My Published Articles for ViewsHound

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Why Should You Play Bridge -New Bridge Template

Today, Alexis via my request improved and simplify our 3-Table, 4 Rounds Progressive Bridge Template we use every Friday. A heartfelt thanks to Alexis for a job well done. Below are the 3 templates for your comparison. I do not want to hear any more complaints that the numbers are too small. OK!

Meanwhile, here'a an excellent article, Why Bridge is a Great Game

Why should You learn how to play bridge?

You should learn bridge because it's a game that offers a unique combination of social interaction, mental stimulation, and fun. Here are some benefits:

Improves cognitive skills: Bridge enhances strategic thinking, problem-solving, and memory.

Social benefits: It's a community-driven game that helps you meet new people and build relationships.

Mental sharpness: Bridge keeps your mind active and sharp, potentially delaying cognitive decline.

Strategic thinking: You'll develop critical thinking and analytical skills.

Fun and engaging: Bridge is a challenging and rewarding game that can be enjoyed with friends or solo.

Overall, bridge is a great way to challenge yourself, socialize, and have fun while keeping your mind active.

Meanwhile, Do you Know Why is Bridge mentally demanding?

Bridge is mentally demanding due to several factors:

Complex strategy: Bridge involves intricate bidding systems, card play techniques, and partnership coordination, requiring a deep understanding of the game.

Memory and recall: Players need to remember bids, cards played, and infer opponents' hands to make informed decisions.

Pattern recognition: Identifying patterns in bidding and card play helps players deduce information about opponents' hands and plan accordingly.

Probability assessment: Players constantly evaluate probabilities to decide on bids and plays, considering factors like card distribution and opponents' actions.

Partnership dynamics: Communication and coordination with a partner add a social dimension, requiring players to convey information effectively and understand each other's thought processes.

Adaptability: Bridge players need to adjust their strategy based on the game's progression, opponents' styles, and new information.

These factors combined create a mentally challenging environment that requires focus, analytical thinking, and strategic planning.

How does bridge improve social skills?

Bridge is an excellent way to improve social skills in several ways:

Communication: Bridge is a partnership game that requires effective communication between partners. Players need to convey information and strategies through bidding, which helps develop their communication skills.

Teamwork: As a partnership game, bridge encourages teamwork and collaboration. Players work together to achieve a common goal, promoting mutual understanding and trust.

Strategic discussion: Bridge involves discussing strategies and bids with your partner, which helps develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a social setting.

Social interaction: Joining a bridge club or playing with friends provides opportunities to meet new people and build relationships, helping to improve social skills like etiquette, sportsmanship, and conflict resolution.

Emotional intelligence: Bridge teaches players to manage their emotions, cope with winning and losing, and develop a sense of humor, all of which are essential for building strong social relationships.

By playing bridge, you can develop these social skills while having fun and challenging your mind.

What makes a good bridge partner?

A good bridge partner typically possesses a combination of skills, including:

Strong bidding skills: Ability to accurately bid their hand and understand their partner's bids.

Good communication: Clear and concise communication during the game, without revealing unauthorized information.

Attention to detail: Carefully tracking cards played and remembering which cards have been discarded.

Strategic thinking: Ability to plan and adjust strategy based on the game situation.

Emotional control: Managing emotions and pressure to make rational decisions.

Trust and reliability: Being dependable and consistent in their play.

Adaptability: Ability to adjust to different playing styles and partners.

These traits can make a bridge partner effective and enjoyable to play with.

Meanwhile,  Most people think bridge is a card game. They’re wrong.

Bridge is where strategists, storytellers, problem-solvers, dreamers, and wonderfully eccentric minds gather to test their wits.

One table. 52 cards. Infinite possibilities.

I love that bridge attracts people who see the world a little differently. The thinkers. The creators. The curious minds who know that learning never stops.

And honestly? If a stylish fox showed up at a tournament tomorrow, I wouldn’t even be surprised.

Bridge isn’t just about the cards. It’s about community. It’s about connection.

It’s about challenging yourself while laughing with friends who become family. Welcome to Bridge Unleashed. Where brilliant minds come to play.

Finally,

What do Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Winston Churchill all have in common? They didn’t just make world-changing decisions, they honed their minds playing contract bridge.

Contract bridge has an image problem, often seen as a relic played in country clubs or church basements. But structurally, it’s one of the most sophisticated decision-making environments ever devised. It’s a game of incomplete information, probabilities, and deep partnerships.

So, does playing bridge make you a better thinker, or are certain thinkers just drawn to bridge?

What is the hardest card game?

Many card games are considered challenging, but Bridge is often regarded as one of the most difficult. It's a trick-taking card game that involves strategy, probability, and communication between partners. The complexity of Bridge comes from the need to use bidding to convey information, manage multiple variables, and make precise calculations. Its difficulty level and depth have led to it being called the "card game of kings."

If you are a bridge player, Do you agree?

Finally, here'e RKCB 1430 basics asking for Queens:

Here is a compact cheat sheet for RKCB 1430, the queen ask, and the king ask. In RKCB, the key cards are the four aces plus the king of trumps, and the responses also let you ask about the trump queen.

4NT response	Meaning
5♣	1 or 4 key cards
5♦	0 or 3 key cards
5♥	2 or 5 key cards, no trump queen
5♠	2 or 5 key cards, with trump queen

That is the heart of 1430: the 5♣ and 5♦ responses are swapped compared with 0314.

Queen ask

If responder’s first reply was 5♣ or 5♦, the 4NT bidder can still ask for the trump queen by bidding the next cheapest suit that is not trumps. If responder lacks the queen, they sign off in the trump suit if possible; if they have the queen, they continue according to the partnership’s agreed method, often by showing a side-suit king or by bidding 5NT.

King ask

After the queen has been shown, 5NT is commonly used as a king ask when the partnership believes all five key cards are present and is interested in grand slam. Some pairs use 5NT slightly differently, so this one absolutely needs partnership agreement.

Sample auctions

Hearts as trump: 1♥ – 2NT – 4NT – 5♣ – 5♦ = queen ask. Then 5♥ denies the queen; 5♠ shows the queen and usually some extra strength.
Spades as trump: 1♠ – 2NT – 4NT – 5♣ – 5♦ = queen ask. Then 5♠ denies the queen; a higher continuation shows the queen, depending on your method.

Practical rule

A useful memory aid is: 4NT asks key cards, the next cheapest non-trump bid asks for the queen, and 5NT often asks for kings. The exact follow-ups after the queen show vary by partnership, but that basic structure is very common in modern bridge.

About Me

David B. Katague is an online memoirist and cultural essayist whose writing has appeared on HubPages and Blogger since 2007. His work reflects a sustained interest in Filipino heritage, family history, senior living, art, community life, and the cultural meaning found in everyday experience. Through memoir, reflection, and essay, he explores the personal and historical dimensions of identity, memory, and belonging. His writing seeks to preserve lived experience while offering thoughtful commentary on the traditions, values, and social realities that shape individual and collective life. As a Filipino-American writer, he brings a distinctive cultural perspective to his work, drawing on personal experience and careful observation to create writing that is both reflective and engaging. His online essays and memoir pieces continue to document a lifelong commitment to storytelling, cultural understanding, and the written record of experience.

Guest Article from Susan Creamer Joy

In The Silence, by Susan Creamer Joy.

Today's guest article is from Susan Creamer Joy. Susan is one of my favorite authors in the ViewsHound community. Susan writes, draws, paints and cobbles together art from found objects making a variety of creations from jewelry to religious shrines. She frequently sports burns on her fingers from her soldering iron, paint on her palms and ink under her fingernails, but her hair is usually combed. When she is not losing time in the creative vortex of her studio, she is likely to be putting her knowledge of metaphysics and esoteric principles including Tarot, numerology, astrology and graphology to good use in consultations. Her children are grown, her husband still works and her four dogs believe she needs serious help. The title of her article is "A Matter Of Love And Death". Thank you Susan.

By the time they reached my bedroom door, I was already sitting up – my stomach ratcheted in the tense grip of an unnamed anxiety; my pillow, unburdened of my drowsy head.

To this day I cannot explain how I heard them coming up those stairs in their bare feet or how I knew that my father struggled to hold his composure as my mother unnaturally clutched at the folds of her dressing gown and followed him through the dark just a little too closely.

As the wooden groan of those old stairs tore into my bones that morning like a hacksaw, all I could see between the predawn shadows was the letter I’d written just hours earlier to my boyfriend, Chris, propped against the lamp on my desk across the room awaiting an envelope.

I had not slept well. It was late November and there had been so many changes since the middle of August when he left for the Air Force in Texas to begin basic training and I began my third new school in as many years.

The conspiracy between fate and the last surge of the Vietnam draft had broken apart the every-waking-minutes of our two-year union with unceremonious indifference. All that night my sleep had been infested by difficult dreams and by the illogical fear that truth and reality were merging into a darkness only a martyr could grasp; and at sixteen, martyrdom seemed reasonable only for the nuns among the poor in Bangladesh

I tried to remind myself that he would be home on leave for Thanksgiving in another few days. It was the only tether to calm I could find, but reviewing the facts offered little relief from my baseless fears.

Chris had been girding his pacifist sensibilities preparing to fight in an unpopular war that had not yet slaughtered its last innocent. I was hovering just over the line of inclusion at an exclusive girl’s school – missing him – and finding myself at odds with these young women and their attachment to propriety and with the prep-school veneer that blinded them to the fact that they were no better than anyone else.

Neither one of us was coping well with the worlds into which we were respectively summoned, and although we both knew that the best hope for any future together depended upon our individual successes apart, it was far from comforting most days.

But in spite of our discomfort, we each did our best; and, of course, there were the letters: Thin, plain-paper sheets with row after row after row of inky blue words penned with the intensity and awkward locutions of a love learned too soon. It had come down to just that little, but without them, I would have had nothing.

Chris was learning to fly. I was learning to drive, and both of us were aching to transport our souls to an earlier time through the hallowed intercourse of memories and dreams. Of course, as with all progress, there was the positive element: We were both clean and drug-free for the first time in years.

Now, without pretense, both healthy cognition and sincere motivation surfaced regularly in my psychology and prompted me to care about myself and to arbitrate against all temptation for a better standing in the world, in school and in my own eyes. I even did my homework.

No longer was I escaping today but, instead, living for my day of escape. Lying still in the dark of my room, I listened to the slow, padded footfall of my parents approaching and looked to the floor and to my history book half hidden beneath the nightstand where I’d tossed it the night before. Even in this early morning dark I could make out the swirls and stars in colored marker and the bubble-formed letters that spelled C H R I S in soft, juvenile curves on the torn book cover I’d fashioned out of a brown paper grocery bag.

I vaguely remembered throwing it there somewhat hastily. I had been doing my homework when a sense of urgency struck and I realized I had not written him as I promised I would and glancing at the clock, I noted it was nine-twenty-three. Why that mattered I had no way of knowing in that strange moment, but within hours, it would be one I would never forget; and although I was becoming drowsy and still needed to finish my work, I felt beyond reason that my letter to him could not wait.

So, I wrote. I would always write. I would always be there. He would always be there.“Suzi."It was my name spoken in the smooth and familiar voice of my mother, although weighted and slow, her head bowed to her chest almost as though she were speaking only to herself.

"Suzi.” She said it again, this time with sharp gravity, like a chisel against stone.

As if on cue, I leaned forward, flanked now by my parents who were sitting on either side of my bed.

I had been waiting for them. I don’t know how. I didn’t know why. The lights in my room remained off, but it seemed that the darkness clung more to them than to me, as though they were holding it there – away from me to give me enough light to see through the next moment. They were crying. My father was crying. My father. “Suzi. We have something very, very bad to tell you." Chris has been in a car accident." And he was killed."

If the world moved forward from that moment, I could not know it. f there were air around me worth breathing, I could not take it in. And if there were another sound beyond the leaden bellow of my own raw grief, I could not hear it.

"Who am I going to talk to? Who am I going to love?” I wailed. Who will love me? In that sodden moment violated by the intrusion of a predawn light that had no business rising, everything I ever believed about happiness, hoped for in life, trusted in or held as my own was annihilated.

After that – there was no after that. After that came months of hollow redundancies that would inform my way of being in the world for years to come. A serial commitment to waking up each morning, remembering he was gone and dedicating the remaining hours to forgetting. To that end I would try anything, drink anything, ingest anything, inject anything. It was a slow and arbitrary suicide by indifference.

Many years later, at 25 years-old and in the midst of a pharmaceutical free-fall leaning dangerously close to terminal, I discovered that I was expecting a child, and after a decade of forgetting, I remembered. I named him Griffin after the legendary winged lion, a symbol of the divine because what he inspired and the miracle that he was, were nothing less. I remembered and I loved again, and I went on to marry and to the gift of two beautiful daughters.

Today my son is struggling not to drown in the same well of drug abuse and apathy that almost swallowed me – his great, divine wings clipped by his own hand; and while it is up to him to restore his place in the sky, I will do my best to help provide an open runway.

In the meantime, I will continue soaring for both of us; bequeathed as I have been, with a determination to fly from a boy whose ragged fate precluded that dream.

Death took one young man from me once upon a dark time. If it has any intention of coming for this one, it will have to go through me. And trust me, it will be in for one hell of a fight.

Note: If you enjoy this article, please let me know.

David B. Katague is an online memoirist and cultural essayist whose writing has appeared on HubPages