BBO Hall of Fame - Robert Winkler, BBO: kampioen31
Hi dear players, I am Robert Winkler, I was born in Graz and currently live in Baden, close to Vienna. At the age of 30, when I used to live in Amsterdam, i got my hands on the book „kampioen in dertig dagen“. I said to myself that I could have the patience to wait for thirty days to become a champion. Here I am, 25 years later, still waiting...
After having read this book I immediately started playing on BBO, which was ideal for me, as I could practice the techniques I was reading about in my bridge books. One year later I was member of a Bridgeclub in Aachen / Germany. Since then i have been playing in clubs in Germany, Netherlands and Austria all the time, have been a TD, have given lessons and played as a coach.
On BBO I have played a lot to improve my game and to practice with my friends. I met some people with whom I had played on BBO also in real live. One player visited me in Vienna, and we found out that we had almost the same real name, that we both had played in an orchestra, and when we happened to talk about A.L.Webber we figured that we also had the same birthday. Another time we played a bigger tournament in Tulln / Austria and afterwards 8 people from Austria and Germany knowing each other from BBO Germany were sitting in the same pizzeria.
I am very glad that i made it into the top 30 of all BBO points collectors. I played a lot and learned a lot (espacially from watching other ones such as „usla“, whose playing style is admire a lot). My ritual for big events, such as the ACBL Individual, is to walk through a forest in vienna, look for my favourite cafe called „joy now“, drink a couple of beers while playing the daily 24 boards, and hopefully going home with 70%. 🙂
My favourite moments in bridge are playing in tournaments, where one walks from one coffee house to another, espacially the amsterdam cafe team tournament or the scheveningen beach tournament. I would suggest that BBO organize one themselves, so that we, BBO players, can meet somewhere. The first one should be in Vienna, since I came up with the idea. 🙂
There is no boring moment in Bridge, thank you!
