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Danny Sprung is a trader and a long-time games player. He was a serious poker player even before the boom, and he’s also a world class bridge player. In this interview, we discuss how he relates poker to bridge and to trading, and how he’s working to get back onto the poker scene.
Timestamps
0:30 – hello
2:25 – strategy
24:48 – danny
Strategy
1/2 NLHE, 9-handed.
Villain 1 raises UTG1 to $12, Villain 2 calls, Villain 3 ($105) in the CO calls. Hero ($220) calls with Ad Tc in the SB.
Flop ($50) Jh Qh Ks. Hero checks, V1 bets $40, V2 calls, and V3 goes all in for $93. Hero?
I forgot to mention a great resource for learning bridge: Bridgebase Online.
Good podcast. About the hand example, when Andrew was talking about how a bet or raise of the size available could still be the right option even though the opponent could profitably call it – the reason being that while the opponent loses money to hero on the bet+call element, it’s less that he would lose by folding out his share of the pot in the middle – I immediately thought of limit poker where this situation is probably the most common reason people call of all.
One thing not touched on was partner-induced tilt in bridge. My father, normally a very calm person, was playing bridge at inter-school level in the UK, and failed to make the contract on the first hand of a match when his partner had bid 2 No Trumps when it was agreed that this should mean at least 20 high card points*, but the partner only had 19 high card points. My father picked up the second deck of cards which was still in its packet and threw it at his partner, missed and broke a school window which he had to pay for.
*This was mentioned in the podcast, for those who don’t know, AKQJ are worth 4,3,2,1 points respectively, bidding 2NT tells your partner then that you have at least half of the high-card value in the deck in your own hand.
Partner induced tilt does occur. For me, it is more self induced, ie, my own mistakes are more likely to cost me in the future. The other time it is hard to play one’s best is when the game is going generally poorly, just due to the opponents playing well. Harder to keep focus when you know you can no longer win.
Getting angry at partner has never been the issue for me.
For me, the worst partner-induced tilt is when you make an obvious mistake and then start worrying about what partner is thinking about your subsequent decisions, which can lead you to make more mistakes, often by bidding too conservatively or (in duplicate) taking too safe lines and missing overtricks. *That’s* the partnership dilemma that requires the most care, because you can’t let your partner off the hook with a smile and a shrug every time they completely bollocks a hand, but if you don’t smile/shrug and reassuringly move on *most* of the time, it just becomes a disaster.
I’ve never played Bridge but this seemed to create some interesting dynamics in the Team Event at the WSOP this year.
Great podcast. I play both poker and bridge and enjoyed hearing from someone who also plays both games.