June 15, 2025 • 26 mins
The Magic of Bridge with Brian Reynolds
Join hosts David Lowry and Don Drew on Peaceful Life Radio as they chat with Bridge Expert Brian Reynolds. Discover how playing Bridge weekly can significantly reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s and dementia, while also fostering social connections. Learn the basics of Bridge, its cognitive benefits, and how structured games can enhance your mental agility and social life. Brian, along with his wife Samantha, offers insights into their work at BridgeTeachers.com, making this intricate game accessible to everyone. Whether you're a seasoned player or a complete novice, this episode has something for you!
00:00 Introducing Brian Reynolds
00:24 Introduction to the Show and Hosts
01:00 Meet Brian Reynolds: Bridge Expert
01:39 What is Bridge? A Brief Overview
02:20 The Social and Cognitive Skills in Bridge
04:39 Brian's Personal Journey with Bridge
07:16 How to Start a Bridge Night
10:20 Building Connections Through Bridge
18:24 The Rise of Online Bridge
20:03 Balancing Competition and Fun
24:16 Conclusion and How to Learn More
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Reynolds (00:00):
There's been several pretty heavily vetted
(00:02):
studies, one from the HarvardSchool of Medicine and a couple
outta Scotland where if you playBridge at least once a week,
regularly have 75% less incidentof Alzheimer's and other forms
of dementia.
Bridge is an amazing way to keepyour mind sharp in the same way
that going to the gym andpicking up a barbell and doing
some curls keeps your bicepshealthy.
David Lowry (00:24):
That was Brian Reynolds, our guest today on
Peaceful Life Radio.
And you're going to learn allkinds of things about Bridge
today, but more about that in amoment.
I'm David Lowry, and with metoday is my good friend Don
Drew.
Don, how are you?
Don Drew (00:39):
I am doing great today.
David.
We got a really interestingprogram.
David Lowry (00:42):
I know, and it's something I think our guests who
are in the second half of lifeare really gonna appreciate
because we all wanna be social,don't we?
I wanna have fun in my life andnot just, mow my lawn do all the
chores and call it a day.
So, we're gonna have some funtoday.
Don, why don't you introduceBrian, and tell us more about
him.
Don Drew (01:00):
Brian Reynolds is a teacher and co-owner with his
wife of Bridge Teachers.com, abusiness which offers hundreds
of video courses on all thingsBridge.
Brian learned Bridge in collegeand has been an avid game player
his whole life.
His good friend Morgan McDouglassays that from his digital
Bridge community to his engagingteaching practices, Brian brings
a fresh look at how structuredgames can foster deep and
(01:23):
personal connections betweenplayers.
Today we'll be talking withBrian about his experience with
Bridge and how interactionsthrough games of all kinds can
provide social and cognitivebenefits to those in the second
half of life.
Brian, welcome to Peaceful LifeRadio.
Brian Reynolds (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Don Drew (01:39):
Brian, not all our listeners are gonna really know
what Bridge is.
Can you give us a brief introinto what Bridge is?
Brian Reynolds (01:46):
Sure Bridge is probably the best version of a
trick taking game.
So in other words, four peopletwo partners, two partnerships,
and somebody leads a card andeveryone has to play a card.
Highest card wins.
So if you've ever played war, mygrandmother always played war
with me.
It's that.
It's just extended out to fourpeople, and cards are only
(02:06):
played once, so 13 tricks.
And then Bridge has two distinctphases.
The first phase is the auction,which sets some parameters for
the second phase, which is theplay, and that's Bridge.
David Lowry (02:20):
Brian, tell us what about Bridge is so enjoyable to
you and when you have peopleover what they seem to enjoy as
well.
Brian Reynolds (02:28):
Well, the first thing I'll say is it's a
partnership game.
So I grew up playing games withmy grandmother and with my
family, and I actually got intochess at a very young age, and I
was good for my age.
I was never setting the world onfire.
But chess is a very one-on-onetype of experience, whereas
Bridge, you're working with apartner.
So there's a social aspect bakedinto the game.
(02:51):
You need to be successful athandling relationships in order
to be successful at the game.
And then I love how manydifferent skill sets are
required for Bridge.
You need to learn a language.
So then when you're bidding,you're communicating the
resources that you're looking atin your cards.
And you and your partner aretrying to decide your combined
(03:12):
resources and what that meansfor where you should go.
Then when you get to the play,there's the strategic element,
which I would liken it to chesswhere you're making moves to try
to maximize the number of tricksyou take.
So just right there, there's twovery distinct skill sets that
interact with each other.
If you're a very good bidder,the play becomes much easier.
(03:34):
If you're a very good player,you can get away with some bids
that are say, less than optimal.
Probably the most importantthing is Bridge is the game of
mistakes.
You're constantly dealing with,okay, I did something that was
not optimal.
I messed up.
Or a lot of times you haveimperfect information, so you
made the best decision youcould, but now you realize you
(03:56):
need to make a new decision.
And to me that's much moreanalogous to the human
experience.
We don't live a life ofperfection.
We don't live a life whereyou're not gonna make mistakes.
I mean, we all make mistakesevery day.
Bridge is phenomenal in thatstandpoint and it actually
trains you in a lot of ways tohandle life better because the
(04:17):
skills that apply to Bridgeapply to life.
And then the social aspects.
So Bridge to me has a bunch ofdifferent skills that you need
to have.
Don Drew (04:28):
That's really a great way of putting it.
Now your friend Morgan that Imentioned earlier, talked how,
in particular, you have builtwhat he called deep and
purposeful connections.
Can you talk about that?
You started when you were incollege so you've been doing
this a while.
Brian Reynolds (04:43):
Yeah, I started teaching later, but I was
working at the Student Unionacross from her dorm, and I met
Samantha and we'd been friendsfor a while.
And I was madly, deeply in lovewith her and I finally gathered
the courage to ask her out formore than friends.
And she said sure I'll go outwith you, but first you have to
learn to play Bridge.
Her parents had taught her rightbefore she left for college, and
(05:05):
she didn't have anyone to playwith.
And it's a partnership game.
It's not solitary.
You can't do it on your own.
And I'm so glad I didn't saythis out loud, but in my head I
thought how hard could that be?
And the answer was extremelyhard.
Not because Bridge is difficultto learn.
Samantha has a video.
(05:26):
It's on our YouTube channel.
Learn to play Bridge in nineminutes and nine seconds.
She even has another videothat's two minutes and 22
seconds or something like that.
So learning the rules of Bridgeand even starting to get some
basic foundational strategy andconcepts to it, I don't actually
feel are challenging.
But when Samantha and I met.
(05:47):
This was before the internet.
I didn't have a cell phone.
I didn't have email.
If I wanted to learn something,I had to go to the library and
check out a book.
And at that time, Bridge wasjust coming out of its heyday
where everybody in the worldplayed Bridge.
In the seventies it was the mostpopular game in the world.
Not just the most popular cardgame, but the most popular game
in the world.
Everybody played Bridge, so thecourse material that was
(06:10):
available, books and things likethat was predicated on the idea
that you already knew how toplay.
So if you're coming to it fromzero, the information just
wasn't there.
So when you talk about buildingconnections and you talk about
building community, Samantha andI, when we first started
teaching, we really wanted toprevent anyone from having the
(06:33):
same experience we did, which iswe struggled for years.
We'd play around our kitchentable with friends that we had,
shanghaied into learning thisgame and did not know what we
were doing and had no way toprogress.
And so we really, from thebeginning and ever since have
focused on people who are new tothe game.
Our favorite student is someonewho's never touched a deck of
(06:54):
cards before.
If you've never played a cardgame before we want you to
understand that this world isaccessible to you.
So that's to us is the biggestthing about how we wanna serve
the Bridge community.
We want to make the entry pointinto Bridge as painless and as
fun as we possibly can.
David Lowry (07:15):
I love that.
Let's say people wanna have agroup over, have a Bridge night
or something like that.
And maybe they're all rather newto it or don't know much about
it.
How many people would youinvite?
And just describe thefundamentals it would take to
get started.
Brian Reynolds (07:30):
Sure.
What I would say is if you'regonna have a Bridge night, you
want groups of four, you can getaway with groups of five where
every hand somebody rotates in.
But that's okay.
But four, eight, something likethat, if you have a lot of
friends, 12.
And then I would say just haveeverybody watch our video, how
to learn Bridge in nine minutesand nine seconds before they
come so you get a sense of therules.
(07:53):
You get, at least get a sense ofwhat you're legally allowed to
do.
Whenever I have a new student,even if they maybe even have a
little bit of Bridge experience,I always tell them the first
thing we're going to do is getthe rules ingrained.
It's gonna be instinctive.
Okay, it's my turn to bid, it'smy turn to play a card.
This is what I can legally do.
(08:14):
I can't do this'cause that'sagainst the rules.
People are smart.
People are intelligent and a lotof times if you just show them
the rules, they will startfiguring out strategy without me
having to say anything.
So have everyone watch the videoand then get there.
And my big thing, it's so funny'cause oftentimes I get accused
(08:38):
of being fake about this, wealways say our number one rule
of Bridge is have fun.
And people think, oh we'rebeing, salespeople or whatever.
But my point is, if you're nothaving fun, why are you doing
it?
And then the second thing is,our brains actually assimilate
information better when we'rehaving fun.
So have fun.
Don't worry about makingmistakes.
(08:58):
Don't worry about being right.
Bridge is not a good game ifyou're obsessed with being right
all the time.
Bridge will probably crush youpretty fast.
You gotta let go of that reallyfast.
But yeah, and then just have alot of fun.
Now to the second question,which is a question I frequently
get, which is, okay I know howthe rules are.
(09:20):
But how do I get good at Bridge?
A lot of times I have studentswho are like, how do I get
better than my friends?
Which is a laudable goal, right?
I'm gonna show up at Bridgenight and I'm gonna be better
than everyone else.
And I would say, you're lookingto develop the three skills I
mentioned, right?
Which is number one, partnershipmaintenance.
(09:40):
Because you're playing with apartner.
Number two, learning bidding,which is like learning a
language.
So you start learning thelanguage of bidding.
And then number three islearning play techniques.
So this is like the chess movesthat we talked about.
And on our website we have, Ithink Samantha has something
like over 450 videos at thispoint.
Starting from zero, nothing.
(10:02):
And now she's recording everymonth.
So now she's moving into moreintermediate, advanced concepts
and we're constantly growing ourlibrary.
So you can start from zero onour website and.
If you reach the end of all ofthe videos that Samantha has
filmed, definitely reach out tous and let us know what you'd
like to see next.
Don Drew (10:20):
Well, true confessions, Brian neither David
nor I are Bridge players, but wecame from Texas and we grew up
there.
And there Texas 42 is the game,right?
It's trick based game, playedwith dominoes and generally it's
four people.
And I remember going to sleeplistening to my parents and my
aunt and uncle playing Dominoesand hearing the clicking of the
(10:42):
dominoes and they were justlaughing and having such a great
time.
And when I got to be, I don'tknow, probably about 13, 14
years old.
They let me play and I learnedhow to play and it was a big
deal.
I was now at the adult table andit was fantastic.
And I realized pretty early onjust how valuable games can be
to bringing people to together.
Well, where I'm going with thisis you and Samantha have been
(11:03):
doing this quite some time now,and you bound to have had many,
many partners, been teachingmany people.
Can you talk personally a littlebit about how that has helped
your life be better?
In terms of you personally,Brian.
Brian Reynolds (11:18):
Yeah.
I always tell people Bridge mademe a better husband.
And they think I'm beinghyperbolic.
I promise you I'm not.
We could do a whole podcast.
We could do several podcasts onall the marriage lessons I
learned from being a husband.
But I'll just give you one of myfavorites, which is, Bridge is a
game of mistakes.
You're gonna make a mistake,right?
And you are in a high pressuresituation.
(11:39):
I don't know anybody who likesto lose.
I don't know anybody.
You can say you'renon-competitive, which is great,
very healthy.
But if you have a choice ofwinning and losing, you're a
human being.
You're gonna choose winning,right?
So you're in a high pressuresituation.
You're trying to win.
You're in a competitivesituation.
You're trying to work with thisperson, and they mess up.
(12:02):
Let's say they do somethingmind-numbingly stupid.
Well, now the question becomeshow are you going to treat this
person in this moment ofadversity?
I promise you, there's no pointin yelling at them.
They already feel way worse thanyou can ever make them feel.
There's nothing you can say ordo that's gonna make them feel
worse than what they're alreadytelling themselves inside their
(12:24):
head.
So then the question becomes,what is the most effective
method for dealing withsituation?
And again, I don't know anybodywho doesn't respond positively
to, Hey, that's okay.
No big deal.
We'll get'em next time.
Don't worry about it.
I don't know anybody who doesn'trespond to their partner looking
across the table at them andsaying, I don't care.
(12:47):
All I care about is that youfeel better.
David Lowry (12:50):
I've always said that if you want to get to know
a person beyond a surface level,you should play a game with
them.
And card games are especiallygood ways of getting to know
people.
Sometimes you have a friend whoreally enjoys sticking it to the
next person, setting them up orsometimes you find a person who
talks smack.
(13:10):
I've always enjoyed getting toknow a person when they could be
themselves in a moment of funand excitement without having to
pay too much attention to socialdetails and niceties.
Brian Reynolds (13:22):
Yeah.
Samantha and I have always saidif people were required to play
Bridge together for six monthsbefore they were allowed to get
a marriage license, the divorcerate in the US would drop by
90%.
Bridge strips away a lot ofthings, right?
It lays the soul bare.
And I think that whether you'redeveloping a professional
relationship, a personal one, Ithink getting to see someone
(13:45):
without all those layers that webuild up out of necessity to
interact with society is areally great thing.
David Lowry (13:51):
Is there a midpoint in the game where you could
pause for a moment, havedessert, coffee or some sort of
treat and just get to know eachother before you go back towards
the end of the game or somethinglike that?
Brian Reynolds (14:03):
Sure.
A Bridge hand lasts about sevenand a half to 10 minutes,
depending on the levels of thepeople.
More beginners tend to play alittle bit slower.
Basically you have anopportunity to take a break
every seven and a half to 10minutes.
And the other thing is there'salways a dummy on every hand.
(14:24):
So the dummy has noresponsibilities.
Their partner's actually playingtheir hand and their own hand.
So when I'm dummy, especially ifit's a tournament or something
like that, I just head off tothe restroom.
I'm like, I'll see you in fourminutes, or whatever.
I actually got really, reallygood at sleeping sitting up.
For long Bridge days, I'm like,oh, I'm dummy.
Cool.
Three minute nap.
(14:45):
Let's go.
Let's get it done.
Play this one slowly partner, Ineed some cat nap.
And the other thing I'll say isI highly recommend playing with
bidding boxes.
So when it comes to the auction,you can speak your bids aloud,
or there are these bidding boxesand now instead of saying things
out loud, you place a card up toshow what your bid would be.
(15:06):
So basically everything aboutBridge becomes silent.
And now we have friends who areprofessional players who come in
from out of town.
We literally play Bridge for sixhours and we'll just talk the
entire time.
We're catching up, finding outtheir kids are getting into
college and things like that.
And meanwhile, Bridge ishappening, but we're getting to
(15:28):
spend social time with friendsat the same time.
So it's awesome.
Don Drew (15:31):
Brian, we talked about structured games earlier.
Bridge of course, is astructured game.
What are some of your otherfavorite games that you play?
I'm I know that's what you doprofessionally, but what do you
do for fun when you're, whenit's not Bridge?
Brian Reynolds (15:44):
We do play a lot of Bridge for fun.
The joke I always make is havinga Bridge partner is so
important, I married mine.
But yeah, I don't know why shemarried me, but, everyone makes
mistakes, Bridges, game ofmistakes.
We love video games.
Both Samantha and I love videogames.
She's an incredible game playerof her own right, which is one
of the ways that we connectedbefore we were ever dating was
(16:04):
we both love games.
So we play video games togetherwhen we have time.
And then we love escape rooms.
I don't know if you've ever beento an escape room.
Those are super fun.
I think we're approaching our300th escape room.
I played escape rooms on fourdifferent continents.
Those are super fun.
(16:25):
And that's pretty much all wehave time for.
Occasionally, someone will sendus a board game or a card game
and say, oh, you should try thisout.
And we have a lot of fun withit.
Don Drew (16:34):
According to the American Contract Bridge League,
they're saying that 80% of their145,000 members are aged 60 or
older.
Brian Reynolds (16:43):
Both the percentage sounds low and the
age sounds low.
The last credible thing I heardwas the average Bridge player
age is 74 or 73 or somethinglike that.
It's a very old demographic.
And they're trying to changethat in a lot of ways.
I think they're playing catch upbecause they just didn't see the
(17:04):
writing on the wall in terms ofhow fractured our ability to
spend our free time wouldbecome.
Samantha and I are a goodexample.
I mean, we play Bridge for fun,but there's probably like 10
video games that came out lastyear that we would be interested
in playing if we have time, butwe don't have time.
(17:25):
I remember vividly when the lastepisode of MASH aired.
And like how many millions ofpeople gathered around their TV
sets, back when TVs were boxesrather than flat panels.
Now how many channels are thereof television?
So Bridge is trying to catch upand get exposure.
(17:47):
It's my experience that if I geta hundred people to try Bridge,
25% of them it's not gonna befor them.
Okay, cool.
So 25% of those people it's notgonna be for them.
And about 50% of people aregonna be somewhere on the bell
curve of they like it once aweek.
They like it once a month, youknow this.
And then you're gonna get 25% ofthe people and are like, oh, I
(18:07):
love this game.
I wanna play online.
I wanna play in tournaments.
So to me it's just a numbersgame, right?
I want everyone in the world totry Bridge because it's a really
phenomenal game and if youhaven't tried it and it is for
you, you're really missing outon something cool.
Don Drew (18:24):
I understand that the post pandemic era there has been
some growth in online play.
Is that true?
Brian Reynolds (18:32):
Oh yeah.
Exploded for sure.
Samantha and I were able toteach online as early as, say,
2015.
The technology was there, thingslike Zoom, Bridge base.com,
which we are not affiliatedwith, but we highly recommend
you can go there.
You can create an account forfree.
(18:52):
You can play for free 24 7 BASE.
So Bridge base.com.
You can make an account rightnow.
If you don't know how to make anaccount, we have a video on our
YouTube channel, how to make anaccount.
You can literally play for freeanytime day or night.
But the pandemic forced peopleto find online communities.
(19:13):
A good example is, a lot of myactor and filmmaker friends,
when the pandemic hit, they hadnothing to do.
They were sitting in theirapartments and they couldn't do
anything.
So we did online readings ofscripts.
We just, okay, it's your turn,we're gonna read one of your
scripts.
We did that once a week to keepthat community and that
connection.
And that's carried over.
I love teaching online for somany reasons.
(19:35):
The technology allows me toreally dial in on terms of the
student and what they're workingon, what they need to work on.
Playing online with a teacher isa phenomenal way to learn'cause
you're learning by doing, andthen you can immediately get
feedback on what you did.
So yes, the online Bridgecommunity is stronger than it's
ever been.
And I think we're gonna see thatstart translating into people
(19:58):
who play online, also play inperson tournaments, which are
awesome.
They're the most fun to me forsure.
David Lowry (20:03):
Brian as a professional teacher and Bridge
player you probably have learnedsomething that a lot of us need
to learn, and that's how webalance being competitive with
being friendly and not gettingtoo intense in our play.
How do we balance all of this?
Brian Reynolds (20:18):
Well, I would say the first thing is never
personal.
It's never personal.
I'm like you I like a little bitof smack talk.
I like a little bit of, teasingeach other.
I've, Samantha and I have playedagainst each other a lot.
Pre pre pandemic I'd be playingwith one student at a club.
And she'd be playing with adifferent student at the same
club.
So we came up against each otherin a competitive environment,
(20:39):
not as partners a lot.
And man, we loved to talk alittle bit of trash to each
other.
We'd usually wait till thestudents were outta earshot
because, we didn't want todistract them.
But I'd say it's never personal.
If I sit down at the Bridgetable and.
I'm up against you in a match,my goal is to beat you.
Yeah, but not because I don'tlike you, not because I hate
(21:01):
you, not because I think you'rea bad person, but I am going to
crush you if I can'cause I wantto give a good score.
And then the other thing isSamantha, I played against the
world champions and gottencrushed.
And it wasn't personal for themeither, right?
It was just, okay, you're theobstacle in front of me.
I'm gonna crush you.
And we were the crush-ees thatday.
(21:21):
I saw a really amazing video ofRoger Federer and he was talking
about how many percentage of hispoints he had won in his career,
and it was 54%.
He'd only won slightly more thanhalf of the tennis points he
ever played in his career.
And he was probably the greatesttennis player of all time,
maybe.
(21:41):
He's in the conversation.
And he'd really talked about howit's the next ball.
It's the only thing that mattersis the next point, the next
ball.
Nothing else matters.
The past doesn't matter.
And I think that understandingthat is so important.
I've won really excitingmatches.
I've lost Samantha and I missedmaking the second day of a
(22:04):
national championship event onthe 17th tiebreaker.
That was gut wrenching.
17th ugh, like just everythingwas tied, all at 16 places down.
It was horrible.
I've done brilliant things towin matches and I've done
horribly inane, idiotic thingsto lose matches.
But I love the game and it's notpersonal, it's just fun.
Don Drew (22:26):
It's fun and it's social and I think one of the
issues that people in the secondhalf of life can fall into is
social isolation.
We retire from jobs or we movein some cases and so on.
I know my father fell into thistrap at one point in his life.
And this game seems like it's areally good opportunity to push
through that and find other waysto connect with people maybe not
(22:49):
in the traditional way that wedo it.
Brian Reynolds (22:50):
I'd love to start by dovetailing off what
you guys just said, and I'd liketo point out that, there's been
several pretty heavily vettedstudies one from the Harvard
School of Medicine and a coupleoutta Scotland where if you play
Bridge at least once a week,regularly have 75% less incident
of Alzheimer's and other formsof dementia.
We no longer view the brain as,you get a certain amount of
(23:13):
brain cells and they're gonnadie, and, oh, well.
You really can keepneuroplasticity and you can
literally grow your brain.
Like you can literally grow massin your brain.
And Bridge is an amazing way tokeep your mind sharp in the same
way that going to the gym andpicking up a barbell and doing
(23:33):
some curls keeps your bicepshealthy.
So not only does it have asocial element of you're getting
outta your house even if you'reonline, you're still interacting
with people online, right?
You're interacting with acommunity, but also you're
taking care of your brain.
Me personally, the idea oflosing my mental faculties is
(23:54):
the scariest thing I can thinkof.
I'd much rather lose the use ofmy limbs than my brain.
So Bridge is an amazing activityfrom the standpoint of mental
health, especially long-termmental health.
David Lowry (24:08):
Absolutely.
It keeps your mind sharp, keepsyou social, gives you something
to do.
There's so many wonderful thingsto recommend about that.
Brian, as we come close to theend of our program today, tell
us how we can learn more aboutthis?
Tell us what you guys areworking on, your website, the
videos you make, anything youthink we need to know.
Brian Reynolds (24:26):
There's our website, which is the Bridge
teachers.com.
The Bridge teacher is all aboutgiving you access to information
so that you can grow your gameat your own pace, at your own
speed, and really in what way isgonna be most effective for you.
We have an ever-growing libraryof video lessons on all aspects
(24:46):
of Bridge from zero tointermediate.
We're getting into advancedtopics now.
And then we do, of course, teachprivately through Zoom and
Bridge Base, or we play withstudents online or in-person
tournaments.
And yeah, so that's what theBridge teacher is all about.
Don Drew (25:03):
Brian Reynolds, teacher and co-owner with his
wife Samantha of the Bridgeteachers.com.
Brian, thank you for teaching ushow Bridge can help us build our
brains and our relationships.
Thank you for being on PeacefulLife Radio.
Brian Reynolds (25:17):
I thank you guys so much.
This has been an absolutepleasure.
There's been several pretty heavily vetted
(00:02):
studies, one from the HarvardSchool of Medicine and a couple
outta Scotland where if you playBridge at least once a week,
regularly have 75% less incidentof Alzheimer's and other forms
of dementia.
Bridge is an amazing way to keepyour mind sharp in the same way
that going to the gym andpicking up a barbell and doing
some curls keeps your bicepshealthy.
David Lowry (00:24):
That was Brian Reynolds, our guest today on
Peaceful Life Radio.
And you're going to learn allkinds of things about Bridge
today, but more about that in amoment.
I'm David Lowry, and with metoday is my good friend Don
Drew.
Don, how are you?
Don Drew (00:39):
I am doing great today.
David.
We got a really interestingprogram.
David Lowry (00:42):
I know, and it's something I think our guests who
are in the second half of lifeare really gonna appreciate
because we all wanna be social,don't we?
I wanna have fun in my life andnot just, mow my lawn do all the
chores and call it a day.
So, we're gonna have some funtoday.
Don, why don't you introduceBrian, and tell us more about
him.
Don Drew (01:00):
Brian Reynolds is a teacher and co-owner with his
wife of Bridge Teachers.com, abusiness which offers hundreds
of video courses on all thingsBridge.
Brian learned Bridge in collegeand has been an avid game player
his whole life.
His good friend Morgan McDouglassays that from his digital
Bridge community to his engagingteaching practices, Brian brings
a fresh look at how structuredgames can foster deep and
(01:23):
personal connections betweenplayers.
Today we'll be talking withBrian about his experience with
Bridge and how interactionsthrough games of all kinds can
provide social and cognitivebenefits to those in the second
half of life.
Brian, welcome to Peaceful LifeRadio.
Brian Reynolds (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Don Drew (01:39):
Brian, not all our listeners are gonna really know
what Bridge is.
Can you give us a brief introinto what Bridge is?
Brian Reynolds (01:46):
Sure Bridge is probably the best version of a
trick taking game.
So in other words, four peopletwo partners, two partnerships,
and somebody leads a card andeveryone has to play a card.
Highest card wins.
So if you've ever played war, mygrandmother always played war
with me.
It's that.
It's just extended out to fourpeople, and cards are only
(02:06):
played once, so 13 tricks.
And then Bridge has two distinctphases.
The first phase is the auction,which sets some parameters for
the second phase, which is theplay, and that's Bridge.
David Lowry (02:20):
Brian, tell us what about Bridge is so enjoyable to
you and when you have peopleover what they seem to enjoy as
well.
Brian Reynolds (02:28):
Well, the first thing I'll say is it's a
partnership game.
So I grew up playing games withmy grandmother and with my
family, and I actually got intochess at a very young age, and I
was good for my age.
I was never setting the world onfire.
But chess is a very one-on-onetype of experience, whereas
Bridge, you're working with apartner.
So there's a social aspect bakedinto the game.
(02:51):
You need to be successful athandling relationships in order
to be successful at the game.
And then I love how manydifferent skill sets are
required for Bridge.
You need to learn a language.
So then when you're bidding,you're communicating the
resources that you're looking atin your cards.
And you and your partner aretrying to decide your combined
(03:12):
resources and what that meansfor where you should go.
Then when you get to the play,there's the strategic element,
which I would liken it to chesswhere you're making moves to try
to maximize the number of tricksyou take.
So just right there, there's twovery distinct skill sets that
interact with each other.
If you're a very good bidder,the play becomes much easier.
(03:34):
If you're a very good player,you can get away with some bids
that are say, less than optimal.
Probably the most importantthing is Bridge is the game of
mistakes.
You're constantly dealing with,okay, I did something that was
not optimal.
I messed up.
Or a lot of times you haveimperfect information, so you
made the best decision youcould, but now you realize you
(03:56):
need to make a new decision.
And to me that's much moreanalogous to the human
experience.
We don't live a life ofperfection.
We don't live a life whereyou're not gonna make mistakes.
I mean, we all make mistakesevery day.
Bridge is phenomenal in thatstandpoint and it actually
trains you in a lot of ways tohandle life better because the
(04:17):
skills that apply to Bridgeapply to life.
And then the social aspects.
So Bridge to me has a bunch ofdifferent skills that you need
to have.
Don Drew (04:28):
That's really a great way of putting it.
Now your friend Morgan that Imentioned earlier, talked how,
in particular, you have builtwhat he called deep and
purposeful connections.
Can you talk about that?
You started when you were incollege so you've been doing
this a while.
Brian Reynolds (04:43):
Yeah, I started teaching later, but I was
working at the Student Unionacross from her dorm, and I met
Samantha and we'd been friendsfor a while.
And I was madly, deeply in lovewith her and I finally gathered
the courage to ask her out formore than friends.
And she said sure I'll go outwith you, but first you have to
learn to play Bridge.
Her parents had taught her rightbefore she left for college, and
(05:05):
she didn't have anyone to playwith.
And it's a partnership game.
It's not solitary.
You can't do it on your own.
And I'm so glad I didn't saythis out loud, but in my head I
thought how hard could that be?
And the answer was extremelyhard.
Not because Bridge is difficultto learn.
Samantha has a video.
(05:26):
It's on our YouTube channel.
Learn to play Bridge in nineminutes and nine seconds.
She even has another videothat's two minutes and 22
seconds or something like that.
So learning the rules of Bridgeand even starting to get some
basic foundational strategy andconcepts to it, I don't actually
feel are challenging.
But when Samantha and I met.
(05:47):
This was before the internet.
I didn't have a cell phone.
I didn't have email.
If I wanted to learn something,I had to go to the library and
check out a book.
And at that time, Bridge wasjust coming out of its heyday
where everybody in the worldplayed Bridge.
In the seventies it was the mostpopular game in the world.
Not just the most popular cardgame, but the most popular game
in the world.
Everybody played Bridge, so thecourse material that was
(06:10):
available, books and things likethat was predicated on the idea
that you already knew how toplay.
So if you're coming to it fromzero, the information just
wasn't there.
So when you talk about buildingconnections and you talk about
building community, Samantha andI, when we first started
teaching, we really wanted toprevent anyone from having the
(06:33):
same experience we did, which iswe struggled for years.
We'd play around our kitchentable with friends that we had,
shanghaied into learning thisgame and did not know what we
were doing and had no way toprogress.
And so we really, from thebeginning and ever since have
focused on people who are new tothe game.
Our favorite student is someonewho's never touched a deck of
(06:54):
cards before.
If you've never played a cardgame before we want you to
understand that this world isaccessible to you.
So that's to us is the biggestthing about how we wanna serve
the Bridge community.
We want to make the entry pointinto Bridge as painless and as
fun as we possibly can.
David Lowry (07:15):
I love that.
Let's say people wanna have agroup over, have a Bridge night
or something like that.
And maybe they're all rather newto it or don't know much about
it.
How many people would youinvite?
And just describe thefundamentals it would take to
get started.
Brian Reynolds (07:30):
Sure.
What I would say is if you'regonna have a Bridge night, you
want groups of four, you can getaway with groups of five where
every hand somebody rotates in.
But that's okay.
But four, eight, something likethat, if you have a lot of
friends, 12.
And then I would say just haveeverybody watch our video, how
to learn Bridge in nine minutesand nine seconds before they
come so you get a sense of therules.
(07:53):
You get, at least get a sense ofwhat you're legally allowed to
do.
Whenever I have a new student,even if they maybe even have a
little bit of Bridge experience,I always tell them the first
thing we're going to do is getthe rules ingrained.
It's gonna be instinctive.
Okay, it's my turn to bid, it'smy turn to play a card.
This is what I can legally do.
(08:14):
I can't do this'cause that'sagainst the rules.
People are smart.
People are intelligent and a lotof times if you just show them
the rules, they will startfiguring out strategy without me
having to say anything.
So have everyone watch the videoand then get there.
And my big thing, it's so funny'cause oftentimes I get accused
(08:38):
of being fake about this, wealways say our number one rule
of Bridge is have fun.
And people think, oh we'rebeing, salespeople or whatever.
But my point is, if you're nothaving fun, why are you doing
it?
And then the second thing is,our brains actually assimilate
information better when we'rehaving fun.
So have fun.
Don't worry about makingmistakes.
(08:58):
Don't worry about being right.
Bridge is not a good game ifyou're obsessed with being right
all the time.
Bridge will probably crush youpretty fast.
You gotta let go of that reallyfast.
But yeah, and then just have alot of fun.
Now to the second question,which is a question I frequently
get, which is, okay I know howthe rules are.
(09:20):
But how do I get good at Bridge?
A lot of times I have studentswho are like, how do I get
better than my friends?
Which is a laudable goal, right?
I'm gonna show up at Bridgenight and I'm gonna be better
than everyone else.
And I would say, you're lookingto develop the three skills I
mentioned, right?
Which is number one, partnershipmaintenance.
(09:40):
Because you're playing with apartner.
Number two, learning bidding,which is like learning a
language.
So you start learning thelanguage of bidding.
And then number three islearning play techniques.
So this is like the chess movesthat we talked about.
And on our website we have, Ithink Samantha has something
like over 450 videos at thispoint.
Starting from zero, nothing.
(10:02):
And now she's recording everymonth.
So now she's moving into moreintermediate, advanced concepts
and we're constantly growing ourlibrary.
So you can start from zero onour website and.
If you reach the end of all ofthe videos that Samantha has
filmed, definitely reach out tous and let us know what you'd
like to see next.
Don Drew (10:20):
Well, true confessions, Brian neither David
nor I are Bridge players, but wecame from Texas and we grew up
there.
And there Texas 42 is the game,right?
It's trick based game, playedwith dominoes and generally it's
four people.
And I remember going to sleeplistening to my parents and my
aunt and uncle playing Dominoesand hearing the clicking of the
(10:42):
dominoes and they were justlaughing and having such a great
time.
And when I got to be, I don'tknow, probably about 13, 14
years old.
They let me play and I learnedhow to play and it was a big
deal.
I was now at the adult table andit was fantastic.
And I realized pretty early onjust how valuable games can be
to bringing people to together.
Well, where I'm going with thisis you and Samantha have been
(11:03):
doing this quite some time now,and you bound to have had many,
many partners, been teachingmany people.
Can you talk personally a littlebit about how that has helped
your life be better?
In terms of you personally,Brian.
Brian Reynolds (11:18):
Yeah.
I always tell people Bridge mademe a better husband.
And they think I'm beinghyperbolic.
I promise you I'm not.
We could do a whole podcast.
We could do several podcasts onall the marriage lessons I
learned from being a husband.
But I'll just give you one of myfavorites, which is, Bridge is a
game of mistakes.
You're gonna make a mistake,right?
And you are in a high pressuresituation.
(11:39):
I don't know anybody who likesto lose.
I don't know anybody.
You can say you'renon-competitive, which is great,
very healthy.
But if you have a choice ofwinning and losing, you're a
human being.
You're gonna choose winning,right?
So you're in a high pressuresituation.
You're trying to win.
You're in a competitivesituation.
You're trying to work with thisperson, and they mess up.
(12:02):
Let's say they do somethingmind-numbingly stupid.
Well, now the question becomeshow are you going to treat this
person in this moment ofadversity?
I promise you, there's no pointin yelling at them.
They already feel way worse thanyou can ever make them feel.
There's nothing you can say ordo that's gonna make them feel
worse than what they're alreadytelling themselves inside their
(12:24):
head.
So then the question becomes,what is the most effective
method for dealing withsituation?
And again, I don't know anybodywho doesn't respond positively
to, Hey, that's okay.
No big deal.
We'll get'em next time.
Don't worry about it.
I don't know anybody who doesn'trespond to their partner looking
across the table at them andsaying, I don't care.
(12:47):
All I care about is that youfeel better.
David Lowry (12:50):
I've always said that if you want to get to know
a person beyond a surface level,you should play a game with
them.
And card games are especiallygood ways of getting to know
people.
Sometimes you have a friend whoreally enjoys sticking it to the
next person, setting them up orsometimes you find a person who
talks smack.
(13:10):
I've always enjoyed getting toknow a person when they could be
themselves in a moment of funand excitement without having to
pay too much attention to socialdetails and niceties.
Brian Reynolds (13:22):
Yeah.
Samantha and I have always saidif people were required to play
Bridge together for six monthsbefore they were allowed to get
a marriage license, the divorcerate in the US would drop by
90%.
Bridge strips away a lot ofthings, right?
It lays the soul bare.
And I think that whether you'redeveloping a professional
relationship, a personal one, Ithink getting to see someone
(13:45):
without all those layers that webuild up out of necessity to
interact with society is areally great thing.
David Lowry (13:51):
Is there a midpoint in the game where you could
pause for a moment, havedessert, coffee or some sort of
treat and just get to know eachother before you go back towards
the end of the game or somethinglike that?
Brian Reynolds (14:03):
Sure.
A Bridge hand lasts about sevenand a half to 10 minutes,
depending on the levels of thepeople.
More beginners tend to play alittle bit slower.
Basically you have anopportunity to take a break
every seven and a half to 10minutes.
And the other thing is there'salways a dummy on every hand.
(14:24):
So the dummy has noresponsibilities.
Their partner's actually playingtheir hand and their own hand.
So when I'm dummy, especially ifit's a tournament or something
like that, I just head off tothe restroom.
I'm like, I'll see you in fourminutes, or whatever.
I actually got really, reallygood at sleeping sitting up.
For long Bridge days, I'm like,oh, I'm dummy.
Cool.
Three minute nap.
(14:45):
Let's go.
Let's get it done.
Play this one slowly partner, Ineed some cat nap.
And the other thing I'll say isI highly recommend playing with
bidding boxes.
So when it comes to the auction,you can speak your bids aloud,
or there are these bidding boxesand now instead of saying things
out loud, you place a card up toshow what your bid would be.
(15:06):
So basically everything aboutBridge becomes silent.
And now we have friends who areprofessional players who come in
from out of town.
We literally play Bridge for sixhours and we'll just talk the
entire time.
We're catching up, finding outtheir kids are getting into
college and things like that.
And meanwhile, Bridge ishappening, but we're getting to
(15:28):
spend social time with friendsat the same time.
So it's awesome.
Don Drew (15:31):
Brian, we talked about structured games earlier.
Bridge of course, is astructured game.
What are some of your otherfavorite games that you play?
I'm I know that's what you doprofessionally, but what do you
do for fun when you're, whenit's not Bridge?
Brian Reynolds (15:44):
We do play a lot of Bridge for fun.
The joke I always make is havinga Bridge partner is so
important, I married mine.
But yeah, I don't know why shemarried me, but, everyone makes
mistakes, Bridges, game ofmistakes.
We love video games.
Both Samantha and I love videogames.
She's an incredible game playerof her own right, which is one
of the ways that we connectedbefore we were ever dating was
(16:04):
we both love games.
So we play video games togetherwhen we have time.
And then we love escape rooms.
I don't know if you've ever beento an escape room.
Those are super fun.
I think we're approaching our300th escape room.
I played escape rooms on fourdifferent continents.
Those are super fun.
(16:25):
And that's pretty much all wehave time for.
Occasionally, someone will sendus a board game or a card game
and say, oh, you should try thisout.
And we have a lot of fun withit.
Don Drew (16:34):
According to the American Contract Bridge League,
they're saying that 80% of their145,000 members are aged 60 or
older.
Brian Reynolds (16:43):
Both the percentage sounds low and the
age sounds low.
The last credible thing I heardwas the average Bridge player
age is 74 or 73 or somethinglike that.
It's a very old demographic.
And they're trying to changethat in a lot of ways.
I think they're playing catch upbecause they just didn't see the
(17:04):
writing on the wall in terms ofhow fractured our ability to
spend our free time wouldbecome.
Samantha and I are a goodexample.
I mean, we play Bridge for fun,but there's probably like 10
video games that came out lastyear that we would be interested
in playing if we have time, butwe don't have time.
(17:25):
I remember vividly when the lastepisode of MASH aired.
And like how many millions ofpeople gathered around their TV
sets, back when TVs were boxesrather than flat panels.
Now how many channels are thereof television?
So Bridge is trying to catch upand get exposure.
(17:47):
It's my experience that if I geta hundred people to try Bridge,
25% of them it's not gonna befor them.
Okay, cool.
So 25% of those people it's notgonna be for them.
And about 50% of people aregonna be somewhere on the bell
curve of they like it once aweek.
They like it once a month, youknow this.
And then you're gonna get 25% ofthe people and are like, oh, I
(18:07):
love this game.
I wanna play online.
I wanna play in tournaments.
So to me it's just a numbersgame, right?
I want everyone in the world totry Bridge because it's a really
phenomenal game and if youhaven't tried it and it is for
you, you're really missing outon something cool.
Don Drew (18:24):
I understand that the post pandemic era there has been
some growth in online play.
Is that true?
Brian Reynolds (18:32):
Oh yeah.
Exploded for sure.
Samantha and I were able toteach online as early as, say,
2015.
The technology was there, thingslike Zoom, Bridge base.com,
which we are not affiliatedwith, but we highly recommend
you can go there.
You can create an account forfree.
(18:52):
You can play for free 24 7 BASE.
So Bridge base.com.
You can make an account rightnow.
If you don't know how to make anaccount, we have a video on our
YouTube channel, how to make anaccount.
You can literally play for freeanytime day or night.
But the pandemic forced peopleto find online communities.
(19:13):
A good example is, a lot of myactor and filmmaker friends,
when the pandemic hit, they hadnothing to do.
They were sitting in theirapartments and they couldn't do
anything.
So we did online readings ofscripts.
We just, okay, it's your turn,we're gonna read one of your
scripts.
We did that once a week to keepthat community and that
connection.
And that's carried over.
I love teaching online for somany reasons.
(19:35):
The technology allows me toreally dial in on terms of the
student and what they're workingon, what they need to work on.
Playing online with a teacher isa phenomenal way to learn'cause
you're learning by doing, andthen you can immediately get
feedback on what you did.
So yes, the online Bridgecommunity is stronger than it's
ever been.
And I think we're gonna see thatstart translating into people
(19:58):
who play online, also play inperson tournaments, which are
awesome.
They're the most fun to me forsure.
David Lowry (20:03):
Brian as a professional teacher and Bridge
player you probably have learnedsomething that a lot of us need
to learn, and that's how webalance being competitive with
being friendly and not gettingtoo intense in our play.
How do we balance all of this?
Brian Reynolds (20:18):
Well, I would say the first thing is never
personal.
It's never personal.
I'm like you I like a little bitof smack talk.
I like a little bit of, teasingeach other.
I've, Samantha and I have playedagainst each other a lot.
Pre pre pandemic I'd be playingwith one student at a club.
And she'd be playing with adifferent student at the same
club.
So we came up against each otherin a competitive environment,
(20:39):
not as partners a lot.
And man, we loved to talk alittle bit of trash to each
other.
We'd usually wait till thestudents were outta earshot
because, we didn't want todistract them.
But I'd say it's never personal.
If I sit down at the Bridgetable and.
I'm up against you in a match,my goal is to beat you.
Yeah, but not because I don'tlike you, not because I hate
(21:01):
you, not because I think you'rea bad person, but I am going to
crush you if I can'cause I wantto give a good score.
And then the other thing isSamantha, I played against the
world champions and gottencrushed.
And it wasn't personal for themeither, right?
It was just, okay, you're theobstacle in front of me.
I'm gonna crush you.
And we were the crush-ees thatday.
(21:21):
I saw a really amazing video ofRoger Federer and he was talking
about how many percentage of hispoints he had won in his career,
and it was 54%.
He'd only won slightly more thanhalf of the tennis points he
ever played in his career.
And he was probably the greatesttennis player of all time,
maybe.
(21:41):
He's in the conversation.
And he'd really talked about howit's the next ball.
It's the only thing that mattersis the next point, the next
ball.
Nothing else matters.
The past doesn't matter.
And I think that understandingthat is so important.
I've won really excitingmatches.
I've lost Samantha and I missedmaking the second day of a
(22:04):
national championship event onthe 17th tiebreaker.
That was gut wrenching.
17th ugh, like just everythingwas tied, all at 16 places down.
It was horrible.
I've done brilliant things towin matches and I've done
horribly inane, idiotic thingsto lose matches.
But I love the game and it's notpersonal, it's just fun.
Don Drew (22:26):
It's fun and it's social and I think one of the
issues that people in the secondhalf of life can fall into is
social isolation.
We retire from jobs or we movein some cases and so on.
I know my father fell into thistrap at one point in his life.
And this game seems like it's areally good opportunity to push
through that and find other waysto connect with people maybe not
(22:49):
in the traditional way that wedo it.
Brian Reynolds (22:50):
I'd love to start by dovetailing off what
you guys just said, and I'd liketo point out that, there's been
several pretty heavily vettedstudies one from the Harvard
School of Medicine and a coupleoutta Scotland where if you play
Bridge at least once a week,regularly have 75% less incident
of Alzheimer's and other formsof dementia.
We no longer view the brain as,you get a certain amount of
(23:13):
brain cells and they're gonnadie, and, oh, well.
You really can keepneuroplasticity and you can
literally grow your brain.
Like you can literally grow massin your brain.
And Bridge is an amazing way tokeep your mind sharp in the same
way that going to the gym andpicking up a barbell and doing
(23:33):
some curls keeps your bicepshealthy.
So not only does it have asocial element of you're getting
outta your house even if you'reonline, you're still interacting
with people online, right?
You're interacting with acommunity, but also you're
taking care of your brain.
Me personally, the idea oflosing my mental faculties is
(23:54):
the scariest thing I can thinkof.
I'd much rather lose the use ofmy limbs than my brain.
So Bridge is an amazing activityfrom the standpoint of mental
health, especially long-termmental health.
David Lowry (24:08):
Absolutely.
It keeps your mind sharp, keepsyou social, gives you something
to do.
There's so many wonderful thingsto recommend about that.
Brian, as we come close to theend of our program today, tell
us how we can learn more aboutthis?
Tell us what you guys areworking on, your website, the
videos you make, anything youthink we need to know.
Brian Reynolds (24:26):
There's our website, which is the Bridge
teachers.com.
The Bridge teacher is all aboutgiving you access to information
so that you can grow your gameat your own pace, at your own
speed, and really in what way isgonna be most effective for you.
We have an ever-growing libraryof video lessons on all aspects
(24:46):
of Bridge from zero tointermediate.
We're getting into advancedtopics now.
And then we do, of course, teachprivately through Zoom and
Bridge Base, or we play withstudents online or in-person
tournaments.
And yeah, so that's what theBridge teacher is all about.
Don Drew (25:03):
Brian Reynolds, teacher and co-owner with his
wife Samantha of the Bridgeteachers.com.
Brian, thank you for teaching ushow Bridge can help us build our
brains and our relationships.
Thank you for being on PeacefulLife Radio.
Brian Reynolds (25:17):
I thank you guys so much.
This has been an absolutepleasure.
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