I see you are on a nit of a post roll at the moment!!!

 

The only polite comment I can make about this is that tokyo_james evidently knows nothing about bridge.

As a physical exercise the game may not meet your definition of a sport, but as a mental exercise there is nothing--NOTHING--which comes close. The concentration required to play on the level of world championships is inestimable. Consider the sports you believe require intense concentration: golf, auto racing, fill-in-your-favorite. Compared to bridge these are child's play. What undertaking might you suggest which is more mentally exhausting? Chess? It's a cake-walk compared to bridge.

You suggest that bridge would be boring to watch. I submit that golf, cricket, ice hockey, lacrosse, football, curling, baseball, you-name-it are equally boring to those who don't understand the game. Without a firm grasp of the rules of the game and the strategy required to win virtually any contest would be a bore.

As an avid student of the game I can assure you that I am eagerly looking forward to seeing it played in the Olympics. There will be no biddies, no knitting, no handbags, no crustless sandwiches, no tea. There will be some of the world's fiercest competitors who have trained as long and as hard as any athlete you can name fighting each other for the slimmest advantage, and if they get knowledgeable, erudite commentators the broadcast will be as riveting as that in any other event in the games. And it's less likely that I'll have to listen to some idiot telling me that, because they're in the semi-final, that this is one time the players don't want to make a mistake.

 

Hehee...you KNOW IT!!!!

COME PLAY WITH ME TOKYO_JAMES!!!

 

Citius, Altius, Fortius

Swifter, higher, stronger


How does Bridge fit in to that ?!?!?!

Sorry Magician, I usually agree with your thoughts on most things, but I really do think that the Olympics is getting way out of hand already. Bringing a card game into the arena would, in my very humble opinion, further reduce the meaning of the Olympics and what they are supposed to stand for.....

 

My Latin is a bit rusty. Exactly what is it about those words that restricts them to physical undertakings, rather than mental ones? It is evidently a subtle distinction lost in translation.



(Sorry for the sarcasm. Some people hold mental pursuits in higher esteem than physical ones, especially in choice of career; some reverse this, especially in recreational competition. I believe that both positions are in error. Should bridge be in the Olympics? Perhaps not. But to conclude that it isn't as challenging, strenuous, competitive, sophisticated, or engrossing to watch as physical competition is equally in error.)

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by magician
[B]

My Latin is a bit rusty.

 

Not to belabor the point (and I hope that we can get back to the topic of this thread), but a sizable portion of the Olympics is precisely about "mental" challenge. How many of the gymnasts, as an example, prefer to do their routine after their competition, so that they can mentally prepare to perform at the required level, or prefer to do their routine before their competition so that they don't suffer the mental anguish of waiting for their turn? One's physical performance is most assuredly a function of one's mental strength, and to ignore that fact is naive.

I believe that you mean that they were never about exclusively mental challenges. True enough for the modern Olympics. I do not know enough about the ancient Olympics to be able to say.

Following a paradigm merely because it's traditional is a poor strategem, in my opinion. Maybe there's a good reason to exclude bridge; maybe not. In any case, I'm looking forward to it. If you don't want to watch it, don't. Personally, I look forward to it, and I would encourage you to learn something about the game and give it a shot. (A word of warning: it is an extremely difficult game to learn. A book on games I saw in a bookstore many years suggested that you would have to play regularly for six months before you would be considered more than a mere card-pusher. I can attest that it takes years to become anything resembling good.)

Now, can we get back to the incredible facts?

For example, if you had one deck of playing cards for each possible permutation of the 52 cards, the stack would be 726,721,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles high. More or less.