McMaster professor shows his hand

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Khan_R.jpg” caption=”Brad Bart and Rashid Khan celebrate their victory at the Canadian Open Pairs Bridge Championship. Photo credit: Jonathan Steinberg”]McMaster economics instructor and alumnus Rashid Khan loves to take risks – playing cards – that is. A recent gold medal winner of the 2006 Canadian Open Pairs Champion, Khan has learned a thing or two since his days as a member of McMaster's former MSU Bridge Club. His original interest in meeting other students on campus took Khan far beyond his original goal of finding a social outlet to discovering a game that was a “perfect fit” with his love of numbers and logic. It's been over twenty years since he shelled out twenty-five cents each week to play against other McMaster students and now he just wants to keep on going.

“Even though Bridge is a challenging game, it is also a fun game, a social game,” Rashid says. “But Tournament Bridge at a national or international level can be quite demanding. At high levels of game play, you must study Bridge notes and conventional systems to play with your partner, as well as be aware of the systems used by your opponents.”

Forty-eight pairs played for eight hours on the first day of the Canadian Open Pairs competition to qualify for 24 spots on the second day. Again, they played for eight hours straight.

“Bridge is a constant mental exercise. It can take a lot of stamina,” says Khan. “Your memory has to be sharp and you have to have a high level of concentration.” He says the game requires players to have a keen mind to untangle puzzles; taking in and remembering information about each move and calculating the optimal move to make next.

“It's a lot like economics; in fact, I call it a 'probabilistic' game, a common economics term, because you're looking at a distribution of cards and counting in order to estimate outcome.”

Khan prefers to play Bridge online when he can't meet with his partners to practise.

To prepare for the Canadian Bridge Federation competition this past February, Khan worked with his partner, Bradley Bart from Burnaby, BC for months. Bart, a lecturer in computer science at Simon Fraser University, has played as Khan's partner on and off for over 15 years. Khan would often teach a night class and then head to his computer to for some late night practice online with his distant partner using the very popular website, Bridge Base Online. Thousands of Bridge fans, players of all ability levels, gather on this site to play against others internationally. Khan has even seen a few names of famous millionaires (Bill Gates, perhaps?) either playing or watching virtual Bridge hands as they unfold.

After several years of playing with his regular Bridge partner, Vera Carpenter, in various levels of competition, Khan developed his own 'conventional system' to help overcome the risk aspect of the game. During preparation for the championship, he would send Bart notes on this strategy in preparation for the national championship and they would practice the system online.

“Brad was quick to learn and remember this system,” says Khan. “It's really a way to signal to your partner what kind of hand you have so he can better predict where the game is heading and play more effectively through analyzing your bids.”

In addition to their gold medal win, the champions were each awarded a $1,000 honorarium. Khan and Bart have yet to decide whether they will represent Canada in the 2007 World Bridge Championship in Ankara, Turkey. If they choose to attend, as national winners, they would receive another $1,000 each to supplement their travel expenses from the Canadian Bridge Federation.

Khan welcomes hearing from students or other staff at McMaster who would be interested in 'talking Bridge'. He has been a lecturer in McMaster's department of economics since 1997 and has taught Bridge to classes of over 100 students in clubs across Canada. “So, if you're math oriented and you love to count and you have good stamina,” laughs Khan. “Then Bridge is the game for you.”

Khan and Bart's winning COPC Bridge hand information was published in the National Post on March 27, 2006. Khan can be contacted at khanr@mcmaster.ca.