chess

What with all this talk of retraining obsolescent chess players, I feel this is a good moment to report on my recent trip to something called the Macallan International Bridge Pairs, at the White House Hotel in London.

Bridge, I discovered, is a card game quite popular with people who find chess too difficult or those want to sit close to Omar Sharif. Though both games involve a fair measure of thinking, there are several important differences worth pointing out for the benefit of anyone thinking of changing from one to the other.

Firstly, and most seriously, bridge is a team game. That means that players may be more friendly with their opponents because they seem to spend a good deal of their energies arguing with their partners.

Secondly, there is an absurd rule in bridge that does not permit any player to see the cards of the others. Because of this, they have to indulge in a curious bidding ritual at the start of each game, when they try to convey information about the cards they hold. Why they don't simply work out a signalling system - holding up fingers and scratching different portions of the anatomy perhaps - is quite beyond me. They could even get friendly spectators, who are far better dressed than chess spectators, incidentally, to look at the hands of their opponents for them.

Missing this obvious ruse, they often confuse each other, particularly with so-called "psychic" bids, which convey disinformation. Curiously, such bids seem to be made only by the best players, when it should be obvious to all that a psychic bid must be a good thing because it confuses two opponents but only one ally.

The one good thing about bridge, though, is that it is ideally designed for the commentators. Seeing all four hands from the start, they need not hedge their bets the way chess commentators have to. Omniscience is a wonderful thing in a game of imperfect information.

All the same, it's not to be recommended to any self-respecting chess player, obsolescent ot not.