This is not your grandmother’s card game.
Well, technically it is. But the 4,000 bridge players convened in Denver this week think Granny was onto something.
Players from every state, from almost 30 countries and ranging in age from 8 to more than 90 gathered at the Adam’s Mark hotel for the Fall North American Bridge Championships.
The tourney began Thursday and runs until Sunday.
There are bridge games for beginners, bridge games for experts, seminars on bridge – even a daily newspaper.
“We play for the love of it,” said Linda Granell with the American Contract Bridge League. “People have tried to organize a money game … but it just didn’t work.”
How passionate are bridge players? A league survey found that players would prefer a game to fire or nourishment if trapped on a desert island.
Some of the best players in the world are facing off each day.
“That’s the best part about this,” said Kristi Endelicato. On Saturday, Endelicato found herself at a table with Zia Mahmood. Be impressed. Mahmood is a Grand Life Master.
“It’s like playing golf with Tiger Woods,” Endelicato said.
While most bridge players tout the game’s social aspects, intensity is palpable.
When tournament play started Sunday, the ballroom went silent as 1,000 players focused on their cards.
“More often than not,” said Fred Gitelman, one of the nation’s top players, “a hand is lost rather than won. Every hand, there are so many opportunities to make a mental error, and it is the player who minimizes those mistakes who wins.”
Even among the recreational players, the competition is intense.
“I don’t think there are too many people here who aren’t competitive when it comes down to it,” said 27-year-old New Yorker Daniel Wilderman.
“It’s not good for meeting young girls,” he said.
But don’t tell that to Cal Newlin, 61. Now one of Denver’s finest players, he said three women asked him to play a hand in 1966.
“If they hadn’t been short a fourth, I might never have learned bridge,” he said.
Bridge, said Endelicato, also a Denver resident, “offers the opportunity to be brilliant.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 720-929-0893 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
