The Bridge World

Response to a Review

by Maureen Hiron

To the Editor:
   I was saddened by the damning indictment given to my game aBRIDGEd in a review in the April 2007 issue of The Bridge World. It would appear that the reviewer is not aware of what is happening with bridge, or, if he is, is content with the status quo. But perhaps other Bridge World readers are not, and, like me, wish that this wonderful game of bridge would once again be enjoyed by the wide audience, encompassing all age groups, that it once commanded. Especially as research has shown that the playing of bridge has positive advantages at both ends of the age spectrum; at one end, it helps delay the onset of Alzheimers; and at the other, the logical thought processes developed have an advantageous crossover into academic disciplines.
   I was informed, by the then-Chairman of the Selectors for the English Bridge Union (EBU), that the EBU were seriously considering commercially marketing the Mini bridge game, which was being used in the U.K. in a schools’ programme, and he suggested that I took a look at this game. Mini bridge is also being used both by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) for its Youth programme, and by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for their Schools initiative. I was pleased to see that the driving engine of Mini bridge was the point-count, a method I employed back in the early 1970’s when I taught bridge at a youth club. But I also saw the faults, one of which was that it went too far, requiring players to remember too many rules. As for commercialising it into a product that would sell off the shop shelf, for people to discover the game for themselves without needing to rely on the goodwill of others to teach it to them, sorry, that was a non-starter. Because Mini bridge uses the standard pack of playing cards and no games company would sink money into the development of a product based on that for the only unique thing that you are selling is the rules, which makes the game too easy to rip off.    Although the review does not come right out and say it, one of its implications is that I am not an experienced teacher. It also make other assertions, in its final paragraph, that are false. I will be getting to those. Allow me to tell you something of myself. Yes I am an experienced teacher, formerly the head of a department of a tough, large London inner-city state school, where I taught the 11-19 age range. Unfortunately, part of that school fell on my head! This caused brain damage, and I was pensioned off from teaching at the ripe old age of 32. However, I had already become a reasonably proficient bridge player, having played on the Women’s teams of both Great Britain and England. I continued to play bridge, and the medical opinion was that this was the main factor in penetrating the fog that clouded my damaged brain. My doctors and I reckoned that I owed my recovery to bridge, which made me determined to do whatever I could to introduce others to this great game. Some years passed. Then, in a blinding flash of inspiration, I invented my first game, Continuo. I formed a company to manufacture and market it; 2007 is its 25th anniversary. Nearly six million sets have now been sold, in over 40 countries. But Continuo was just the beginning. I have now had over 50 games published around the world, in a similar number of countries. No longer does my company produce these games itself but instead licenses them to other reputable companies. Several of my other games have now passed the million mark for sets sold. I also write six bridge columns per week for a British national daily newspaper. I can state categorically, that of the world’s top 100 professional games inventors (of card|board|dice games--not computer games; they are a totally different market), I am the best bridge player; therefore, I was uniquely positioned to come up with the right game to lead people to bridge.
   What most incensed me about the review was: "It seems an inescapable conclusion that normal cards were eschewed to have something to sell beyond the rules. This feature is so negative that if you want to stop reading, you are excused." WOW! The reason I am a successful games inventor is that I know--I have to know--what to include in a game for it to sell. Of course I had to create a unique pack of cards, as I’ve already mentioned; no games company would consider licensing the game otherwise. Is the objection the commercial aspect? That somebody will make money from the game? Do the manufacturers of regular packs of playing cards supply them for free? Or the manufacturers of bridge equipment? Do people produce The Bridge World out of the kindness of their hearts, or is there a monetary consideration? We bridge players are totally familiar with the standard card pack. But it is not user-friendly. My father taught me to play card games, not bridge, I came to that much later, when I was very young. Whereas I had no problem with the names of the red suits, I had to repeat to myself "clubs are the curly ones." My p.a., Caron Badkin, a brilliant player of strategy games who often beats me at skill games that I have invented (there’s an admission!) was not brought up in a card-playing environment. Even now, when preparing my bridge articles for syndication, she still makes the odd mistake when converting clubs and spades from my codes. There are still those who consider playing cards to be "tools of the devil."
   I was horrified at the World Bridge Championships held last year [2006] in Verona when, at the Press Conference given by Bill Gates, Sharon Osberg told me that so far only 10 schools had taken up the generous offer made by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Back in my school-teaching days, I ran the London Schools’ Bridge League, which consisted of 100 (curiously, an exact 100) teams. That number has now dwindled to six. I was also shocked to be told that the average age of ACBL members is 68. (By the way, not only does the World Bridge Federation endorse aBRIDGEd, so does the American Contract Bridge League.) This is the official endorsement of the presiding ACBL President Harriette Buckman, when aBRIDGEd was first unveiled in Verona: "A brilliant pre-bridge game that could only have been invented by a bridge player. The family will love it." Harriette investigated aBRIDGEd thoroughly in Verona, twice even giving up the opportunity to play in her team to do so in two consecutive sessions.
   A close friend comes over from the USA most years to assist me on cruises. She began playing bridge 30-plus years ago. Then, she was the youngest in her bridge club. Today, she still is. Bridge appears to be the victim of its own success. The sophistication of modern bidding methods has made the learning curve too steep; a turn-off for the young, given the alternative, easier attractions clamouring for their attention. The card pack that I devised is user-friendly and self-explanatory. No memorising is involved. The "suits" are designated by four colours, and I do believe that almost everybody above the age of five knows the names of those colours. And the court cards are replaced by cards of their exact bridge value. Which means that there is no need to memorise their order of jack, queen, king, ace. Nor the values given to those cards, as they are already on the cards. To count your points, just add the right-hand figures of the double numbers. And to help the mathematically challenged and the very young, the equivalent number of pips are under the card number. This is the feature of the design-registered card pack that makes aBRIDGEd so easy to start playing. These days, in order to entice most people to give a new game a try, the rules must be simple, easily assimilated, and there must be a minimum of things to remember.
   Bridge is not a simple game, and by that same token, neither is aBRIDGEd. ABRIDGEd is not for bridge players; they play bridge. But people can come to aBRIDGEd and through aBRIDGEd to Bridge simply by purchasing a set of aBRIDGEd at a store and within 15 minutes of opening the box, they will be engrossed in the game. No brainstrain is involved; players only have to memorise two things, and those two things are the numbers 7 and 10. For each player has a Quick Reference Chart, which gives the step-by-step progression.
   In the review, I fail to understand the sentence, "The scoring is simpler than giving each player a chart makes it appear, but it is not simplistic." The scoring chart is on the back of each player’s Quick Reference Chart. All that players need to do is note how many tricks they made, identify which of the three clearly-marked declaration lines refers to their contract, then enter the score on their personal score sheet. It really is a very simple process. No arithmetic is required, and every possible score that can be achieved is covered. Nobody that I watched playing aBRIDGEd had the slightest problem with this. Nor is there any reason for players to know why I have chosen these scoring sequences, but I will tell you that they relate directly to bridge, but with two exceptions.
1. I have done away with the extraneous zero.
2. I have adopted the triangle method for penalising failure to make a contract in Round 1, the "Play or Pass" round. This deters players from calling "Play" with a totally unsuitable hand, just so that they can get to be declarer.
   To my shame, I admit to missing one point in aBRIDGEd, and that was failing to appreciate just how good the game was for three players. It took a bridge teacher, Pat Harrington, to point this out to Out of the Box Publishing Inc., and I intend amending the rules to incorporate this.
   Having invented the game and designed the card pack, the next step was to find a major games company to take it on. This I knew would be tricky. I first set up meetings with each of the Heads of Product Selection of the world’s three largest games companies, and from each I received the response I expected: We principally look for games for three to eight players, ages eight-up, not games for exactly four players. I knew this to be the case, as I have licensed games to all of these companies, but I felt that, for the sake of bridge, I should at least give it a shot. And, I did not wish to sour my relationships with them by not offering them aBRIDGEd. But I already had one company in mind, America’s fastest-growing games company, Out of The Box Publishing, Inc. (OTB) Their lead game, Apples to Apples, won the 2005 Target Game of the Year Award, and they had already licensed some of my other games. The directors of Out of the Box are a vibrant bunch of games enthusiasts, but I knew that none of them played bridge. However, OTB is a company with a social conscience. They state in their catalogue: "A good game will expand thinking beyond the enjoyment of a theme, or a game play experience." So I approached them with aBRIDGEd, and they were interested, and puzzled as to why neither they nor any of their contemporary friends played bridge, especially as they all seemed to have older relatives who were enthusiastic bridge aficionados. The upshot was that they took on the licence for aBRIDGEd and along with it my concerns for the future of bridge, being aware of the amount of pleasure bridge gave to their relatives.
   ABRIDGEd was given a low-key launch at the 2006 American Toy Fair yet became the talk of the show in the games section. A buyer for a games store, who is also a tournament director, was naturally curious when he saw aBRIDGEd on display. When it was explained to him his reaction was, "WOW! That’s wonderful! No more of those crazy conventions!"
   The review states: "It is approved by the World Bridge Federation, but do consider carefully before giving it to a potential bridge player." True, it does not actually say "Don’t" but the continuation implies it. During the 2005 European Open Championships held in Tenerife, I set up a meeting with Jose Damiani. I showed him aBRIDGEd, albeit in prototype format, and he read the rules. I explained that I had already licensed aBRIDGEd to a top quality American games company, and sublicences for other countries were already under negotiation. Jose asked, "What do you want from the WBF?" I replied, "Nothing." Jose continued, "Then why are you showing me this? You’ve done everything!" My reply was, "As President of the World Bridge Federation, I felt that you ought to be aware of it." I was well aware that he too was concerned about the dwindling numbers of younger people who were taking up bridge, and I knew that the WBF had instituted some initiatives to try to reverse this trend. Jose congratulated me on my achievement, then asked if I would consider putting the WBF logo on the aBRIDGEd box. This I could not agree to do until I had referred back to Out of the Box. The review does not say so, but reading between the lines, somehow I gain the impression that the reviewer thinks that there was a financial consideration for the use of the WBF logo. I can categorically state that this was not so. However, at the end of my meeting with Jose I surprised him further by telling him that I intended giving half of my company’s licensing fees for aBRIDGEd to the WBF, for the promotion of Junior bridge. If Jose had not offered the support and encouragement that he did at that meeting, I would not have made this offer, but instead reserved these funds and administered them myself for the same purpose. In fact, we had to weigh up carefully the pros and cons of using the WBF logo. Bridge had acquired a serious image problem. My own newspaper, The Independent, wrote a five-page feature piece at the end of November last on aBRIDGEd. (I do believe that this was the largest article ever devoted to one game by a national daily.) I had no involvement with the article. Four people "all complete bridge novices" tested it; two journalists, a barrister, and a PR man. In spite of it being a crushing victory for the barrister and one of the journalists, all four enjoyed the evening. Rather a damning indictment for bridge was the PR man’s comments prior to the start of play. "I always thought I would ask someone to shoot me if they ever caught me playing bridge."
   ABRIDGEd has one advantage over bridge. As the review admits, "Except that dummy is spread before the lead, play is as in bridge." This means that only two skills need to be acquired: declarer-play and defence, not three. So that those with busy lives can concentrate on establishing their careers and raising their families yet still enjoy the mental challenge and stimulation without resort to the massive, ever-changing learning curve of the bidding. Then, perhaps at a later time in their lives, they can take the final step to bridge itself. Learning to bid then would be so much more insightful, as it relates to the card play at which they had already gained proficiency. I know some very intelligent folk of my generation who were so bitten by the bridge bug, that they dropped out of university, so ending promising careers before they had even begun.
   The review's final paragraph is so error-ridden that you must excuse me for wondering if there could be an underlying reason for rubbishing aBRIDGEd so comprehensively. The first two sentences are accurate. Then comes, "Unfortunately, someone familiar with aBRIDGEd would need to unlearn much and reverse developing thought patterns to switch to bridge." Wrong. There is nothing to unlearn and no developing thought patterns to reverse. As it says in the previous sentence, "To the extent that this product uses bridge mechanics, it furthers that goal (of developing new players through simpler games)." It continues: "I fear that the effect of this game on bridge education will be negative, and that would be true, to a lesser extent, even if normal cards were used." Really? So the WBF, ACBL, Messrs. Gates and Buffett, and all the other National Bridge Organizations teaching Mini-bridge as the stepping-stone to bridge have all got it wrong, according to the reviewer.
   "Experienced teachers know that it is enormously harder for a student to unlearn something than learn it for the first time." Unlearn what? It has been stated that aBRIDGEd uses bridge mechanics. Obviously it must mean the cards. It takes a very low opinion of the intelligence of prospective bridge players to believe that they will be unable to translate 14, 13, 12, 11 into ace, king, queen and jack, and ascribe to those cards the valuations 4,3,2,1 after they have been playing aBRIDGEd for some while and feel that the time is ripe to make the switch to bridge. The review mentions "experienced teachers." I am a trained and experienced teacher and not just of bridge. Although there is much demand on my time, I make a point of keeping my teaching skills honed by teaching bridge on at least one cruise each year. These are not bridge cruises as such, but bridge is on offer to those wishing to avail themselves of the facility. On "sea days," I schedule 1.5 hours for beginners in the mornings, followed by "Advanced Bridge" for half to three-quarters of an hour. After lunch I run "Bridge Club," which tends to be a pairs duplicate of 14 to 16 boards. For the past two years, I taught aBRIDGEd to the beginners. On Day 1, after just ten minutes chat from me, they were all playing enthusiastically. Day 2 saw my first lecture on card play. It was assimilated, then the class played again. At the end of their allotted time, when the "Advanced" group drifted in, the majority of the beginners simply would not budge. The advanced group had to squash around two tables and the flip chart. In the past, after Lesson 2, which is when I begin teaching, as opposed to just explaining the mechanics, there is a fall-out from those who find that getting to grips with bridge is no breeze. With aBRIDGEd there was a fall-out of just one. Then word got around about this new game, and the beginners’ class grew. I then discovered another advantage of aBRIDGEd: It was far easier to assimilate newcomers than with bridge. Then some of the beginners asked if they could come and play amongst themselves in the afternoons, during Bridge Club. They did so, and of course were quick to realise that what they were doing was rather different to the duplicate in progress. The bridge club players were quite happy to have a beginner sitting in with them, and they explained what they were up to. Of course, by this time the players were also intrigued to learn about "this new bridge game" and began turning up to the Beginners’ classes. Interestingly, the players had more problems initially in using the aBRIDGEd cards than the beginners had in making the transition to the ‘regular’ cards. When this pattern was repeated the following year, I knew that in aBRIDGEd I had found the solution to bringing back bridge.
   The last sentence of the review's final paragraph proves that the reviewer has not even begun to grasp the concept behind aBRIDGEd. The reason for my inventing aBRIDGEd was to provide a game that is fascinating and challenging in its own right, not a game that is added to until bridge is reached. The transition to bridge will be made at a time when people’s level of expertise and their lifestyle makes them want to take that final step and embrace bridge, the greatest of all card games.
   Out of the Box Publishing, Inc. have spent considerable sums of money on the preparation and production of aBRIDGEd, as have I. I had a motive, my love of bridge, how it gave me my life back, and my desire not to see such a wonderful game, if not die, but be sidelined as a niche game, played solely by the elderly. OTB had no such motive. It was quite a kick in the teeth for them when they read your review. The last thing they expected was brickbats from the bridge media. Bridge constantly seeks sponsorship. But sponsors lose interest when they see little return. How much quicker will that interest wane when that return is negative and hostile.
   I note that the review does not pick up on an omission in the rules, which is that no hints on card play or hand evaluation are given. I included this in my original draft, but of necessity these hints had to be brief, and the OTB folk found them puzzling. (Remember, they are non-bridge-players, so if they had problems, that would be replicated.) The decision was made to leave these out entirely, and I was asked to put them into a book instead. Play aBRIDGEd the Expert Way is already two-thirds finished. And, yes, I am experienced in this area too. My main publisher is Penguin, and one of my books reached the heady heights of No.2 in the British Bestsellers list.
   Might I enquire as to what steps The Bridge World is taking to arrest the decline of bridge? Or is it content just to let it continue, even helping it on its way, by rubbishing the efforts of those who do care? You should publish this letter in full if you have the interests of bridge at heart. But having read and reread your review, I suspect that you will not do so. For the sake of the future of bridge, I hope that I will be proved wrong.