Here’s a question to intrigue, interest, and simultaneously horrify every single bridge player who ever reads it:

Is bridge alive?

Don’t panic. Bridge is alive and well, and there are thousands of partnerships and solitary players who are playing our favourite game right now.

The fact that you are reading this and that we are all here means that bridge is alive and presumed kicking. Head to the main home page of BBO if you would like to know just how many people are online right now, or scroll to the bottom of the BBO Forum to see active users.

That’s a lot of people no matter when you check it.

Yet the question about bridge and its livelihood comes back more often than malaria. (That is, approximately once a year…)

There are more bridge players in the world every day, but the question of Is bridge alive? makes it to almost more newspapers and blogs than I can care to count.

Whenever an editor isn’t sure what to print (or the news day has been slower than Tuesday), I bet they turn to their sub and contemplate. “Hey, if we’re not going to run the kitten meme on page two, I’ve got something. How about we ask if bridge is still alive?”

Why Ask?

We know that bridge is alive and well.

Why are we still asking whether or not the game has a pulse?

The question as I see it might be an important one, but not to people who already play bridge.

Most magazine or newspaper readers who are not bridge players will either know someone who plays, or remember someone who played. A grandmother, a friend, a colleague at work, or the goth kid back in college.

When newspapers and publications ask about the livelihood of bridge, it’s a question that gets asked to jog memories and run ideas. It’s not meant to be aimed at bridge players, but instead at people who just might have memories about a game they haven’t thought about in a while.

While we all know that bridge is alive, there are thousands of non-bridge players out there who don’t! Asking the question (or pointing to articles that have asked before them), might be helpful instead of harmful to the game.

5 Articles That Asked

Want to point a non-bridge player to the pulse of bridge?

Here are 5 articles that asked, and an invitation to BBO from the writer of Prime. Bridge is great, and you should be telling your friends!

1: “Is bridge a dying game? Card fans hope not” – September 2010, South Coast Today

2: “Is contract bridge still alive?”– March 2017, Board Game Geek

3: “Is bridge dying? A second look at the health of our game” – December 2018, BridgeWinners

4: “Is bridge still a popular game, or is it dying out?” – 2018/19, Quora

5: “Is bridge dying out?” – May 2019, Reddit