James Vogl excelled at poker and backgammon and thought, like many of us, that when he took up bridge about a dozen years ago, it wouldn’t be long before he excelled at that too. Always interested in the theoretical side of the game, he took as a mentor an American professional, Ron Von der Porten, known as VDP. Ron played rubber bridge in the low-stake game and regularly took the punters to the cleaners, pointing out all their mistakes along the way. They loved it!
A few years after James started, VDP moved to Las Vegas but they continued practice sessions online. One day James called him and asked him to play the Cavendish Pairs held in Vegas, the world’s highest-paying and most prestigious Pairs tournament. James said he would arrange everything — all VDP had to do was turn up.
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