Better translation for "tallar por sumas fuertes"?

Question

I'm reading "Tute de reyes", by Antonio Benítez Rojo. In one passage a character is talking about a friend who convinced him to switch from playing canasta at someone's house to playing tute (I assume a form of bridge) at someone else's house. He uses the phrase "tallar por sumas fuertes". I assume he's talking about playing for larger amounts of money, but I'd like a better translation.

Yo hubiera preferido continuar las “tardes de canasta” en casa de Felicita, pero Robledo, parti­dario de emociones menos sencillas, había prometido hacerse cargo de mis pérdidas, y finalmente, había cedido a su insistencia de tallar por sumas fuertes en vez de pasar el rato.

I would have preferred to continue the "canasta afternoons" at Felicita's house, but Robledo, a fan of less simple emotions, had promised to cover my losses, and finally I had yielded to his insistance to play for larger sums instead of passing the time.

Answer 1

I think you did a great job Kevin, sounds very good to me, my only suggestion is you could make it a bit more up to date by finishing it with 'instead of just fooling around' or something like that 'instead of just whiling away time...' I really like your translation.

Thanks. I wasn't completely happy with "passing the time", but it's sort of in an older style, and "fooling around" sounded a little too young. "Whiling away the time" might work better in this case. - KevinB, Sep 17, 2010