By: centraljersey.com
For some "holy grail" kinds of things, you’ve got to search and search. You may get lucky; you may not. But if what you seek is the game of bridge – if you’ve always wanted to try it, or wondered what its coded language is all about – your search is over.
Merely say the word "bridge" between Princeton and Bridgewater, and the response is"Bill Miller." Everywhere you turn, there seems to be a bridge lesson, coaching session or game that this bridge impresario teaches or manages.
Besides owning a bridge club in Bridgewater, where he directs some games and handles the administrative side, Mr. Miller also directs games and offers coaching sessions at sites around Princeton; he teaches bridge at Princeton’s Senior Resource Center (PSRC) and through the Princeton Adult School and gives private lessons, and yes, he occasionally manages to play the game himself.
Mr. Miller favors "duplicate," rather than "rubber" bridge because "its format minimizes the element of luck and is most challenging," he says. "You’re measured not by the absolute value of how you do with the cards, but by the relative value of how you do compared with how other players do."
He stresses, though: "I teach people how to play bridge. What they learn can be applied to any format."
In what might be described as a benevolent bridge monopoly, Mr. Miller spends at least six days a week as a kind of Johnny Appleseed or itinerant school master from his home in South Brunswick (Kendall Park), promoting this card game. The wonder is that it doesn’t wholly consume his seventh day. Yet he’s happy as a clam – or a person who simply loves the game and what he’s doing. "It’s like sudoku or crosswords: Every hand is another puzzle," he says. Most interesting for him, it’s a partnership game. "You are dependent upon bidding signals from your partner to reach the best contract, and when your opponents win the bidding auction, you and your partner must send and receive carding signals to coordinate the best defense.
"It’s very challenging to make the best use of the cards, and cooperation is key," he adds. Lacking that, bridge can turn into a different game: war. Mr. Miller says he and his wife, Stephanie, long ago learned not to discuss the game till they were in the car going home. The couple had met playing bridge, they co-own the club in Bridgewater and both enjoy working vacations on cruise ships, running bridge programs at sea.
Brooklyn-born, with an undergrad degree in economics before Fordham Law, Bill Miller began his professional life as a lawyer. But starting about 20 years ago, he gradually morphed into a full-time missionary for bridge. Law had come to involve too much paperwork, he says. But "in bridge, people will go somewhere else if they don’t like how I run a game, and I don’t have to write letters over everything."
His law background had prompted him to check the correctness of bridge judgments he received, leading Mr. Miller to become certified as a club director. Since teaching came with that job, he became accredited to teach. And because "I still remember being a novice at the table and the stupid mistakes I made when I began," he makes sure that "better players respect the novices and treat them nicely." He credits Princeton’s bridge resurgence to people knowing they’ll be treated fairly and well, and to Susan Hoskins and Mauri Tyler, of the PSRC, for hosting duplicate bridge since 2007. (Mr. Miller first offered bridge lessons there in ’08.)
In class, his students sit four to a table – the better to play hands – and he usually roams around, lecturing or looking over shoulders. For illustrative purposes, he’ll often dictate hands to be composed at each table then played out and discussed. Along the way he uses proper bridge terminology so students won’t be gauche in a "real" bridge setting.
He frequently repeats bridge principles to remember: "If you can follow suit, do so." "It’s not just what your partner promises, but what she denies." "Number of cards is more important than a couple high cards." "Lose your losers early." "In opening, start higher; in responding, start low." "A new suit by responder is forcing; the opener must re-bid."
Probably best of all is the encouragement Mr. Miller conveys through his knowledgeable-but-light manner. He often tells tales on himself as a new bridge player – he made lots of mistakes to begin with, he’ll say, but they grew smarter the more he played. If anything irritates him, it’s students taking too long to play a hand.
"When I started playing bridge, I hadn’t read a book or taken a course; I just read the newspaper column. But I was pleasant and I was fast, and people thanked me for playing." Without telling jokes, he uses anecdotes, tones of voice and quick retorts to be funny – and keep things moving.
Linda and John Montgomery, of Princeton, were two beginner bridge students this fall when Mr. Miller began teaching through the Adult School. (Disclosure: this writer was, too.) "The pace was relaxed, yet we covered a lot of material," they agree, describing the Audrey Grant bridge basics book he used as "a good resource."
"In learning to play bridge, you must accept the fact that you will do stupid things. It’s not that you’re stupid. It’s just that you won’t know the answer to some things, and you will guess and you won’t be right. It’s like wanting to play golf perfectly – an unrealistic expectation.
"I firmly believe that having a bridge commitment, when you’re going to go out and think about something, keeps your brain from going mushy. People talk to others and exchange ideas. This is something the Internet can’t replace," he says.
For information about the Bridge Center of Central New Jersey, visit www.bridgecnj.com.