Dirty Tricks

Hello.

You probably recognize my face.

Let me introduce myself in another role.

Not as the actor,

but Omar Sharif the bridge player.

In recent years,

my partners have included

not only great players

but famous people,

royalty, cabinet ministers,

famous entertainers.

From my perspective,

nobody cool doesn't play bridge.

Like everyone who plays bridge is super cool

so cool

that people don't even understand it.

When I play bridge

I feel that I maximize my talent.

You're earning a lot of money.

You're living the life.

You're traveling a lot,

hanging out with the richest people in the world.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett.

People told me I can be a good programmer.

I can be a good financial analyzer.

But to be the best in bridge in the world,

only one.

Yes,

it's me.

He was great.

For his generation,

he may be the best bridge player in the world.

He could have been,

the next Michael Jordan of bridge.

He was that good.

They just kept winning major events, him and his partner

on whatever team they played

almost to the point, it was kind of unbelievable

such a young pair, winning everything.

They were the new stars,

all the way they were like in the front seat.

Nobody could touch them.

They were at the top.

They had everything you could want in bridge.

They were making great money.

They were winning all kinds of things.

What more could you want?

They were accused by another player

on another team of cheating.

I see people the writing that he's a cheater,

he is a cheater, he is a cheater.

They put it inside my head.

It was all coming to a boil.

There was too much cheating going on.

And it had to stop.

Like the shit had to hit the fan.

I didn't cheat,

but I brought it on myself.

Bridge is all my life.

They took my baby, they took half of me.

I cannot forgive for that.

I came from a family who liked sports.

My father was a soccer goalkeeper,

and my mom, she was a basketball player.

And me, I wasn't into bridge at all.

When I was about 11 years old,

I saw two girls from my class

and I was asking them where are you going?

They told me, "We are going to the mall.

Then we're going to a bridge lesson."

One of them I really liked.

So I was trying to make some impression,

I decided, okay I want to go to the bridge lesson.

So I went up to the lesson, I entered,

we were learning a little bit about the rules

and then we started to play.

He was shocked.

He told me, "Go out! Come with me out."

I thought he was going to kill me or something.

Maybe he thought I'm cheating or something,

I didn't know.

And of course he was speaking to my father

and my father told him,

"No way, my son will not play cards.

He's playing handball.

He's playing soccer, no way."

"I can make him number one in the world."

He said it.

When I see numbers, phone number, credit card,

I close my eyes I can see it.

I can see how you wrote it.

I can hear your voice when you told it to me

there is no way I will forget it.

So basically this is how my memory works, yes.

It was the 20th of January, 2005.

I was playing some tournament in Israel.

When I went to the main table to take a board,

I probably took it very quickly

because I was excited about the match, we played very well.

And then when I took the board, one of the notes

which was on the top fell on the floor.

So I picked it up from the floor,

I didn't look, I hold it in my hand,

I put the board on the table

and I was sitting on my right hand

which holds the note.

And my right opponent,

he saw that I'm holding something in my hand

before I even had the chance to say something,

he got crazy, he started to shout.

He started to call me some names.

He called the director

and he said that I'm holding something in my hand.

They told me, "Okay, just stand up.

We wanna see what do you hold in your hand."

I was crying.

I wanted to tell my story.

I wanted to explain what happened.

I just freezed out.

I had an ethic committee,

I said that I had no intention to take it.

And I had no intention to look.

I took responsibility

and I admitted that I could behave a little more wisely,

when it fell on the floor

to call immediately to the director.

Everybody knew that it was something that

I didn't try to hide it or something like this.

They decided that I didn't cheat

but I might had some intention to.

And I was suspended for two years for that.

That is very, very heavy penalty.

They said it's because I'm young.

And because I have to learn how to behave.

When you watch a really good ballet dancer,

it's this fabulous image, a mirage almost, right?

And that's what good bridge is.

It takes anyone a very long time to kind of

grasp the brilliance of the game.

Not you, you're not brilliant.

The game itself is so fantastic, really.

Do you play bridge?

I don't play bridge- -You don't play bridge.

Well, you have to learn to play.

Welcome to the magical world of bridge.

It's actually an extremely complicated game

requiring decades to master.

Our system will be five card majors,

all jumps by responder forcing.

Stayman, blackwood, and weak two-bids.

This means two clubs will be the old--.

But we really don't have time for that.

So here's all you need to know

in order to not look stupid in front of your friends.

Step one, you're dealt a hand of 13 cards.

The goal in bridge is to win the most rounds

holding the highest card.

Here, for example,

the lucky bastard holding the ace has won the round.

Winning a round is called a trick.

Step two, you and your partner sitting across you

must declare how many tricks you're going to win together

and what's your strongest suit.

One spade.

We call this a contract.

Now here come a gazillion more rules

that have nothing to do with our story.

So let's just forget them all together.

Oh, wait a sec.

There is one rule you must remember.

When playing bridge, you can't just ask your partner

if he's got some diamonds.

In fact, you can't talk to him at all.

No coughing, no winking,

hell, you can't even kick him under the table.

Illegally communicating with your partner

is the one mortal sin of bridge.

That pretty much sums it up,

cheerio.

So I didn't play bridge for two years,

but always in my mind,

I knew that I want to go back and play bridge.

It was already inside my blood.

After I came back from the suspension,

I wanted to play professionally and I needed a partner.

Everybody had a partner already

and Ron was the one to be available.

So I offered him to play together.

At the beginning of our partnership

when I was very, very confident,

some people will say arrogant,

I used to be very aggressive.

I'm looking for someone to be perfect

as I thought I am,

and it's impossible.

I remember after one tournament, he told me I quit.

I don't wanna play with you anymore.

And I needed to apologize.

And then we played again.

I told him I will never do it again.