Probably one of those New Deal programs.
I know because I have some experience in the game of bridge from both reading and playing. I know that the captain of the team and the maker of the sign is a five-time world champion and the owner of the largest bridge club in North America and the mother of one of the team members. I know because there have been so many international “incidents” in the world of bridge that have been immediately swept under the table or disposed of in the most polite way possible that there is no way the U.S. federation would not prohibit this. I know because I am gifted with common sense. I know because sponsors don’t like being associated with political speech and since almost all sponsors are rich, they tend to be conservative and Republican and anything I know she knows ten times better. We don’t have signs anymore that tell you not to spit on the siewalk or in the subway. Why? Because it is OK? No, we don’t need the signs. We all know better.
For the person that asked how these people make money from bridge, it is done in a variety of ways. One, they play each other and talented amateurs for money. It is legal most places as bridge is a game of skill and therefore it is usually not considered gambling. Two, they write about the game and the more success they have had, such as winning the Venice Cup, the more likely they are to be successful at it. Three, and the most common way, they play as professional partners. Bridge is a team or partnership game, some forms require pairs of 2 and others teams of 4 which also allow for substitutes. There are many, many wealthy people in this world who pay handsomely for a talented partner, particularly a former world champion or a grand life master, which all of those women now are. Four, tournaments in Europe, though not in the U.S. as a rule, offer prize money to the winners. There are hundreds upon hundreds of bridge professionals in this country and the greater their past successes, the more thay can charge and the more selective they can be about partners.
Wait a minute! Just hold on right there! You mean you can bet money on bridge and its not gambling? Muthafucka! That’s just wrong!
Shit, bridge is to poker as bull is to a steer.
Funny you chose this example, given how Deng Xiaoping both precipitated the Tiananmen Square protests and the subsequent crackdown. Post-1989, the only official title he maintained was honorary chairman of the Chinese Bridge Association.
Please translate.
Merely the disdain that a fan of the True Game has for the misguided and retardo, i.e., bridge players.
Let me try one more time and correct me if I am wrong, but you are a devotee of poker which if I am reading you correctly, is played by real men and not idiots like those who play bridge. Is that more or less your point?
If you beat it to death, yeah, looks a lot like that. You’re not about to smack me with one of those gloves, are you?
Are we speaking the same language here? What gloves? Am I going to challenge you to a duel? Why? You like poker. You think bridge players are idiots. I never expressed an opinion about either, I was just trying to discern what you meant.
Sounds to me like the winning team were trying, while overseas, to disassociate themselves from an unpopular American government.
W Bush is not my leader. I used to sort of like some things about the guy, I used to be with him on some things. But I’m of German descent, & I know what it means to call yourself “the leader” & have followers demand conformity.
Those who want us not to show to the world that we’re not all loyal supporters of the current regime may think their prohibition makes them strong, but if they were to succeed & the USA were to look ideologically monolithic, it would encourage those on the outside to consider us all complicit in Bush’s crimes. That is dangerous to all of us.
Loved, feared, whatever, Niccolo. The current threat to us is that we are demonized & hated.
Dude, you can’t win a debate by asking a question that is only unanswerable because you’ve prohibited your opponents from giving the correct and convincing answer.
A. You’re making a common-law argument. Many people nowadays like [del]marmalade[/del] civil law instead.
B. You make a lousy analogy, & a worse conclusion. There’s a huge difference between the White Aryan Resistance-style editorial hyperbole of “We escaped Klinton’s Amerika!” & a simple statement of fact like “WE DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH.” Even if someone had been suspended for the first, that would not necessarily mean these women should be suspended now.
C. Maybe you did it unintentionally, but you casually equated a moderate statement of not supporting a given right-wing politician as being as extremely “left” as some adolescent gang-banger’s rhetoric on the “right.” How typical of the right-wing, sadly.
D. And yet, a lot of people would follow your logic, which is why I deplore so much of common law in practice. Precedent balloons beyond all sense by people who draw false equivalencies in the name of fairness without applying the discrimination that judicial prerogative is supposed to accomplish.
In all of sport, including it seems bridge, is the dynamic of those who cannot trying to control those who can. Here we see an organization that rather than supporting the national team is showing how they control the national team.
Fuck me, I agree with Bricker.
They were there to represent their country in a game. Should have kept their politics to themselves during the award ceremony, and I can understand why the national body for the sport would be looking to sanction them for their behaviour.
Oh, and anyone who thinks Poker is a better game than Bridge really is badly mistaken.
You lost me here, if not earlier. I’m a lefty from wayback, but to call this a simple statement of fact and ignore the clear implication is just silly and childish.
Furthermore, you suggest that a court would or should ignore the clear implication and instead read this “simple statement” like an automaton while ignoring context and implication. You also suggest in the same breath that courts should apply discrimination and judicial prerogative. Sounds contradictory to me.
Finally, your own argument undermines your position. What you seem to be suggesting is that one political statement (“We escapted Klinton’s Amerika”) is bad but another political statement (pointedly stating that one did not vote for Bush, unavoidable implication: having done so would be a bad thing) is not so bad. And that a sports body should consider the merits of the political statement made in deciding what to do about it. You really think that a sporting body should decide whether or not to apply a sanction in such circumstances depending on the perceived merits of the political statement? Does that actually sound like a good idea to you?
Well that info is from the NYTimes article. I imagine that people enter and win money in these tournements.
There are people who make their living racing pidgeons btw as well, though you won’t see them on a Wheaties box.
OH
I agree that the Federation has the right to police what their members do. They have the right to bring sanctions on them.
But
I think the sanctions are completly out of whack with the ‘offence’. If they want to punish political speech at the games then all political speech must be punished. Even if they don’t have a specific rule and they want to make one now over this incident, then everyone who participated in any sort of politcal speech must also get just as severe a punishment as these players.
And to say things like ‘I believe in free speech but you can’t say things against the leader’ is total asshattery.
My ex-husband is a grand master so I know from bridge…
Professionals generally earn their living by playing with not so good players for a fee. This allows those not so good players to improve their own games and earn points so that they can ascend the contract bridge ladder to become a grand master themselves.
They can also earn some change teaching group classes and writing books.
Can’t comapre the two.
I play both, and I even play both for money.
Bridge is really two games: the bidding requires an entirely different skill set than playing out the hand and making contract does. In bridge, having a partner that you can count on is the pearl beyond price; each bid sends a message to your partner about what you have in your hand, using one of several well-established conventions. And because (in a social game night, anyway) you switch partners amidst your foursome throughout the night, it’s most fun to have a relatively matched skill set.
Poker is a solo art: you against each participant at the table. Betting the strength of your hand and your position on the table IS the game. Personality and history of play have a far greater significance here than they do at the bridge table. And of course, there’s the wild luck factor that we’ve all seen, where the idiot player reraises on 6-10 OS and ends up with a straight on the river. Even great bridge hands need some skill to play out well and not end up with overtricks on a low contract.
They’re very different, and it all depends on what floats your boat at any given time…
In a civil law scenario, a judge would weigh the issue on the written rule before him, without particular regard to any precedent set. My wife and I have had these discussions many times: she was a lawyer in a civil law jurisdiction before we married. I have contended that what makes the common-law approach desirable is precisely what’s at issue here: the need for predictable results. In basic fairness, people need to know what acts are prohibited. A civil-law approach could result in an “judge” for the organization saying, in effect, “This act was unbecoming a member,” without regard to any previous precedent.
I see no need to repeat what’s been already eloquently stated by Princhester, and I adopt his reply as my own, except for the part about being a lefty from way back.