When I grew up, there was always a card deck in the Drawer of Stuff. It was your standard-issue Bicycle deck – and today I’m not even sure which member of the family it originally might have belonged to – but it’s safe to say that it sparked something, early on, that led me to consider cards.

My parents weren’t big card players by any means. They knew their way around Go Fish, Snap, Spider Solitaire and basic Blackjack.   But in spite of this, I was more fascinated by the deck than anyone else in the house.

I’d start out building card houses to surround action figures (with the windows closed, of course, for stability – and occasionally I’d cheat and wet the edge of the card so the tower would stay up).

Later, I tried my hand at basic card tricks between about 12 and 16. Of course, I say “tried” because it turns out that card tricks just don’t seem to be my area – and arthritis since an early age means that my hands just never quite close right for the gaps to be shut, leaving an obvious hole in the trick!

I discovered the wonder of Yu-Gi-Oh! early on. (But online duelling and actual decks much later!) and learned everything that I could about tarot, even with a brief stint doing serious readings for friends and acquaintances as a teenager.

Simply put, it didn’t matter what kind of deck I was holding, the presence of a card deck felt right. Years later, I see this as obvious – but at the time, the card decks were just “there.”

I’d acquire more card decks as time went on: Another Bicycle deck, another Holy Grail Tarot Set. The frequency of which I’d take out the card decks increased. Cards became an increasing theme in my life from here, as I moved through townships and saw games Cassino played until the fires went cold – once or twice, I was tempted by fancy men in suits and hats for three-card-monte, but never took the bait.

Then, as a writer and journalist some time later, I discovered bridge. 

I was taking a break between episodes of “The Mentalist”, a copy of Jeffery Deaver’s novel “The Stone Monkey” and my own deadlines when I found Great Bridge Links – and a link to a bridge game on MSN, powered by Bridge Base.

Everything changed.

I felt like I had never seen a card game that had so much depth – and that felt like a cross-over between a trading card game and chess played with cards.

From there, it’s safe to say that I jumped straight into it.

Within the next few days, I absorbed every bridge resource, article and book that I could find. (And realized that I’d played bridge a few times before, as a child, on Windows 95 – but can’t for the life of me remember what the software was called.)

Small familiarities of the game would come back the more deals I played. The next week saw me staying up an hour later every night, armed with cigarettes and coffee, playing just a little more bridge every time.

My partner, of course, was right when she had suggested the following over coffee: “Why don’t you write something about bridge?”

It seemed like the most natural thing to do. And I’ve never looked back.

A few pitch e-mails were sent out, and one of my first-ever articles on cards got published not long after this.

Since then, bridge has put me in touch with a lot of great people – and certainly helped with everything from chronic depression through to improving lateral thinking. I’ve also, thankfully, improved since that first week playing bridge.

Of course, this is also why I have since recommended bridge to many people, as a way to learn how to think differently – and as a way to cope with conditions like depression.