Posted 7:51 PM by Floyd

Something new happened to me at the bridge club today. Eric and I won -- and y'all can shut up, 'cause that wasn't anything new. Then Sherry, one of the better local players, came up and asked how I was doing. She said that she saw me a lot and I said, yeah, I'm not working right now.

Sherry asked if I would be interested in a pro date. I totally missed her intent and asked with whom -- I assumed she was trying to set me up with one of the local pros like Hamish Bennett or Gene Simpson. Then she said "Someone not very good" and I realized she was asking if I wanted to be a pro!

The real money in bridge these days is not playing rubber bridge against rich people. It is playing tournaments, with no money at stake, helping clients win events. If you are extremely good, you can make a lot of money. For instance, Rita Shugart is the wife of billionaire Seagate founder Al Shugart (and I believe rich by her own efforts). She has on retainer Geir Helgemo, the best player in the world under thirty, and Andrew Robson and Tony Forrester, Britain's top two players. I have heard that her total cost for a nationals is $50,000.

I'm not interested in playing pro right now. In the first place, I would be a little embarrassed. I don't think every pro has to be as good as Helgemo, but I would be in the same room as, say, Gene Simpson (20,000 masterpoints, three national championships) and I would feel a little small. Also playing with a client is terrible for your game; if you want to win you have to try to make all the decisions on every hand and you don't trust anything your client does. (If you are playing with someone who really wants to learn that's different, but I have to believe that most clients just want to up their scores by 5 or 10%.) Finally, I like to play with friends and have fun; playing with a stranger who's not very good wouldn't be fun.

Still, it does boost my ego to think that someone might offer money to play with me.