When Bjorgvin Kristinsson took to playing bridge as a kid growing up in Iceland, he had no idea it would eventually land him a spot on a team with two of the world's richest men.
Billionaire bridge aficionados Bill Gates and Warren Buffett invited Kristinsson to play bridge and shoot the breeze at the Nebraska Regional bridge tournament last week, one of the biggest tournaments in the United States. (All this time we thought Gates was into Xbox!)
"What surprised me most was how casual and down-to-earth both Buffett and Gates are," Kristinsson said. "They weren't flashy, they weren't obnoxious — they were just regular guys with a bunch of bodyguards."
The call came from Peggy Kaplan, the top-ranked bridge player in Minnesota and one of Kristinsson's bridge-playing pals. It was Kaplan who was originally invited to join the team, but she had already committed to another group for the tournament.
"He has a very good temperament and I knew Bill and Warren would enjoy playing with him," Kaplan said.
Kristinsson also had the time and means to get to Omaha with little notice, which isn't all that hard to do when playing bridge is your job. While bridge is sometimes viewed as an intellectual game for the leisure class, for Kristinsson, it is a daily obsession that's earned him professional status.
In tournament bridge, there's no exchange or money or gambling involved, but well-to-do players sometimes hire professionals like Kristinsson to play with them to increase their chance of winning.
While Kristinsson wouldn't disclose how much he makes as a professional player, he said he makes "a decent living" but was not paid to play with the Microsoft founder and billionaire investor Buffett. Top pros can make six-figure incomes.
