[HeavyDluxe]

I learned the real basics at the table with my folks and grandparents when I was 12 or so. I played maybe a 20 hands between then (late 80s) and 2005. I joined the forums in '05, around when I started to get 'serious-er' about the game.

[Phil]

First duplicate game was in 1980. Learned about 2-3 years prior to that. So, 'round 30 I guess.

[mtvesuvius]

I am only 12 (I will be 13 tommorow ), but I have been playing for 7 years, I did not attend my first tournement for another year or so after I learned... BTW, how did everybody get started playing, and who introduced them? (I learned on a cruise )

[jdonn]

mtvesuvius, on Jan 17 2009, 05:13 PM, said:

BTW, how did everybody get started playing, and who introduced them? (I learned on a cruise )

My grandparents ran a bridge club, and my mother met both her husbands at a bridge game. But most of my learning took place by reading and on a computer game.

[Trumpace]

Was introduced to bridge around 6 years back, but I wish I had learnt it earlier. Played my first duplicate around 4 years back.

[whereagles]

~15 or so.

[zman102]

Learned to play by filling in for my parent's bridge games in 1950. Played my first duplicate game in June 1963 and became a life master in August 1965 (i had very good players helping me win master points). School, work and caring for a son with MS caused me to simplify my life and I stopped playing in 1973 until I got online in 20001 and played on the zone until I found BBO and have been playing on BBO since.

There is no face to face bridge closer than 150 miles (round trip), so I only play online.

I checked over 55 years in the poll, but as you can see, that is really not correct if you take into account all of the down time

[zman102]

too many zeros in 2001....lol

[rogerclee]

about 12 years, but only four seriously

[effervesce]

Four years for me.

[kenberg]

zman102, on Jan 17 2009, 09:05 PM, said:

Learned to play by filling in for my parent's bridge games in 1950. Played my first duplicate game in June 1963 and became a life master in August 1965 (i had very good players helping me win master points). School, work and caring for a son with MS caused me to simplify my life and I stopped playing in 1973 until I got online in 20001 and played on the zone until I found BBO and have been playing on BBO since.

There is no face to face bridge closer than 150 miles (round trip), so I only play online.

I checked over 55 years in the poll, but as you can see, that is really not correct if you take into account all of the down time

1950. I am impressed.

My parents played poker in a neighborhood game and would allow me to sit in sometimes. I was 11 in 1950 and that's about the time I was playing in the poker game. It would be another 11 years before I picked up bridge.

I hope that anyone who can beat your 1950 date will mention it. It's a different game today!

[orlam]

3 years.

[shintaro]

around 1975 whilst an expat in Africa (not a lot else to do otherwise) but did play a sort of Bridge on board ship whilst emigrating to OZ in 1965.

Not as old as ken though

[MickyB]

I first played in an end-of-year maths lesson at school when our teacher got us - that was ten years ago (aged 14). My first duplicate was when I was 18. Within about three months I'd played three different no-trump ranges and three different meanings for a 2D opening, fours, fives and possibly transfers over a club as well!

[ArtK78]

Sometime in the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years in High School, I was with a few friends when one of them said "Let's play Bridge!" He explained the rudiments of the game and we played for about an hour. I went home and found my parents' basic Goren book, read it from cover to cover a couple of times, and suddenly I was by far the expert of the group.

That was 1972. So I have been playing for over 36 years.

[Gerardo]

September 2000, a local duplicate game (2 tables at most, sometimes not even that).

Found online bridge soon after, at WinBridge, when that closed wandered in the Zone till I found BBO, in June 2001.

[georgeac]

ive been playing 4 years or so, but i dont get to play too often with regular partners or live because of school. bbo has helped me leaps and bounds though. i only have 25 masterpoints but can play much better than the number. i wish more people would not use the number as the be all end all for skill level in the acbl realm. end rant lol

[Tcyk]

I started playing 'noon-time' bridge in 1957. Before that in college and in the army, I played hearts and pinochle. I also played 'rook' with my parents. When I moved to Dallas in 1969, one of the 'noon-time' players was head and shoulders better than any of the other players. Yes, he played duplicate and convinced me I should take lessons from Harry Weiss. I liked bridge so much that I quit playing tournament chess and have been playing bridge ever since.

[ArtK78]

My friend, David Treadwell, has told me the story of his first experiences with Bridge. In Dave's case, it was Auction Bridge, since Contract Bridge had not yet been invented. This was back in the 1920's.

Back in September, Dave celebrated his 96th birthday. He still plays (sometimes well), and his last victories were 2 of the 3 KOs in the David Treadwell Sectional just before New Year's Day in Wilmington, Delaware.

[jdonn]

I would be willing to bet money that if a tournament was named after me I would win over half the events I enter. Guaranteed.