick survey Friday found at least one younger player in about every third group.

One of the attractions this year is Meredith Beck, a 14-year-old from Pearland, Texas, who is about to score enough points to become a Bronze Life Master, an honor generally attained only after years of successful bridge play. Calhoun said it generally takes five years to reach the rank of Life Master, the term for a person who has racked up at least 300 points over years of bridge playing. (The average game gives a player a fraction of a point.)

A few of the younger players said their presence creates some tension, occasionally drawing stern looks and even scolding.

“We’re always in the spotlight,” said Charles Halasi, 17, a Life Master from Toronto. “The older people sometimes think they’re better just because they’re older.”

Some of them, though, welcome the youth contingent.

“It’s better to learn bridge when you’re young,” said Petra Hamman, a 50-something champ from Dallas.

Some older players are going online to get extra practice on the Web; Gates and Buffett reportedly log on from Seattle and New York, respectively, for a few rounds every so often.

Others have elected to yield to the youngsters.

Pat Nagel, an 80-something retired Irvine lawyer, was a big-time bridge player in the 1960s and ‘70s. He took a few years off for other interests, but his heart pulled him to Anaheim, where he sat Friday next to Petra’s husband, Bob Hamman, 62, currently the top-ranked player in the world.

Occasionally, Nagel would bring a glass of water for Hamman and shake his head over Hamman’s maneuvering, but otherwise he was there as a spectator only.

“I’d walk a thousand miles to watch a great bridge player play,” Nagel said. “It’s like watching Pete Sampras play tennis or Tiger play golf.”

Nagel said he won’t be joining the ranks of Hamman again.

“I can’t compete against the younger players,” Nagel said with a sigh. “I guess it’s attrition. They have all these fancy computers, and mine’s circa 1400.”