There was a time when the North American Bridge Championships, coming to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre next week, would have been covered in detail in this newspaper. You would have known the names of the champions and the contenders. You might even have followed every hand.Today, if you think of it at all, you probably imagine a fluorescent-lit cavern stuffed with grandmothers. You wouldn’t be too far off. Most of the 5,000 players who will attend the tournament are seniors. My wife and I, who are in our 30s, will be among the youngest competitors, perfectly content to spend 10 summer days playing cards in a frigid conference hall. We wouldn’t miss it.The drama of the event, the insights, the stakes, both financial and less worldly, the frustrating failures of communication, the moments of miraculous connection, the fiery arguments and looming suspicions, the rare joys of the game — these might surprise those on the outside of the difficult and wonderful world of bridge.My love affair with the game began about two years ago, with an appropriately antique instigation. My wife, Ivy, took an interest while reading Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel The House of Mirth, in which an early version of the game leads the beautiful socialite Lily Bart to squander a fortune.If time is money, we have followed suit. For Ivy and me, small talk is increasingly bridge talk. Hardly an hour goes by without my considering, for instance, whether under certain circumstances it would be better to finesse a king or take my tricks and run.As young players, we are an anomaly, but it wasn’t always so. The world’s greatest card game was not always the exclusive and esoteric domain of the retired. For many decades, it was a near-universal pastime.Contract bridge was derived from auction bridge, Lily Bart’s vice, which itself came from the popular 18th-century English card game whist. The current form of the game was invented in 1925 by the Am ...
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