WHY PLAY THE ULTIMATE CARD GAME?

Bridge exercises both sides of your brain. Bridge is one of the few games that stimulates both the left and right sides of your brain. Every time you play, you use -- and improve -- your skills in communication, logic, math, memory, visualization and psychology. Bridge can improve your physical health. A 15-year

study by a University of California-Berkeley researcher has shown that a game of bridge can even boost your immune system. By stimulating the brain cortex, bridge-playing activity produces higher numbers of the white blood cells that fight disease. Other studies have found that people who play bridge regularly are 2½ times less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. Bridge is social. There's a special camaraderie among bridge players that develops from the social setting and the game's emphasis on teamwork, ethics and sportsmanship. Bridge is good for kids. Dr. Christopher Shaw, a researcher from Carlinville, Ill., recently completed a study that shows that children who play bridge perform better on standardized tests than their non-bridge playing counterparts. Shaw believes that learning to play bridge has such a dramatic effect on the test scores because "bridge is a game that develops inferential reasoning skills, which are very difficult to teach elementary students. These skills appear to be used in all five subject areas (reading, language, math, science, social studies) in middle school." AND THE MAIN REASON TO PLAY IS IT'S FUN! HOME PAGE