The Infamous Junior Bridge Reception

The beautiful weather here in Nashville promised that today would be great, and it was with only one exception. We won our final in the 9AM special by about 50IMPs, and got our copies of Harry Potter 7 no hastle this afternoon. We've been reading them pretty much non stop, with the exception of some hilarious duplicate pass-left teams with some juniors between sessions (which, for the uninitiated, is a ridiculous bridge variant where you bid while looking at your lefty handed opponent's cards and then pass that hand and get your actual hand from RHO). Stanford with Zombie-Eric seems to be surviving in the collegiates, which is good for our guilt, and we got a free dinner.

The free dinner, which was at the Junior reception, unfortunately came with a junior bridge speech. I'm not writing about this to make fun of it - the comedy of it speaks for itself - but to make a point about the ACBL. But first the facts: the CEO of the ACBL said a few feel good words and said we could talk to him about things that were on our mind. Then the director of goodwill (juniors now fall under goodwill?) basically embarrassed herself to the point of complete absurdity as she tried to recognize people who were there. She once gave up how to pronounce Eric's Mayefsky's name, and later forgot he wasn't there and called him Mathusky; she reintroduced herself to people she already knew; read off Ross from Queen's college name as "Rose;" she told Elena, as best as I can remember it, "A-LAY-na Gre-WALL, son, get married soon as you can and change your name." To boot, none of the new members of the "junior bridge corps" were there, so that was just one awkward pause among many. Basically, except for seeing my friends and meeting a couple new people, it was a disaster.

Now this is all very excusable: she was a nice old lady, and she was trying very hard. But what put me on tilt, what worries me deeply about the future were the few things she and the CEO actually said in their speeches. At one point, she commented on the "diversity" of junior bridge, that we have college students and pre-teens together in one room. She optimistically spoke us as the "future of the game," and thanked the many ACBL officials involved in putting this event together, and was happy how good the attendance (about 35) was at the event. On the whole, it was neutral, self-congratulatory, and general.

Problem 1: The ACBL's complete lumping of what it means to be a bridge junior. Obviously, if you hold a reception for any bridge player under 28 (goodbye, 26), there will be the exact range of ages you defined will be in attendance! I'm not dying to meet fellow 10 years olds, no matter how excellent at bridge they may be. Yes, I do believe we're all in this together, and having a reception for all ages is fine, but this is why bridgeiscool.com is designed like an MTV commercial. The ACBL needs a major wakeup call to understand what sort of events and program should be targeted to which ages. I was never at junior camp, but I was lead to believe it was shut down so that the ACBL didn't have to deal with liability of high schoolers partying. Well, what do you think college students are going to do?

Problem 2: 35 people in attendance is terrible, considering at least 18 (college teams + GNT) of them are being paid by the ACBL to be there, and at least 4 or 5 are already pros. The game is in trouble, let's talk like it's in trouble. I'm very optimistic about bridge in the future, because it's a sweet game and so many of my non-game playing friends got into it, but if the ACBL is going to survive it needs people who understand why people born after 1970 play bridge. It's not that complicated: they played because everyone else played, and we play in part because everyone else doesn't. Ok ok, I play bridge for a million other reasons, but the ACBL needs to stop assuming every middle schooler who learns about the game is going to play it.

Problem 3: We know we're the future of the game, already, so actually make us in charge of junior events and ask us how to use the money. Maybe this is already happening at some level, but if so, not enough. I admit this is actually very hard for them, since junior bridge players are usually looking for full-time jobs and the ACBL management is mostly retired. But when someone who is told to keep us straight gets up there and makes some vaguely optimistic speech about what will happen to bridge in the future, we both know they don't *really* have any stake in who is playing bridge in 30 years, and we do.

What's the solution? There's obviously no quick fix, but we need to start by moving away from having a fleet of 60-year olds micromanage us. Only the truly obsessed are willing to put up with it, and even they aren't really happy with how things are run. So I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow, at the 11AM meeting in the board of governers meeting, we actually get something done. I'm going to the 10AM also - Please come!