Hello, my name is Stephen Loat, I am 28 years old, and I live in London, although I am originally from the small town of Llandrindod Wells, in Wales. Recently, I fell in love with Bridge again, thanks, in no small part, to the app Tricky Bridge. But before I get into that, I want to take you back to where it all began.
The Junior Years
My bridge journey starts, like many others, at home. Both my parents were Bridge players (my father, in particular, being the keenest) and from a young age I had nagged them both to teach me. I was told I had to wait until I was old enough to stay up late enough to go to Bridge Club and so I waited. When I was around 12 years old, I was finally able to get properly stuck into the game and was going along to our local Bridge Club in Rhayader just a couple of months after getting taught the fundamentals at home.
I was lucky in that the Welsh Bridge Union’s President at the time, Neville Richards, attended Rhayader Bridge Club, so I was on the WBU’s radar as soon as I walked through those community centre doors. Fast forward a year or two (I can’t quite remember the date in all honesty) and I recall my dad informing me that I had been invited to a training weekend as part of a newly revitalised Welsh Junior Bridge Programme. I was pleased at the time but I had little idea of exactly what I was getting into. What followed were some of the most amazing, fun, and transformative experiences I had in my teenage years, during which I made friends that I am still in touch with today. The photo above is the Wales Junior Camrose team from 2019.
Whilst I am truly grateful for those experiences, like with all good things, they must come to an end. I played my last tournament, the Junior Camrose, in 2022, and was in and out of the Bridge scene sporadically after that.
Part of the reason I didn’t stick with it after I left the Junior system is that the transition from Junior Bridge to traditional club culture is often not talked about enough. Once you’ve experienced the joy and wonder of the Junior scene, the traditional club scene, for various reasons, just doesn’t quite hit the same. But that’s for another blog, perhaps. For now, I’d like to talk about how I got my Bridge spark back.
Getting my Bridge spark back
For the last 6 months, I have been volunteering with the EBU to help with social media strategy and posting. It was through this role that I started to do some research on the different options out there for learning the game. I came across an app called Tricky Bridge, created by ForkLift Studios with support from the ACBL Educational Foundation.
Intrigued, and keen to test how good it was, I downloaded the app and told it I was a complete beginner. After launching the app, I was immediately taken aback by how sleek and impressive the app looked and felt. The graphics were modern, the mix of lessons, daily tournaments, or just playing through hands, was great, and the clever rewards system got me hooked from the very start. The lesson structure is very well thought out, making it a great choice for new players to the game.
You can only play with robots, so those looking for social interaction will be disappointed, but I found this to be very helpful in many ways. By removing the need to match with real players with as much differentiation in skill as there is in internet connection, I could play at the pace I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I could jump in and out of games whenever I liked. This, combined with the ease with which I could simply open up the app on a lunch break, or on the tube, meant I constantly found myself gravitating toward it when I had some free time on my hands.
Whilst I could go into more detail about how I think Tricky Bridge got me so hooked, what it fundamentally did was remind me just why I love this game in the first place. It was a reminder that, behind all the highs I felt in the Junior scene, was a real appreciation of the game that got me there.
I soon found the thought of “have I done the daily tournament today?” regularly popping into my head and began telling anyone who showed any interest in the game about how much I enjoyed the app. In a testament to how good it is at bringing new players to the table, my girlfriend, Jemima, downloaded the app soon after I did, having heard me rave about it enough. She, too, got hooked and just over a month ago we went to Young Chelsea Bridge Club together where she enjoyed her first ever Bridge club experience, pictured below.
The bigger picture
On the surface, people may just think I’m an addict trying to get them hooked on the same drug, but the truth is much deeper than that. Through Tricky Bridge, I see a vehicle that could help bring a new generation of young players to the game. The app speaks their language, it has similarly enticing mechanics of games like Candy Crush, and looks and feels like many of the modern game apps that Gen Z already have on their phones. It’s free to download and, whilst you do ultimately have to pay to unlock more deals, this doesn’t apply to lesson deals and the 50 it comes with were more than enough to give me a solid introduction to the ‘Just Play’ mode and tournaments.
The discussion of how we get more young people into bridge is a debate we’ve been having for decades and is of vital importance. I think, like with most big projects, it requires a multi-pronged approach. I don’t think Tricky Bridge, or apps like it (such as IntoBridge or BridgeBase Online), are the sole answer, but I do think they’re an integral part of the solution. We need to be reaching young people where they are - both digitally and physically - and through mediums which they like and are familiar with. I think Tricky Bridge is a valiant effort at both of these things and I hope, as does seem to be the case, that its user base continues to grow as they introduce more players to this wonderful game.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Daily Tournament to go and complete!
Stephen