Story by Oscar Ilari (BBO: odv175)
I started playing bridge when I was 18, and today I am 81. I have been playing for more than 60 years and competing regularly. However, bridge took on a completely different meaning in my life after an accident that left me almost three years bedridden.
During that time, bridge did not just keep me company. I began to understand something essential. In bridge, the partner is the most important thing. I depend on my partner to achieve a good result, and my partner depends on me. Both of us can make mistakes. Both of us have limitations. But both of us can also grow.
Through teaching bridge, I understood something even deeper. Each of us has our own inner feelings, our own way of living and reacting. When we form a partnership, we do not only share conventions. We share personality, character, ego, tolerance, and the ability to criticize ourselves.
We can play bridge simply to have fun, without going deeper. But bridge offers something much greater. It allows us to discover who we are, what we want, what we can change, and what we cannot change in our lives. It teaches us to value ourselves so that we can help ourselves and help our partner.
Bridge is a complex game. Conventions often add insecurity. I remember how Charles Goren revolutionized bridge by systematizing point count evaluation. His book simplified the approach. Points defined part-scores, game, or slam. He used few conventions, but the core of his teaching was not there. It was in valuing and revaluing the hands. That is where the partnership found its true value.
That idea is still valid today. It is not only about counting points. It is about understanding the real potential of a hand in relation to one’s partner.
Through bridge, I also understood that challenges are what keep me alive and healthy. In bridge, there is a challenge every seven minutes. No hand is ever the same as another. Every board requires new analysis, adaptation, humility, and concentration. I began to transfer that logic to my life.
After my accident, I had to use all the strength of my mind to recover. From that moment on, my health became a priority, and I treated it as a permanent challenge. Nutrition, exercise, mental discipline, healthy distractions, and of course, bridge.
When we say that bridge is good for the mind, it is true, but only if we use it to think. Many players treat it mainly as a distraction and play almost intuitively. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the game, but the real mental benefit appears when we reason through every decision.
The role of a teacher is not only to teach conventions, but to teach how to think, and what to think about at each moment of the game. The opening lead, the play of the hand, signaling, and the complete planning of the hand. That is when the brain truly works.
Throughout life, we struggle with our own personality. Ego is often the greatest obstacle to growth. Wanting to prove that we are better than our partner or our opponents prevents us from evolving as players. Not recognizing our mistakes holds us back in bridge and also in life.
Bridge forces us to face that. It forces us to accept mistakes, analyze them, and improve.
For all these reasons, and for many more, I believe that bridge is the most important mind sport we have. In a world where we will have more and more free time, it becomes a necessity for us and also for our children.
Not only as entertainment, but as a school of thought, character, and self-knowledge.
Over the years, I also wrote a book about my experience with the game. In Argentina, it is titled Beneficios de jugar al Bridge. In its Spanish edition, translated into 24 languages, it is titled Aprender Bridge es fácil. The book is not only about how to play, but about what bridge has meant to me personally and what it can give to others.
comparto los comentarios de Óscar Ilari, a pesar de que hace solamente apenas 5 años que aprendí este fascinante y adictivo juego, que en mi situación personal, sirve para ayudarme a estar
más
atento, menos disperso , ayudarme a recuperar mi memoria que fui perdiendo con los años, y adicionalmente a conocer a mis ocasionales adversarios y como en la mayoría de los deportes, poder desnudar las distintas personalidades y capitalizar las historias de vida de las que cada vez que los encontramos , aprendemos algo nuevo (como en el bridge ), que nos ayuda
a entender un poco más nuestras vidas . realmente este juego fue un halazgo , que se
lo agradezco infinita mente a mi partner habitual, jugador inteligente , con las
características que forma
este juego , y que conozco desde hace unos años, a pesar de haber sido compañeros de secundaria y universidad (60 años), y que me inicio en este atractivo e inteligente juego