World bridge tournament off to a quiet start in Philadelphia

The cards fell where they may, and a hush fell over two large rooms at the Center City Marriott, where the first games of the World Bridge Series - the largest championship bridge tournament - began Saturday morning.

In two huge halls, each on a different hotel level, almost 900 players began three days of mixed-pairs competition, in which partnerships of men and women play. It's the first of eight championships in the series, during which about 4,000 people are expected to play over 16 days. The world series is run by the World Bridge Federation, the game's governing body.

Players come from 80 countries, but their partnerships and teams are not necessarily determined by nationality; most tables are transnational, with partnerships made by players who know each other and like to play regardless of borders.

Bridge is a game of partnerships. Two pairs of partners play at each table, bidding on what suit will be dominant and how many tricks - throws of cards by all four players - the partners will win, determined by the dominant card in each throw.

On Saturday morning, partners checked a long row of flat-screens in the hotel to see their seat assignments in the two playing salons, filled with rows of tables - each with a wooden screen to block partners' views of one another. These screens, not typically used outside of major competitions, prevent partners from giving visual cues when they pass around a basket with "bidding cards" that suggest what they believe is the power in their hands.

After the bidding for each game - a process that among high-level players looked to be rapid - a player at every table lifted a small slat cut into the wooden sight barriers, and the play of cards began.

Except for the sound of those openings being latched, the rooms were quiet during round after round. Each table played from decks already prepared and distributed in "boards" - plastic holders already containing a deck of cards separated into hands for each player.

Twenty tournament directors - the referees of competitive bridge - roamed the two rooms to settle conflicts over rules or play. They were instantly identifiable by their khaki vests, but few were called over by the players to resolve disputes. "Nothing serious," said Max Bevin of Britain, chief of the directors for the entire world series.

Many pairs of partners met their table mates for the first time when they sat down to play. Howard Liu, a graduate student in computer science at the University of Chicago, was assigned with his playing partner to a table with a pair including Kalpana Misra from Mumbai, who has represented India at several international tournaments.

"Oh, I lived in Chicago for a year," Misra said when she discovered where Liu was from - a typical table meeting between players in a game that, like golf, is constantly intriguing because they feel they can always play better, no matter their levels. Many spend lifetimes trying to do so, and meet people from around the world trying to do the same, making bridge an international culture.