Why is bridge quite so exciting? One of the reasons, surely, is that it involves a power struggle, with each player wanting to assert their supremacy; the very word ‘trump’ derives from ‘triumph’. Call me competitive — but my view is confirmed even more starkly in the writings of the Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler (a contemporary of Freud). ‘Bridge players are usually suffering from an inferiority complex,’ he wrote, ‘and find in the game an easy way to satisfy their striving for superiority.’ Bridge, he went on, is ‘a great invention …it offers an opportunity to conquer others.’
Even more satisfying than conquering others is enlisting their help in doing so: making them fall on their own swords. This hand, from a recent rubber bridge game, was well-played, but left a triumphant declarer committing the cardinal bridge sin of gloating — he punched the air in glory (I won’t name names):
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