EPISODE 26: Re-Release Nabil Edgtton
I first saw Nabil Edggton at the 14th World Youth Team Championships in Taicang. I remember being in the Vugraph room and hearing fellow Aussie (Nabil is from Oz) David Stern say something to the effect of, Andy (Hung, Neil’s junior and current partner) likes to bid game and let Nabil play it. It still strikes as the type of compliment on which I would love to be on the receiving end.
Nabil and I became friends when we teamed up for the Rosenbloom in 2018. We don’t talk about it here, but Nabil is a total hunk. He’s a good friend and I am pleased to share this conversation with our listeners.
Episode Highlights:
1:30- Nabil’s thoughts on how to get young people into bridge
6:30- Nabil’s potential area of growth in bridge
21:00- Nabil’s thoughts on a hand that John played
29:10- John’s growth in the skill of moving on after a mistake
32:00- What Nabil thinks is the key to working on improving one’s flaws
35:40- Nabil’s preparation before a bridge tournament
38:50- What Nabil loves most about John
43:10- Nabil’s general life advice
46:10- Nabil’s advice on a partnership relationship
52:30- How Nabil tackles the problem of improving as a bridge player
1:05:10- The mental edge that babies have
1:09:40- Why Nabil thinks there is a lot of value in simulations
1:36:20- A story of John teaching Hool
1:44:40- Nabil’s thoughts on the problem with society
1:51:10- An area of improvement for John
Transcript:
Nabil Edgtton: You said you had a couple of projects going that maybe you also wanted to do this year, and so you couldn't come and play a tour with me and my friends.
John: [laughs] Yes, I'm still working to get people to see Double Dummy and to take up bridge. I want to do a tour in the US, a multi-city tour where I'm traveling to the locations and maybe have some bridge introductory event around that and just get people to see the film.
Nabil: Yes, I've been thinking a little bit lately about how to get people into bridge, and it just seems like such a difficult thing. For me, when I've thought about teaching my friends, the problem with bridge is the process of learning is obviously really difficult, but I just meant the environment that you can learn bridge in isn't the funnest thing to young people, obviously. That's the main thing, I guess.
When I've thought about teaching friends, I could teach them when we're all hanging out, and we've tried to do that a couple of times and it's happening. Some friends are learning slowly. Apart from the one friend that I'm teaching, I guess for a young person, the environments that you start out playing with at clubs aren’t as vibrant as they used to or aren’t that vibrant for it to be appealing, I guess. That's a pretty major roadblock, at least when I've been thinking about it.
John: Yes, I totally get what you’re talking about.
Nabil: It's such a shame because it's just the best game. This has been a problem with poker friends that I've tried to get into it in the past where they're just like, “How much money can I make from it?” Do you know what I mean? I'm just like, “It's not about the money. It's about the love of the game.” I've always said that if you gave me poker or bridge to play for the rest of my life, it wouldn't even be close, and I love poker. I really, really love poker, but bridge, it's infinite, something you could just play forever.
John: Yes. I played some poker recently with some friends who are my age and I hated-- I wanted to be doing more. It was just the betting, and I wanted to be able to play cards. I wanted to make my card plays matter.
Nabil: Have decisions and stuff. To most people, they probably wonder why somebody would dedicate their life to a card game or a large chunk of their life
to a card game and that kind of thing. I guess the thing from there is if they know you to be some rational person, then that must be an awesome game.
John: One thing I'll tell you though, so on Bridge Winners-- are you on Bridge Winners?
Nabil: Yes.
John: On Bridge Winners, they give me the option to write featured posts. I haven't done featured posts for all of the podcasts, and I feel badly about that because everybody's giving me their time. Some people are higher profile than others, and I just haven't done a very good job of making everyone-- Part of it is, I want to do a featured post, but if it's back-to-back featured posts of mine and they're not getting that much engagement, I'm like, “Should I make this next one a featured post or should I just make it a regular post?”
I just did an interview with Meckstroth, and it was really good. It's really good. I'm super pumped about it. He tells great stories. He talks about getting fired from the Nickel team. He talks about that.
Nabil: Wow.
John: Yes, he was-- he wanted--
Nabil: I want to hear that.
John: He was willing to talk about it.
Nabil: Everyone’s going to want to hear that.
John: He was totally game. He sent me a list of like things to talk about, and I saw it on there, I was like, "Wow, sweet," because I wasn't going to bring it up, but he was--
Nabil: You were interested in that, right? To me, I love what they did at the bowl. Just the only pair to win the bowl, they just seemed like they were crushing. When we played them, they seemed to play phenomenal on their table and that kind of thing. I'm really interested to see why they got fired because to me, they're-- I don't know. It's really easy to just say words like-- I don’t know. This has been, for me, a recent area of potential growth where I realize there’s a thing in bridge.
Basically, I started out playing poker 20-- Sorry. Something like that. Let's say 14 years ago or something. The evolution of the game from what it was then to what it is now is just insane. There is so much work put into it. There's been so many programs developed, statistical analysis. It's huge. Then, when you compare that to the bridge world, to me, it's laughable in comparison. There are so many conventional wisdoms in bridge, and there are so many scenarios where people just think different things.
I'm sure there have been heaps of people in the last however many years actually going in and doing the work and running simulations on all these spots and things like that, but to me, it's probably not enough for the top-level bridge community as a whole. For me, it's a project that I'm currently working on where just anytime I see what I think is an interesting position, I'm just going to run a simulation on it and do the work.
There's issues with it that the way I want to look at some spots is pretty arbitrary. It's just dealing out some number of hands, going through every single hand, and comparing the two actions basically based on what I think every other action should be after that. When it comes to the answer I get, it's not going to be statistical at all. It's just a number or an answer that I feel to be right. It's probably not something that anybody else could grow from personally.
I'll give you an example. We're playing Poland in the Bermuda Bowl. There was a hand on the second hand. I told you about these hands where one of the poles had, I think it might have been Kalita, had queen X, ace, jack, nine to seven, ace X, two little. He opened four hearts at first seat favorable, and he won a game swing. He went three down and four hearts and we make three in a draw.
My teammates were under the impression, or maybe it was just a throwaway comment, that said something to the effect of, he was just on tilt, and he just decided to open a random four hearts. I thought that the Polish world champions probably weren't the types to just randomly open four hearts when you're on tilt thing. I thought that was a bit reductionist or disrespectful maybe, so I decided to look into it a little bit more. I'd heard that there had been sims done about them, but I decided to look at a specific spot myself.
I saw it in maybe an email thread or a book somewhere, but it was a hand Bob Hamman-- I believe it was Bob, opened void ace-jack nine to seven, jack X, and ace nine to four.
He opened up four hearts first seat favorable which, in my thinking, previously, it was just way too good a hand to be opening four hearts with, and you could miss club slams, sometimes you could miss diamond slams, like you could miss heart slams, things like that, and it seemed like way too much.
At the other table, they open one heart, right? It was some high-level competition. I just dealt out 200 hits and I went through all the hands, and from my analysis, opening four hearts won about an input board versus opening a heart, but that wasn't my biggest takeaway from it. My biggest takeaway from it was that just seeing how many problems the four hearts opening gave you compared to how often you miss slam.
At all the hands I've looked at, you miss slam like twice, and there were just massive numbers in all these spots where they have to bid four spades and go for 800 or they make it take out double and they just cooked all these hands, and it was just like very eye-opening for me. Ever since, I've just been writing down every position that
is really interesting, and I think that if you ask a lot of the top players in the world what they would do in those spots, you'd get different answers. I want to just look at a bunch of data, I guess, or maybe not data, but I just want to look at a ton of hands and see what comes of it.
John: When you say you dealt out 200 hands, you took out the exact cards that were in Bob's hand that he opened four hearts with?
Nabil: Yes, and then randomized the rest.
John: Did you manually deal them or did you use a computer?
Nabil: I'm using the Deal Master Pro, I think it is. Yes, Deal Master Pro. It's got a simulator in there, and so--
John: Is this a bridge website?
Nabil: No, it's a program. You can buy it. Where did you go? Yes, nice. Okay, there you are. Yes, so you can do all sorts of things. I have another friend who's doing the simming for opening leads. His name is Matt Smith. He's an Australian, a huge player. Yes, just anytime there's an interesting opening lead spot, a lot of people know this stuff I think from the book that David Bird wrote. Richard Pavlicek has done a lot of interesting stuff. Everyone should go check his website out if you want to look at that. We've just been looking at extensions of that.
Yes, the stuff is obviously flawed in a lot of ways, but he was a really interesting hand. You got queen fourth, king third, king third, and ace-ten X. This is a hand I saw in BBO and like in Indian Premier League recently. You get a stronger trump on your right, two clubs diamond on your left, two spades on your right, four spades on your left. I don't know if they play pop it in the spot, I'm not sure if it matters. Yes, you're on the lead and this is a lead that swung some IMPs.
I looked at it and I was like, "That's a little bit unlucky." One player let a spade and the other one just picked the red suit which I'm not so sure about, but when we simmed it, the main lead was a low club according to the solo, which seems a bit bizarre, but when you think about it, like the stronger trump guys on your right and your aim is to build tricks now, you have a lot of stuff and your partner probably is only going to get in like once potentially, and it's one of those hands where, let's say, you start passive, they can--
John: What's passive? A trump?
Nabil: Yes, a trump, which was the second-best lead and it was quite close, but let's say you started trump on a bunch of these heads or some percentage of the hands, they're going to set up a red suit via, let's say, like double hooking or something and they're going to use it to throw away their lone club loser at some point. Let's say your partner has jack third and declare he has king queen X, or your partner has queen third and declare it as king-jack X or something like that, or maybe dummies just got the jack and I guess that would-- Anyway, you get the point, but it was interesting to see that the low club was the winning lead there.
I just think the more the of these spots I can churn out, the more wisdom there is to gain in these things. Obviously, they're difficult things to specifically apply at the table, but if you can take the concepts that you learn from these spots and expand them, then I think it's just another way to grow the bridge flow.
John: I wonder if the lead is the-- if it's the same if you don't have the ten of clubs?
Nabil: That's the interesting thing. You know what? I will run that and I will get back to you. Yes, so that's a little project I'm excited about.
John: How many hours a day are you spending on it?
Nabil: I could not tell you. On average, I'm probably just running like one thing a day or one thing every couple of days. It's not really something that I've put a ton of work into at the moment. I've had some other things that I have been working on instead, but I definitely have been probably writing down a spot today that I see that's interesting that I want to sim.
Yes, it's not something that I need to rush or anything, but it's like a long-term project and it's just a commitment, so anytime I think there's an interesting spot, to have a look at it. Sabina sent me an interesting email the other day that was-- I think she had spoken to a teammate of mine, about some of the simming that I've been doing. They seem a little bit interested in it.
They've been talking about a hand, queen third, queen third, queen-jack ten to fifth, and ace-king tight. Whether that should be open the stronger trump basically, like 14 plus the 17 no trump, and I'm not quite sure if they meant like the top 30% to 40%. She said 14 plus to 17, but I'm not sure if that was just like 15 to 17, a normal 15 to 17, no trump with upgrades or slightly more. Yes, she asked about how you would potentially sim that.
That's not really a question that I had thought of before or the spot that I had thought of before, but it's interesting because if you make-- It's going to be like four major contracts you get to where at least one of your queens ends up being useless. Even when you play three no trump, your stuff is quite slow. The ace-king tight makes your hand a little bit worse, so it's just like, you have 15 with a five-card suit, and you have quite a good five-card suit, queen-jack ten, but then the other parts of your hand are negative.
I don't know. It seems like an interesting discussion. Obviously, it's one that a lot of people might look at it and be like probably it doesn't matter at all or who cares, but I'm very big on just every little incremental edge that you can get. It sounds like they're interested [chuckles] in that kind of thing as well.
John: I mean, honestly, I love that you're thinking about this and you're having conversations with Sabina about it. I think it's really cool [laughs] .
Nabil: Yes, we'll see what comes of it, but it's interesting. It's actually one thing I've been thinking about recently. I think I maybe don't have enough like minded, incredibly good bridge players around me to talk all the hands with and discuss ideas in spots and stuff. That'd be probably a good thing for my growth. I have people that I can ask questions to. Dennis Field is somebody who's really good. Anytime I have a question, he's always happy to discuss it with me.
I've always asked Vince Demuy about systems stuff whenever I've needed it and stuff, but there's this difference between just asking problems every now and then and just having open dialogue quite often about interesting positions. That's something that would be quite good.
John: Right. That's why when I reached out to you about the bowl, it's like I wanted to go through the bowl hands with you. It's because I was like, "Man, I just want to talk high-level bridge."
Nabil: Yes, the bowl was so fun. I love that tournament. The two times I've ever played it, it's just like that's-- as a bridge player, I live for that kind of thing. It's just something so awesome. Just playing the best and every little thing mattering and just testing yourself, getting all that time to prepare for it and then just going out and testing yourself. It's so cool.
John: It reminds me of the hand from the Reisinger. We were vulnerable. They were not. We're playing against Boye Brogeland and he was playing with, I think his name is Christian. It wasn't his regular partner.
Nabil: Christian Bakke. Yes. I've heard good things about Christian.
John: It's day two of the Reisinger. I'm pretty sure it's day two. I had ace fifth, three little, queen in one, and king third.
Nabil: I used the three little, queen in one, king third.
John: Ace fifth.
Nabil: Ace fifth, three little, queen in one, king third?
John: Yes.
Nabil: Okay. Got you.
John: I think I was in first seat, we're not favorable, and I passed. Nabil: You mean you're favorable?
John: Unfavorable, sorry.
Nabil: Unfavorable? I'm sorry. I got you. Yes [chuckles] .
John: Unfavorable. It goes pass, pass, three passes, and Boye opens to betting a diamond which shows-- I don't think it shows an unbalanced bet hand, but it shows at least four diamonds, and it goes one heart, one--I chose not to overcall a spade.
Nabil: Got you.
John: It goes--
Nabil: This is the Reisinger. This is border match.
John: Yes.
Nabil: Okay. You were first seat, were you?
John: Yes.
Nabil: So partner passed in third?
John: Yes.
Nabil: Yes, I'm cool with that.
John: It goes one heart pass, Boye bets one no trump, I'll pass. I lead my fourth-best spade. The dummy has king, queen, jack, ten, fifth of hearts, three spades.
Nabil: It must have an entry.
John: Ace third of clubs and nothing in diamonds. How many diamonds it is?
Nabil: Two diamonds.
John: Two Diamonds. I might be wrong. Anyway, I lead a spade. It goes king and Boye plays the nine, and then my partner returns a spade. I win the ace, and I just wouldn't--
Nabil: Wait. Sorry. Declarer has king. Interesting. Sorry. When low spade, lower ace nine, and then they played the ten of spades back or something and it went jack?
John: I think he played the eight and it went queen.
Nabil: Okay. You said you declared it queen jack X of spades, is what you're saying?
John: Yes. I just wrote-- Go ahead.
Nabil: It just looks like-- I don't know. I guess your partner probably shouldn't have ace and heart length because unless they didn't have much in clubs-- I don't know. It just seems like a position that you want to knock out the ace of clubs. It's easy candidate. Your partner has heart raised because we have three little. Your partner could have ace X of hearts. Okay, then declare it as three little of them. I guess it's a spot where, potentially, it's a raise. Go on. It seemed that your partner doesn't have ace third heart, so I would assume that the hearts are a problem that aren't going away.
John: You think if partner has ace third of hearts, he would've switched?
Nabil: I think you should always switch your club. Actually, you know what? Wait. Unless they have the queen of clubs, and then it's safe for you to switch your club away from the king if you ever had it. If you didn't have the king, then it would still-- Yes. If they do have the ace of hearts, they have the queen of clubs. Anyway, what were your thoughts on ?
John: I just won my ace of spades and woodenly cleared spades. Nabil: With no real entry?
John: Yes, and with the heart sitting there. I was like, "Shit. I played too fast. If my partner has the ace of hearts, I'm going to be really sad because this is bad and I'm in a little bit of a panic." Boye, God bless him, wins the queen of spades or jack of spades and now plays the ace of hearts. Now, I'm like, "Great. I'm so happy." Now, I have to discard on the--
Nabil: With all the hearts.
John: On two hearts.
Nabil: What signals did your partner give?
John: What signals does my partner give? Good question. I forget. My partner played [crosstalk] --
Nabil: teammate used to give me problems like this back when I started, back when I just got back into bridge and stuff. I'd just be like, "Dude, what did my partner say?" [laughs] I think he just [unintelligible 00:27:24] .
John: He played the deuce of diamonds eventually. He played the deuce of diamonds.
Nabil: He had how many hearts? Three, let's say.
John: He had three hearts.
Nabil: Okay. Claire has got ace of hearts, queen-jack, X of spades. They've got a diamond on and something in clubs. I do potentially have a diamond entry. Declarer is three, two, four, four, I assume. I wouldn't mind knowing something about the count and whether-- Wait. What was that one diamond? Was it special?
John: Yes. I think their diamond is open shut. I forgot to tell you. I don't remember [laughs] .
Nabil: Thanks. No problem, man [laughs] .
John: The thing is, I had to discard and I realized that I could pitch a diamond if I wanted to keep a spade. Basically, my discard was going to tell Boye where the diamond ace was because if I picked a spade, I clearly don't have the ace of diamonds.
Nabil: Got you.
John: I pitched the spade.
Nabil: [crosstalk] club?
John: No, I didn't. I didn't bear my queen of diamonds. I pitched a spade. I was like, I'm not going to-- It just was the most amazing hand because it went from being like I'm in a panic because if my partner has the ace of hearts, then he doesn't have the ace of hearts. Now, it became this really high-level chess game of I have to show him who has the ace of diamonds right here.
Nabil: Was that a bit of an emotional swing for you in your head during the hands?
John: Huge, yes. Totally.
Nabil: Do you think you deal with those well?
John: No. I don't.
Nabil: Have you taken many steps to improve that? What steps have you taken?
John: No. Honestly, it happened a couple of times in San Francisco, where there was hands where I was expecting and wanted my partner to do a certain thing, or I was expecting declarer to do a certain thing. I had made up my mind that that's what was coming, and then it didn't come. There was a hand we were defending, a heart contract, and I had ace fourth of hearts. They were in four hearts.
My partner could just play-- she had a high diamond and she could tap declarer's hand. The hearts were four, four, four, one around the table, and she could tap declarer's hand, and now, like declarer is just going down. She knew that her
diamond was high, but she didn't tap the declarer. She played a heart. Now, I'm like, "Well, shoot." Now, I had to rise ace of hearts and just play another heart and play her because declarer had showed clubs in the auction and, against the strong club, my partner had preempted, had bid two diamonds, but declarer had shown natural clubs later. Now, I just have to play my partner for a club card. Her defense makes sense and I didn't rise ace of hearts. I didn't think about like-- I was a little steamy.
Nabil: You were stuck with your partner's potential mistake.
John: Yes, I was steaming on that, and so I wasn't able-- Actually, what I did do really well on this hand was after I missed offended and I allowed declarer to make by not rising ace and playing another heart, I asked where it was like in the Soloway qualifying, and I asked my partner, I said, "Can I talk to you away from the table?" Because I said like, "Can you just play a diamond?" I went away from the table and I said, "I am sorry. I could have raised an ace of hearts. I'm sorry for blaming you, like criticizing. Let's go get them."
Nabil: You responded to it well?
John: Yes. In that instance, I did like-- previously, prior to that, I would have probably just fumed and like been mad at myself, been mad at my partner, and not really like cleared my head.
Nabil: Yes, okay, but I don't think you really answered my question of like what steps have you taken to improve that side of your game because I think that that's the most important thing with that. I don't know. I'm a big believer that there's just like so, so, so many ways to improve as a bridge player, and a lot of them have nothing to do with bridge. A lot of them are physical and mental preparation and just learning to deal with certain things and blah, blah, blah.
I guess that's the trajectory I'm on at the moment that I'm just trying to find every little thing that can improve in every little way. It's something that a good percentage of bridge players are missing. I know that you're cognizant and trying to improve that part of things and I know you have, for sure, but I'm interested in how you've tackled that particular part of your bridge game.
John: Well, first of all, I appreciate your calling me out. Nabil: Yes [laughs] . Thanks, man.
John: That's the sign of a friend.
Nabil: Yes. Okay, man.
John: I mean, I'm thinking about a hand we played against Meckstroth Rodwell. I had queen third of hearts, and they had a-- They opened two clubs and they had two diamonds, something, four hearts. I had an ace king on lead and I had the queen third of hearts, and dummy had four hearts and declarer had four hearts.
No, sorry, declarer had an unknown number of hearts, but like Meck had shown a good hand with-- I don't know if he necessarily showed four hearts. I forget.
Dummy didn't have a lot of high cards, but I guess it was like the six-four maybe that he upgraded in the auction, and now, so it goes like heart to the king, yes, so-- Rodwell calls for a heart from dummy. It goes king ace, and now Rodwell plays another heart from this hand, and I rose with a queen of hearts.
Nabil: You rise and cash out or something?
John: No, I had already cashed my ace-king, and then I was like--
Nabil: You had it down with the queen of hearts that you could have just snapped up the heart? Is that what you--
John: If I ducked the heart-- No, my partner had the king-jack of tight of hearts, so if I ducked the heart, declarer is just down.
Nabil: I thought you said it went hearts to the king and I thought that was partner's ace.
John: No. Excuse me.
Nabil: Yes, that's okay.
John: Dummy played a heart, my partner played the king, and Rodwell played the ace.
Nabil: Yes, okay. I got you.
John: Now, it's just like it never occurred-- I was sure that he had ace jack, fifth of hearts. I was just sure, and it never even occurred to me, and then there goes like queen of hearts, small jack, "Oh God."
Nabil: Yes. I have notes that I write to myself. This is something from poker and bridge to help me transition between them, and also just to remind me of all the things that I've learned and stuff. One of the big things I had written on there is, what else is there to consider? It's like a question that I want to ask myself whenever I'm declaring or defending, just because it's very easy to get stuck in your singular picture of the hand without actually looking for the other things.
Because once you get to a point, you quite often still have time to think, and it's just a good question to ask yourself. Quite often, it's not so much about the position, but it's more about what's the best false card? What kind of picture can I paint to the declarer? Just the other things once you've made your initial analysis of the hand, that's a good question to get into your thought process.
John: I'll tell you something-- and I wrote that down. I've written it down. I'll tell you something which I've recently come to appreciate, is that so much about my effect is about being right, and so-- It's like I'm constantly trying to prove my intelligence, and so questions like these, it's so mind-bending for me because I've seen it in other people when they're relating, when they say-- It's like some people have this manner of speech where they say, "Right." I noticed that. I noticed people doing that recently and I was like, "I hate that. Why do you keep saying things and wanting people to agree with you?"
Nabil: Agree with you, yes [laughs] . Are you suggesting that asking yourself that question is suggesting that your initial analysis wasn't good enough? Is that what you're getting at?
John: What I'm saying is that I'm not asking myself questions like this in bridge because I realized that there's just a general dynamic that I have with people, with life, with things that I know what's going on, and so I can be very linear about that. I'm the smart one. I know what's up. It's just really--
Nabil: We're all like that though [laughs] .
John: It's beautiful. Honestly, it's beautiful just to even voice it aloud.
Nabil: Yes, it's really cool that you can [crosstalk] --
John: Freedom that comes from like hearing myself say that to you.
Nabil: That's what I see. John, one of the things I love about you, that you're so open about discussing things that most people aren't, and I think that's like one of your best qualities. It's cool to be able to be real about things like that. Especially when there's things that everybody does but no one wants to think about. It was really to a Chuck Palahniuk on a Joe Rogan podcast, and there was something he said that I thought was like very powerful.
He's talking about how his dad was really annoying and a bit of, I don't know, an alcoholic, et cetera, whatever it was, but he always asked him to-- he was really keen on this one celebrity, and he was constantly pestering him to get him to introduce her to him. Basically, he said that when he found out that his dad had passed away, the first thought that went through his head is, "Thank God, I don't have to introduce him to whatever that celebrity is anymore," which is an awful thing to think about.
He was obviously sad that his dad passed away and stuff, but it was just the thought that popped into his head that he was happy to voice to the world that most people would never dream to say that that thought pass through their head, but everyone has thoughts like that. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I love that quality in you, man. Not that that's the same thing [laughs] . Do you have bridge notes that you write to yourself that you read before the bridge tournament? Not necessarily about system or anything like that, but just little things? Because I think that's been a really big help for me.
John: I keep a bridge journal during tournaments. What I like to do, like what I did in San Francisco, is I would write in it every day after play, and then I would try to write in it in the morning and make an objective for myself. It's based on this thing called the Fearless Mind Journal. For the Fearless Mind Journal, every day, you have an objective, and then you do a plan.
The objective might be for the next time I play, what else is there to consider? Or maybe that would be like a plan thing, objective to be the toughest opponent that I can be today or to be the best partner. Maybe that would be an objective. Then, there's three things for the plan, like how am I going to execute that? Fearless Mind Journal does this, but also, I've done some golf coaching with a group called Vision 54, and the idea behind 54 is that you birdie every hole.
Nabil: Okay, that's what I was going to say [laughs] . That's cool.
John: They have this thing that I learned there which was like three things you did well today, and then one thing you want to improve upon to try and like gear myself, because I come from-- I've grown up as being self-critical, and so it's easier to find fault. With this, it's like, "Okay, what are the things that I did well?" I'm noticing that actually starting to bleed into my everyday life because I recently came across this thing called Complaint-Free World. It's a book. I don't have it on my wrist now.
I forgot about it today, but it's like you wear this thing on your wrist and if you complain, gossip, or criticize, you're trying to go 21 days without doing any of that because 21 days is what it takes to build a habit. Anyway, I'm running long here. I'm getting long.
Nabil: No, that's okay. That's all right. It's interesting stuff. I was listening too on that, on the three things that I've done well and one thing that I can improve on. I was listening to a podcast yesterday and found out something interesting that apparently, practicing gratitude every morning is just really good for your brain and really good for your health. Just wake up in the morning and just saying three things that you're grateful for.
There's been studies that say that has like vast improvements on your cognition and your health. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but yes, apparently, that's been proven by research. I imagine that that would be some extension of that because you don't want to be playing bridge if you never appreciate the good things that you do and you're always just thinking about mistakes. Because bridge is a game of mistakes, and you're almost always going to make some level of mistake.
It's good to appreciate the good things that you do at times, which is actually something I feel like I'm personally very similar to you in that sense. I've always just been very critical of my mistakes. I'm a perfectionist at that time. I only started playing again like two years ago roughly. When I came back, I was just so, I want to say hard on myself because I was just completely playing poorly and out of it in a certain way no matter how much I was trying, but you just got to realize that a bridge is a journey, in a sense, and you need to just find a win out of every loss.
Then, you can turn it around. It's not so much about the mistakes or anything like that. It's the fact that you're growing from every little thing that happens. That's something that I've definitely been quite good at, and I think it has helped me a lot.
[laughter]
Nabil: Maybe if you got every-- Here's a question.
John: Give me an example.
Nabil: Give you an example of what?
John: How you're better at it than you were? I took my partner away from the table and I was like, "Hey, I'm sorry." Can you give me an example of how you-- I was feeling like a dick for making fun of you.
Nabil: You can make fun of me. It's fine. That's all right, man.
John: I've tried not to make fun of people as much, but sometimes, I just can't help myself.
Nabil: No, dude, I make fun of everyone. Honestly, it's a problem. [laughter]
Nabil: Like[laughs] . Anyway, for me, I don't think I've actually made that much progress in that space. I've just made a lot more progress in making less mistakes [laughs] as a bridge player. I had a really good chat yesterday with a good friend of mine, a bridge player, Liam Milne. A few people would know him from Bridge Winners and that kind of thing, but it was about just working in a partnership and dealing with adversity together and that kind of thing.
Some really good things came out of it. With my partner, Andy Hung and I, we put so much work into practicing for the bowl and that kind of thing. Basically, our dialogue between each other is a lot of just me trying to, "Okay, how do we improve on this? How do we improve on that? What about this system spot?" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just write down every little system or auction that I find interesting that we don't have agreements on.
I just realized that our dialogue, it's like when we first started playing bridge together, we were just like-- We still are, we're really good friends. We get along so well, and it was just fun and that kind of thing. I realize now that our dialogue is almost a bit too serious and we'd taken like, not taken the friendship out of it, but the bridge was first, and our friendship should come first in that sense.
One really good bit of advice that he got from a sports psychologist was just organizing partnership dates just once a week or once every two weeks, and the only rule is to just, we can't talk about bridge. It's just cultivating that friendship or reminding yourselves that like, "Yes, we love this game, we're really serious about it,
but we're friends and we're doing this together." I think that's something that Andy and I were missing, and I hope that that's going to be a good step forward for us.
John: Have you had a date yet?
Nabil: No. I messaged him about it yesterday, so we'll have a date soon [chuckles] . We're playing a tournament in Canberra, so maybe I'll come down early or something like that and we can have a date. That was a good thing that came out of that, but I definitely need to work on dealing with partnerships that are, I think-- I'm a very strong-minded person and I really believe in my ideas. I think that I can be a little bit pushy with pushing them onto people.
I need to understand that people think about things in different ways. People feel different things in certain ways. They communicate in different ways. That was another good thing that came out of my chat with Liam. It's just like realizing that
Nabil: You just have to find solutions to things basically. The way that I like to do things, if my partner is not conducive to that, then we just find another solution. Let's like find a work around, you know what I mean? Get to an answer, get to something that works for both of us, that kind of thing. I guess it's probably a problem of mine that I just believe in the way that do things, I like doing things my way and if he asked me about it I couldn't explain every reason why I think it's best or whatever, but at the end of the day that shit doesn't matter. It's just YouTube people just working together towards a common goal and you just got to find a way that works for both people.
John: Yes.
Nabil: What was I going to say? What's an example of something that you've written in your journal recently after a tournament that was something you'd like to get better at?
John: Wow. I don't know, I haven't even reviewed it since I got home from San Francisco. I haven't played Live Bridge since I got home from San Francisco.
Nabil: Are you a person-- Sorry go on.
John: I did go through all of the hands from one session of the Reisinger with Michael Rosenberg.
Nabil: Oh, awesome.
John: Because he sat in the same seat as I did for the session, so we went over every hand.
Nabil: What'd you get out of that?
John: Gosh, what did I get out of that? I have more follow-ups. I have more follow-ups that I need to do that I haven't done with him. I want to ask him about.
Nabil: Even gaining more questions out of something like that is a useful thing.
John: What did I, it's been a little bit since we talked. There was one hand where I doubled them in five diamonds and you make six spades and we're vulnerable and they're not. I had a diamond void. Did I have a diamond void? I don't remember. You know, that's a good question. I don't know. I'm having a hard time coming up with--
[crosstalk]
Nabil: I guess the question wasn't so much about specifics. It was more I guess a broader question of how you tackle your improvement as a bridge player I guess. How much do you think that just getting more boards in at the table and obviously discussing them with good players and growing like that? How often do you just look at I guess your strengths and weaknesses critically and then just work on them away from the table?
I've been preaching a little bit lately, I guess which I probably do a bit too much. I guess I told you about that prime mind act that I texted to you, which I'm not sure if you've checked out or anything. My two year journey to getting back into bridge has been like a pretty long and interesting one, where at the start I questioned whether I could get back to my best and I questioned whether my brain was just not what it used to be and my focus was just completely short.
It was I guess probably a bit too long of a story for now. Basically the end result of it is that I feel really feel like I have mental preparation for a bridge tournament down to a T. It's something that I've thought a lot about. I basically wanted to get my team on board to just try it with me for a tournament or two. I knew that just preaching it wouldn't do much to help me, so I spent like two weeks just getting the science together on everything.
I just read a bunch of studies. I read a lot of stuff online about every little thing that I felt like has helped me and just found all the research on why all of it was good for your brain basically. Good for your cognitive function and good for your memory and good for your focus and all that kind of thing. I wrote up like a 12 page document and sends it to the team and was just like, "Here is what I think I guess."
It starts out with an article that Liam Mill sent the team before the last youth ball about chess grandmasters. How they prepare for tournaments and how much physical training they put in and how much science has gone into their diet. Magnus Carlsen sits in a particular posture when he's playing chess so that he can get the maximum amount of oxygen to his brain.
He used to drink orange juice but now that he's a little bit older, nutritionist said that his body can't break down the sugar as well, so it would lead to sugar crash crashes. Now he drinks like a combination of chocolate milk and normal milk and that kind of thing and they're all just athletes. They run five miles a day before tournaments. They understand that the mental demands of chess are as much physical as they are mental.
That was a really interesting point in there that they said that grandmaster is playing chess burn the same amount of calories in two hours as an hour of Roger Federer playing tennis. That sitting down and playing chess for an entire day for a grandmaster it burns three times as many calories as the average person does in a day. Just sitting down playing chess.
If that doesn't help you realize that when physical athletes as much as mental, then I don't really know what does. That's the premise of the document I wrote and I'll send it to you but there was a lot of things in there. I think that the edge in bridge is in the mental space just because-- Okay, let me ask yourself personally. I think this is a good question, what percentage of your mistakes are made from a lack of knowledge and what percentage of your mistakes are made from a lack of focus?
Basically, how often would your best bridge self-know better and make the right decision, but you did it? How often was it just like, "I didn't actually know better there." All of the top bridge players in the world in almost all positions really do know better if they'd sat there and thought of everything through and being completely present and focused in the moment. The mistakes come from a lack of mental focus.
A lapse in concentration, a lapse in, just not being 100% fully there. Not thinking through everything, tiredness, fatigue, all that kind of thing. That's where I think the edge is in bridge these days and that's the space where I think that since I came back to bridge, mentally I've just made leaps and bounds. I think I'm back to the best player I've ever been.
It hasn't really had anything to do with bridge knowledge at all. It's all just being about personal preparation mentally and physically. I think that's something that a lot of the top bridge players do. The caveat here is that obviously the top bridge players in the world just have found their way to be mentally focused and be there at all times.
There are a lot of them that doesn't have to be physical, I get that but I just know personally that that's been everything for me. I know that a lot of bridge players would benefit from this kind of thing. I guess it just not as, I guess it's just how much work you're willing to put in and whether you care about that kind of thing, I don't know. Obviously, if you're putting in work in that space, it doesn't just help you at bridge, it helps you in life. It's bigger than that.
John: Actually, I did this exercise thing yesterday morning, Saturday, it's called F3 and it's at 6:30 in the morning. It's all men. It's outdoors, whatever the weather is and I'm debating whether or not I'm going to go to the one tomorrow morning at 5:30, which is super early for me.
Nabil: I don't in 5:30.
John: When I hear you talking about this stuff, it gets me more juiced about-- What was it?
Nabil: Thursday.
John: Thursday, I got up. I had to move my car because I have electric car that was charging and the parking ticket was going to run out and it was potentially going to get towed. I had to get up at 6:30 which I was bitching about when I set the alarm.
Nabil: Hey, were you not wearing your wristbands? No complains for 21 days mate. [laughs]
John: I don't think I've made it passed the day. The standard in that is that you have to say it aloud. I was internally complaining about this which doesn't count.
Nabil: That sounds like a copy out to me mate.
John: Try it and tell me. Here try it. Try not to complain for 21 days.
Nabil: I will do it.
John: I woke up at like 5:45 in the morning and I was like, "Well, I should just go get my car. I should just go move my car now because I don't want to go back to sleep." I went and move my car. What?
Nabil: Getting up in the morning to me is just one of those impossible thing sometimes that when no one is doing it's just like no.
John: I wasn't happy, but I got up. I went and move my car and I came back and I was like, "Well, I could go back to bed or I could just start my day." I did all these things that I want to do for myself and it wasn't even seven o'clock. I was like, "This is great."
Nabil: I love that feeling.
John: I love it men. I love it. Then I ended up fluttering away some of the day. I didn't really attack it with the-- Like I said, I didn't want to come to Australia, because I really want to focus on this movie, and the tour, and really getting it out there so I can have peace about it. That's what I don't have right now, because I haven't really done it.
I've expected a lot from other people in terms of promoting the movie, in terms of showing the movie. It's like, "Look, this is my thing. I have to do it," and I'm engaging
with that. I have a situation where I can pretty much do whatever I want which is good, but it also can be a huge curse because I can get through the day messing around and not really--
Nabil: Bridge is more than poker I guess. It opens up a lot of doors for you, right?
John: In terms of what?
Nabil: Just options. Just things that you can do if you find an interesting project of any sort, you can just do it. If you need to dedicate X amount of time to something, you can just do it.
John: I recently had a mental shift about this. Somebody was talking to me and I had complained recently people would say, "Are you traveling?" I was like--
Nabil: Complaining again? [laughs]
John: Yes. Like I am the one who needs this face lift. I hated when people would say, "Have you been traveling?" I'd be like, "What do you mean traveling?" Anyway, so somebody asked me, "Have you been traveling recently?"
Nabil: Were you saying that people associate traveling with leisure and not work?
John: Yes, I think that's the aspect of it. Well spotted. Somebody said, "Have you been traveling?" I said, "Yes." I got to spend 10 days in San Francisco playing in the North American Bridge Championships. I loved how I phrased it because I said, "I got to." Instead of saying, "I was in." I am privileged.
Nabil: So lucky to be able to do that. Yes, exactly.
John: I am so privileged. I'm starting to come into grips with that and to be able share it in a way that's like not taking that-- you asked me what I've been up to and I was like, "Uhhh." I'm like falling into like a ball. I have an amazing life.
Nabil: That's the thing though. It's very easy to point at people who are privileged and say, "They have this and they have that, and they have that." A lot of times, people in positions want what you have or want other things and things like that. It's very easy to think like the idea of privilege is like, "Yes, we're super, super lucky, but life is also isn't that simple."
John: Well, I could just see- just listening to you here I could think, "Well, I'd like to be as good of a bridge player as Nabil is. I'd like to have that and I can just see it already.
Nabil: Cool man. What else you want to talk about? Chat a bit up? Interests?
John: I saw this thing. I saw this interview with Jeff Bezos yesterday. What got me to watch the video was that he says, "It's always day one."
Nabil: I love that. Yes, that's cool. You know what? In that document I wrote up, I called it the Mental Edge. There was something there about basically about how babies when they have- their curiosity is almost endless and they approach things with just a fascination to it. Basically the suggestion was that we need to go back to having the curiosity of babies to just be so interested in something and dove into it and be fascinated and happy, and curious, and that kind of thing.
Rather than looking at things monotonously, I guess. That stuck with me quite well, because if you ever want to approach bridge like that. The first time when you first have that passion for bridge when it first came, and you were just so interested and all you wanted to do was learn and grow, and grab everything. You just need to keep that with not just bridge with everything in your life really. Yes, I think that's a pretty cool quote.
John: Yes, I heard it. My mom send me this text the other day. It was an Oprah Winfrey interview. This guy, he was a monk and he said-- I forget how he said it. It was about practicing gratitude. He said practicing gratitude for things that you don't want to. You think you don't want something, so being grateful for that. It struck me when he said that. I was just like, "Wow, that's so--"
Nabil: Can you elaborate on that? The being grateful for the ability to be able to choose whether you want or don't want something? Is that what we're being grateful for?
John: He said it's just being grateful for even when you're getting what you don't want. Being grateful for what-- What came to mind was the hand against Maxwell and Fradwell when I crashed my partners jack of hearts.
Nabil: Just grateful to be seeing playing Meckstroth and Rodwell . [laughs]
John: I don't know if it's that. I think it's more maybe where it's just like-- I think when I get in the right frame of mind, there's just a gratitude for just what is and I think that's what it is. Even when it's not in line with whatever my personal preference is.
Nabil: Yes, just gratitude. Okay, I like that.
John: I tell you what. I'm going to send you the link.
Nabil: Send me everything.
John: I'm going to send you the link.
Nabil: Send it all. I want it all. By the way, can I just say. If there's anybody out here listening who's interested in crowd sourcing in sims. The way I'm interested in doing it because I haven't thought of a better way to do it, is a lot of manual work just going through hands and going through every bid and quite often assigning EV values to things and things like that.
It's a bit of work but if anyone's actually interested in looking at some things like that, then get in contact with me. You can find me on Bridge Winners. Yes, Bridge Winner's probably the best way, I guess. Yes, just wanted to throw that out there because there's a lot to look out and there's a lot of manual labor and we could all grow from it I guess.
John: It seems like you could create a website pretty easily and it would like a master solvers thing. You could just have multiple choice- just in terms of like I'm thinking about the hand where you talk about Ham, just ask people to vote. I guess you could do it as bidding problems on Bridge Winners even if you want.
Nabil: That's my point there. I don't think that actually makes an answer, just a bunch of people who are good said something, you know what I mean? I'm not taking away their experience and everything like that. On something like that where a bunch of good players doing one thing and another is doing another thing, I want to actually just randomize it, put that hand through a simulator, create a bunch of hands and then look at every single spot.
Bridge players judgment quite often comes from years and years and years of experience and quite often that experience from that particular sport is from being in it 100 times because all these sports are specific and different. How about if we look at the sport 300 times and write down the value of it and write down if the first board, okay, opening four hearts one six imps.
Moving on to the next, blah, blah, blah and then you just keep a value and you actually-- Quite often, the results might just be inconclusive. For me, the first time I did it, it wasn't so much the one in per board, it was just seeing that it just opening four hearts in that spot. I think it had something to do with the heart void, that's one of the next things I want to look at. Sorry, the spade void, it's one of the next things I want to look at.
It just wreaked havoc. It was just so clearly good if you just went through and looked at all the hands that it was enough, more so much than the imp value. It was just enough, whereas there were many hands where I was just like, "Ah, ah, ah." The way I was looking at it was, you open four hearts and then, "Okay, what do you do with the next hand?" So often it was like, "Oh God this problem is awful."
[laughter]
I have to assign weights and values. There were many problems like that just like, "Oh God, thank God, I'm not at the table right now." [laughs] Then I opened up some
new questions actually. It was just like, "What are you supposed to do when they open four hearts on your right and you have this particular hand and you've all against not?" You can sim that and you just keep going and eventually if you've put in enough work and you've got enough hands on deck, you can learn a lot I think.
John: What do you and Andy play? For example, when you open four hearts, let's say you have this hand with the spade void and the two aces and it goes four spades, or it goes four spades. I don't know. It goes four spades on your left when you double less now.
Nabil: This was the interesting thing-- [crosstalk] From the other guy or from the four hearts opener?
John: From the four heart opener.
Nabil: Yes, this was the interesting thing that we play double as you want to bid. That was an important question that I said that if it did go four hearts-- The first question that came out of that was, knowing that opening four hearts and first was good, do we now need ace weak and a strong four hearts opening or can we keep it wide? That's the first question. The second question is, what's the opportunity cost?
We could open Three notrumps to show a good four major opening or something, but I wanted to run a sim on how often-- I guess there's a few questions, how often does gambling come up? I think obviously gambling is going to come up a lot less than the four major opening. Then once gambling does come up, does it win some absurd amount of imps? Which that's the next thing to look at and then from there you decide which is more valuable.
Then, if we don't have a four major opening, a weak and a strong, then I think that double has to just do something. Not so much I want to bid, but I'm a bit better than what I had and I'm happy for you to bid and I'm happy for you to pass. I guess there's going to be some hands where you just have a free sack, that's the problem, but personally, I think that this hand, if it did go four hearts pass, pass, four spades and you open void ace jack nine to seven, jack ace, ace nine fourth, I think you just have to double just because it's right for a partners to do something. That was my personal opinion.
John: Because if partner wanted to double the four spades, they could double four spades. I guess maybe they didn't have a double or--
[crosstalk]
Nabil: No, I'm talking about four hearts, pass, pass, four spades. John: I said, I'm wondering if it's better if they--
[crosstalk]
Nabil: Four hearts, four spades, pass, pass to me, yes, I will double again. I will double again because now I got some defense, my partner didn't take the sack, but yes. If my partner didn't hit it and I had the hand that wanted to, that's what's easy personally. If I had the hand, my partner didn't hit it, if I had the hand that just wanted to sack I could just sack.
Yes, I think doubles this hand, but it's more just a problem of when it goes four hearts, pass, pass, four spade and it's direct, should this hand double. Typically double says, I want to bid so you can only pass when you have it. I think this hand kind of, and maybe I'm wrong but I think this hand just like it's going to be right for a partner to do something. Anyway there's some other stuff like, I don't know, the ball was really interesting.
I know we never went over those ball hands. There was one hand I was thinking about from the ball where it went one club on my right. I had something like jack third-- Partner might have made a passed hands, but I had something like jack the ace king 10, 9x, three little ace king type. I'm pretty sure partner was a past hand and I decided to over call a stronger trump rather than over call a heart.
I thought at the time maybe I had two low spades and jack third diamond, I don't know, whatever it was, but I thought at the time that sometimes I could talk them out of the spade game, if I was lucky. Let's say they had a heart shortage or something, I could talk them out of a spade part score. I had a good suit so I don't know if it was all that I was against not, but I had a good suit and I wasn't too worried about being able to run two hearts.
I just thought it had preemptive value because I had a good suit, I could just make it a notrump. They opened a club on my right, you just make a notrump affair bit when they make two spades because they couldn't get to their spade fit, so I thought one of the trump was good but I ended up just getting double and going for 500 against the part score.
John: You didn't run.
Nabil: This is the heart that sucked about. It went double and partner were under two clubs. I think it was two clubs. They must have opened the club on my right. Yes, partner just ran to two clubs and now I didn't want to run to two hearts because what's stopping partner from being stiff hard and Queens, sixth club or something like that. We just played two clubs. I think two hearts might have been better on the hand, or maybe it was the same.
I can't really remember but just seeing two clubs double, I had the ace king of them so whatever and partner has at least five so whatever. That was a bit of a sad hand. That's to me an interesting one to sim. I think the conventional wisdom is to overcall a heart with that hand up to the pass and it makes sense, but I don't know how much that outweighs the preemptive value and not letting them miss a fit, I guess.
I don't know if I had three or two spades though. That was one and then another one that I learned pretty quickly from some lead sims was that I had a queen jack nine to File name: Nabil_draft_3.mp3
five, ace to six, stiff and stiff and stronger trump on my right, a bit too close to the majors. I went three spades on my left, which was splinterish, I think. Pass three, notrump on my right, all pass.
There was a couple things here. It was quite a slow Three notrump bit on my right. My thoughts were that- because I had stiff-stiff and the minors that quite often partner had a deep stopper before they had nine tricks in those suits and that declare probably only had one spade stopper. I could lead a spade, knock out their thing and because I had the ace of hearts so I could get back in and cash my spade.
That was one thing, but I missed the-- A partner didn't double three spades, which I don't think they should do always personally because it's a spot where over three spades you'dhave to choose Three notrump or not choose Three notrump. If you had a pass as an in between or you have pass and redouble, it adds all these options to them. I don't really agree with doubling a large percentage of the time or any real percentage of the time. Anyway, if you look at some lead sims on this kind of position, it's just always better to lead your longest suit. At the other table, Meckwell just led a heart and just beat trump and we like make kind of thing. I thought to myself, "Maybe that's a bit of an unlucky swing, maybe that was wrong," and then just looked at some lead sims and it's just yes. I laughed to myself because I know Meccans have done the work. They did a lot of siming back in the day and stuff. That's just knowledge I didn't have kind of thing. There were two interesting spots from the ball, I thought.
John: I was flying online the other day in a speedball, BBS speedball against random opponent. I had ace, queen, jack, fifth. Jack 10, nine, seventh and a singleton diamond.
Nabil: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, fifth.
John: Yes.
Nabil: Sorry, what were you?
John: Jack, seventh of hearts. Jack 10, nine, seventh of hearts. Were favorable against--
Nabil: What was your last card?
John: I had Jack, 10, nine, sixth.
Nabil: Okay, two more cards.
John: Sorry. I two diamonds.
Nabil: Two more diamonds, yes, cool.
John: They opened a strong notrump on my right. I decided to pass. I thought [crosstalk] .
Nabil: Cool with gambling.
John: I was going to double the notrump. [laughs] That's-- [crosstalk]
Nabil: What were the colors?
John: We're not vulnerable, they are.
Nabil: Yes, but still getting 200 against 420 is not great. I guess you're likely getting 500 a lot. If that's the case, but anyway, whatever you passed.
John: I passed and now my left opponent transferred the clubs and I was like, "I can't deal with him like just passing out three clubs."
Nabil: Yes, obviously not. You have three hearts in your hand.
John: I only bid three hearts and now they jump to five clubs. The funny thing was his- he had a-- My left hand would probably have-- [crosstalk]
Nabil: Okay, I understand. You jumped the five clubs.
John: I only bid three hearts hoping that they would still bid three notrump because they had heart stoppers.
[laughter]
Nabil: I like how you think. That's pretty funny.
John: Now my left-hand opponent bids five clubs and I was just like, "Okay, I'm just--" [crosstalk]
Nabil: You're really happy with how you bid this hand? [laughs]
John: I was just like, "I'm doubling anyway." They're thinking anyway. The hand on my left had doubleton, singleton and then-- I think he had an 11 count. I think he had ace, jack, sixth of clubs, and Queen. He might have seven clubs.
Nabil: Those are looking pretty good.
John: He might have had seven clubs. My partner had the King of Hearts, but he just bid five clubs because, anyway, I didn't-- He had the singleton heart. Anyway, that's just a hand that I played recently.
[laughter]
Nabil: Did you bid it?
John: No. I was also playing with this woman who's played-- She's a beginner. Like she's played social bridge. We were going over the hands on the phone afterwards and I just-- It was interesting to go over the hands with her because I'm the expert in this situation. The firsthand, I messed up because I didn't count like dummy. Dummy had seven clubs on this hand too. I couldn't count to seven. Some things I'm really obsessed.
Nabil: Yes, that will be interesting conversation. What has happened on this board, John? Ever since I was kid, I could nail six and anything across that--
[laughter]
John: Oh, my God.
Nabil: Just like, yes, that's for six but seven, I struggle.
John: I could have beaten the contract. They were cold and now they came off the dummy. They had all these cashing clubs in the dummy and they came off the dummy and I-- Anyway, I totally screwed up. The very first hand I'm like, "Let's go over the hands afterwards." The thing is like, I'm playing with her in the Pro/Am game and I'm not a pro. I'm in the context of that game I'm a pro and she's an Am.
Her teacher introduced me to her and she said, "She's keen to get better. He wants to learn." I'm like, "Great, I'm happy to play with her." We play the speedball and I'm like, "Let's go over the hands afterwards." The very first hand I'm like, "Well, here's what happens." Count to seven, I had dummy on my hand with six clubs. Any leverage I have with this woman, she's probably like, "What an idiot."
Nabil: Have you seen Harvey Gilmore where he's playing Pro/Am and just that guys there just- it's like that kind of thing. He's playing Pro/Am with Bob Barker. He's just playing terribly and Bob's just like, "What kind of Pro is this?"
[laughter]
Nabil: I've been teaching my friend lately. It's been a really interesting experience. I've never taught somebody from scratch or anything. I'd never thought about the right way to teach somebody a bridge. I'm learning a lot about how badly I've gone about it in a sense. I think one of the things was just like, I never even thought about this, but you know how bridge lessons at clubs are like, "Okay, this week we're going to learn stamen." It's all just specialized. I have not been doing it like that at all.
We have little things like that. I think I needed to just dedicate a while to every little thing where it's just like things have come up and I've explained that to him and taken some time and I've wrote it all up in the document for him so you can go back and read about it. We never just turned out one specific thing a lot and that was kind of a big thing. Hey, did you see the hand that I posted on Bridge Winners about the-- I think I call it like a triple squeeze in-play thing?
John: No.
Nabil: You didn't? Okay. It was just from practicing with him on BBO. It was this interesting position where I asked whether it had a name because of the fact that-- I call it like a triple squeeze inplay thing because what happened at the table was that the guy was triple squeezed. I could have just pitched a certain card. I could have pitched my love of spade and then Dr. Club, because he had some berries ace and then my hand was high.
I didn't actually know what his exact hand was at the time. At the table, my left-hand opponent had pitched a spade. I had to keep my love of spade in case there was a bear queen of spades on the left. If they showed out, then I had a count of the hand and I could throw them in. The guy was just triple squeeze, but the way that it worked at the table was that it was a triple squeeze and then a throw-in, I guess, kind of thing.
It was an interesting position but like a couple people replied, and we're just like, "This is just triple squeeze." I was like, "Yes, I guess--" I don't think I even really replied to it. I said like, "Yes, you're right." I didn't really bother explaining practically at the table that it ended up being that position. It was just a cool head. It was funny and I guess I just remembered it because it was a hand that I played on BBO with my friend and I had never really played on BBO much in my life.
John: Who were you playing it with?
Robots. Always robots. Yes, just because they'd be quick and they play quick. I've been going to teaching tables with him and he like playing against robots or just sitting in every single seat. Then being on Skype with him and just churning it out and talking about things, sending through bridge master, which he loves. It's just been a fun experience, to be honest. I've never gone through that just teaching somebody to play from whatever. It'll be a journey but I'm hoping in two years' time that is a pretty strong bridge player.
Nabil: I think he probably will be
John: What's his name?
Nabil: Alex. You’re going to keep an eye out for him?
John: I guess his last name?
Nabil: No. Long story.
John: [laughs] All right.
Nabil: I’ll explain that to you another time.
John: All right. What's the best thing you've seen him do at the table where you were like, "Man, that's awesome," that he did that?
Nabil: [laughs] Many things. He's just a really smart kid, but I would say that there was a hand where we're playing a pairs tournament. I knew we needed to top on the last board to have a chance of sneaking into third and he knew it as well. When they open the eight on my right or something and I had something like three little stiff queens the jack, 10s and six and I was favorable and I over called wonder a tramp.
John: [laughs]
Nabil: It went like two hearts on my left, three diamonds from him, four hearts on my right, I've bid five diamonds and it went past to him and he went into this really long tank. He ended up bidding six diamonds, but he had this 16 count with Ace King, fifth diamond and a shortage or something. He just had just had an absolute rock. I asked him what he was thinking about afterwards and he was like, "Dude," he's only been playing for two months. He was like, "The opponent’s been through a vulnerable game. You were favorable. I knew you were screwing around, but I just knew that it was our only chance to get a top on the board if we could somehow mix it."
I was just like, "Wow, you somehow worked out that I'd slide, just which had never really--" I'd explained to him bidding a light in third seat not vulnerable. Opening light, that’s first seat favorable. He gets those concepts and stuff, but he basically bombers the field to the side like he would have if he didn't think that we needed a top. I was like, "Wow, that is really impressive." I just know there's been a few little moments like that where he's open the preempt, he's open three clubs with only six of them and I'm like, "Dude, you're supposed to have seven for that." He’s and he's like, "Yes, but I had a really good suite and I had shape and I was first seat not vulnerable."
I can't really argue with it because it was actually a good three clubs opening, but I'm just trying to teach you a way. At the end of the conversation, I had to be like, "Yes. Look, honestly, you're right." He's like, "Stay sharp Nabil." [laughs] It's a funny thing because there's been times where he's not listened to the Law of Total Tricks. I'm like, "Dude, you have to listen to the Law of Total Tricks." It's a problem because he's a really smart dude and he's always been used to being the best at whatever he's doing.
He's only been playing Bridge for about a month and on one of these hands, it worked. It was actually right for him to listen to the Law Total Tricks and it was actually quite logical for the position not to, but I told him afterwards. I was like, "Dude, Law of Total Tricks." He was like, "Yes," but this and this and this, "and I was right, so shut up."
[laughter]
Nabil: I feel like it's bad. It's not bad. It's funny to see and it's really cool to see him so early thinking for himself in in that sense. I can already foresee that once
he gets to a certain level, it's going to be a bit difficult to change his mind on certain things.
John: Sounds like somebody else I know.
Nabil: Yes, exactly.
[laughter]
Nabil: It's going to be fun. I'm really enjoying it. Yes, we'll be playing the Gold Coast together if we ever find some teammates, but everyone's gone. It might just be us. I don't really know what's going to happen, but I've gone through like so many people and just haven't found anyone. Obviously, it's hard to get on a team when you’re like, "Yes, my friend's been playing for two months." People are like, "He's a beginner?" I'm like, "No." I really think that come Gold Coast, I think he's going to be like level of like a decent sponsor. Yes, maybe just an okay one or something. You know what I mean? I think he's going to be advanced or more like a good intermediate player, which is pretty good. That’s in four months.
John: How many tricks did he take in six diamonds?
Nabil: He almost made it. If the club finesse was on side, he had play, but he ended up going four off, which was one too many because he played to make it, but actually if he'd gone three off, it would have been a good board because everyone's making four hearts their way. Yes, I've had actually so many funny hands with him. It's interesting playing with-- It's literally made so fun. I never told a friend to play and just started playing with him like this, but it's been so interesting. Even when we're having a bad session, we just find the fun in it and he finds the fun in it. It’s cool.
John: I was teaching my two friends-- A high school classmate of mine and his wife, they live here in Charlottesville, and they've got three daughters. Two of them are twins. I was teaching the two twins and I've taught Hool to the wife. You know Hool?
Nabil: Hool, that's the thing. That's a website. I was thinking about the name of this the other day. How do I spell it? H-U-U-L?
John: H-O-O-L.
Nabil: H-O-O-L.org.
John: Yes.
Nabil: Yes, sorry, go on.
John: They’re 10 years old these twins, and they're adorable. I was teaching them. The mom was like, "Let's teach them Hool," because I taught them on Hool. Then she's like, "Well," Actually, she sent me a text earlier today. She's like,
"I'm not sure. We might just have to play hearts or spades because I'm not sure if they're ready for Bridge/Hool." I get over there. We're hang out. I’m like, "How's this going to work?" I don't really know. Eventually we sit down and we play a hand. I show them what a trick is and then we play a hand of Bridge with open cards.
It's kind of dragging. Then we're okay. We have the Hool board where you write down your shape and so it's like, "Why don't we just play a hand of Hool?" We're writing it down and it's fun because you start to see the light bulbs go off. The second hand we played, I had two high card points. My friend, my high school classmate, he showed that he had 15 and my partner showed that she had 13.
Nabil: Yes, so 10 left.
John: Sorry, my high school classmate showed he had 16. My partner showed he had 13 and I only had two. Now this one girl realizes, she puts together that I only have two high card points. It's the second hand she's ever played or the third hand and she just bursted out laughing because she thinks it's so funny that I have like such a bad bid.
Nabil: That's so cool.
Nabil: Yes, when playing with my friends, seeing his mind tickle over in positions and seeing him looking curious and stuff, I honestly loved it so much. It's so cool to see him realize things. You can just see them actually realize things in the moment and question them and then-- I was like, "Man, it's so cool just to see my friend," who I've been friends with the ages to see his brain tickle over it Bridge and to problem-solving stuff. Seeing him play a hand really, really well is just like, man, how cool is that?
John: How did it start that you were-- Did he ask you to teach him or?
Nabil: I’ve just been trying to convince him to learn for a long time. He's somebody who I've thought for a very long time could be the best player in the world at Bridge. I've been trying to get him to learn for ages and he never did, but finally, he agreed and he's got some spare time. Yes, we've just been playing heaps, I guess. Yes, I'm really excited for him
John: How often are you doing it?
Nabil: It was probably every day to every second day we'd do something online or go play a duplicate. Even though he's been only playing for two months and we've been playing a lot, but he's just gone away for four weeks kind of thing. I gave him a Bridge book to take with him. I learned about UBID. Did you know about
UBID? I don't know why I'd never heard of it before. It's like an app where you can bid hands by correspondents. We can just get 50 different hands up and just bid them together and they'll get sent to him and then he bids his bids and they get sent back. You can specialize to learn certain systems and stuff like that.
That's honestly going to be huge for us. I messaged that to him for, that's going to be the perfect thing while we're away. Whenever he has time, he can bid some things, and that's the play he gets. He's like the play. He's just like, he's onto it kind of thing. He obviously makes mistakes plenty of mistakes and things like that. It's just been learning, but it's the bidding that's kind of like a difficult thing to get and having that, being able to teach him certain things is like massive because-- I kind of want to get into the point by the gold because that he knows, check back, maybe just a simple check back.
Bergen raises, he knows. So far now, he knows-- Rather than playing Michaels, we play Lobs and Hobs. Michael's is Hubs. It's the highest on bid suits and the lowest on bid suits so that he can remember them because I didn't want to teach him that you have was fades and a minor and then pass it or correct and all that stuff. He knows that. He knows, what does he know? For suit game flossing? You know what, let me get my thing up one second.
Okay. Yes, he knows that kind of stuff. He knows all the basic stuff, blah, blah. Two clubs game for us. He knows transfers, he knows stamen, he knows cue raises, yes. Four suit, game 4s, Hobs, Lobs, and Keycard. They're the things that he knows. I feel like to get to a point where-- I feel like you need a base of things in Bridge, and I think checkback is probably one you need. I don't actually think Bergen is that important because we've just been getting by fine. Like one, two is that one three is invitational, like whatever.
[laughter]
Nabil: If you've got a game forcing him with a raise, you just change suit and then you'd bid the suit. He knows that. Rather than having Jacoby, which obviously it's useful, but I don't think it's necessary because there's ways to get around it. As long as you change suit through the two-level and either jump or go back to the next suit, go back to the original suit. He knows that that's a game forcing and raise. He knows about cue bids, I guess, which is like, what other things do you think you need to be able to play constructively? He knows Keycard?
I think for me, it's check-back. Yes. It's kind of really the only one. What's experts then ended got just Bergen Jacoby check-back. I guess blackout that screw that. I haven't actually taught him about the reverse, [laughs] but there's been funny things where I never taught him about redoubles and we were playing at a club and it just came up and I told him just to ignore it if it came up. [laughs] I don't know if I'm teaching him in the right way, but I've just like sort of tried to teach him things that matters. He's somebody who learns by doing, so he just likes to just get out there and play and like learn as he goes. So, we've kind of just been doing a bit of that.
Should we wrap it up or was there anything else you wanted to discuss, hands, ideas?
John: Are you thinking about starting a podcast?
Nabil: I was thinking about it, not so much for having a successful podcast, but more for the fun of it and I think I'd learn something from it. I think it'd be interesting. Basically what my idea was, actually found out that this had already been done, but, not, yes. Basically that my idea was prove us wrong. Basically, the concept was that-- There was a really good bit of advice I heard on a podcast once from, Yuval Noah Harari. He's the guy who wrote Sapiens and did a bunch of other things.
He was asked if he had any advice for young people and it was to have less opinions. Basically, his point was that so often there's people out here discussing things that they aren't really equipped to discuss, they aren't experts on the topic, and there's just all this hearsay going around and everybody creating a culture where it's okay to just have random opinions about things and nobody really knowing what they're talking about. I thought that was so important. I thought that was so interesting.
Then I equated that to myself and I realized that I have so much that I think is knowledge. Really, it's just things that I heard smart people talk about and say, and I never actually went and researched them myself. My idea for the podcast was, prove us wrong. I guess the other thing was that, I think that these days, and maybe always, people are way too attached to their opinions and ideas. They equate themselves to their opinions. When you try to challenge somebody's thoughts on a certain topic, they take it personally, right?
John: Yes.
Nabil: Which, obviously, is just not conducive to growth for anyone because we need to be able to discuss things in personally and get to the bottom of things free from emotions. One of my favorite things is discussing something with somebody, learning something, and then changing my opinion on it, realizing I was wrong and stuff. I kind of realized that it was a big thing for me. It was just like, I think I know a bunch of shit about things, but realistically, I don't. I don't know anything. It's all just things that I've heard from smart people that I trust.
The idea for Prove Us Wrong was to get an opinion that I had that I knew was a very concrete and then getting an expert on the topic on to discuss it and hopefully get them to educate us on it and hopefully get me or us to change our opinion at the end of it. I just thought that would be just a really good thing and really interesting. I thought I'd learn heaps from it. I think it'd be a good thing for a lot of people to learn and I think it'd be good for me, because, I would find out all the ways that I think I'm smart, but I'm stupid, [laughs]
Yes, that was the concept. I ran it by some people, they didn't have much time. Some people were interested in it kind of just fell away because I got interested in a
couple of other interesting things. I guess I wanted to do this just because I wanted to work out how difficult it was to have a conversation with somebody on yes, in the podcast format, and I wanted to find out just if I could keep the conversation rolling, I guess, and, yes, whether I enjoyed it, I guess. Yes. I really appreciate you letting me do this, Johhny. I had fun. I don't know how useful it is for people. I reckon we could probably snip it down to 5%.
We talked about a 10% of what we talked about. That might actually be interesting, but whatever. I think that's also part of podcasts. It's just like having a chat. People can listen or not listen, whatever crosstalk comes up.
John: I was kind of hoping that you are going to have a Bridge podcast.
Nabil: Okay. That would be interesting, I guess. yes. You know what, I think I would actually enjoy that because-- I think I actually have some stuff to add to the British space but I never actually considered that at all. Maybe what I can do is anytime you have a guest, I'll get them on my podcast afterwards and I'll just try and have a better podcast than you do, just learn from your mistakes. [laughs]
John: If you want to have a laugh, you should go to the comment section on Apple podcasts for the settings. Oh my God, I shouldn't read those. I'm going to read these.
Nabil: We should grade on a podcast [crosstalk] .
John: I'm going to read them at the end of this.
Nabil: Yes. We just proved everybody on the review section right, but this is the most boring shit I've ever listened to.
[laughter]
John: Oh my God.
Nabil: You know what, I asked you about this with Bridge. What about podcasting? Do you really listen to your podcasts, decide on what you didn't like about them and what you liked about them, and then take steps to grow and be better next time. Are you preparing for them better? It's obviously just a quite a big question, but I think it's an interesting one.
John: I'll tell you what, I'm in this thing called the conscious leadership forum and we did an exercise a couple of months ago on conscious listening. What we did was we paired off and we exaggerated these two different listening filters. One was like, whenever you say I take it and make it about myself. You say, "Yes. I'm thinking about having a Bridge podcast." I'm like, "I have a Bridge podcast. It's great. I've learned so much." It's like, I'm taking what you're saying and I'm just totally like making it about me.
The other one was listening to solve. It's like, you're like, " I've got this friend. I'm teaching him Bridge." I'm like, "You should be teaching him Stayman or you should be teaching this." I was very good at exaggerating this listening filters and I also realized how annoying it was when my partner would do that with me. Then they taught us to practice conscious listening and conscious listening is repeating back what the person is saying and really trying to understand, why are they sharing this with me? Literally my partner shared his story for conscious listening and I raised my hand and I was like, "I don't know how to do this." Literally did not know how to do the practice.
Right after that, I had my episode with James Holzhauer, the Jeopardy champion.
Nabil: Yes. I heard that.
John: Literally all I saw myself doing whenever he said something I would want to make it about me and I was just like, "I don't know how to talk." I'm like relearning how to listen.
Nabil: I was laughing when you mentioned those two things because they are so- I felt you were talking about me. I feel like that's a problem of mine for sure. We were in Vegas and we were hanging out. One of the things you wrote down was I think it, I'm not sure where it came and conversation, but I wrote down, it's just that I need to learn to just listen first, like listen to everything the person saying take it in. I think it might be my way of conversation in a sense. It's just like, I think it's something that I struggled at when I was younger too just in social settings, like engage in conversation.
I think one of the ways I might've taught myself to do it, or I don't know if it's happened organically, is that somebody says something and I'm like, "That reminds me of this, the time that this happened, blah, blah, blah." I don't know if it's just making conversation or it's just narcissism of some sort. I hope that it's not narcissism. To me, I guess the lesson there is to listen first and speak and ask more questions about people rather than just relating it to yourself. I don't know what the right way to have that conversation is. I just have them and hopefully, they end up okay. I guess that's a pretty specific thing to podcasting, isn't it? Just sitting, listening, and asking questions.
John: Also just like when you repeat back with the other person has said, that it's amazing what that does. That other person just like they run with it. Then the hard thing for me is, how do I do it in a way that I don't feel like I'm just repeating back what they're saying. Because then that feels a little [crosstalk] .
Nabil: That would be my worry I think. Again, relating it back to myself, my worry [laughs] .
John: Exactly.
Nabil: I don't know, men. I'd hope that people told me, people were really mad at me, told me if that was a thing.
John: It's hard. I didn't even know about it. Once I saw it I was like, "Holy shit."
Nabil: I feel like what conversations is, it's me wanting to find out about you and you wanting to find out about me. I think that as long as you're asking enough questions, then it's okay to just go run and talk about something that whatever the other person's said reminded you of. Because it's just a back and forth thing. I don't really see a problem with that.
John: You don't see a problem with it?
Nabil: No. Honestly, I don't personally see a problem with it, but I think I could see why other people did and it's something that I'm conscious of and trying to improve in a sense. It's something I've definitely made come a long way in that space. Thanks to a few friends of mine and stuff, but I don't see the problem with it.
John: There you have it.
Nabil: As long as what you're talking about is interesting in some way, which judging from this podcast, I don't know, I'm going to go back and listen to it and probably punch myself in the head. I just feel like maybe could have had some, I guess more preparation. Maybe we should have prepared for it together a little bit more. Like what Mac did, here's a bunch of things you can ask me about. That would have been awesome.
John: I thought about that like 20 minutes. I meditated for about four minutes before I got on my computer.
Nabil: I meditated for 13 minutes before I got on. Usually, I do 15 minutes, but I didn't have time. I was cutting it real close .
John: I was taking a shower today and I was like, "What the fuck am I going to talk about on this podcast?" I was like, "I don't want to just talk about how depressed I am."
Nabil: Shit, that sounds like a podcast for another time. You know what, when I start my Bridge podcasts, you can be the first guest, then will talk about how depressed you are. It's shit. Well, that's just a big [crosstalk]
John: You could launch your own podcast and we could do it under the setting trick and then also under the Bill Edge 10 podcast.
Nabil: That could be interesting. I have to think about what my goal would be there. Because the thing about podcasts is the-- I guess Bridge is interesting because it's niche and we're looking for-- I guess every Bridge player has their own lessons and words of wisdom and strengths and weaknesses. I wonder how many players at the top would just have the same answers to things and the same experiences. I guess Bridge is such a dynamic game that probably wouldn't happen for quite a while. When I think of a podcast, I think of different people in different
fields. What I'm thinking about is this is Bridge, this is the same field, but maybe that's a bit close-minded of me.
John: You're worried that [crosstalk] .
Nabil: That's all you needed to say. I feel like [crosstalk] .
John: I'm ready to wrap it up. I'm ready to wrap it up because I want to get up early.
Nabil All right, cool, dude. Well, thanks for doing this with me. It was fun and I hope we didn't put too many people to sleep.
John: Well, maybe that's a good thing, sometimes it's hard for me to fall asleep.
Nabil: [laughs] Maybe that's why you want to go to sleep now. All right, thanks, dude.