When Casper Gu was really young, he enjoyed playing Go Fish and solitaire, the kind of simple card games kids love. But then he discovered bridge. At age 9.
Now 14, the Barrie, Ont. teen has fully embraced this much more challenging pastime where the competition skews far older than his peer group — often by 50-plus years.
“It’s hard for young people to get into the game,” says Gu, who was introduced to bridge when adult volunteers from a local club came to teach his Grade 4 class. “The youth of today have very short attention spans and they do not tend to listen to extremely complicated ramblings on how to play a card game.”
But Gu proved the exception.
With several regional tournaments already under his belt, he’ll be attending his first North American Bridge Championship next week.
Running at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre until July 28, the NABC is projecting to draw 3,500 players, not only from across the continent but around the world. And while the majority will be in their 60s and 70s, there will be 100 participants — mostly between the ages of 11 and 16, but as young as 7 — playing in the youth tournament, which starts July 25. The NABC was last in Toronto in 2017.
“He’s playing in an adult world a lot of the time,” says Paul Campbell, an executive member of the Barrie Bridge Club where Gu goes to play several times a month. “His big problem has been finding people who are at his level to play with.”
Campbell describes Gu as a talented player who, while still learning, is “very good; very quick.”
“I’ve never met a younger person with that kind of passion for bridge.”
Gu says he has always had “a natural addiction” to card games — his interest in video games is limited to Tetris — and after being exposed to bridge at school, he was inspired to learn more.
“I was quite intrigued,” says Gu, whose strongest subject is math. “It’s not very common that you can find a game that mixes strategy and psychological warfare together, because in bridge you have to read the other person’s mind.”
To the uninitiated, bridge can appear complicated and confusing. A trick-taking game, it requires four people, in partners, and involves a combination of bidding and playing. It demands patience and time. A game can take three hours. Once a favourite at neighbourhood parties and in university dorms, the game has seen its popularity wane over the past half-century, vanquished by modern-day distractions.
The Barrie Bridge Club, which boasts about 200 members, has just two official youth members, including Gu, although the club continues to do outreach to elementary school kids.
While Gu’s former Grade 4 classmates didn’t commit to bridge in the same way he did, he’s confident in his decision to pursue the game, even if others question his choice.
“I know that I’m on the right path of success and I’m not going to stop there,” says Gu, who is entering Grade 9 at Eastview Secondary School in September. “I’m not going to listen to these people say that I can’t do it because the proof is right there that I can.”
He currently plays about 17 hours each week — online and in person, often with a 14-year-old from Brampton who has become his regular bridge partner.
“It’s on-the-job training,” says Gu who attended bridge camp in Markham last summer. “The more you play bridge, the more experience you get.”
His family, consisting of dad Wenbo, mom Jiejun Zhang and younger brother Muxin, have been supportive, driving him to tournaments around southern Ontario.
“As an immigrant family, we had no social connections in Canada at the beginning,” says Wenbo. “It was a big challenge.”
But Wenbo says that through Bridge, his son has come to know a community of professionals, from scientists to university professors. “Casper can really learn a lot from those players, like social skills. It is experience that he can use in his entire life.”
Gu says he uses the faster reaction time of youth to his advantage against the skill and experience of senior players, but he is thankful to his mentors who have taught him not only game strategy but game etiquette.
“He knows how to be grateful to those who have helped him, rather than just thinking about winning,” says Wenbo.
Heading into the NABC in Toronto, Gu has 31 masterpoints — accumulated points awarded at competitions (a NABC master would have 200). “He plays as if he has a few hundred,” says Campbell. “He’s well ahead of the points he’s got.”
The more he gets, the more he can rise through the ranks. One day, he’d like to attend a post-secondary institution where he can play collegiate-level bridge.
But for now, his eye is on another prize.
“My entire goal for this tournament is to make the people that supported me on my journey proud of what I’ve been doing.”
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