The tournament began with an eruption, the sound of neurons firingfrom one end of the room to the other.
In other words, total silence.
"You don't want to speak," explained Jim Allen, owner of theWashington Bridge Center in Silver Spring.
And they call this a social game?
Alas, bridge is also about rules, seemingly a million of them,such as the one about not saying something that might tip off yourpartner about the value of your hand.
It's about winning, too, evidenced by the 100 or so members drawnto Allen's club yesterday to compete in the tournament.
But the players -- and other American Contract Bridge Leaguemembers from the Washington area and across the country -- also weregathered to raise money for families of the victims of the Sept. 11terrorist attacks.
Some had been in that room on the day of the attacks and, afterdeliberating about whether to close that morning, decided to play on.
"Bridge is medicinal," said Allen, 59.
"It's like homeopathic medicine. . . . It's our opinion thatAlzheimer's is controlled a little bit by all the chemicals producedby playing bridge."
Indeed, many of the players in the room are well past retirementage. And that's one reason the ACBL's national office, which willdonate as much as $100,000 toward yesterday's nationwide fundraiser,is more actively marketing its game -- and using the Internet as atool.
"Our membership has been going down for a while but is now goingmoderately upward," said Peter Mollemet, the national office's Webmaster.
"We now have an ACBL online bridge club, where people can play 24hours a day with people anywhere in the world."
The group has about 175,000 members. Bridge players proudly pointout that the world's prevailing high-tech guru, Bill Gates, is knownto be an avid player of the game. And, indeed, despite its decidedlyno-tech look -- all you really need is a table, some chairs and somecards -- it does appeal to some members of the generation weaned onthe Web.
"It's a mental challenge," said 21-year-old Tim Crank, who helpedrun the Silver Spring tournament.
But it can be a hard sell among those raised on a steady diet ofcomputer games that quickly become obsolete -- at least at first.
That's been the experience of Harold Minus III, a 33-year-oldsoftware programmer from Mitchellville, when he tries to convert hisfriends.
"I can't convince them to play," said Minus, whose playing partnerwas his 61-year-old father, Harold Minus, of Silver Spring. "Theythink bridge is for old people."
The game certainly is born of another time, when people sought amore personal connection than provided by a modem. That's one reasonthe game has helped players form such strong bonds with one another.
Take John Etter, a 68-year-old retired Defense Department workerwho was running a similar fundraising tournament yesterday at theLusby Duplicate Bridge Club. Not only has he had a running game withmost of the same players for more than 30 years; he decided to have amore personal relationship with someone he met at a game.
"I met my wife on a blind date playing bridge," Etter said.
Reni Malloy, 60, of North Potomac, said bridge has "changed mylife."
That change, she explained, has been about all the friends she hasmet. The game itself, she noted, is "very hard to learn."
Suffice it to say that bridge is a card game in which the playerwith the most points wins and that if you take the time to learn therules -- the Washington Bridge Club has classes -- you could becomehooked.
"It's like an addiction," said Dara Khambata, 50, an AmericanUniversity finance professor.
Charles Stenger, 79, a former psychologist who attended the SilverSpring tournament, has been hooked for more than half a century,after he began playing with his wife, Jeanne, his partner yesterday.
"We started in the late '40s," Stenger said.
"We're playing better than we ever have. . . . It's an activityfor a lifetime."
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