Bridge club holds contract bridge tournament

Bridge is a card game that was first invented and played during the sixteenth century in Britain and was introduced to the United States in the 1890s. The game’s rules have gone through many changes that were often made by its own players. However, many Jefferson students are not familiar with Bridge.

Harry Xiao, Staff Writer
April 27, 2022

Jefferson’s bridge club hosted a contract bridge game tournament on Friday, April 22 that was open to players of all levels.

Contract bridge is a social and strategic card game that uses a standard 52-card deck. There are two teams of two players with players of the same team sitting opposite each other. The south player deals a card first and the other players must then all deal a card from the same suit (spades, heart, diamonds, clubs). Whichever player deals the highest card wins the round or “trick”.

“Bridge tournaments are fun because you get to meet so many new people and I like seeing both kids and college students playing at the same tournaments,” senior Eli Lang said.

In casual bridge games, players are dealt different hands (random set of cards), which may result in one player getting more lucky. However, in a tournament setting, there is no luck because you are scored on how you do on a certain hand compared to other people.

“Everyone gets the same cards and everyone gets to play with those same cards, so players will get the same bad or good hands,” Lang said. “It’s really just who can play that bad hand better or who can play that good hand better,”

At this tournament, the winning pair of the tournament was Lang and his partner, senior Zander Kuebler. Both students have been playing bridge for multiple years and have participated in tournaments prior to this one, unlike many of the other players at the tournament.

“Zander and I are really the only two people in the school that we know of that are kind of serious about bridge,” Lang said. “We have a convention card and we used to play a lot outside of school, but recently we’ve both been busy.”

At the tournament, members of the Arlington Contract Bridge League (ACBL) judged the players of the tournament. Lang and Kuebler were the winners of the tournament and were awarded master points, which is a rating system to show how good someone is at bridge.

“If you win a lower level tournament, you might get half masterpoint while in high level tournaments you might get up to 50,” Lang said. “Master points are cumulative, so the longer you play, the more master points you can have. I personally have a little over five master points.”

There were also elderly volunteers that came to help with the tournament. They talked to the players about the game and their experiences with it.

“I guess you could say we became ‘friends’ with them even though they’re much wiser and older than us,” Lang said. “But they had so much to say about bridge and they were fun people to be around.”

Overall, the tournament was a great experience for the participants, as they had fun competing with each other using new strategies and improving their bridge skills.

“It’s not really winning that I am happy about,” Lang said. “It’s getting to play with other people and seeing that there are other [Jefferson] kids that are interested in playing and learning this terrific game that makes it fun.”