EPISODE 34: Andrew Robson
Andrew Robson is a giant, in both height and bridge; he is 6 feet 6 inches tall and has won a slew of titles, including back to back Reisingers in 1998 and 1999. On top of all his bridge accolades, he has met the Queen of England, received the prestigious “Other Buggers’ Efforts” award, and survived a 100 foot fall.
If you want to learn more about Andrew and his bridge adventures, there is a great page on his website called Andrew’s Life in Bridge, where I learned many of the stories I asked Andrew about today.
COVID finally got Andrew to start presenting a daily video series, where I’ve learned a lot of card play nuances in the advanced section https://andrewrobsonbridgecast.com
Subscribers to The Setting Trick email list may access Andrew breaking down Adam Kaplan’s play on a deal featured in Double Dummy here:
Subscribers to The Setting Trick email list check your email or to subscribe click here.
Andrew Robson breaks down Adam Kaplan’s play on a deal featured in Double Dummy here.
Episode Highlights:
1:42- A horrible accident that broke his legs
9:22- He’s not a model student
12:27- Andrew’s education
Imagine doing worse on a test than a monkey would
15:37- The tournament that was vital to Andrew’s confidence as a bridge player
18:52- A wildly successful psych
22:10- How Andrew met one of his partners, Rita Shugart
24:20- Andrew is an “Other Buggers’ Efforts” award winner!
27:42- When your team sucks at losing IMPS
29:52- The pain of losing in the semi-finals of a Bermuda Bowl by 1 IMP and then losing again by 1 IMP in the third place playoff
31:37- Amazing bidding by Andrew and his partner, David Gold
David Thompson’s quote from Bridge Winners, “The video of auction is quite interesting: https://youtu.be/diMipYWGr3c?t=20293
The auction took 12 minutes including 3 minutes for the 7♦ bid and 5 minutes for David Gold's final pass. Whilst 7♦ was certainly a brilliant bid by Robson, Gold's pass was pretty impressive also having diagnosed the sorts of hands Robson could be holding and successfully determining the inferiority of a ♠ contract.”
38:07- Andrew Robson Bridge Club
41:27- John’s mother might have a crush on Andrew
45:12- The members of the popular rock band, Radiohead, went to Andrew’s school!
49:07- The future of bridge and youth teaching
53:07- Andrew’s memories of September 11, 2001
58:07- “Oh, you farted” ~Zia Mahmood
1:02:02- Andrew had to track Simon Stockten down in the Himalayas
Transcript:
JOHN MCALLISTER: Hi, Andrew. Thank you for doing this.
ANDREW ROBSON: A pleasure, John. Hi.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I was thinking I wanted to start with your accident – your walking accident – since we have similar –
ANDREW ROBSON: We’ve got that in common, haven’t we?
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah.
ANDREW ROBSON: I hope your recovery’s going OK, John.
JOHN MCALLISTER: It is. I’m very pleased, and I was surprised to learn about your accident.
ANDREW ROBSON: One has to be very patient. It’s all exciting in the first few days, in a weird way. Wounds take a while to heal, and you just have to do your exercises and remember that every day is a small improvement on the previous day. But for me, I knew my body was never going to be the same as it was before. And, in fact, I had my accident on February 23, 2001, and I will always remember the day that I could walk unaided for the first time because it was September 11, 2001, the day we all remember.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah. And it was a long [inaudible]. The reality is I was very lucky to survive, but you never think so at the time. But then, you look back, and you realize just how many good things happened to happen. People happened to be out walking, they happened to hear me. There happened to be a mobile phone signal. And then, the Mountain Rescue Service happened to be able to come and send a full thing, and I was handicapped up from the leg district.
I mean, I had fallen really badly. I’d gone where I shouldn’t have gone because I got myself stuck into a bad situation where I couldn’t go back, and I couldn’t go forward. Slipped on some ice, fell about over 100 foot over a cliff. Amazingly lucky to land on my feet and not land on my back or my head, otherwise I would have been a goner.
I found out since then that this is an accident black spot, and many people have fallen exactly where I fell, and most of them haven’t lived to tell the tale. As soon as the Mountain Rescue Service knew where I was, they knew exactly what had happened to me, and they sent the whole team. But it was three hours of – yeah, increasing pain.
And then, after three hours, the first chopper arrived, and I was injected with 30 milligrams of pure diamorphine, the strongest painkiller known to man – heroin, otherwise known as. And yeah, sort of flying for a couple of days after that. Horrible for my wife and child under one years old, so it was a pretty horrible time, really.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow. Wow. That’s amazing.
ANDREW ROBSON: Very lucky to make it. I can’t run, and there’s a lot of things I can’t do. In fact, the doctor said, “You won’t be able to do a whole series of things.” And I think, apparently, I’ve proved them rather wrong because I am doing a lot of stuff. But I can’t – my running days are over.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, I’m very glad that you survived.
ANDREW ROBSON: Same with you, mate.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Thank you.
ANDREW ROBSON: That was a horrible accident.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah. Yeah, it involved ice, and – yeah. I was in a situation that I regret being in. I was driving too fast on a road where there could be ice, and I hit the ice. And that flipped my car, and it was very scary. I had enough time before the actual impact to think that this might be – yeah.
ANDREW ROBSON: Did you feel like I felt – really relaxed in that moment and just sort of shrugged as if to say, “Whatever will be will be?” I think we’re trained – our forbears in a panic situation like that to be really calm and cool, and I was really calm and cool as I fell all that long distance. Not so cool in your area, or?
JOHN MCALLISTER: I think I was, actually. I think I’d accepted that there was really nothing I could do. So, were you yelling? How did people hear –
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, I landed, and I thought, well, that was a pretty stupid thing to do. And I don’t know if you know the fill and the book called Touching the Void – Joe Simpson – where he had a horrible fall, and he had to crawl for about three days to get to basecamp. And I thought, oh god, I’ve got to do a Joe Simpson. I’ve got to start crawling. So, I bent to start the crawl and then, I couldn’t move. It’s so weird when you’re telling your limbs to do something, and they won’t move. It’s so weird. And I thought, oh dear, I’m in a bit of bad shape.
So, after a sort of 30-second pause of assessing the situation – because your first thought is, in a way, that you’re playing some video game, and you’ve got – you’ve lost and you think, right, abort, let’s do that again. Then, you realize that you can’t abort and do it again. You are where you are, and you’ve got to live out this game. And so, I then called. I shouted and shouted. No one heard me straight away. I shouted, “You’ve got to help me! Someone’s got to help me!” And eventually – when I say “eventually,” it could have been 10 minutes, but it could have been one minute. It’s hard to know. Eventually, this person said, “Where are you?” And I said, “I’m here,” helpfully. And they said, “Which side of the mountain are you?” And there was a big echo, and I realized then that they had no idea where I was. So, I actually had to describe where I was, and there were two charming people – I swore I’d walk for them because one of them stayed with me, and the other one went – used their mobile phone. And the mobile phones 20 years ago were not completely universal and also, mobile phone signals were also pretty iffy. So, I was very lucky they had a mobile phone, and they had a signal, and they were able to reach the Mountain Rescue Service.
And three hours later, the full squad came up, and they’d organized a helicopter from the other end of England to come. It was very windy, so what they had to do is they couldn’t land the helicopter where I was, or anywhere near where I was. So, they had to stretch me – about 12 – they had to stretch me up this quite tricky path to the highest mountain in England, which is somewhere away, so that the helicopter could hover above it. And then, they could send down a winch – they could put my stretcher and winch me up into the helicopter and take me to the hospital. Just one of those things had to not go right, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, my gosh.
ANDREW ROBSON: I know.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow. I can’t believe you fell 100 feet and landed on your – I mean –
ANDREW ROBSON: It’s pretty lucky, wasn’t it? I landed on my feet, so my feet saved my life. But I’m afraid both my feet are quite badly buggered out. And I lived for 10 years, nine years, with a decreasingly good right foot, which was getting more and more arthritic to the point where I almost couldn’t walk. And I went to see this doctor and walked in, and said, “I’m fine,” because I was that sort of stiff upper lip Englishman. And she said, “We’ll just take an X-ray anyway.” And she took an X-ray, and she looked at me to say, “You are amazing, the fact that you are able to walk. This X-ray shows just how badly damaged that ankle is. And essentially, you are going to have to clear your life, and you are going to have triple arthidisis, which means you’ve fused all the bones together so that you don’t have an ankle, basically. There’s no movement in that area. It’ll take six months of your life, and you’ve just going to have to do it.”
So, a year and a half later, I’d cleared everything out, and that’s what happened. And I had the triple arthridisis operation. So now, my ankle is fixed, which means that you can’t run and stuff because you haven’t got an ankle to push off. But, yeah, I’m back playing tennis and various things. I used to be a bit quick around the court, but, hey.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, a lot of my information about you, a lot of the research I did, comes from 20, 30 years ago.
ANDREW ROBSON: OK, cool.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And I saw – you went to a school called Abingdon School?
ANDREW ROBSON: Yup, it was a sort of grammar school turned private school. Yup. I wasn’t a model student, it’s fair to say.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You were not a model student?
ANDREW ROBSON: I was not a model student. I think it’s probably in keeping with a lot of bridge-playing types, that you’re not great at being told what to do. But I definitely – I discovered my passion for bridge by that stage, and so I would read bridge books behind my Latin primer. And I basically didn’t do particularly well at school. But I started a bridge club, and the interest was there, and that was great, yeah. But I spent too much time at lunchtimes down at the pub, and yeah, the headmaster didn’t like me very much. But I did play first team tennis, and it wasn’t too bad a time, actually, but –
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you would be sitting in class with a book – the lesson – but then you’d have a bridge book buried underneath it?
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, as long as the book you’re supposed to be reading is slightly bigger than the bridge book, you can hide the bridge book behind it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: There was one, From Average to Expert, by Barry Seabrook. I think he’s a Leicestershire player, from England. I think he’s long gone, but I remember he – yeah. I just loved the play of the cards more than the bidding, really, in those days. I loved the way that you could ring the extra trick up, or you could make some sort of unusual ducking play.
I remember even now – and this was 40-odd years later – you’re in some six five, three half at six hearts, and you’ve got a club suit, which is six to the ace king facing a small singleton. And you had to duck the first club. Those sort of plays, they’d really stuck out when you think it through, but they really had an impact on me in those days.
JOHN MCALLISTER: There’s a book called World Class where Mark Smith interviewed you and other luminaries.
ANDREW ROBSON: OK.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And that in the book, it said in your first tournament, you were 15 years old, representing Abbington School, and you pulled off a non-simultaneous double squeeze to land the slam.
ANDREW ROBSON: I think that is right, but I could have made it a lot more easily by roughing in the dummy.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] Did you know what a non-simultaneous double squeeze was?
ANDREW ROBSON: I’m not sure about the non-simultaneous bit, but I was able to say, I think he’s got Suit A, and I think he’s got Suit B, so I don’t think either of them will be able to keep Suit C. So, that is probably where I was.
JOHN MCALLISTER: It said you were playing in a league, like a school league.
ANDREW ROBSON: Gold Cup, yeah. We always drew against Eton. We’d get through the first round and then, we’d draw Eton in the second round, and they would always beat us. And that’s what happened.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Is that league still around?
ANDREW ROBSON: No, it isn’t, you see. It isn’t. In fact, there is a lot less bridge played in schools and universities these days. Bridge is thriving in many areas, but I’d say tournament bridge and youth bridge is probably not thriving, in general.
JOHN MCALLISTER: It’s amusing to me that you – learning here that you were – I don’t know if you said “poor” student, but you weren’t much of a student and that originally, you were interested in becoming a supply teacher after you graduated from college.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, I mean, I was slightly stumbling from one thing to the next. I remember doing my GCSE, my O levels, and going to the first day of the [inaudible]. And I had no idea whether I was going to do sciences or art. I knew I was going to do math. That was the only subject that I really liked. And I randomly, in the end, went with the sciences. But at the end of the – halfway through my A levels, which is sort of 16 to 18 years old and you do three A levels, I was doing math, physics, and chemistry, and I remember doing the physics multiple choice, where you have to tick one of four answers. And I think there were 60 questions, so essentially, the second-worst person got about 24 or something. A monkey ticking randomly would get 15, and I got 9. I think at that point, I decided maybe physics wasn’t for me.
So, I then changed to do medieval history in the last year. And again, what to do? Do you go to university? What do you read? I applied to read math, got in to read math. No idea how, but I changed, and I read psychology at university because that was more interesting to me. And I didn’t fancy the 9:00 math lectures in the morning, either, because there were a lot of late-night bridge sessions by then.
And then, finished university those three years and again, didn’t really know, so I did a graduate certificate in Education a year, mainly to postpone life and teaching math. And then, I did some supply teaching in schools. Taught bridge as well in a prison. That was in Bristol, in the west country.
But bridge was fairly London-centric, so I was pulled to London. And then, teaching went, and I slightly bummed about in London and didn’t have a lot of money – even squatting for a small time. But things were starting to work out, and bridge – I was starting to represent Britain in the junior bridge scene.
Then, age 25, I was on the team that won the World Bridge Championships, Junior Bridge Championships in Nottingham, England in 1989. And then Tony Forrester, this leading British player – I was, if you like, regarded as a bit of a star, like a maverick star on the junior team, and we started playing with each other.
And we immediately started to win everything. I mean, I couldn’t really believe that because I was just a little junior. I felt I made a lot of mistakes, but actually, we had a really winning combination because I – he never made a mistake. Never, ever made a mistake. And I really brought the points in, although I shelled a few points away as well. We were beating Meckstroth and Rodwell and all these names. Euro partner Georgie Mittelman and Eric Kokish and all these players. We were dropping them all in the very early days. Yeah, which is amazing, really. I felt a bit of a fraud.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, winning the Junior World Championship was a big deal in terms of –
ANDREW ROBSON: Big deal.
JOHN MCALLISTER: In terms of confidence for you.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, it really was. It really was, yeah. It was. But I would say that probably, bridge success – as probably I would call my greatest – was two years later, in 1991, was winning the European Teams Championships. Great Britain hadn’t done anything for a while, and we won it with a margin that has never been beaten ever since. And they didn’t have Butler rankings in those days, but Tony and I, if they had had Butler rankings, Tony and I – they either regarded us as a couple of freaks, or they’d have thought that we were cheating because I think our Butler was so enormous. We just couldn’t get a bad result in two weeks. And we weren’t getting on that as people, actually. In fact, I hardly spoke to him. Probably saw him because he was behind a screen, but we really gelled amazingly well. And that was – we almost never quite got it back after that, but it was, yeah, amazing though.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What do you think was the reason you did so well during those two weeks?
ANDREW ROBSON: I think it was a combination of Tony never making a mistake and me being pretty youthful and creative. And also, I had some pretty good instincts. Played pretty well. Didn’t make too many mistakes, although I definitely made a lot more mistakes than he would. And we just gelled, in a way. Yeah. It’s hard to – it just happened, and it continued to happen largely.
And then, we played this match called The Naturals Against the Scientists. We were on the Natural team, and we had to play no conventions. So, we devised a method, which actually fell into the Natural category, even though we were one or two fiddles involved. But, after devising this system, we thought it was slightly amusing to play it, and our bridge dropped off playing the Natural Method. You do need a few toys. I mean, played too many often, and it was generally regarded that we lost more because of bad play than bad bidding, although I do remember missing forcing about two or three times. Conventions can be overrated, but I think our bridge suffered through playing the Natural Method, which we did.
And then, about 1996 was when I thought I just need a bit of a break from playing with Tony. So, we stopped playing, although we’ve been back on and off ever since, and we’ve had some big successes ever since. He’s always been a good friend, and he’s godfather to my younger daughter and can be a tough cookie at the table, less so these days. It was amazing that we started partnering each other back in the very end of 1989, over 31 years ago now.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Did you approach him to play together, or –
ANDREW ROBSON: I was really determined. I thought we should play together, and I suppose I did approach him, but I knew that also separately, he was approaching me. So, it was a two-way thing, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: There’s a treasure trove of great hands on your website, under the category, “Andrew’s Life in Bridge.”
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, really?
JOHN MCALLISTER: There’s one where you psyched – I think it was in the World Championships, you psyched a heart. They opened a notrump, and you psyched two hearts with a spade –
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, that was back in 1986, yes. That was a fun event. I remember the airplane ride going over from Europe to Miami Beach to play in 1986, and it was my first big event, the World Open Championships. But also, Sabine Auken, her first big event, and Daniela von Arnim. And quite a few of us, quite nervous, and we started to play some bridge on the flight over. And it was quite a special time there, and my partner and I, Glyn Liggins, at the time, we were the only British pair to get into the final of the World Open Pairs. Yeah. And yes, there was this hand where I think I had seven spades – maybe king, queen, jack to seven – something like that. And maybe seven-four-one-one shape. Anyway, one notrump on my right, and I’m sure we were nonvulnerable. Any old schmuck can bid spades. So, I thought, I’ll bit two hearts, and obviously I’d run out. And the guy on the left goes into a long tank. So, he’s obviously got loads of hearts. And eventually, he emerges with a big of six, no trumps. So, I lead my king of spades, and I can’t exactly remember the heart suit. But anyway, if I’ve got my two-heart bid, the declarer’s got a totally hundred [inaudible] deep, and that is bound to work. So, he runs some [inaudible] hearts. Ran Glyn’s queen or something. And then, Glyn leads another spade over to my six spade. The opponents were not very happy.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I was surprised that you said the Euros was your greatest feat, given that you won back-to-back Reisingers.
ANDREW ROBSON: Actually, yeah, the first Reisinger, back in ’98 – I didn’t play that well, actually, and we were really carried by our teammates Geir Helgemo and Tony Forrester. But 1999, for the last session of the semi-finals and the two sessions of the final, Rita and I were really card perfect. I said to Rita afterwards, “Just remember this day because this will be our best day.” There is no better day that we could have. And Tony came out – in fact, what happened was Tony went to the bathroom about two-thirds of the way through the last session. And we had a small league going into the last session, but Tony and Geir had not been having a very good session, according to him at the time. And he overheard someone say, “How’s the Reisinger game?” And the other person said, “Oh, it’s all over. There’s a runaway winner.” And Tony didn’t hear who it was or anything, but he assumed it couldn’t be us because their results were not good. So, he went back to the table quite despondently. So, he played the last couple of rounds, and he came over shaking his head. And we had won by, I think, nine boards.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: Rita and I were amazing. She played brilliantly, and I had one of those incredible days where every worked, turned to gold. So, yeah, that second Reisinger was pretty amazing.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How did you meet Rita, and how did you start playing with her?
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, I think one year, probably back in ’92, I was knocked out early in the event that we were playing in – in the Vanderbilt, maybe. And Bobby Goldman put Rita and I together to play in a couple of days event. I don’t think we did very well, but I know Rita enjoyed it, and she was interested to play in the future.
And so, she rang up maybe about a year later, and she said, “Can you do it?” And I said, “I’m afraid I can’t. I running this bridge club in Northwest London. The Acol Club. It’s actually a full-time job. I won’t be able to do that.”
That job didn’t work out, so about a year later, I rung Rita and said, “Are you still up for it?” And she said yes. And so, we started to play in about late ’93 or so, and I played with her every national for about 10 years. And we had our peak at the end of the ‘90s.
And then, it dropped off a bit in the early 2000s. And then, I – young family, and I said, “Rita, I can’t. I can do only one a year. I’m really sorry.” Too busy with bridge stuff over here as well. I’d started the Andrew Robson Bridge Club by that point, and that was going well. And we played the full nationals for several years and then, even that was too much for me. And so, I haven’t been able to get over. But I think I met – assuming Austin happens later this year, there is a plan for an English team to go over, and I may be able to get over then to play. But I haven’t been to play in a nationals since Providence, Rhode Island in 2014. I’ve just been too busy with stuff.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Does Queen Elizabeth – does she play bridge?
ANDREW ROBSON: I have met her. She doesn’t play bridge, no. In fact, I think she probably doesn’t like bridge very much because Princess Diana played bridge, and I think they had their differences before, obviously, Diana’s tragic end. I think Camilla plays. And she, I think, slightly stayed clear of it. But she’s actually charming to meet, yeah. The queen, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How did you find out that you were going to be getting this award?
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, it was bizarre, really. You get a letter or something about six weeks before. It was a total surprise to me. But it wasn’t really to do with my achievements in the bridge world. It was more because I rush around the country running loads of charity bridge events – about 40 big charity bridge events every year. Not the last year, for obvious reasons. And I don’t organize them. I just pitch up and teach for the day. But they raise quite a lot of money for charity – maybe 5,000 quid a day. And I do get paid, but it’s a sort of non-commercial rate. And if I do 40-plus a year – I haven’t really worked it out, but I’m sure I’ve raised well over one million quid over the years. So, that was the main reason why I got given, yeah, the OBE.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, it’s called Order of –
ANDREW ROBSON: Order of the British Empire. I think they’re maybe thinking of changing the name because it sounds a bit colonial. But yes, Order of the British Empire. I mean, to be honest, it’s not really my thing because I’m hugely grateful to the people who helped to get it for me. But I don’t do what I do to be given an OBE.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Sure.
ANDREW ROBSON: So, I don’t really use it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Are you knighted?
ANDREW ROBSON: No, knighting is another step up. I don’t think that’ll happen, but yeah. I’m only an OBE, although they say “Other Buggers’ Efforts,” they say, because it is normally – you have to have been put up and stuff by other people, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What’s the British team looking like these days? Who’s your partner?
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, I mean, Tony and I were playing until very recently. We played in a place that none of us really knew of until 18 months ago – Wuhan, in the World Bridge Championships, in October or September 2019, a month or so before various things broke out. And we were in the course of final, Tony and I, and we were playing Meckstroth and Rodwell, our old foes. And we had a lead of nearly 70 IMPs, with two sets to play. And we went down in a very shaky forced spades doubled on the first board, which largely depended on getting the 10 of clubs. And Tony mis-guessed. I definitely felt for him, but I know he was a bit upset with himself. He then forgot the transfer after about five boards, and we did not have a good set. It wasn’t a shocking set, but it was littered with minuses. We probably had six minuses – so, sorry, nine minuses and seven pluses. So then, we went out to school with our teammates, Artur Malinowski and David Bakhshi. They had 14 minuses and two pluses, so we knew it was bad, and we’d lost about 65 IMPs and 16 boards.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: And, yeah, so the bubble had burst. And then, we lost a few more in the last set, but it was fun.
JOHN MCALLISTER: It said in World Class that your greatest ambition was to win the Bermuda Bowl. Is that still the case?
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, I’m not really an ambitious person, in a way. My ambition is more that I want to play the best I can play on a given day, or even on a given session. The thing about winning the Bermuda Bowl is that it does require a lot of things to fall into place. Many of them are not down to you. You need to have the right other players on the team, and blah blah blah. So, it’s all very well to have that ambition, but it’s not something I can achieve by myself. It would be nice to win one, but I think our best opportunity to win the Bermuda Bowl – had two really good opportunities. One was in 1991 where, in Yokohama, where Tony and I had just come off the European Championships, and we were the favorites. Poland were the second favorites. And I remember in the round robin, we were trying to avoid each other by finishing in a place within the round robin that would mean that we wouldn’t have to play Poland in the quarter final. So were they. So, there was some dumping going on. The ethics of dumping are very marginal. So, I said to Tony, I don’t really want to be part of a set in which we’re deliberately losing points. So, Tony played with a different partner in that last match, and I think they couldn’t lose the match by enough, as it happens. So, we did end up playing Poland in the – Poland were trying to lose their last match as well.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: But we just never really got it together. I think when you fly east, it’s much, much harder than when you fly west. When I used to play in the nationals with Rita, I used to often fly on the Thursday, then play the evening charity game on the Thursday night. No problem at all. You just go to bed a bit late. You wake up a bit early the next morning, and you acclimatize straight away. But if you fly east, it’s all to do with rhythms. Very hard to play when you fly east, and the only player who played well in Yokohama in ’91 was our dear teammate, the late John Armstrong. And John, he trained himself so that for a month before flying, he would go to bed at about 7:00 in the evening, wake up at 2:00 in the morning, and play the piano through the night so that he was acclimatized before he actually arrived. And he was the only guy who played really well when we went there.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: Tony and I really struggled, yeah. And we lost in the quarter finals to Poland. And then, Iceland went on to win the final. No disrespect to Iceland whatsoever, but it was a team that we would probably have expected to beaten, and we did have that event to win, and we blew it. Should have got up – I should have trained myself in that six weeks beforehand and done what John Armstrong did.
And then, the other time was in Shanghai in 2015, where we lost the semi-final against the Polish team by one IMP in the semi-final. So, obviously, no one could do anything there. And then, we went on to play in the third, fourth-place playoff against the secondary USA team. Really nice boys. You’ll know them all – Gavin Wolpert and that lot. And again, we lost by one IMP. On both matches, we were leading with one board to play and lost by one IMP.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROBSON: So, that was all a bit galling and a bit gutting, yeah. And then – so, it’s possible at the moment, it’s possible – I am playing now with David Gold, or potentially playing with David Gold. I’m not saying my partnership with Tony is necessarily over because it’s been off and on for 31 years, so now is it now over. But David Gold is a fine British player, English player, and we gel pretty well as well, David and I. And we won the trials in the only proper event we’ve played. Well, actually, we played in the Transnationals together on a team three years previously, and that was the – our first-time partnership. We’d never played a board before, and David was trying to learn the system in a half-hour, arriving to the game. So, what could go wrong, in a way. But actually, we had a pretty good event, and that was the event where we had the famous board in the third fourth-place playoff against the Lavazza team playing against Multon and Helgemo. I don’t know if you know the deal I’m talking about.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I watched the video last night.
ANDREW ROBSON: What?
JOHN MCALLISTER: I watched the video of the –
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, really? OK. So, that was rightly exciting to get that one right, yeah. Really exciting, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: No, please tell me. So, there’s this hand – Andrew’s talking about it. He opens a note from David’s transfers to spades. And now, you superaccept with three spades.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, and we hadn’t discussed whether that was maximum, or whether that was normal. We played a fairly basic method. David then bid four clubs. Very much my style, David’s style, our style is for that to be much more of a natural bid. I’m quite opposed to this style where you just make a random control-showing bid, which may show a bare ace, or even a void or major show five to the king jack. You never know where you are. So, I’m a big fan of the first bid after suit agreement, and majors is a natural bid, essentially.
So, he bid four clubs, and I had three to the jack in clubs. So, I was worried about the clubs. It looked like maybe we had a third-round club loser. I had four decent spades. I had two bad – what was my – ace jack to four spades. I had jack to three clubs. I had king, queen, jack to four diamonds, and I must have had ace doubleton heart. I think that was my hand. Ace jack to four, ace doubleton. King, queen, jack to four diamonds, and jack to three clubs. So, he bids four clubs. So, I thought I had to corporate, and I wanted to bid four diamonds partly because that’s where I lived, and partly because I didn’t have the best hand with jack to three clubs. So, I wanted to bid four diamonds so if he bid a Last Train four hearts, I could then bid four spades. So, I wanted to bid four diamonds partly irrespective of my diamond holding because it would temper the bidding better. But obviously, partly because it was where I live.
So now, David goes four, no trumps, which is interesting. So, I bid whatever I bid – five hearts. So, I had two aces and now, he goes six clubs. So, message number one, we’ve got all the aces, so that’s fine. So, I know he’s got king, queen, to five spades. Message number two, his six clubs is zeroing me in on the third round of clubs, logically, so he must have four clubs to the ace king. Possibly five clubs to the ace king, but probably four clubs to the ace king. Obviously, he’s got the ace of diamonds, and he’s also bid Blackwood when he hasn’t heard about my ace of hearts, so it’s likely he’s got a singleton heart. So, I thought his hand had to be five to the king queen of spades, singleton heart, three diamonds to the ace, and four clubs to the ace king. And if that’s his hand, then although we’ve got only 12 tricks in spades because the heart rough is in the long hand, we’ve got 13 tricks in diamonds.
So, after just checking my logic through, I jumped to seven diamonds, and that was only part of the good thing because I think David, in some ways, did the best of all because suddenly, he [inaudible] to be mentioned at all, and Robson’s just jumped to seven of that suit. And so, the screen went quiet for about four or five minutes and eventually, DG put a pass on the table and shoved the screen back. And, yeah, the play was quite quick, and I remember checking the queen of clubs wasn’t dropping doubleton because that would have been a bit of a shame because then, seven spades would have made. And finding out that this was – and this was the last board of the third fourth-place playoff. Now, we did have a big lead going into the last set, so one or two people slightly ungraciously said, it’s all very well, but they knew they were winning the match. That wasn’t quite the case because the first board of the second set – it went a typical auction, I can’t remember exactly, but it went something like two hearts pass four hearts. We’ve all had that before, and we’re wondering whether to bid four spades. And we’ve got five decent spades, and we don’t know whether the four-heart bidder is stealing, or if they’re bidding to mate. I tend to bid four spades because I hate to be stolen from, but I don’t mind getting a number. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: The whole mentality of bridge is the other way around to mine. So, I obviously bid four spades. Now, the good news was that they dropped a trick on defense. That was because I was doubled and I went three down, and they wouldn’t have made four hearts. So, that was a pretty bad start to the set.
And then, the second board of the set, I remember fishing for a marginal slam. Probably should have settled for three no-drop. Maybe DG wasn’t that happy with his bidding, either. There was a bit of a misunderstanding, maybe. We’d hardly played a board together. But we bailed out of slamming to five clubs and essentially, David played it entirely technically correctly, but it was one of those hands which was going to fall apart if clubs were four. So, that was three down, with three notrump card.
And so, I knew we’d lost 26 IMPs in the first two boards, so even though the set started to go a bit better for us, it wasn’t for sure that we were winning this match. So, it could have been on the last board. In fact, it wasn’t on the last board because it was fine, but it could have been.
JOHN MCALLISTER: We had dinner with Rita and George – I don’t remember what tournament it was at. It was a national. So, I watched the video yesterday, and what I’m trying to say is that after you checked Helmego’s hand to see that he had queen third of clubs, you give David this huge high five. It’s not really a high five, but more like a five. And you’re just really pumped, man. It’s really cool.
ANDREW ROBSON: It was an amazing moment, actually. And when you have an amazing moment like that you share with someone, you’ll have that moment always and forever. It’s quite a special moment, really, and we both knew that we’d both done something amazing on that board, and no one was ever going to take it away from us. Yeah, it was put up for Best Bid Hand of the Year, and we both slightly thought we probably would win it but, in fact, we didn’t win it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You did not win Best Bid Hand of the Year?
ANDREW ROBSON: No, we didn’t, and I think it could have been an element of politics about it. I think that they were doing the prize giving in China, and I think that they wanted one of us to fly over to take the prize. And I think if neither of us were prepared to fly over, they were possibly going to give the prize to a homegrown pair. But I probably shouldn’t say that, and I don’t know for sure.
JOHN MCALLISTER: OK. We can take that out if you don’t want –
ANDREW ROBSON: I don’t mind, to be honest.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright, great. Even better. You started the Andrew Robson Bridge Club in 1995?
ANDREW ROBSON: 1995, yep. I have to say, I remember the great Bill Root said to me, a young teacher with people saying good things about you, “Can I give you one piece of advice?” And he said, “Don’t have a premises. Just hire halls and do it that way, but don’t have a premises.” And those words did stay with me, but I didn’t, in the end, go along with them. And it has been an amazing ride, the Andrew Robson Bridge Club, actually, from absolute scratch. So, I’m very proud of my team.
And pretty early on, really, you have to start people up from scratch, and you have to make it really light and fun and simplify the game down. And you can’t tolerate any sort of bad behavior in any way. And you’ve got to make it very touchy-feely and optimistic. Should I bid three spades on some hand, you don’t say, “No, that’s the most absurd bid I’ve ever seen.” You say, “Yeah, that’s a nice thought. And the other thing you could possibly do is bid…” You know, you express things in different ways. You never make people look silly, and you always [inaudible] and always take the glass-half-full approach.
I mean, I’ve taught so many people over the years. I do many, many taster sessions where you’re teaching people who don’t even know what a club is or a spade is. And you get them started and just make them realize that it’s a fabulous social game that is an amazing way to spend time and meet people, and also test your brain and cooperate with your partner, compete in a very nice way against the opponents.
So, I mean, bridge is an amazing game, but it’s such an amazing game that its complexity is sometimes – makes it hard for people. That’s why it doesn’t get as much traction with young people because they want the quick fix, in a way, that – bridge is so subtle and nuanced, and that’s the joy of it. It does suffer slightly in the modern quick-fix era as a result of that. We play a little bit of family bridge – not too often.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, your wife plays also?
ANDREW ROBSON: Wife plays. Wife is actually one of the rare bridge players who is better than she thinks she is.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: Now, did being listed as one of the hot properties in the – let’s see what the magazine was…
ANDREW ROBSON: [Laughter] Have done some research.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Harpers & Queens, you’re listed as one of the hot properties in ’98 or ’99. Is that how you –
ANDREW ROBSON: No, no. I think I met her through friends. And also because I think I might have done a bit of bridge teaching of her. So, classical style. Yeah, in fact, she was – some of the female peoples admire their teacher, in ways, but she definitely didn’t. That was – I had to slightly fight for it, in a way, which is more interesting, perhaps.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What did you do? What did you do for it?
ANDREW ROBSON: She wasn’t fawning over me at all.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I think my mom has a crush on you.
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, I’m sure not.
JOHN MCALLISTER: No, because I got her – I signed her up for your BridgeCast. And my mom loved it. And I think she had a sneaker for you. She would be like, “Oh, he’s so cute!” [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: Oh, that’s very kind. Those are fun doing those BridgeCasts. I’m enjoying doing those, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Where do you come up with the hands for your BridgeCasts?
ANDREW ROBSON: Most of them, I make up to illustrate a point because the thing about bridge hands is there’s always a lot of noise, or often there’s a noise. So, if you’re trying to make a specific point, you don’t want some other little sort of side issue to get in the way of the main point. So, generally speaking, it’s best to actually create hands. I’m not able to do very many things well in the world, but I can – I’ve done that so often for so many years.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And so, you’re creating four deals per day?
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, the beginner, and the improver are sort of more courses that I’ve already created and done most of the filming already. So, they’ll go around in a cycle. Because you’re not going to be a beginner forever. You’re going to go from beginner to improver. So, you can’t keep on going and going with that. And similarly, improver, intermediate, you can certainly be an intermediate forever. And why not? Go for it. Great. And similarly, advanced. You can take advanced to really quite a high level. I’m trying to make advanced not too system-based because I’m trying to reach out across the pond to five-card majors, although it is based on Acol weak notrump four-card majors, but –
JOHN MCALLISTER: Going back to the non-simultaneous double squeeze at the Abingdon – was that a big deal?
ANDREW ROBSON: So, I do remember a little bit how it went because what happened was, there was a bid on my right. So, I think I opened something like one heart, and I think my partner made a strong jump shift, which is sort of the way we did things in those days, and jumped to two spades. And the vulnerability was that we were vulnerable and the opponents were not, and the Eton boy on my right bid three clubs.
Now, we, in the end, got to six hearts, but I remember my club suit was doubleton king in the dummy, and three to the ace in my hand. So, I could easily have roughed a club to generate my twelfth trick, but I thought my righthand opponent would have a sixth club to bid three clubs, and I would have got over, but I couldn’t afford to rough high. I can’t remember what the heart suit was. So, I rejected that line.
So, as soon as I didn’t rough the club, the Eton boy perked up. I realized that I was now on the back foot, and all I could do was get back to normality, if I could pull a little something off. And I did have a bit of a plan, as I’d lost a trick earlier. So, I had the in, minus one, so I could just play out my winners in a vaguely sensible way. But I remember when I won the last trick, it was some very low dumbed or something. And Eton Boy A shot a look to Eton Boy B, and Eton Boy B shot the look to Eton Boy A because they both thought they’d screwed up with their [inaudible]. Neither of them realized that actually, it was a genuine double squeeze, and I don’t think I said anything. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] I think Eton’s probably the most of the British schools here in the United States because of the [inaudible].
ANDREW ROBSON: Right. Yeah, my brother sent his boys to Eton. Yeah, it’s a very fine school.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Meanwhile, Thom Yorke and the group members of Radiohead went to Abingdon.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I mean, they were slightly after my time there, so – but you’re absolutely right. Thom Yorke and the boys, the Radiohead boys, yeah. The brothers Johnny – I’ve forgotten his last name now – but yeah, they were all…and the comedian David Mitchell, he was at Abingdon School. There’s been some quite famous-to-be people at the school, and I don’t think any of them really flourished at the school. But sometimes, in a way, boredom is a great motivator for you to actually become really good at something. I think if I’d been less bored at Abingdon school, I probably wouldn’t have got to bridge the way I did. I would have been contributing more in sprots and stuff, yeah.
One of the boys at the school, I think, got paralyzed playing rugby, maybe slightly before my time. But I just did not – for me, I did not want to play a contact sport where something like that could – you could find your life has been stolen from you by someone doing a bad tackle. Although I played quite a lot of football – soccer. I loved soccer. But tennis was my main – and cricket as well. Cricket and tennis were the two main sports, yeah. But [inaudible] sport. I mean, when I was growing up, I actually only did three things. I played golf. I used to be not bad at golf. I played tennis quite well, and I played bridge. Only those three things. And actually, I didn’t realize that they do set you up quite well for later in life.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you’ve sort of answered my question about – because the Radiohead guys are said to – they said apparently, at some point, were bridge players. But I guess you don’t –
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, they may have, but I think when I left, the bridge club at the school just dropped off, so I don’t know if they played formally at the school. The bassist of Blur, the guitarist, the drummer maybe, Dave Roundtree – is it Blur? Anyway, there’s definitely some bridge that goes on because when you’re on tour, bridge is a good way to while away time. So, I’m not at all surprised that Radiohead played bridge.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I really want to teach Justin Vernon – he’s the lead singer of the band called Bon Iver – who I don’t know at all, but that’s my favorite band, and I really want to teach him bridge somehow.
ANDREW ROBSON: I would think these people could easily be open to that idea. I think maybe people are getting a bit screened out, young people, and they’re looking to have a real experience that you get from actually playing. Why not? Back to the future.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Are you doing teaching online any?
ANDREW ROBSON: No, I’m not. I’m not really. Well, partly because it is very, very time-consuming. And when I’m teaching a lot of people on BridgeCast, teaching one or two tables or a few more, it’s not so appealing. And also, I know my style of teaching doesn’t lend itself well to the online platform, really, apart from talking through interesting deals that I’ve created and the way that I want to talk them through on BridgeCast. Anyway, I’m not sure that the online lessons would add so much to that. I don’t know. But we do – through the bridge club, we are doing a lot of supervised practice session on this brilliant site, RealBridge where you see everybody. We were on to that really early, so as we are recording, there will probably be maybe close to 100 people on RealBridge having a supervised practice session with my teachers from the Andrew Robson Bridge Club, which is being closed for a year. But yeah, at some point, may hopefully reopen again. It will be very interesting to know how bridge bounces back. I mean, firstly in the tournament world, and second at sort of club level, really. Whether – to what degree people have got used to playing digitally, and to what degree people actually want to be actually with the other players, even if it means traveling some distance to do so. I don’t know, what do you think, John? How do you think bridge will bounce back?
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, it’s exciting. Recently – we’re recording this conversation on March 2. The ACBL’s come out and said pretty much, Austin – their plan is that it’s going to happen. Providence has been canceled. And the Europeans – they’re saying there’s going to be European championships, one way or another.
ANDREW ROBSON: OK.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I think this is – the pandemic is such a huge opportunity for bridge because it’s something that you can play virtually. I mean, you can’t play basketball virtually.
ANDREW ROBSON: It is a huge opportunity.
JOHN MCALLISTER: There’s a guy in Seattle as part of an organization called Seattle Next-Gen Bridge, and he’s saying their model was that they would go to schools, and they would get a teacher at a school. And that was – it’s so much easier to teach these kids on the internet, and they’ve got so much better retention. And they’re using --
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, you’re right. That’s such a good idea. Yeah, it is. It’s so hard to actually do it [0:48:54.2] because you know they have half an hour at lunch, and whatever. And there’s just a few of them, and some of them are late from a lesson, or they’ve got to eat, and it never happens. But if it happens online, I agree, that can make a huge difference to youth bridge actually playing online.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I like playing on RealBridge, but I’m always used to playing on Bridge Base, so sometimes, there’s some awkwardness – like maybe when you have a bad result, or the opponents have a bad result – being on video with other people.
ANDREW ROBSON: I can definitely see that because when you are playing bridge properly, you don’t actually look at the other players.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: In RealBridge, there’s your mug shot. There you are. It’s hard to not look. I’ve actually not played proper bridge on RealBridge. I’ve supervised. It’s great for supervising on RealBridge because they call a director, and the director comes over. You can see all 52 cards, and you can make an instant judgment as to what someone should do, what you see around the table. Much easier to supervise on RealBridge than it is to supervise when they’re actually playing. But I sort of agree that when you’re playing in a top tournament, then maybe BBO…last week, I haven’t done much online because it’s not my absolutely favorite thing. But I do quite enjoy it. I played last week in the Alt new competition, the second week of that. And we’re in this group of six. I think we’re in Group B. Double round robin. So, out of the six teams, at the end of the double round robin, in fifth place, their score was above average, and we were sixth. So, you can imagine how skewed the table was at the end. We did not have a good week. We did not have a good week at all.
My partner and I – well, it was quite a sort of cute auction, really. But in the end, we bid to three notrumps, and the guy on leads got a lead problem. His clubs are ace, king, queen, jack, 10, seven, two. And that crowned off a fine week [inaudible].
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] To answer your question, I don’t know what’s going to – I mean, this is just totally unprecedented, this period in our lifetime. I think it’s fair to say.
ANDREW ROBSON: But I think looking at it as an opportunity is a good way of looking at it. Bringing in the new generation into a digital route into bridge. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I want to go back to September 11, when you walked again for the first time. What was – do you remember what –
ANDREW ROBSON: So, we were in a Muslim country. We were – I run – for 30 years, I ran a week of high-stake rubber bridge with my friends from the Portland club, Stewart Wheeler, and in Tangier. And we were in the middle of our week, and we were going for lunch at the local hotel called The Mirage, looking over the Atlantic Ocean, right where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. So, it’s a pretty amazing spot. Giles Hodgry, one of the player’s friends of mine, he was on his mobile phone because he’s a stockbroker, and so he was checking the markets. And he said, “Something’s happened. It looks like something’s gone into the World Trade Center.” And obviously, we didn’t really know what the hell was going on. He kept on listening. Anyway, it became clear that this was something, and obviously very frightening for everybody. And so, we bailed on our lunch quite quickly and went back. And we watched CNN all afternoon, and obviously very gripping in the way that the second plane went in. I mean, just extraordinary scenes. And as the afternoon was progressing, it was starting to become obvious that it was a horrific terrorist activity.
I remember going down to the swimming pool in the early evening and having a conversation with a couple of the other people who were there. Was this a gamechanger? Was it the world until this moment, and the world after this moment? Or was this just a really horrible terrorist attack, but life would recover and get back to the way it was? I was arguing that it [inaudible] really going to make a big difference to the world, and I supposed that’s been borne out by what’s happened. I mean, going into Afghanistan and Iraq, whatever you think about those things. And then life ever since then – it was – but I do remember we were outside in The Mirage, and I do remember taking those steps. Little bit painful, but managed to do it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you had gone to another country, and you just thought you could walk?
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, I was on crutches walking. In fact, two months before, I went to the Summer Nationals in Toronto with Rita, and I remember getting there a day early. And I remember my friend Marshall Lurst, we went to Niagara Falls, which is not a very sensible thing to do in crutches because it was wet. It would have been very easy to slip. And if you slip on crutches, it’s not a good outcome. But I became very good at crutches, being on them for so long, and you can actually go quite a lot quicker on crutches than you can walking. You can almost get into a bit of a trot.
But I do remember playing in Toronto that time, and my foot had to be elevated wherever possible. And so, I sat and had my foot elevated on a chair to the side, and having a perfectly nice game. And then, one of my opponents said, “Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here if you have to have your foot on the…” And I just thought that was a pretty bad comment, really. I think maybe they just got a bad result.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Do you think Tom Paske is enough to get the British team over the hump with the bowl?
ANDREW ROBSON: Tom Paske, great player, teammate of mine, super chap, and definitely a heartthrob. Very, very fine player. He’s getting only better. So, yeah, I’m definitely happy to, long ago, have passed the baton on in that regard, which I don’t think even applied to me anyway. But definitely, Tom is a great guy and a super player, yes.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah, he’s got a great sense –
ANDREW ROBSON: I don’t think, actually – I don’t think he’s on the British team – the English team to play in the European Championships, though. I don’t think he played in the trials. Even if the European Championships take place and then, the English team qualifies for the Bermuda Bowl, I don’t think, sadly, Tom will be on the team.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, my gosh.
ANDREW ROBSON: But definitely will be very soon, I’m sure.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I was surprised when I saw Artur on the team, like you were talking about.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, he won’t be on the team this time because he didn’t do well enough in the trials. But yeah, totally different sort of player, Artur. He’s a very, very fine player, Artur. Very brilliant card player. He has played a lot of his bridge with players of level.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah.
ANDREW ROBSON: So, it is hard. When I used to play with Tony, he always used to know when I’d have a session of rubber bridge, which I used to play a lot. I know I’d saying I’m playing a little bit of a solo game and taking a few hundred different actions, and he would always know that I was playing that way. So, I think it is quite hard to adapt your game when you’ve been playing with less experienced, weaker players to then be able to play a totally partnership game. And I think Artur does play very, very well.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Last question. Will you tell us – you said Zia is one of your favorite bridge people to play with.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, I mean, I haven’t played with Zia quite so much, recently. But always lovely to play with Zia. He’s the ultimate supportive partner. Really brilliant player. Brilliant flare player, but also a brilliant cooperative partnership player as well. I mean, often, when Zia and I play, he plays the straight guy more than I do. But sometimes, we have – because we both bid too much. So, in a way, you don’t want us to be partnering each other. You want us to be in different partnerships with a more solid partner.
David Gold is a really brilliant player and has a more solid style. So, probably, he’s a more natural partner for Zia, and also maybe for me. But Zia and I have definitely enjoyed lots of success, mainly is a nice chap.
I mean, mistakes fall into two categories, really – or bad results fall into two categories. Bad results that you can do something about. There’s a partnership mistake where Zia and I would look over an auction and decide the very subtle nuances of we haven’t got to the right contract. And we’d go through every board. One of the reasons why we love playing with each other is because every meal, couple of glasses of wine – I mean, you go through every board, and all the subtle nuances – I’m not frightened to say that the partner probably could have done something different in that cooperative adventure. So, that’s one category of non-optimal results.
And then, the other category is where a solo error has been made by a player. Zia will just say, “Oh, you farted.” That’s his terminology. And then, no words will more be said about that. He’s so not interested in that, and that’s so right. There is absolutely no point in talking about someone who effectively revoked, and I’ve certainly done that plenty of times. That’s the last word on the subject. But he’s only interested in the partnership, getting things wrong. And fine, fine player. I’m sure I’ll play with him again. And he’s fun to hang around.
JOHN MCALLISTER: That’s helpful to have that terminology. I’m going to use that with my girlfriend.
ANDREW ROBSON: [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: I can be a bit overbearing when she farts. [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: It’s a great term. It says it all. You don’t have to [inaudible].
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: And then, what happens in the end, you say to Zia, “Sorry, Zed. I farted.”
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROBSON: The Americans call him “Z,” but I call him “Zed.” And, yeah. “Sorry, Zed. I farted.” And he’ll never say anything more about it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Are your girls friends with his boys?
ANDREW ROBSON: Met them a little bit, but actually, we’ve lived our lives, our childhood – their childhood has been somewhat in parallel rather than too much together. But they have met a little bit, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, thank you, Andrew, so much. It’s a pleasure to get to spend this time with you.
ANDREW ROBSON: A great pleasure, John, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Thank you so much. You’ve been really generous. Oh, I have one more question. I read this book, and it said when you started the Andrew Robson Bridge Club, you got Simon Stocken –
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: To be your – and you had to track him down in the Himalayas. What was he doing in the –
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, Simon’s a bit of a hippie, and he was in an ashram somewhere in Northern India. So, I mentioned tracking him down there, yeah. He came to – he left a long time ago, actually, but I was – yeah, talking to him about something only yesterday. So he’s a friend, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: It just was funny how it was like, in the book – it just made no mention that it was – like it was the most normal thing in the world that he had to be tracked down in the Himalayas.
ANDREW ROBSON: Well, we’re a wonderful team. I’m very, very lucky to have the team I’ve got. And they all have their different characters. But I mean, if they were going to be a sort of regular guy working in the city of London, or doing an accounting job, they wouldn’t be working at a bridge club. So, they’re bound to be a bit unusual and have their own characters, in a way, and they’re a wonderful mix of characters that gels very well. But it’s been, obviously, a very, very strange time for all of us. For over a year, or just about a year now, we’ve been shut. But the team lives on.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I had the sense that you guys were having a lot of fun, particularly in the early days of the club, just as young men.
ANDREW ROBSON: Yeah, we did. We did. Absolutely. There were a lot of late nights, and yeah. Yeah, fair bit of probably drinking and gallivanting and creating something from nothing, really. And I think we were very lucky, really, to do it at the right time. I mean, luck is, as we know, in all things, is a hugely important ingredient. So, I’m not necessarily saying that I did all the right things business-wise, in those days. I think I got a massive boost from the guy I started out with called Joel Cadbury, who brought a lot of his contacts in. And we got a massive head start. And there wasn’t anything like it, and there was obviously a big market for a very sociable bridge club that was going to teach from scratch and make everybody feel safe and enjoy the game. There was nothing like that around at all. Bridge clubs were all a bit serious for people who already play, and perhaps people who were a tiny bit less tolerant of their partner’s indiscretions. And so, we tried to do things a totally different way, and that, obviously, has resonated well.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright. Well, like I said, thank you so much, and it’s great to see you.
ANDREW ROBSON: Pleasure. Very good luck with your recovery.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Thank you, sir. Yes, and I’ll be in touch, have this all finished up. Excited to share.
ANDREW ROBSON: Sure. It was fun.