Some usless facts and trivia about bridge! Useful for any pub quiz..

Random & General:

• An early version of the game was played in England as far back as the 16th Century.
• Oliver Cromwell banned all card games during his Protectorate - however after the Restoration and once Charles II was safely on the throne, card games returned!
• There are two kinds of bridge, rubber which is normally played at home for leisure, and duplicate bridge which is used for competitions.
• Mrs Anthony Fly, of Little Rock, Arkansas, filed a petition for divorce, on the grounds that her husband refused to make up a four at bridge.
• However, it could be a mistake to play with your husband or wife, as shown by Myrtle Bennett. In 1929, Myrtle shot and killed her husband over his bidding and play of a hand. Mrs Bennett was later acquitted!
• The Soviet Union tried to replace the kings, queens and jacks of court cards with heroes of the revolution.
• The modern form of contract bridge was invented in the Twenties by American billionaire Harold Vanderbilt, who developed an early scoring system for the game.
• The odds against four players each holding all thirteen cards in a suit are 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301, 559,999 to one - or the same as Posh and Becks being out of the newspapers. Such a deal was first claimed in March 1892, and has been claimed ever since! Maybe winning the lottery isn't so difficult after all.
• In June 1995, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) admitted the World Bridge Federation (WBF) as part of the Olympic movement.

 

Famous bridge players:

Literature

A number of literary heroes played bridge:

• Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg.
• Ian Fleming’s James Bond. For example, in Moonraker, Bond rigs the pack to deal a 34-count to Drax.
• Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Interestingly Christie made a mistake in “Cards on the Table”, where the murder was committed during a bridge game, because she forgot to include “50 for the insult” (for making a doubled/redoubled contract) in the scores.

 

Politics

• Former Chinese leader, Deng Xiao Ping, played bridge several times a week.
• Mahatma Ghandi, not only played bridge, but used the game to illustrate the relationship between kharma (fate) and dharma (the action of man).
• Bridge is popular with UK politicians - every year there is a match between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
• Other famous politician bridge players are: Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

 

Celebrities

• Bridge is played by a good mix of celebrities from Omar Sharif to Susan Hampshire and from Martina Navratilova to the rock band, Radiohead!
• Omar Sharif is quoted as saying that he would, “rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie" and "Acting is my living, bridge is my passion".
• Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft corporation, competed in the North American Mixed Team championship in 2000. He is still a very keen player.
• Past celebrity players include, the Marx Brothers and Telly Savalas.

 

Do you have some useless bridge trivia? If so, please let us know by email.

 

Oliver Cromwell, no doubt telling people not to play cards!