I played some online Bridge today. Good fun; I forgot how much fun it is. Perhaps no other game benefits as much as Bridge from online play, especially for casual players.

Here’s why: Finding a group for Bridge is a big, fat pain. The learning curve is steep and long, and even otherwise hardcore gamers often don’t want to play. (Although for some reason, some otherwise reluctant gamers are fine with Bridge.) You need exactly four players. Fewer and there’s no game at all, more and someone will be sitting out. So overinviting to a Bridge session is troublesome, unless the players all know each other pretty darn well and can do some other activity.

Going online, you can take one partner (way easier than finding three others) and find someone else Out There to play against; you can even go alone for a pickup game.  Bidding systems are standard enough that most partnerships can work something out without too much pain.

Of the online sites that are out there, Yahoo has the advantages of being easy and download-free. Unfortunately, you’ll need to bring your own partner, because a great number of the players there are unfamiliar with any bidding conventions, wildly reckless, or flat-out insane. And that’s in the Advanced rooms. I can only imagine what the intermediate and novice rooms must be like. For those willing to invest the time in a download, Bridge Base Online offers a more sober environment with stronger opponents or pickup partners. I hear good things about OKBridge, but the service is pay, and I’m nowhere near strong enough to benefit from the services they offer.

Anyway, the online advantage is much greater than for other games:

• Chess and Go are great online, and it’s much easier to find a wide variety of opponents online. But these games don’t suffer from the difficulty of finding the exact correct number of opponents. One partner for a couple hours can make a satisfying session.
• Euchre also suffers from the exact-people problem. But Euchre is much easier to learn, so it can be more easily played as a pickup game with whoever has around; and if you have an extra person, that person can watch TV or otherwise kill 15 minutes while the game plays out. Unlike Bridge, you don’t need to get deeply into a Euchre game to play it.