[bid_em_up]

In another thread, someone quotes Rixi Markus as saying, "lawyers make better bridge players than mathematicians".

This is not the same thing as saying either profession makes for a "good" bridge player.

What profession do you think that a good bridge player is likely to have a background in? I've listed a few, I realize there are many others. Feel free to vote "other" and state your choice.

If you wish, make a case for why you feel that your choice is the best.

[hrothgar]

bid_em_up, on Jun 7 2007, 07:11 PM, said:

In another thread, someone quotes Rixi Markus as saying, "lawyers make better bridge players than mathematicians".

This is not the same thing as saying either profession makes for a "good" bridge player.

What profession do you think that a good bridge player is likely to have a background in?  I've listed a few, I realize there are many others. Feel free to vote "other" and state your choice.

If you wish, make a case for why you feel that your choice is the best.

My understanding is that there is a very strong correlation between he skill sets necessary to succeed at bridge and those necessary to thrive as an options traders.

A number of well known Wall Street tycoons enjoy some real success at the bridge table. Equally significant, a number of bridge pros have been lured into careers as traders.

These days, I also notice a strong correlation between computer programmers and bridge players.

[gwnn]

Physicists cause they're good at applying maths.

Also, they understand that in order to get to a result of satisfactory precision in a finite amount of time, one needs to approximate, and consider only part of the available data.

Also, cause if this were true, it would give me hope

[FrancesHinden]

hrothgar, on Jun 7 2007, 05:23 PM, said:

My understanding is that there is a very strong correlation between he skill sets necessary to succeed at bridge and those necessary to thrive as an options traders.

A number of well known Wall Street tycoons are enjoy some real success at the bridge table. Equally significant, a number of bridge pros have been lured into careers as traders.

These days, I also notice a strong correlation between computer programmers and bridge players.

I have the same understanding.

But also, many of the options traders I know originally trained as mathematicians.

Currency traders are a rather different breed.

[pclayton]

hrothgar, on Jun 7 2007, 08:23 AM, said:

bid_em_up, on Jun 7 2007, 07:11 PM, said:

In another thread, someone quotes Rixi Markus as saying, "lawyers make better bridge players than mathematicians".

This is not the same thing as saying either profession makes for a "good" bridge player.

What profession do you think that a good bridge player is likely to have a background in?  I've listed a few, I realize there are many others. Feel free to vote "other" and state your choice.

If you wish, make a case for why you feel that your choice is the best.

My understanding is that there is a very strong correlation between he skill sets necessary to succeed at bridge and those necessary to thrive as an options traders.

A number of well known Wall Street tycoons are enjoy some real success at the bridge table. Equally significant, a number of bridge pros have been lured into careers as traders.

These days, I also notice a strong correlation between computer programmers and bridge players.

Exactly, many of the east coast elite started (and continue) life as traders. I voted for stockbroker, because that seems the closest.

[Apollo81]

Programmer, lawyer, stock trader, and pro poker player are, IMO, the best choices from this list.

[bid_em_up]

hrothgar, on Jun 7 2007, 11:23 AM, said:

My understanding is that there is a very strong correlation between the skill sets necessary to succeed at bridge and those necessary to thrive as an options traders.

A number of well known Wall Street tycoons enjoy some real success at the bridge table.  Equally significant, a number of bridge pros have been lured into careers as traders.

I have often "heard" or read about this. I just wonder why it is true. What are those skills? Can anybody define them? Is it the ability to make "sound" or "profitable" decisions rapidly? The ability to not make mistakes at the table? (Mistakes at trading of any sort will rapidly cause you to go broke).

Or is simply a matter of being able to afford to pay for top flight instruction and teammates? Which in turn, will make the Wall St. guru a better player (at least on the surface). Before anyone jumps my case, I am not saying having the ability to afford this is the only reason the Wall Street gurus are successful. I am simply curious whether or not it has any bearing on it on their success at bridge.

Rarely (if ever) will you hear the names of Nickell or Freeman being in the ranks of the world's top bridge players, but their successes cannot be denied, either. I could be mistaken, but I believe that both are Wall Street gurus of some sort. They are excellent players, certainly, but I don't know that they would make anyone's top 20 list of bridge players (even if they should). So are they successful because they are really good? Or are they successful because they can afford the best teammates and teachers? Or is there some other factor(s) involved that has to do with being a successful trader and/or broker that translate into being a good bridge player as well? And if so, what are those factors?

My own personal vote goes to computer programmers/IT professionals.

[awm]

Seems like a good bridge player needs:

(1) Some raw mathematical ability (to figure out suit combinations etc).
(2) Some ability to read people (figuring out what opponents have for their bids/leads)
(3) Some logical/deductive ability (work out what partner's bidding means)
(4) Some memorization skill (to remember system, suit combinations, as well as the play)
(5) The ability to remain focused/concentrate for a long period of time

So which profession (other than bridge pro) requires these sorts of skills? Stockbroker/trader seems best to me, although lawyer is pretty good as well. The mathematicians often fail on 2 and 5. Maybe private investigator would be good?

[BillHiggin]

I did not see "underemployed bum"
Hmm - may explain why I never expect to see a star on my nick

[hrothgar]

awm, on Jun 7 2007, 09:17 PM, said:

Seems like a good bridge player needs:

(1) Some raw mathematical ability (to figure out suit combinations etc).
(2) Some ability to read people (figuring out what opponents have for their bids/leads)
(3) Some logical/deductive ability (work out what partner's bidding means)
(4) Some memorization skill (to remember system, suit combinations, as well as the play)
(5) The ability to remain focused/concentrate for a long period of time

So which profession (other than bridge pro) requires these sorts of skills? Stockbroker/trader seems best to me, although lawyer is pretty good as well. The mathematicians often fail on 2 and 5. Maybe private investigator would be good?

If we're talking about options trader's then "Ability to work productively when tweaked / coked out of one's gourd" should be added to the list...

Or so I've heard. Might apply to bridge players as well.

(Only half kidding here. The hours are really intense)

[hrothgar]

bid_em_up, on Jun 7 2007, 09:08 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Jun 7 2007, 11:23 AM, said:

My understanding is that there is a very strong correlation between the skill sets necessary to succeed at bridge and those necessary to thrive as an options traders.

A number of well known Wall Street tycoons enjoy some real success at the bridge table.  Equally significant, a number of bridge pros have been lured into careers as traders.

I have often "heard" or read about this. I just wonder why it is true. What are those skills? Can anybody define them? Is it the ability to make "sound" or "profitable" decisions rapidly? The ability to not make mistakes at the table? (Mistakes at trading of any sort will rapidly cause you to go broke).

The good traders that I know are able to combine intuition with a fair amount of analytic rigor. (In many cases, these skills don't occur in the same person).

I've made two serious investments in the last few years. I went long on Oil and long on the Euro. In each case, something smelled wrong in the market. I spent a bunch of time snooping around and decided that it was worth investing a reasonable amount of money. I made a good return on each of these occasions. I suspect that if I increased the frequency of these little brilliancies by a couple orders of magnitude I'd be sitting pretty right now.

Regretfully, sometimes I chicken out. About 2.5 years ago I did a real deep dive into ethanol production. I decided that the whole thing was a crock. The chemistry just didn't balance out. Either you need to dump an amazing amount of fertilizer on the crop lands or you're mining top soil. If even went so far as to look into Urea futures and verified that the prices hadn't gone up yet. I was seriously considering making a big move in Urea, and didn't. (You might say that I was chicken *****). Damn if I'm not kicking myself over this right now...

[kenrexford]

This is an interesting question, from a strange way of looking at things.

Bridge skill can come from a number of sources. If you look beyond innate qualities or job training, however, bridge skill also develops from practice and from peer review and training by other bridge pros.

To get a large amount of practice, you must be able to play a lot. To get quality peer review and training, you must have resources and you must have access to quality players on a regular basis.

Those who accomplish these criteria, to advance innate ability into actual bridge talent, generally seem to fall into two groups. Those who get rich quick, and those who bum around (and accordingly are available). Many of the listed occupations cover the first group.

The "other" I would, therefore, add in is the "bum around" group. These people might have "careers" as door-to-door salesmen, carnies, telemarketers, or other temp and non-traditional jobs.

[awm]

Maybe an interesting exercise would be to name some of the top bridge players who are not full time professional players, and see what their profession is. Here's a couple to start:

Fred Gitelman: Software Engineer/IT professional

Chip Martel: Computer Science Professor (his field is very close to Applied Math though)

[bid_em_up]

You can add Jimmy Cayne to the trader list as well. Seeing as how he is President of Bear Stearns and all......

[pclayton]

Jlall, on Jun 7 2007, 10:53 AM, said:

ralph katz: trader

ron smith: was a trader

bart bramley: was a trader

welland: was a trader, now a hedge fund manager?

brad moss: was a trader

The whole Rogoff / Parker / Aker group as well. I know there's a whole lot you and I aren't thinking of either.

[Gerben42]

I think one of the Dutch internationals is Math teacher. And I'm sure some of them are into IT.

Germany: Wladow - Elinescu are medical doctors, Kirmse a mathematician.