I hear you. I don't know words with friends and I'm not going to look. I only went on fb to see what my daughter is up to. But bridge???!!! Flaggy - seriously? Do you play bridge? As a child, did your parents wake you up whenever they needed a fourth?
My parents don't play. My grandmother taught me. I am not as good as most of the other members of my family; in fact I generally didn't get to play unless we had two tables going at once -- until they all started dying and now usually I'm needed.
That seems weirdly sad, but inevitable I guess. I pretty much had to get better at bridge as it was the only way I could be sure of a date with my current spousal unit. Sometimes we go to bridge tournaments in far-away places - but so far, not Texas. In Key West, I have a 92-year-old bridge partner. He's amazing.
Online scrabble has disadvantages. Too easy to cheat, but the biggest problem is that anytime you do something spectacular people think you're cheating and leave. Which is sad, and Idiocratic -- it encourages mediocrity; never a good evolutionary mechanism. I tried online bridge for a while to keep up with my conventions and stuff in between family vacations but if you don't know your partner's bidding style and can't announce weak twos and so on it really isn't the same game.
I believe you and your partner can arrive together and have your conventions worked out ahead of time. As for online scrabble, no one said it had to be tournament rules. The scrabble attached to facebook has a dictionary available so you can look up words and it gives all the acceptable two-letter words in a list. There's probably other lists as well. Given that everyone has the same tools available, there is an even playing field. But bridge! If you like it, it doesn't seem to get old, the way - say, bingo does.
:( sorry to burst your bubble but there's a googlable program with which you can optimize your play given sections of the board and your tiles. Yes, both players have access to it theoretically, but there's no point playing. Is it arrogant to mention that people have accused me of using it? Probably. I'm on a roll this afternoon! Bridge I love. Wonder if there's anyone else on hubski. Someday we could have a hubski meetup that doesn't involve going to every bar in <insert city>.As for online scrabble, no one said it had to be tournament rules. The scrabble attached to facebook has a dictionary available so you can look up words and it gives all the acceptable two-letter words in a list. There's probably other lists as well. Given that everyone has the same tools available, there is an even playing field.
A long bridge post is coming -- but regarding scrabble: I find myself increasingly wanting to not get too far ahead of people whose vocabulary consists of one-syllable words. In one case, I was so far ahead that I began seeing how few points I could make on a play so that they could catch up. In another case, someone is so weirdly ahead of me, that I'm convinced they must be a robot. They play so strategically that they make it impossible for me to make more than a few points no matter what letters I have. So I guess I'm just using this as an experiment to find out who I am (and to see if my daughter is still alive). Now bridge . . . later tonight. Maybe a pm.