
Inside the World of Big-Money Bridge (2013) - luu
https://observer.com/2013/11/million-dollar-hobby-inside-the-world-of-big-money-bridge/
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csa
> While bridge is infinitely analytical, poker is more psychological: In high-
> level matches, every player at the table can compute the odds
> instantaneously, and what separates the best players from the pack is the
> ability to pick up “tells,” such as the furrowing of the brow as an
> indication of bluffing.

This is largely incorrect, and I wish this stereotype of poker (esp. high-
stakes poker) would not be propagated so often.

Pros playing against fish in a private cash game may get a huge advantage off
of physical tells, but that’s not the most consistent information that almost
all players give away.

The consistent information that players give away is how they play specific
kinds of hands in terms of position, frequency, aggression, and/or bet sizing.
This extends even to very high levels of play. This type of information cannot
be hidden, it can only be varied.

A classic low-stakes live tell is that players bet small on weak made hands
and draws, but they bet bigger with their stronger made hands. Once a good
player gets a sense of what those ranges are and what type of pressure (if
any) can make the weak player fold, it just becomes a field day for the
skilled player.

Highly-skilled players will have gears that they shift through such that their
opponents have a tough time defining the skilled player’s hand range. Once the
skilled player shows down some unexpected hands and gets into the weak
player’s head, the game again becomes extremely easy for the skilled player.

Contrary to what the author says, I’m not actually convinced that the gaming
skill set of high-level poker players and high-level bridge players is
actually that much different.

If any high-level bridge players (I am not one) want to chime in and compare
and contrast high-level strategies and tactics in these two games, I would
love to extend the discussion.

~~~
jpatokal
Your description sounds very psychological, which is exactly what the article
is saying as well? In other words, you're not concerned with the specific
cards (analytical), but what your opponent thinks about their cards.

~~~
csa
I would characterize high-level poker playing as very analytical, much in the
same way that bridge (or spades in my case) is analytical.

I would say that the psychological game — especially getting into someone’s
head — exists in bridge, spades, poker, and even games like chess and go (high
stakes go games between a pro and a rich and skilled amateur often end with
the amateur being brain-fucked and playing far below their actual skill
level).

I will use spades as an example moving forward due to the fact that I have
much more experience with it than bridge, and the gameplay is similar (as well
as simpler).

A skilled poker player is always putting opponents on a range of hands, and
the betting becomes largely very mechanical once the skilled player is dialed
into a weaker player’s range.

A skilled spades player is going to make a guess based on bids and cards
played about how the bidder plans to make their bid — specifically, with what
cards — and then discard accordingly to attempt to create the highest
probability of setting the opponent. The same can be said of winning the bid
and potentially choosing to play a specific gambit if the hand doesn’t seem to
be a sure thing.

The cards always matter to some extent in both games. That said, the analysis
and mind games can be used in both as well.

Does that answer your question?

[edit: The author uses the term “psychological” to refer to physical tells.
Online poker is played with no physical presence, so this form of
psychological advantage does not exist. What about bet sizing info? They are
called betting tells in the poker world. Is that psychological or analytical?
What about learning about hand reading and playing tendencies?

My point is simply that I think that the skill sets of high-level players in
each game are actually more similar than is widely believed and represented.
Whether these similarities are called psychological or analytical is really
just semantics in this particular context.]

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aidenn0
As a teen I worked as a caddy at duplicate bridge tournaments (moving the
cards from one table to another, collecting score cards &c.). There were a lot
of interesting people involved there.

I actually worked a qualifier for the Women's National Yeam once. At that
level they placed a divider diagonally across the table to prevent partners
from being able to see and signal each other.

Personally I think it would be _very_ hard to get to that level by cheating,
as you end up with anomalous results (not only were they recorded, but pretty
much any competitive player at the regional tournaments could rattle off every
single hand and result after an afternoon of 26 hands of bridge).

It was good work, paid really well for a 13-15 year old, and I even learned
enough bridge to play on the rare occasion I'm with 3 other like minded
people.

side note: for those not familiar with duplicate bridge, you play the same
hands as other players. The hands are scored similarly to rubber bridge, but
your actual points for ranking in the tournament are based off of how much
better or worse you do than other people.

In matchpoint play, many people play the same hands, rotating opponents and
there is a formula for calculating the score.

In team play, 2 from your team play against 2 from the other team, and then
you switch the hands so that you get the cards that the other half of your
opponents team just had. Typically this is done in a sequence of rounds in a
Swiss format[1]

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-
system_tournament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament)

~~~
pge
can you say any more about how cheating is prevented? I always wondered about
that as the incentive is high and since teams enter as a team, it seems there
is a lot of opportunity for planning communication. I guess I always assumed
there was some kind of mixing of partners to prevent collusion (and judge the
contribution of a particular individual rather than a team), but it doesn’t
seem like that is the case.

~~~
aidenn0
It is prevented through a number of mechanisms

Bids are no longer spoken, but signaled through cards

At higher levels there is a screen across the table (as I mentioned in my
original post).

Players are not allowed to vary the tempo of their bids (to allow for longer
thought in certain situations, some bids are defined as "surprising" and the
next player is required to pause longer).

In terms of detection:

Records are kept both officially and by other players looking to improve their
own game. Players are required to define their bidding system ahead of time,
so any pattern of "psychic" bids will be noticed very quickly.

Defense play is considerably harder, but a single win after making the "wrong"
(i.e. not playing the odds) decision will be memorable for the opponents, so
in any given circle of players you can only do it so many times (particularly
when it's just enough to win the match) before suspicions get raised.

In several years of my working at sectional, regional, and national
tournaments there were two times total that players were caught cheating, and
in both cases it was at smaller games (one was at a regional tournament, but
not at a particularly competitive level; the partnership at that regional
tournament weren't just cheats though, they were really bad cheats and the
motivation is still unclear since they were nowhere near professional level).

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DrScump
Fun fact: actor Omar Sharif was a high-stakes Contract Bridge player and
organized many international competitions[0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Sharif#Contract_bridge_ca...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Sharif#Contract_bridge_career)

