Conference Day 1: Bridge as a Mindsport (1A)

Bridge as a Mindsport in Research, in the Bridge World, in Society

Professor Samantha Punch, Dr Miriam Snellgrove and Zoe Russell (BAMSA)

Bridge: A MindSport for All (BAMSA) is an academic project that explores the social world of bridge and the benefits of mindsport. BAMSA’s research studies relate to social issues including wellbeing, healthy ageing, equality and community. Working with a network of bridge organisations and practitioners, BAMSA researchers translate academic findings into accessible resources for use by the global bridge community. In order to create positive and lasting impact, BAMSA has three key goals: to transform the image of bridge, to encourage more people of all ages to play, and to ensure the card game continues to thrive. 

The BAMSA network is an inclusive and international forum of research associates, practitioners (players, teachers, organisers) and policymakers. The project is led by Samantha Punch, Professor of Sociology, and hosted at the University of Stirling, Scotland. This paper presents the ongoing and future work of Bridge: A MindSport for All and how it links to concerns and issues in the global bridge community. It also discusses how mindsport studies relate to sport studies and leisure studies both in academia and wider society.  

Mind, Body, and/or Confidence? Using Sociological Approaches to Emotion to Understand the Physicality of Bridge

Dr David Scott, Sports Studies, Abertay University; Professor Samantha Punch, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling

The classification of bridge as a sport continues to prove ripe for debate within the philosophy of sport. The emergence of distinctive categorisations such as ‘mind sports’ and ‘esports’ raises important questions as to how they distinguish from more classical categorisations of ‘sports’, and whether such distinctions are even necessary. The concept of ‘physicality’ is often cited as being a prerequisite for an activity to be classed as a ‘sport’, and is typically the given reason for excluding ‘mind sports’ such as bridge from being officially recognised by sporting organisations and funders. However, this paper raises the question as to whether such an exclusion based on ‘physicality’ is accurate. By drawing from data collected through in-depth interviews with elite Bridge players, a sociological approach to emotions is applied to highlight the various ways in which the sensorial experiences of bridge play align with those experienced in sports more traditionally classed as being ‘physical’. For instance, the effects of fatigue, concentration, communication, pressure, anticipation, and physical presence are all noticeable corporeal experiences which allude to a mind/body conceptualisation of physicality, both while at the table and away from it. Of most significance is the importance of ‘confidence’ within competitive bridge and the ways this influences performance. The existential-phenomenologically grounded conceptions of ‘confidence as a frame’ and ‘confidence-through-the-body’ provide insight into the combined sensorial and physical experiences of confidence during competitions. While this paper does not necessarily argue the case for bridge’s inclusion into the wider classification of ‘sport’ on a philosophical basis, it does present a sociologically-informed understanding of how the bridge world could argue the case that playing is more physical than first seems.

The Growth of Contract Bridge as a Mindsport in China

Professor Shuxiang Zhao (School of Sport Science, Beijing Sport University, China)

Contract Bridge is one of the most popular mind sports in the world. There are more than 100 million people worldwide involved in playing bridge. Bridge combines elements of science, arts and fun in one. At present more and more ordinary members of the public play bridge in China. Bridge is a public event forming part of China’s National Games. In 2018 it became an official event in the Asian Games. Bridge promotes significant effects on understanding, communication, co-operative team spirit, fairness, honesty, exercising analytical and logical ability. Playing bridge enables the making of friends from different age groups, gender, educational and social backgrounds, building a great network.

This course promotes the sport of bridge to the wider public in China. It helps students understand the history and development of bridge; obtaining preliminary knowledge, natural bidding system, basic playing technique; practising logical thinking and developing interests in the game. It is mainly focused on the basics, advocating practice, step by step allowing students to have a quick start, and through playing they gradually understand and learn bidding conventions and play techniques. It is not expensive to play and easy to get hands-on practice, either online or face to face. The entry level is not high. Based on the experience of learning for adults online, this course formulates a basic bidding system and is suitable for absolute beginners. The bidding system in this course has incorporated classic examples from Championships with analysis, to meet demands from different levels.

The main lecturer on this course is Zhao Shuxiang, Professor of Beijing Sport University, School of Sports Science and Human Body, Bachelor of Probability Statistics, Peking University, Doctor of Physical Education, and bridge learner for more than 30 years and an ardent fan of bridge. Now let’s invite teacher Zhao to teach you to play bridge.

Thanks to Ying Piper for the English translation of this video

Characteristics of bridge players in Israel: The role of motivation and use of cognitive strategies

Liat Hen-Herbst; Yael Fogel; Sonya Meyer, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ariel; Liron Lamash, Faculty of Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel

Background: Bridge is one of the most commonly played games in the world. Currently there are approximately 8,500 bridge players in Israel, who are members of the Israel Bridge Federation (IBF) and about 100,000 players non-federation members. Previous research showed that older adults play games for five main reasons: mental and physical fitness, continuity, competition, temporal structure, and belonging. No previous research has been conducted among bridge players in Israel.

Aims: The research aims were to:

1. Describe the demographic characteristics of a sample of bridge players in Israel;

2. Explore their motivation for playing bridge;

3. Explore the cognitive strategies used before, during, and after the game.

4. Describe the relationships between player characteristics, motivations, cognitive strategies, and player records.

Methods: Participants in the online survey were 462 adults (315 males, 64.5%) aged 19-91 years (M = 68.7, SD = 9.28). Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, Bridge Motivational Factors Checklist (BMFC) and the Bridge Cognitive Strategies Questionnaire (BCSQ). Descriptive statistics were performed, exploratory factor analysis with principal factor extraction and varimax rotation was used and T-tests and one-way ANOVA were used to examine differences between factors. Pearson correlations were performed to assess relationships between variables.

Results: Among the participants, the most common factor (97.5%) was the feeling that playing bridge enhances their mood and 64% felt that bridge reduces stress in their daily lives. Overall, motivation and strategies were positively related, and strategy use during the game correlated with the player’s record.

Conclusion: The results emphasised important aspects of leisure time, well-being, and social participation reported by the participants. The two new questionnaires provided important insight into the specific motivation to play the game and which specific strategies are used during the game. Additional cross-cultural studies are recommended to compare various populations for further understanding and generalising the results.

Playing with Emotions: The Management and Complexity of Emotion in an Elite Mind-Sport

Zoe Russell; Professor Samantha Punch, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling

This paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of emotional experience, exploring how social interaction and reflexivity shape emotion management for players of elite bridge. Elite tournament bridge is an emotionally charged setting, in which we examine the performance and management of emotions across frontstage and backstage contexts. This interactionist, dramaturgical framing illustrates the dynamics of emotional performance and management in a tense, time-pressured environment, at the bridge table and in more private spaces beyond this, where there is the possibility to process emotion over time and in dialogue with others. Emotional complexity characterises the experiences of elite players who can derive positive outcomes from successful strategies for emotion management, including emotional labour, whilst simultaneously often failing to manage emotions. We present a model of emotions in bridge and argue that emotional complexity is necessary to capture how emotions are managed through reflexivity, unfolding in social interaction and changing over time across multiple interconnected contexts.

The Professional Bridge Player and Devotee Work

Ian McIntosh, Sociology, University of Stirling; Zoe Russell; Professor Samantha Punch, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling

This paper contributes to the sociology of mindsport and leisure by focusing on ‘devotee work’ via an exploration of professional bridge. As a partnership card game, bridge has been increasingly professionalising over recent decades, including part-time and full-time players. We investigate the lived experience of the professional bridge player and how they understand the, often ongoing, transition from playing bridge as a hobby to playing bridge for a job. In so doing we bring to light the tensions and ambiguities that can be involved in this process. Playing bridge professionally is often experienced as being hugely positive, because of being paid to do something one is devoted to, but there are important ambivalences and anxieties involved. Being a professional bridge player also entails the blurring of distinctions between work and leisure and raises issues about moral evaluations of work, a work ethic and concerns over what a ‘proper job’ is. The paper draws on data from 52 semi-structured interviews with elite players from the US and Europe. It also considers the journey of one of the research team who decided to combine work and leisure by researching her passion for the mindsport of bridge. Researching one’s leisure activity is a rewarding privilege, but also involves tensions, constraints and contradictions. Thus, this paper explores the perceived gains and losses of the blurred boundaries of work and leisure at elite level of tournament bridge both for the international players and for the researcher.