I played bridge this afternoon, and had some pretty good cards - for a change. What is it about this game that has attracted so many people for such a long time? It's a fairly simple game, but the infinite variations of card combinations, plus the challenges of bidding and play, keeps us coming back.

This is a basic definition from Wikipedia:

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depending on the variant played). It is played by four players who form two partnerships; the partners sit opposite each other at a table. The game consists of the auction (often called bidding) and play, after which the hand is scored.
The bidding ends with a contract, which is a declaration by one partnership that their side will take at least a stated number of tricks, with a specified suit as trump or without trumps. The rules of play are similar to other trick-taking games, with addition of the feature that one player's hand is displayed face up on the table as the "dummy".

That's it. But look at this list of famous people, real and fictional, who have been fascinated by the game:
Harold S. Vanderbilt
Omar Sharif
Warren Buffett
Bill Gates
James Bond
Hercule Poirot
Lucy Ricardo
Ethel Mertz
Norma Desmond

But we all know, this is a REAL bridge.