Don’t let the gray hair fool you. The hundred or so people in the room are fierce competitors. Try to take them on, and they’ll deploy methods of attach perfected over decades of practice. Their battlefield: the Greater Des Moines Bridge House in Clive.

As many as six days a week, the Bridge House is a destination for people from around Central Iowa who share an interest in playing bridge. Daytime games attract many retirees, some of whom have been playing the game since childhood. A handful of younger players show up for the evening games, some looking to test the skills they’ve picked up by playing bridge online.

John Gustafson, a retired doctor and medical consultant, is one of the regulars. He visits the Bridge House four times a week, each time playing 26 rounds of duplicate bridge over the course of about 3 1/2 hours. Duplicate bridge differs from standard bridge in that each hand is played at every other table during the session. This creates more of an even playing field for group play because it removes the “luck of the draw.” Play is carried out with two partners competing against another twosome to win the most tricks for their side.

Games at the Bridge House are sanctioned by the American Contract Bridge League. Players pay $5 to $6 to participate, but they compete for points instead of money. Money collected from the games is used to pay rent for the Bridge House building at 10190 Hickman Court and cover other expenses.

Gustafson learned to play bridge in 1946 during medical school and was instantly addicted.

“I used to be a straight-A student before I started playing bridge,” he said. “Then I started getting B’s and C’s because I was playing all the time.”

Sixty years later, the game still holds strong appeal for Gustafson, a points leader at the Bridge House. He likes the game’s mental challenge, social interaction and competitive nature.

“The game is easy to learn, but hard to master,” he said. “Even the top players will make mistakes.”

His wife, Helen, also plays, but Gustafson jokes that she is a “newcomer” because she “just” started playing 40 years ago. They only play together as partners a few times a month at the Bridge House, but are regular partners for tournaments. They have been tournament partners for the past 32 years and have represented the United States three times in world tournaments.

You might be surprised to learn the kinds of people who show up for tournaments, Gustafson said. He has played against billionaire businessmen Bill Gates and Warren Buffett on more than one occasion. The most recent time was last fall at a national tournament in Omaha. Gustafson is not surprised that successful people like Buffett and Gates are bridge fanatics.

“It’s a good mental challenge, and it’s a competitive outlet,” he said.

Gustafson also finds bridge enjoyable because it’s not a one-on-one game like chess.

“You always have a partner, so you can blame all the errors on that person,” he jokes. He and Helen are one of only about six married couples competing on a national level who are regular teammates.

“The top bridge players are aggressive, and you have to be that way in order to win,” Gustafson said. “Sometimes that aggression causes you to say things to your partner that you shouldn’t. That’s probably why not many couples play together.”

The physician side of Gustafson appreciates bridge for its anti-aging effects. He said medical studies have suggested that bridge players live longer than non-players because they keep their minds active, which helps stave off Alzheimer’s disease.

According to the American Contract Bridge League, the average age of its members is 68. Phil Dorweiler, a retired attorney who is a board member of the Bridge House, says that demographic is in line with the people who play in Clive. He estimates the average age there to be on the high side of 60.

The Bridge House has been using its location in an office building since 1995. The move to this location was prompted by the death of Mary Betts Adrianse, whose family started Betts Cadillac. Adrianse loved to play bridge, and was driving home after a game when she was killed in an automobile accident in 1993. A group of her friends established a non-profit foundation in her memory to establish a bridge center where people of all ages could come together to play.

“We were playing in rather poor quarters, and when Mary died, we took up a collection to start the foundation and move to a nicer location,” said Martha Dorweiler, who was a friend of Adrianse’s.

The Bridge House offers free lessons for anyone who wants to learn how to play the game, and it recently started offering an eight-week mentoring program for people new to the game of duplicate bridge who want the opportunity to play with more experienced players. The center also has a library stocked with books on bridge for people of all skill levels.

Harriet Byers is one of the bridge instructors. She learned how to play the game as a child and started playing duplicate bridge about 40 years ago.

“I learned from my parents,” Byers said. “I grew up during the Depression, and this was something that the family could do together to keep busy and use our minds.”

Today, many of Byers’ students are of retirement age. She said it’s still possible to learn at that stage of life, but it “takes them a little longer.” Byers suggests people speed up the learning process by reading books and checking out the resources available on the Internet.

The Internet is also helping introduce new players to the game, and there are people across the world devoting resources to preventing the game from dying out with the older generation of players. In the fall of 2005, Gates and Buffett donated $1 million to introduce bridge to the nation’s schools. The project started with schools in Atlanta and Houston, and has expanded to a handful of others, including a school in Iowa.

In August, Gates and Buffett met several middle-schoolers from Mount Pleasant who are hooked on playing bridge at a youth tournament. The students learned how to play the game from some bridge buffs in the Henry County town who responded to Buffett and Gates’ call out for people to teach the game to youngsters.

Byers, one of the local instructors, is encouraged to hear that more children are learning how to play bridge.

“It’s important to keep kids using their brains,” she said. “So many activities today don’t engage their minds like bridge does, and it’s something that will benefit them their whole lives.”

Info box:

How to get involved

The Bridge House hosts weekly games as follows: Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays at noon; Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m.; and Saturdays at 12:30 p.m.

For more information, visit www.geocities.com/dsmbridge, or send an e-mail to dsmbridgeemail@yahoo.com.