Fun & Games for Bridge Players
By Alex J. Coyne © Great Bridge Links
There’s more to playing bridge than just playing bridge. In fact, it turns out there’s a whole range of bridge-related games for bridge players out there including crosswords to get to know your lingo around the table, quizzes to sharpen up your card knowledge and even a range of bridge-related puzzles. Check out our previous list of puzzles and games at Coffee Break! first, then check out some more games for bridge players and add your own cool finds in the comments!
Crosswords
Bridge Crosswords by Jeff Chen
Jeff Chen is a veteran of the crossword puzzle, having set up many of them for markets like the New York Times Crossword and Los Angeles Times – that, by the way, gives him the unique and bad-ass sounding job title of ‘crossword constructor’. Bridge Crosswords, a book filled with bridge-themed crossword puzzles, is available from Amazon or Baron Barclay; you can also check out a sample from eBooks Bridge or check out Jeff Chen at his Twitter account.
Bridge Puzzles
Bridge puzzles work more or less the same way as chess puzzles – challenges might have several solutions, or might be based on previous hands played in tournaments; some sites even offer contests for the quickest to figure out the solution. Here’s what we could find:
RP Bridge has a page of bridge puzzles with several categories including Quick Fun, Challenging Makes, Side Construction, Ending Construction, Novelty and the 2015-17 Contest Series. No cheating! They’ve also got some short bridge puzzles, all designed by Richard Pavlicek.
Ted’s Bridge World has 35 puzzles grouped into a couple categories designed by veteran bridge players like William Butler, Alfred Sheinwold and, once again, some by Richard Pavlicek.
The London Evening Standard regularly publishes bridge puzzles and you can find a catalogue of previously published puzzles (see what we did there?) over at their website.
South China Morning Post has a popular (and seemingly regular) column of bridge puzzles worth checking out.
Bridge Puzzles for Children written by David H. Levin is aimed at young bridge aficionados and definitely worth a spot on your bookshelf if you’ve got any young card players in the house. According to the description, young readers will be able to get into it even with no prior bridge experience.
Quizzes
Quizzes are just a lot of fun!
RP Bridge is still Richard Pavlicek, and he’s got some quizzes for bridge players over here.
Andrew Robson Bridge Club has a huge list of 53 different bridge quizzes, along with a comprehensive site that’ll teach you everything you need to know about bridge.
Bid and Made has a cool quiz called “Test your knowledge” – how much do you know about bridge?
FunTrivia is one of the biggest user-submitted quiz and trivia sites out there; click on the link to go straight to their bridge section (for now, containing 12 quizzes)