Loading ...how to spot a bridge pro
I had a nice little holiday away from the blog. Spent some time reading what everyone else is thinking about, am testing a slightly modified format which I’ll roll out in the next couple of days, generated a hearty list of ideas for upcoming posts. As promised, I’m hitting the ground running. I’m now tagging the posts, Paul, to make it easier. This time I’m writing from a client’s point of view … 
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Many years ago I overheard a player announce in a very loud voice that she wasn’t ever going to play again if she wasn’t getting paid. I could work out from the context that she hadn’t played pro the occasion immediately preceding the announcement and suffered gratuitous torture as a result. It wasn’t somebody I knew well, I’d never encountered her at the table, had no idea of the relative likelihood that she’d ever play again.
I knew very little of those sorts of things and shrugged it off as the something one might say in the heat of the moment. It struck me as a bit rude, a little arrogant, but what did I know? Since then, I’ve built up some experience and have developed a particular view of what it means to be “a bridge pro.”
The blogosphere has tackled the issue of playing sponsors on a couple of occasions, Linda took up the issue most recently when she responded to the opening pages of Larry Cohen’s January 2009 Bridge World article:
I think it is fine to say that some sponsors are experts and a few may even be players who would have been chosen for a top team even if they were not dishing out the money. But let’s face it the qualifications to be a sponsor are not to be a star player. Only high rollers need apply.
All it takes to be a sponsor, apparently, is a handful of cashing checks. Anybody care to tell me what it takes to be a pro?
For the Judi Radins and Meckstroth-Rodwells, all one needs to do is show up. The Versace-Laurias and Auken-von Arnims glitter sufficiently from afar that their stock rises despite the relative disadvantages of engaging them if and when you can get them. Between the top of the professional crop and the guy (gender-neutral) with the fist full of dollars, there are an awful lot of players. All with their hands out.
Long before I’d ever played a team game I was kibitzing George in every aspect of his bridge life, and I discovered I’m especially interested in the back-office stuff involved with selecting and recruiting players and maintaining the karma — the team management stuff. For the first few years I played, I left the back-office to George, but the offers and requests rolled in anyway: I’ve been offered free test drives, I’ve been asked to broker long-distance hook ups, I’ve been outright solicited as brazenly as can be (but never, curiously, by anyone we ultimately hired). After a decade studying this aspect of the game I think I can very safely say that although every player who hires a team is a sponsor, not every bridge player who gets paid is a professional.
I’ve watched the great and near-great (and also not-so-great) doing the business of buying and selling this particular set of skills; I was lucky to have the benefit of George’s long history and many relationships, so my experiences have been with consummate professionals at every turn. Here’s how you spot them:
1. They play great bridge. Bridge is a game of mistakes, so the partner or teammates who make the fewest are the most desirable. True professionals are first and foremost great players. There can only be one top player at a time, but there are dozens of great players and hundreds of really good players. Highly sought-after professionals are found throughout the ranks, even into the netherworlds of “pretty good” and “okay” players.
2. They have good customer service skills. This is a big one — every bit as important than the first, and sometimes more important. Good customer service is about manners as much as anything else. Showing up on time, fully practiced and prepared, ready to play. Nobody plays perfectly all the time and we lose more than we win, so how we handle our losses is an important part of the game. True professionals will go over the hands, frequently without asking and sometimes trick-by-trick, to illuminate the cool play or illustrate the important lesson. Sometimes when the losses are fresh and the disappointments are sharp, good customer service is knowing when not to give a lesson or strike up the band.
3. They realize and protect their value. “Realizing one’s value” means being self-aware and realistic. In my grandmother’s time they would’ve called it “knowing your place,” but I mean something more like “understand what the client really wants from you.” Are you the best player or pair on the team? Then your value is in bringing back winning cards; every time you do so you’re protecting your value. Are you the nicest player on the team? The most entertaining at dinner? Are you the quickest to respond to between-tournament emails? Are you the hardest worker? The most loyal? Great professionals call attention to and showcase their successes, on and off the field of play. The bragging adds value, I guarantee it.
Oh, about those guarantees: they’re next up. Stay tuned.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I’m not a bridge pro (being the #106 seed in the Spingold means that I am failing point 1, despite nearly beating Nickell) but I am fascinated by the US professional scene as it seems so large.
The TV documentary about Wolpert and Demuy did provide a brief introduction to it but you’ve certainly got one attentive reader for this series!
January 7th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
The start of a really good series of articles (if you ask me). I will be most interested in what you have to say based on your experience and observations.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:38 am
The definition of a pro is simple – someone who gets paid to play. No different than a baseball player whether he be making 20 mil as an all-star or 1200 a month in rookie ball with an ERA to match.
And while there is a huge disparity among pros there is an equally huge disparity among clients. Only a few are trying to win national or world titles. Many more just want to break average and occasionally win a club game, get a few pointers to help them understand the game a tiny bit better, or just have someone suitable to play with.
Ironcially the “controversy” over pros, to the extent there is one, does not seep down to the club level where nobody begrudges the wins. It is only in titled accomplishments that some thnk this disparages the game.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:00 am
I think your insight into the world of professional bridge is spot on, but that’s not surprising given how close and involved you have been to the scene for all those years.
We have a disproportionately large number of bridge pros here in Sydney and I am often appalled at the naivety and lack of customer service skills displayed by some. These guys arent ‘professional’ they are merely talented players prostituting their talents. I feel sorry for their clients.
January 8th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Wow, Paul! It was you Larry wrote about in this month’s BW:
Do you know the hand? Will you write it up?
Bob, thanks for being such a regular participant. Like always, you move the conversation forward in interesting directions. It’s my view that good pros know what their true value is to any given client (#3 above).
Just as there are pros who don’t have a clear handle on what their real job entails (the most common in my experience are players who overestimate their playing skills and fancy themselves a team’s best pair), there are a zillion clients who may not know what they really want. Some are in it for the points, some for the titles, some for the bragging rights. Some want lessons, some are in it for the attention. YMMV….
January 8th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Yes, it was us that Larry mentioned.
The man who failed to find the killing lead has written up the hand for the Scottish Bridge Magazine, so I cannot publish his full article here.
I will say, in his defence, that he did play 48 boards against Meckwell and was essentially even against them. But we’d have had a really good story if you lead the right card:
You hold
S AJ1098
H J10
D 752
C AQ4
You Meckstroth Partner Rodwell
- – 2S* 3H
4S 5H P P
5S X P 6H
X All pass
Partner’s 2S showed 5-5, spades and a minor, 5-10 points.
Your lead?
In the other room, on a different auction, I was in 6H making even after Zia found the right lead! Bocchi, standing behind me, burst out laughing when Zia led the losing card at trick 2 and all the other kibs gasped, so I knew I was making and there was not a bad trump break
January 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Apropos to the lady who stated that she
would not play again for “free,”…Paul
Soloway said in an interview once that he
never played with non-clients…his clients were his friends and it would be
an insult to them. That makes sense to
me, but then he didn’t blare it out loud
as this gal seems to have done.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
There are many types of pro`s as there are many types of clients.
There are those that wish to attain a specific achievement,(lifemaster, mini-mckenney race) There are those that wish to learn how to play better bridge and there are those that just want to bask in the relected glory of being around top players.
Each of those types of clients needs a different proffesional attitude. Which is why there are so many pro`s around, very few can combine the teaching ability along with the organisational skills coupled with schmooze skill and sales technique together as one package.
Oddlly enough one of the hardest things
that pros find they have to do is ask for the money.
I can think of at least three proffesional players sitting amongst the top 50 in the last three years masterpoints lists that are basically playing for peanuts compared to their achievements andhave absolutely no sales technique whatsoever.
Personally I like the clients that really want to learn, because they acheive something every single time they sit down to play, regardless of the result.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
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