Every Tuesday morning at the Janice Randles’ Possession Shores home, small tables set up in her living room fill up with foursomes.

With heads bent earnestly, eyes intent on their hands, 16 people alternate periods of silence with conversation.

These people are not praying; well, not those with a good hand of cards. What they are up to is something else altogether: duplicate bridge.

Every Tuesday morning, members of the Whidbey Bridge Club are at their card tables, sharpening their minds and having the kind of good time over cards not possible playing solitaire.

The good time is what is important, said Janice Randles. Even though bridge is often a serious game that can cement friendships or rankle long-time card-table pairings, members of the Whidbey club do their best to keep playing sessions social.

“When they hear that this is duplicate bridge, a lot of people think that we’re super competitive,” Randles said. “On the contrary, this group is really friendly and quite social. We have a lot of fun here.”

Duplicate bridge is a game in which the same hands of cards are played multiple times by various players. This allows players to compare how one player or a pair of players use a hand compared to others.

Quiet uproar is a good description of what goes on with the club. It is popular, drawing people from near and far, including islanders, mainlanders and vacationers from distant states. At a recent club play day, the tables were filled with players from Las Vegas, Edmonds, and San Mateo, Calif., as well as locals from Langley, Freeland and Clinton.

Club member Barbara Strom said the group has a unique character, a character that is augmented by the amenities they enjoy while they play. The room in which they meet has a wide view of Cultus Bay, and no one seems to play so hard that they forget to look outside.

An added attraction for the players is the wildlife that often passes through the yard. To Strom, it seems as though the outdoors and indoors are the same.

“We play with the deer,” she said.

People pay $5 per play day with the Whidbey group, and they have the option of joining the American Contract Bridge League for an additional fee. Joining the larger group allows them to earn master points toward player rankings.

Randles, the club’s hostess, has 38 years of bridge play behind her, including teaching and competition bridge at the national level. She said she and her husband, Terry, started the Whidbey Bridge Club five years ago because she wanted more active play than she found then among existing bridge clubs on the island.

She’s not alone in her opinion: The people in her club love their bridge.

Though the club gets together at 11:30 a.m., there’s no break from the intensity for lunch. Snacking is allowed, but play continues uninterrupted to 3 p.m.

Some people in the group say bridge play helps to stave off senility, because of the mental agility, concentration and strategy it requires. One club member, Shirley Raymond, is an ardent, regular player at 89 years old.

In spite of the mental benefits, young people do not seem to be picking up on the game. George Stull, a player from Las Vegas, remarked with regret how bridge players seem to be part of a group that is getting older every year.

“I would not be surprised if the average age is 70,” said George Stull of Las Vegas.

Stull said he does not know know why college campuses have not kept up the practice of teaching bridge, something he said they did in the past. However, he did note bridge can be played on the Internet now, which might mean there is hope a younger generation may pick up on it.

It is best to get interested in the game early, Stull said, because it is not a game that is easily learned.

“It’s a lot of fun, a game to learn and become better at over a lifetime,” he said.

Bridge on South Whidbey is inter-generational recreation. Among the 16 people at a recent club play day, there were multiple sets of people who brought their parents.

Randles said that is not a surprise. Her favorite game is perfect for bridge-ing the generation gap.

“In fact, I learned from my parents,” said Randles.