This episode of The Setting Trick: Conversations with World-Class Bridge Players features John Kranyak. John is a professional Bridge and Poker player from the United States of America. He is a highly accomplished and respected member of the Spectre team, widely considered one of the bridge community's most successful and competitive teams. John's skill and expertise in the bridge are matched only by his exceptional character and integrity. He is a formidable bridge player and a true friend, and throughout this episode, he shares his feelings about the bridge.
He has been a Bridge Base Online (BBO) Member since July 3, 2010. He has achieved the status of Bridge Pro and has several impressive accomplishments under their belt. He has won 3 World Junior Championships and even won the Mixed Pairs with their mother. Their regular bridge partner is Vincent Demuy, and they have a particular fondness for The Nationals and the Team Trials tournaments. He is also an ACBL Grand Life Master
John kicks off the talk by providing an update on the most recent events in his life. John outlines the progressions that have been made in the field of bridge during the past few years. He continues his talk by talking about the component of the game that gets the least attention the most of the time. Throughout the course of the chat, we shared several experiences that we had gained from competing in tournaments, playing with a number of other players, and accumulating the most memorable memories, along with the wonderful learnings and experiences that we had gained.
[00:40] Background – John fills us in on what's new in his life, including details about his family and what it's like for him to be in a new city.
[05:00] Regionals - Will the current trend in regionals is going to continue, or are people starting to return?
[11:32] Memories – John reflects on playing against the Swiss team and some of the interesting memories.
[22:06] Changes in Bridge - John discusses the changes in the world of bridge. He elaborates on the most underappreciated aspect of the game.
[47:31] Levels of Players - What is the most critical factor separating top-level players from those who are not top-level?
Resources:
Connect with John:
bridgewinners.com/profile/john-kranyak/
bridgeinstructors.com/profile/30/info
[00:00:00] John McAllister: And here I am with John Kranyak, one of the key cogs in one of the hotter teams in bridge, the Spector team. A good friend of mine; as good of a bridge player he is, he's a better guy. And, John Kranyak, I'm really excited to have you on The Setting Trick.
[00:00:34] John Kranyak: Oh, me too, Johnny Mac. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Super excited to share some of my feelings about bridge and just talk with a good friend.
[00:00:37] John McAllister: So, you were living in Greenville, South Carolina with your wife, who recently completed med school.
[00:00:46] John Kranyak: Yep, yep, yep. That's exactly it. I lived in New York City. I got a girlfriend, Allison, formerly Hunt, now Kranyak. We were married in 2018 and, the year before, I moved down as she was finishing college. And I lived with her parents for like six or seven months. And then when she got accepted into medical school, we moved to Greenville, South Carolina. For anybody who doesn't know, Greenville is a nice town, sort of in the upcountry of South Carolina at the base of the Appalachian Mountains. It's a wonderful little town that is actually growing at quite an alarming rate. They have a wonderful bridge tournament every other year in like early to mid-June. It used to be like one of my favorite regionals, which, when Allison got the interview there or got accepted there, it was pretty exciting for me because I knew I loved the city. We lived there for four years and now she's in residency. She's starting her internal medicine preliminary year, first year of residency, at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, and now we're in Hanover, New Hampshire. So quite a, quite a change, although I haven't, we've just sort of moved here and we're actually staying at a Residence Inn for a couple weeks until our lease, until we can move in. So, trying to sort of get the lay of the land and, it's a little bit different, but there's some similarities. Both are very like outdoorsy type cities, which we like, I like to go on bike rides and go running on trails and stuff like that. We went on a little nature walk yesterday and I think I got bitten by like 8 million bugs. I was like, you know what, I gotta wear bug spray, like lesson learned, you know.
[00:02:41] John McAllister: Are there any bridge players that you know already in Hanover?
[00:02:49] John Kranyak: I have a couple friends that live in Massachusetts, in the Boston area. I don't know anybody who lives in Hanover. I'm kind of wondering if the Dartmouth College has a bridge team. If they do, maybe I'll stop by a couple days while Allison's working. She's slated to work somewhere between like 55 and 80 hours a week. So, I think I'll have a lot of downtime and so maybe I'll try to help out a little bit with that.
Found they have a poker room and I used to play poker, so I'm kind of getting into back into that, but it's not a huge poker room, but I played a couple times already and it's fine. The guys are nice. It's good to be back in the flow a little bit, but it won't be anything serious. Maybe like a once or twice a week thing.
[00:03:31] John McAllister: How much time do you even spend at home? You’re a professional bridge player; I know you were in Tampa recently on a team with Adam Grossack.
[00:03:40] John Kranyak: Yeah, so I mean, I would say before covid, I was traveling somewhere around like a third to a half of the year. Maybe some years a little bit more, maybe some years a little bit less.
During covid, obviously all my work switched to online. And I think Alison sort of appreciated that, that I was now home all the time. It was, at first, it was a little bit of a different thing for me just because I'm not used to working every day, you know? Like, playing like four weeks in a row. I used to play tournaments four weeks in a row, but then I'd have like four or five weeks off, you know? So, but I think I adjusted pretty well, and I enjoy it. And now that the tournaments are coming back, it's really nice to have like a supplemental sort of thing where I'm at home and there's not really too much professional bridge at the club, but, so now being able to sort of replace that club bridge from when I was like living in New York is pretty nice to do, but now, I mean, I'll sort of see how often I'm gonna be, I'm gonna sort of try to play as many regionals as possible, but I don't know how that's gonna come out.
As you probably know, the regionals have seemed smaller and it's kind of a question; I question whether that trend will continue, or people will come back. I think, as the covid restrictions are loosened and people are ready to come back and travel. I think there will be some period of time where they're trying to do vacations that they missed or do cruises.
And I'm not sure for how many of them bridge will be their first thing back. I've also noticed that a lot of the beginner levels at the tournaments have seen – that's where the biggest drop in attendance has been. And I don't know how that bodes for regionals in general. I'm not really too sure about the logistics of how many people you can get to come to the tournament versus how many rooms, and how that does.
So, it's a little bit scary seeing how that will progress. But maybe it is a point in my life where I play less regionals or that the ACBL in general has less regionals. And they sort of become bigger tournaments like they used to be in like the sixties and seventies and eighties, where like if you won a regional pair game, you were the who's who, if you won a regional knockout, that was like almost like winning a national knockout.
You know? So maybe it'll sort of semi return to that and there won't be so many tournaments that can be held just because you don't have that 99er to 299ers that are playing at the rate that they were playing before covid. And that's unfortunate. You know? I mean, I think a lot of the people that started at that time learned online, they started online as opposed to starting live, so now they're not used to going to a tournament.
I don't know if that's true. I just know of a couple people who, started playing during covid. But they played online. So, like this whole idea of playing bridge live in-person is like totally foreign to them, you know? Whereas before covid, I had a lot of clients that playing online was totally foreign to them and they totally changed their mentality about it. And now, they used to play at the club every day, and then the club shut down and they were like, what am I gonna do with my life? And then they learned to play online and, guess what? They play online every day. So, like, it's nice to be able to see that. And it goes to show, like no matter how unfamiliar you are with a new thing, you can always learn it. Like being unfamiliar with bridge on the computer and what the rules were. You can always learn it, you know? And that's nice to see.
[00:07:47] John McAllister: Well, this conversation, the sort of impetus, in part, was I had a nice conversation with you and your partner, Vince Demuy, in Chicago at the team trials. And one question I had is, do you ever, like, you always seem like you're in a pretty upbeat, positive frame of mind. Like take the trials for example. Was there any point where you like, were like on-tilt at all or upset? Does that happen for you?
[00:08:18] John Kranyak: Well, certainly. I mean, certainly in my younger days, I was much more of what you might call like a tilt monkey. And for people who don't know what that term means, it means, if something bad to you happens at the card game, you might just kind of lose all sensibilities and freak out, and I think over the years I've learned to handle that.
I think poker, as I used to play poker, really helped me with that because, if you go on-tilt in poker, you could lose a lot of money in a very short amount of time. If you go on-tilt in bridge, you could get a lot of bad boards in a short amount of time, but it's not like you're losing months worth of salary or, even more on really, really bad days.
So, sort of understanding that in bridge, you're always gonna have mistakes. You're always gonna have situations where you wanted to do the right thing and you didn't do it, and it was right. You're just always gonna have it. And like, Bob Hammond was always the best at saying and practicing, have a short memory, like being a goldfish. Goldfish have the shortest memory of anything. That’s what I would tell like all my students: be a goldfish, forget anything bad that's happened. And then continue on and try to do the best. But certainly, there's moments of tilt, a hundred times. I mean, like one of the more tilting things that has happened to me recently was when we were playing the Bermuda Bowl in Salsomaggiore, Italy.
I don't know how many of your viewers sort of know what the Bermuda Bowl is, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was like the best tournament to play in the world, you know? I mean, it only happens once every other year. It's a world championship, so it's only the best teams from every country, usually.
And it's a super grind, long drawn-out tournament. Used to be a little longer, I think, than it is now, but it's definitely, I would equivocate it to the World Series of Poker main event. Playing poker versus playing in that main event that's just like, kind of a whole ’nother animal, you know? And like everybody's there to try to bring their A game. But we were doing pretty good, and we went and we played a match against the Netherlands and they, I think maybe at the time they were leading or they were second; they were doing good. They're a great team, I mean, there's no doubt about it. And on any given day, they could just smoke us, you know? Like, no problem. And on any given day, we could smoke 'em too, like, don't get me wrong.
We played I think it was like, I forget if they were like 15 board sets or something like that, but Vince and I bid like six slams, most of them were like 50% or better. We had some good auctions that we kind of knew they were at least 50, but maybe better, maybe a little bit worse, you know? But like none of them came home, you know? On another one, we were in seven notrump, so we didn't really get to test everything, whereas they were in seven diamonds and it kind of just played out a little bit differently. Vince didn't have the luxury of doing some extra stuff. And I mean, to be fair, the guy in seven diamonds at the other table, at some point he had like king-queen-ten-sixth of spades opposite ace and one, and I think he played like ace of spades and a spade to the 10. And it was jack-fourth onside and like, he knew that nobody had pitched spades. I'm sure he was kind of like looking around at everybody, like, “how the spades doing,” like, so like, and at our table, the guy actually like led a spade from jack-fourth. But it was like my only entry was in the spade suit. Vince couldn't just win the ten-nine in the dummy and claim. I needed like the 10 of diamonds instead of the nine of diamonds or something silly like that. But that was definitely around that time, like after like the first three, I was like, oh man, I'm about to steam like my brains out. And then it happened twice more like, boom, boom. You know? I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna laugh at this set. Gonna try to get some back. Like, whatever, let's like, let's go on, it's only one match. We get zero this match, it's fine. Like we got a whole bunch of other matches to play. It's a really long Swiss. The worst thing I could do for me and my team is like, let that one match affect board one of the next match. Because it's a whole new score. Like it's now zero–zero, I don't gotta pick up 65 IMPs in three boards anymore. So, I mean, I think we got smoked bad that match.
And then we did pretty well, and we were in position. Switzerland and the Netherlands were pretty much like one, two or somewhere around there for most of the event and we were like three, like a little bit back, and we had a couple chances to like get up to the top.
But like, we finished third in the round robin, kind of like a healthy third, you know? And then we lost to a really tough Norway team, it was sort of like we had a choice of picking either Norway or the other USA team. And it wasn't really much of a decision, I mean, like, Norway's like a great team, right?
John McAllister: The Nickell team, right?
John Kranyak: Yeah. This is the Nickell team. Yeah. I mean like, you don't get rich by picking the Nickell team, you know? So, I mean, we pick Norway , trust me, it's never, you never want to pick players like Helgemo, Helness and Boye playing with his new partner Christian, and even Tek and his partner, they've been around the block a million times, you know? So like we didn't have a good choice, you know?
[00:14:27] John McAllister: What was the decision though, actually? Like, take me through the actual like mechanics. Did you guys even talk about it?
[00:14:33] John Kranyak: like, I mean, we talked about it, but I think more for just, I don't know of even really the word, but just, like we felt we owed it to ourselves to talk about it.
I would say that like we feel like we play better against the Nickell team than a lot of other people do. Like, we've known these guys for like a hundred years and like we don't really get scared by them. And now that's not saying that they're not gonna, just like be better than us some days. But like, we're not letting, that sort of outside juju come into our play. So, we were fairly confident that we had a good, a chance to beat the Nickell team, but there was also some sort of like, if, like, if we pick the USA, then if we won, then we would probably get like another like hard European team. So, if we pick Norway now, if we preferred to play the USA over those other teams, if us and the USA both won, we would be forced to play in the semi-finals. So that was, I really didn't, I mean in the end we were a USA team that's probably never gonna pick another USA team.
I don't know if that, it's certainly not in the bylaws, but it's certainly something that is like, maybe it's an unwritten rule, I'm not sure if it is, but somewhat. And then, we played Norway, we were like down three and then Johnny Hurd and Kevin got Covid.
So, they weren't able to play the rest of the time. And I mean, they're two great players. And that sort of, I mean, even though all of our team are great players, it's having to now, you've played for so many days and then having to like switch up your routine and play extra boards, it's just, it's a different sort of thing. And I'd be lying if I didn't feel in my mind that they sort of like not, I'm not taking anything away from how they played. They played great against us. They were gonna be tough to beat, it felt to me like they got a little lucky. I mean, we lost by 60.
I'm not saying that they got 60 IMPs worth of the luck, but any 11 or 12, it sort of changes a little bit of the momentum, so, I mean, look, it is a great experience. I don't think that it was the best way that the whole, it wasn't great how it went down, but I love playing in the Bermuda Bowl.
It's my third time playing and it's just great every time. And it's nice that I'm no longer playing against cheaters in the Bermuda Bowl or people who have been convicted of cheating. So that was nice. I felt that this was a very, a very clean tournament. And even though it seems like people were getting covid there, I think that I don't know if they were necessarily getting it from the bridge room or if it was just sort of omicron kind of super spreading throughout. Obviously, it's a much more contagious virus now than it was when we first started. And I think that there was really not much that could have been done to prevent that. And judging, as far as I know, anybody who was sick there or was around people who were sick, nobody had serious health issues. Which is great because, if you do have one or two people that have serious health issues because of it, that raises a whole new problem.
[00:18:13] John McAllister: Is the Nickell team less intimidating without Meckwell?
[00:18:15] John Kranyak: I don't think so. I mean, maybe to certain people and I think sort of to, maybe like foreign pairs, especially older foreign pairs that have, known about Jeff and Eric for like, all these years.
But like, I don't see how you can like look at Hampson and Greco and be like, yeah, they're nothing. Yeah, I mean, like, they're like, they're, two of the best players in the world, like hands down, like, so like, I don't think that you can like really say that any pair is better than they are, on any given day. Like maybe if you put a gun to my head and say, okay, pick a pair and they're gonna play against some like super aliens, like, I might not pick them, but if you told me that was my pair, I'd be like, all right, let's go. And Bobby and Steve historically have been great.
So, like, I think it's more of a, me being less intimidated by any bridge player as I've gotten older and as I've, not perfected, but improved my partnership with Vince. I think that that's a lot. It's a reflection of that, and I think that our team, since we've been doing very well post covid, I think we're really at like, not only a high bridge playing level, but a high confidence level as well.
You know? And so, I mean, I'm sure to some people they're less intimidating, I'm sure to other people maybe they're more intimidating now, I don't think, I mean, I wasn't really involved or even heard any rumors of what was going on between the Meckstroth and Rodwell no longer playing on the Nickell team and Hampson and Greco coming on.
I really didn't know that that was gonna happen until it actually happened. But it didn't surprise me. I mean, Nickell was used to a lot and a lot and a lot of winning. And I think most of it is, I mean, maybe a little bit is Jeff and Eric are getting a little bit older and maybe Nick and Ralph are getting a little bit older.
But I think, I think 99% of it has to go to the parody we see at the championship level. Like in the early eighties, the early nineties, like even up until the early nineties, if you were like a number one through six seed, you pretty much had like no teams you could lose to. Until the round of 16, maybe even the round of eight.
[00:21:12] John McAllister: You're talking like in a Spingold or Vanderbilt.
[00:21:14] John Kranyak: In a Spingold or Vanderbilt. In those big events. And now, I mean, you enter a Spingold or Vanderbilt, like, certainly the top 32 teams are like almost all professional teams, right? And then you have smatterings of seeds from like 33 to 60, like the rest of the field could be some guys you don't know, or like could be some dangerous players on a bad day, like, so I think that, I think a lot of, of the reduction of the Nickell team's success has come from the parody of right, of the tournaments, and I, I don't really see any team in the future achieving that level of success as they did like in the early nineties. I think they won, like, I don't even know what they won, but they seemed like they won everything. I remember I first started playing bridge and it was like, 1995 and I like looked at all the records from like the years before and they had won like Spingold, Spingold, Spingold, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, it was just like they won like everything.
So, and teams really haven't won sort of like every event until Ron and Lotan. Those were the last people that pretty much did very well or won every event that they were in. So, I think it's gonna be a while.
[00:22:17] John McAllister: It's a cheating Israeli pair for those who don't know. Ron Schwartz and Lotan Fisher.
[00:22:22] John Kranyak: Yeah. They're young guys, I mean, they just, I think the, the allure of a, of a great lifestyle being, one of the best bridge players in the world. Being a bridge professional, it can be hard. I would say you do it, it does afford a better lifestyle than most jobs, though. Even you're a run-of-the-mill bridge pro. Being a top bridge pro is definitely a much more lucrative and fulfilling occupation than anything. And if you don't come from an extravagant life and like all of a sudden you get taken to a nice dinner at your first tournament, it's like, well, the steak is $72. Are you kidding me right now? It can be pretty daunting, you know? And I think it can make you sort of lose sight, you know? I mean, it can make you lose sight of what's really important and why you originally love the game, you know? So, I mean, I don't know. I, I don't, I, I don't wanna speak too much on their things. But like to me, I definitely, I don't think that you will see people win as often as they did, anymore.
[00:23:41] John McAllister: Just to wrap up the last Bermuda Bowl, like I've been in the Rosenblum where we had to choose and I think the first 16 teams got to choose. And so, like literally, like we've finished eighth, so all the other, the first seven teams had chosen.
And so, we're in a room and I, I guess we had like a couple of minutes, but we had, looked at the thing before. So, like are you in a room with the first four teams? Like where is this actually taking place and what's the actual conversation between you all? Like who's there? Because you're on a six-person team, are all six people there? Is Warren there, Warren Spector, your team sponsor slash captain. I wanna know like, the details of this actual, like, like do you look at like Gavin and say, hey, should we play Nickell or like, do what do you remember from that?
[00:24:33] John Kranyak: I mean, so in the past, like when we picked in Bali and I don't know if we got to pick who we played or, but that was like right there at the tournament because we were staying at the tournament site.Or like across the street or something. And it was the same thing in India was the whole team was just kind of in the room. Maybe one or two guys were like, okay, we know what we're gonna do, whatever. Here in Italy, it was a little bit different because our team had rented a villa that was about a nine-minute drive from the playing site, because the playing site was at like a, like a congressional building or something like that. I don't even remember what it was called, but it, it was not at a hotel, so we actually, Kent Mignocchi, our captain, he stayed at the site. To do all the things. The rest of us went back to our villa and we communicated via text message. And that was sort of just a thing. And we pretty much had a conversation between the six of us. And obviously Kent was just, Kent was our captain. He was executing the order and he was fine with whatever choice we picked. I think that he, he did a very good job of finding out what we needed from a captain and what we didn't need from a captain. So that was where it was, you know? And honestly, it was like, it was like a five, it was like a five-minute conversation that felt like 16 seconds. You know? It was like, it was like, oh, what should we do? Well, I think we should do this. Okay, maybe we should think about this. Maybe we should, we should think about this. Okay. It's our pick. Okay. Norway, that's like kind of how it went down, you know? And it was like, I mean, it was quick. It was to the point, it was like, okay, we know what we got for tomorrow. How do we wanna line up? You know? And I think Vince and I ended up playing like a set match against Brogeland and Christian, Boye and Christian, because we had actually, I think also played a set match like two weeks before we lost to them in the semifinals of the Vanderbilt in Reno at the Nationals. And they play on a different team, but we still played them like every round. I think we played them like three rounds. The, of all the rounds we only played them. And then when it came time to play in the Bermuda Bowl, we only played them again. So, like I feel like, if I go and I play against somebody at the next tournament and it's not those two, I'm gonna be like, where'd they go? You know? But yeah, I mean, in terms of like the picking, it was different here because we had gone home. But we pretty much, I mean like we found out we were third, we pretty much, knew that like we didn't know, but that, I think the options were England, Italy, Norway and the USA.
So, we kind of had a feeling that England and Italy, although, I mean they're, you didn't have a good choice out of those four, in my opinion. But that they were probably going to be the first two picked in either order. We didn't really care, and that Norway and USA were gonna be left. So, we had already kind of felt that out a little bit, not knowing for sure. Obviously. But yeah, when it came it was like pretty quick. They wanted an answer quick, so it all was just like boom, boom, boom. You know? It's like, okay, let's go get dinner, you know?
[00:28:09] John McAllister: So, the Spector team is you playing with Vince, Gavin playing with Warren Spector and Kevin Bather is playing with John Hurd. And it's kind of like the remnant, like, the four of you guys, you and Vince and Hurd and Gavin, were all on the Fireman team, and you guys were kind of perennially underseeded on that team for like the KOs and stuff like that. And now the Spector team won the Soloway Knockout in Austin. You guys were USA2 in Salsomaggiore, I think. Then you just won the US team trials in May. Like, are you guys finally getting seeded, do you think?
[00:29:01] John Kranyak: Like, yeah, so like, I mean our team, when we played with Paul, our team was the same team except for at the time, Johnny Hurd played with Joel. And yeah, I mean, we definitely felt like we were underseeded, but to be fair, like I think we only won, we did well in the team trials, we won a team trials, got to go to the Bermuda Bowl, finished third in the Bermuda Bowl, that was a very big accomplishment for our team.
Certainly, would've been nice to win. But we lost in the semi-finals and, and yeah, I mean, we were, it felt like we were like low-seeded because we didn't historically have a good record in like the American knockouts and they didn't really include like your world stuff. So even though we had had some good trials results, it didn't really, it didn't help us in any way.
That being said, when we played in those knockouts, I mean we, we did pretty good against the teams we were supposed to beat, but we rarely beat a team that we weren't supposed to beat according to the seeds. So, might have felt like we were underrated, but we were always playing like a really good team and like the round of 32, you know?
So, it definitely felt like we were underseeded. Now that we've accumulated these sort of, these big jumps, we're now sort of, we've made it into the five through eight shuffle, sort of, which is, it's great, being like, I never really realized that, like, just even like a little bit of like, usually in that like round of 32, it's still teams that can beat you. But like, just if they're just a little bit less likely to beat you, then it seems like it's easier to make it along, you know? And I think our team is really firing on all cylinders right now. I mean, Johnny and Joel were always great. I'm never gonna, but I think Johnny and Kevin, even though their partnership is new, they think the same way about bridge.
And it's almost like, I mean, they're great. I have like no questions about like things that they know or whatever because it just comes to them, it's like how they think, they think the same way. And Warren and Gavin are really doing, Warren was a great young bridge player and then, he went on to Wall Street and sort of as far as I think, he took a big hiatus from at least tournament bridge, I think, every now and then he'd get back into it and play some money bridge. And then, as he got more successful on Wall Street, he sort of started to come back and play a few tournaments, but not many. And now I think, he's retired or semi-retired, I'm sure he does his own thing. A guy that's smart, he's always doing something, and I think now that he's getting back into bridge, he's sorta, I mean he's really focusing on it and I mean, he's playing great.
Like, Vince wasn't able to make one of the team trials, so I played with him and as like a new partner, it was like very straightforward, very easy to play with. And I think going forward, him and Gavin's partnership is only gonna get better. And I think they're only gonna get, more used to, because like you, you have a partnership with somebody, you can talk as much as you want about system, but the moment you lead an ace and you don't know if your partner's giving you count, attitude or suit preference, it's like all goes out the window.
Like, oh well. You're defending a hand and they're in three no. And you throw a card. When is that upside down count? When is that like I'm just throwing a card. I mean, people play upside down count and attitude, but sometimes it's just a hand that like everybody at the table knows. I ain't telling my partner nothing. My partner ain't telling me nothing. It's the declarer that's gotta guess a couple cards, we're gonna get in, we're gonna play a suit, he's gonna win, he's gonna try to guess another card. It’s not like I'm like throwing that nine out there, just like, don't worry, I got the queen. Like it's the only card in my hand, you know? You know. And so like, I think those things will come and, and I think it's actually like the most underrated thing in the game because like every partnership, they spend all their time talking about their system and they spend almost zero time talking about their defense.
And if you go and you look like Fantoni and Nunez were the best pair in the world, because they had the best defense in the world. Now, it's a little bit different when you're switching a card in one way or the other. But if even you could improve your defense, I mean, 20% effectiveness seems like it would just be like the biggest change in the world to me.
Because you're talking about bridge, you're talking about a difference of like percentage points at the top level in my opinion. Right. So like, if you can improve your defense to the point where, you take an extra, I mean quarter of a trick on a hand, that would just be like monstrous, you know? And you'd probably be cheating. Like maybe a quarter of a trick. A hand is the cheating number, according to the stats. Maybe it's only a 10th of a trick or something, I don't know. But I think it's definitely like the most underrated thing in especially like top level partnerships and their discussions.
Because, like if you have like a low-level partnership or even people that don't play together, you talk for two seconds about your, system. It's like, what kind of key card do we play? What kind of signals do we play? What do we play over notrump, like they're like very easy questions, you know.
But yeah, I think that the defense is definitely something that people like they never talk about. And then competitive bidding, they like never talk about it. Like, I mean like what if it goes a club, a diamond, a heart of spade, like Vince calls that the rainbow. Yeah, he is like if it goes a club, a diamond, a heart of spade and I bid two diamonds, this guy's cuebid, what is that show?
If I bid two spades, this guy's cuebid, what does that show? You know? And there's so many, like a club double, a heart double. I'm not even sure what Vince and I have decided. We've switched from penalty to takeout so many times, and I just feel like we spent so much time on non-competitive bidding and then now we've spent a lot of time on competitive bidding, and we have a lot of sort of what I think our new competitive agreements. Now, I'm sure some people have been playing 'em for 20 years, but they're sort of, we try to look for situations that we wanna gain more on certain hands and lose less on others, and that's sort of our idea. And I feel like top level bridge players spend a lot more time on their system and not on their competitive system. And those are, just two things. I don't really know how I got on that topic.
John McAllister: Tell me about your partnership with Vince.
John Kranyak: Well, it's wonderful. I mean, I was playing poker and I was playing bridge and I, at the time, I was playing with Richie Schwartz, which, he was nice. He was a great client to play with. He sort of, had his own opinions about certain things and a lot of them were what I would consider, like, from the 1960s or the 1970s, I mean like he started playing bridge at Michigan State with a bunch of other guys who like still play bridge, but like in like 1965 I think, or something like that, and the game has changed and he's changed his game. But like, not to the same extent, sometimes you're just rooted in your own beliefs, right, right. But, yeah, but Gavin, he called me. There was one year where like I had a choice between playing on one team with another partner. I don't want to say who that was, or whatever. Or I had a choice on playing with, Gavin and Paul Fireman, and at the time we were playing with two Polish players, Chris Buras and Greg naic. And Gavin said, and I want you to play with Vince, and so I was like, well, yeah, that is what I will do. Because I'd known Vince from Juniors and he's just like, always money, you know? He's just always amazing, and sometimes he has his own, aberrations or whatever, but just like every other, quote unquote best player in the world, right? So, I mean, once I heard that opportunity, it was kind of like a slam dunk, you know? It was just like, and it all happened like pretty quick.
It was like, I was playing with Richie, somebody called me, they're like, do you wanna play on this team? And then like a day later it was, I was like, oh yeah, that would actually probably be a pretty good idea. I just have to go back to Richie and say, and then a day later it was like, do you wanna play with Vince? And I was like, yeah, actually I'm just gonna play with Vince. And it doesn't really even matter the money, like, it didn't like, and the money wasn't, I was actually, I, like, I was getting paid more now than I was, like on the new team than I was. So that was fine. And but it was more of a, I like to play like the last quarter and I wanna start a partnership and play with that person for 40 years. I wanna be the Meckstroth and Rodwell. I want my name to sort of be remembered as one of the great, at the time it was player. Now I've realized it's only partnership. Like there are a lot of great players out there, and when I was a kid, when I was like 17, I was like, you know what? There's not gonna be like anybody else who takes up the game that will be better than me. Like how foolish is that? I am 38 years old now, and like I look at every kid and I'm like, well that kid could be great. Yeah. Like I realize that like, yes, like my mind might have been predisposed to bridge. I had wonderful teachers, but there's always gonna be the next guy that does something, or that knows something else, you know? And right now, I mean, sure that on any given day, there are players that are younger than me, that are way better than me. on, on a good, on a, on a certain day. On other days, I might play better than them for sure, but I think Vince and I have gotten to a point that pretty much nobody is super happy to play against us no matter what. Like nobody's like, oh, yay, I'm about to go play Vince and Kran. You know? Like they may think they're better than us, but they know I'm like, board one. They might get doubled, so, like, you better be ready to play, bro. Like, don't you step out, you know? Or like if you do step out, make sure your partner's got a good hand for you, you know, I mean, we have our fair shares of like minus like, four 80 the hard way, right?
Like two diamonds doubled making five, you know? Right. But, I think we do, we do definitely get like a lot of, a lot of extra points, based on our aggressiveness of doubling, and our aggressiveness also of just like bidding and putting pressure on the opponents. And I think that that's like a totally something like I learned from poker is that like, if you keep people guessing all the time, they don't get to just play their A, B, C that they learned.
When I played poker and I quit bridge for a little bit and then I came back to bridge, I saw like all these spots that were like, it's unbelievable. Four people at the table, nobody knows whose hand it is. Well, like you can't make a bid that lets them tell, you gotta be like, all right, four spades, you might have a three spade bid, but you gotta be like four spades and like, am I making five? Or like, what's going on here? You know? And it is funny because like J. Lall, may he rest in peace, he was always about those bids, he'd always make 'em, sometimes he'd be like four down. It'd be like whatever.
Yeah. Like, but it is definitely something that I think Vince also like embraces, he loves like the technical percentage bid thing, but that's more like in our constructive auctions. And he is definitely like more than willing to like, put the pressure on in competitive auctions and just throw, you know.
And he's also good at like, he's funny. He tells me like, sometimes he is like, yeah, that hand man, I just knew you were gonna come back four spades. Like, I just knew, like they, like I knew, like I bid a spade. I'm sorry. I just wanted to get in there, my man Kran’s been four spades, five spades, six spades, like whatever. Like we've had so many like ridiculously bad results on hands that it's like, it's hard to, like, you can't really like tilt so much on hands because like, it's like we've had so many more, like just laughably bad hands, you know? Like we used to play precision. We had some like auction where like, I thought I was showing like six hearts and five clubs, and turns out I was showing like five diamonds and five spades, and Vince thought I was showing four by one, you know? So, it was like, all right, that's ridiculous. We had something, we got to like six, no double. And like this hand had doubled like diamonds on the left and this hand had doubled hearts on the right. We were like off two aces. It went like low to the queen, low to the queen, low to the, like, like, I mean we lost like six tricks. It was like 1100 or 1400 and like a freely bid six no. Yeah. Like, so like we've had such stupid hands like that that like if we bid a bad slam now it's just like whatever. Like that's two partscores, we'll go on. And I think we're really good, like in the partscore battles. So, like, that's sort of, I think that's what makes, I think the biggest difference between top-level players and not top-level players is, it's not necessarily the slam bidding because that's like so few and far between like, good slams or bad slams or whatever.
It's more in the competitive bidding at the low level. Winning part scores, realizing when to compete, realizing what you expect from your partner. And I think that's really what makes the biggest difference. Because those are the most common hands, like, I don't know the percentages, but like, it's like a lot of 'em are part scores and a lot of 'em are games and then very few are slams and almost none are grand slams, you know?
So that, I mean, and looking back on it, like, I would've never imagined that my decision to play with Vince or that my opportunity to play with Vince would've ever come back reaping so many benefits, like learning so much, becoming just like a great friend with Vince, and becoming a, a, a better teammate, a better partner.
I mean, my dad was always like, great at those two things. So, I kind of like learned from that, you know? So, I think I was always like a, a good teammate and a good partner. I think I've become better since I've been playing with Vince and since I've gotten older, I'm not always the greatest opponent. And I think that I've also gotten better, from playing with Vince and from getting older.
I will say that like, especially like top level bridge at a certain point, like has brought out like the worst in me sometimes. But it's also, like, and especially with covid, like now, I just like look at it and it's like, it's the thing that you love the most. Why are you freaking out at like a friend about like, taking three extra seconds, like on a, on a bid. And then his partner bids and like, sometimes just like, dude, we're playing cards. We're trying to do the best. We're not trying to rip your face off, like, we're not trying to cheat your brains out. It's just like, sometimes you gotta think, and sometimes you're thinking about like the dumbest thing ever, has nothing to do. You don't even realize you hesitated or asked a question that makes your opponent think something or did something like super stupid, you know?
But I do think that, playing with Vince has made me become like even also a better opponent. And definitely like, just the whole way the world works now, it's made me think a lot differently about life and about bridge and what I want to get out of it and what I want to get back to it.
I mean, I'm not calling the, the director like ever again against like a little old lady that hesitates and then the other person bids. And I know that some of my partners are like, well, it's what you're supposed to do. And I'm like, you know what? It's just like, not anymore. I couldn't leave my house for two years. You're like, you're telling me that I'm gonna waste my time and the director's time, who probably has like 80 other people calling the director on even worse, like even not as bad things as I would call the director on and they gotta walk and I realize it's their job. But if I can make their job just a little bit easier by like, okay, you bid over three spades. Because half the time those people are taking the extra bid because their partner hesitated, but their partner was hesitating because they wanted to like double or, they had no idea, you know?
And so, I certainly think a lot differently about those kinds of situations and depending on who and I mean, look, I'm a professional, so like in certain situations it's my duty to call the director and to explain what happened, you know? And, and I get that. But in other situations where I sort of use my judgment as like, okay, this is not going to be one of those times, I feel like I'm less likely and I'm certainly not like trying to fish for things that I don't really think I deserve.
Whereas like, maybe when I was younger and a little bit like more insecure in my life and my job that I might have been like, oh, well he made a little hesitation. Like they could be in like four spades, making six. And I tried to get it rolled back to two spades, you know? And like now it's just like, okay, I'm over it.
Yeah, at the top levels it might, it's different. You have a team, and you have certain hesitation situations that are, but I think covid and playing with Vince have been two of like the main things that have sort of made me a better opponent. And being married, sharing your life with somebody else, it's like, it's no longer just your life and it just makes you think about your relationships a little bit differently.
And I don't know how it just feels that way. I could have never imagined how good a decision this was, like you can only go through life making what you think is the best decision at every opportunity. And in the end, hopefully your life will be better, you know? Or if you wanna have children, that your children's lives will be better.
You can only do that, you know. But I would've never expected that this decision would have just been this awesome for me, and this life changing. So, I'm really grateful, and I don't even, I don't know if I've ever, I mean, Vince knows I love him like a brother, we actually just got back, my wife and I, from Montreal, now that we live in New Hampshire, I only live three hours from Vince. Right. So, like, we drove up and Vince, babysat my eight-month-old niece while me and my wife and my wife's sister and her husband had a double date. So, he babysat the niece for like four hours. And then the next night we had a boy's night out with me, my brother-in-law, and Vince, and we went to dinner and then we had some drinks, and we had a great, a great time.
So, that's one great thing about New Hampshire. Now I'm like close to Vince, I can just drive up, but we talk every day about system and like, I really feel like I've gotten like a brother.
John McAllister: It's interesting to me, because my first NABC was in Memphis, and I had played a sectional with Gavin right before that. And I had watched in the cards where he and Vince were partners and I never knew, like I knew that he wasn't playing with Vince, but I never knew like how that sort of broke down. So, it's interesting that he was the one that, that put you two together.
[00:49:39] John Kranyak: Yeah, I mean it was year, I think it was years later.
I mean, like, I think Vince and Gavin stopped playing sometime in their early twenties. And then this was sort of like we were, I think I was like, so I think it was like probably like a five-year span or a six-year span, something like that. I think. And truthfully, like Gavin and Vince quit playing, but it was not like, I never want to talk to you again. Quit playing. Right. It was just like, look, it's not the right time for both of us. we're both doing other things, you know? I mean, Gavin went and started a family and Vince also, Vince moved to Australia for a couple years and was playing bridge there and doing that.
And then he came back and started a family. So, like, it just, I mean, I think that happens more frequently and I think it was actually, it was good for both of them. Like, I don't think that either. I mean, who knows, but like, I don't think that either one of them would, would trade the situation.
I think, they had played so much, and they were very good, very talented, very successful. But I think it was just like a time in both of their lives that it was time to move on.
[00:58:39] John Kranyak: I played a team trials, I'm playing half with Gavin, half with Warren, I'm like, I mean I played with Gavin before in many team trials and like Gavin and I always seem to like come back to the same, like we, like we'll have these hand, we don't, we play nothing. Yeah, there's like no way we are playing anything, like Gavin doesn't wanna do it and I'm totally fine with that, you know?
And all we did for this tournament actually was like, we just played Gavin and Warren's card.
[00:59:01] John McAllister Literally their convention card?
[00:59:07] John Kranyak: Right. The exact convention card. And I read everything that was in because I was gonna play a set with Warren. So I read everything that was in Warren's notes and I just said, okay, Gavin, pretend like you're playing with Warren.
That’s what's going to happen. Like every bid. It's not like, oh what Kran, obviously like my preempts are less sound than Warren's, so Gavin's gonna know that. But like we played standard carding with Warren, Gavin and I played upside down. I think that was the only change like I might have, like, I might be wrong, but like, I think that was like the only change, you know?
And so that was fine, I mean like we lost like a close match to Nickell. And then, we played like, a good team that was like three pairs of like good players, it was like Mike Kamil, Mike Becker, Hemant Lall, Peter Weichsel, and Kit Woolsey and Bart Bramley. And I mean like that also that match, I felt like we kind of got unlucky, but like, they played good. They had a couple hands where they played like a four zero fit at like the six level. So like a couple, like 24, like 24 IMPs, just like, kind of like free a little bit there. And then, I think we were down 10, although in this last team trials, I think we were also down 10 in the Nickell match going into the last round.
And then the last set in both team trials, like I just, like, they're so close together that they like kind of run together a little bit. But in the first one we were like down 10, I think we won the last set, like 53 to three. And then in this last one we were down 10, it was the first time we were losing, I think in this match against Nickell in the final, and we won the last set, 50 something or like 40 something to three, you know?
So like they were like very similar last rounds, to be able to qualify for the Bermuda Bowl was playing like a tight grinding out match, like losing a lead or like not having the lead going into the last quarter, you know? And then like, kind of just like trying to play tough and having things go your way and then all of a sudden, it's like 40 to zero, you know?
[01:01:17] John McAllister: When did you know in this team trials that you won?
[01:01:46] John Kranyak: In this team trials? I mean, so like the first board I had like. You go over hands while you talk. Like, can I give a hand? So, like, this is my first board of like the final against Nickell. So, it was like, queen-third, stiff queen, ace-jack-10 fourth and queen-10-nine-fifth. Okay, so that's two, four plus five is nine plus two is 11 points. Right? So, I had 11 points and I think everybody was like not vulnerable, right? That's like usually the first board is not vulnerable, but I don't know. I feel like, but anyways, so I opened a club, all right. And our style is to open light. I think I have a good five card suit. I have like crap on the outside, don't get me wrong. And that might take away, but like I have a good four card suit and I have a good five card suit, a fine five card suit, the ten nine of clubs. Yeah. Right. So, I open a club and if I had a stiff little heart, I might open a diamond and rebid two clubs because I don't like to rebid a no trump with a singleton little but a singleton queen. I was like, all right, I'm gonna live with it, you know? Yeah. So I opened a club and Vince bid a heart and I bid a no trump, and now he bid I think two. No, yeah, he must have. Two no, which was like a relay to three clubs. Okay. And now whatever he, either he is gonna pass and we're gonna play three clubs, or he's gonna bid three diamonds would be short diamonds with four hearts exactly. And in this instance, it would be five clubs or more. Three hearts would be short spades, three spades and three no would be like 5-4-2-2. But like hands that, three no’s like look, I have four hearts and I have five clubs, but I really probably should have just been one no, three no. And three spades is like, I have four hearts and I have five clubs, but I'm two-two, but I have like a slam try. Like I don't wanna maybe go above, but if you have that great hand, we could easily have a slam on light high cards, you know? Right, right. So he bid three diamonds showing short diamonds. Well now I'm like, well my hand's getting pretty good here. I got this piece of cheese 11 like just piece of cheese. Right. And, but like, I mean, I have five trump, which at this point I could have had three. I got a stiff heart, but it's stiff queen, so like if I catch something there, so it goes three diamonds showing short diamonds and now it goes double. So I could have redoubled to just show the ace. But I was, I got in my head I'm like, look, high-card wise, I'm still light. I have ace-jack-ten-fourth of diamonds, which is a diamond holding. That is almost impossible for him to believe that I have. I might have ace-jack third of diamonds, or something if I redouble and then bid three no, but like ace-jack-ten-fourth is really like, that's three stoppers, not just two, you know? And in hindsight, I should have redoubled and next time I would just redouble a hundred percent of the time, you know? But I, for some reason just was like, all right, I'm just gonna bid three no and I bid three no. And we played three no, cold for six clubs, and the other table also missed six clubs on like an auction that should have been easy, you know? So like there, we missed a slam. Then the next board was like a close slam that you could bid, but it was like hard. And then we sort of had like a bunch of like vulnerable games that we made that were like, touch and go.
[01:05:16] John McAllister: Did you bid the slam on the second board?
[01:05:25] John Kranyak: No, neither pair, but like I, we could have been down 23 more IMPs, but
[01:05:27] John McAllister: Are you thinking about that or have you forgotten about it?
[01:05:29] John Kranyak: I would say, I'm thinking about it a little bit. I mean, I'm forgetting, I'm not letting it truly affect my, but like, I think later I had like, I had an eight count with, I think I was like, I think I had four hearts or, but like I had some, like, I had like a jack-10, I had like a ten-nine, so it was like, it was the kind of hand where like if all my spots were working, it was gonna be a better playing, but it's really like only an eight count, you know?
And Vince opened one no. And like, I was just like, okay, three no.
[01:05:55] John McAllister: Did you have a five-card suit?
[01:05:58] John Kranyak: No, four. I think it was four triple three. I might have had … vulnerable. So, I mean like I'm a big fan of bidding vulnerable game. And also, I mean it's, it's like kind of like the Hampson rule, he said like, you pretty much almost would be better off at bridge if you just open a no trump on every hand and bid three no on every hand, you know?
And like let them lead, you know? So I was like, well Hampson's at the other table. I don't know what seat he's in, but if it goes one no, he might just bid three no. He might not, because they play like a 14 to 16, whereas Vince and I play at 15 to 17, so I kind of thought that this was like a little bit, like a little bit something I might not do all the time.
But if I was down 10, if I happened to be down 33, this would be a nice, and if I wasn't, maybe it wasn't such a big thing. So, I jumped to three no. Oh, it went all pass. And like now Bobby was on lead. I think he didn't really have a great lead. I think it didn't really matter, that Vince was kind of always gonna make three. But at the other table, it went like a no trump, and then it went like, pass, pass, I wanna say like two clubs showing the majors. Yeah. Two clubs showing the majors. And that went like double. And they ended up having like a misunderstanding about a double or somebody made a bad double, I think. I mean it was like, they had like nine clubs between them, and they ended up doubling two spades when they were like white, when we were red, with nine clubs.
And so they ended up doubling two spades and Johnny and Kevin made that. Which I never really would've assumed that they made that, but like, I, I wouldn't have, but I felt good about the, like one no; three no all pass making three or four, whatever. It was like I, and then it just felt like we had like a lot of like not losable positions, you know?
And then there was another one interesting hand I had where it was like …
[01:07:48] John McAllister: How worried were you when you're watching the play in one no; three no? Like, how closely were you watching the play?
[01:07:52] John Kranyak: I usually try to try to use that time as downtime for my brain.
[01:07:59] John McAllister: Even though you've made, like, you've made an aggressive bid.
[01:08:02] John Kranyak: Yeah, yeah. I mean, whatever I, I'm gonna see the score at the end. Like, so that's fine. And I'm just using that time to sort of let my brain rest and trust me, like if I'm playing with a, with a client, I, of course it's my duty to watch the play of the hand so I can offer some insight as to what maybe they should be doing the next time, or whatever.
But when I'm playing with Vince, it's like, go, you do your thing, man. Cuz like nothing feels better than like him opening a no trump and me getting to bid three no. And be like, go
get ’em, dude. I'm like, like, I don't know if your viewers know this, but like Vince Demuy is like, he is like sick, skilled at playing the cards, he is like, like he reads positions so early in a hand and like sometimes like he'll tell you this, like, sometimes he just gets ahead of himself and he like plays the wrong card when he meant to play another card. And that's usually his mistakes are like getting ahead of himself and maybe, he's not too fast a player, but like that's what his sort of mistakes are, you know? In terms of figuring out the hand, like he figures it out quick. It might be like an opening lead, a win and a shift, and he'll know the whole hand and it's like, all right. Yo. And I've seen it all the time, like, and if it was like a regional, I watch just for fun because like, who knows what I'm gonna learn from him, at any point.
But, in the finals of the team trials, that's a moment to, take some rest, go to the restroom, have some water, you know.
[01:09:42] John McAllister: Who was your screenmate?
[01:09:47] John Kranyak: In this final, in the last set it was Bobby. Bobby Levin. Yeah. And, I think I was with Steve Weinstein a couple times, and I was with, I was with Bobby most of the time. I would say, I, I, I think I, I was with Eric once. I was never with Nick or Ralph. I don't think we ever played them. Oh yeah. I don't think we ever played them. And I was with, Bobby more often. And I think I was with Jeff, so I think I was with like Eric once, Jeff once, and then, I would've played like six sets. So I must have been with like Bobby three times and Stevie once. That's, that's kind of what I think, I don't really remember, but that, I do remember the last set being with Bobby and him being like, at the end of the match was like, oh, good job you won by like 40 or 50 this set. And that's like, well, like he knew right?
[01:10:36] John McAllister: He hadn't looked at the score.
[01:10:40] John Kranyak: I don't think he had looked at the score. Like we still hadn't finished the last board, he is like, dude, you won by 50. Yeah. Like, he just like, nah. Yeah. It just shows like how Bobby Levin pretty much knows what's going on all the time. I was like, 50, that's a big number. and like it turned out, I mean, and he's always gonna over exaggerate, a little bit. So like, probably, when he says 50, it might be more in the 25 or 30 to 25, somewhere around that range. If Bobby Levin ever comes to you and says, we had a great, great, great set, it means you won by 175 and it will go into the record books as the greatest set ever played. It's like 1100 minimum on every hand, you know?
[01:11:24] John McAllister: These tablets, so the trials was played on the tablets for the listeners. And you could look, after the set was over, you could look, and you could see the score.
[01:11:33] John Kranyak: Right. So, you could look, you could, as soon as the last card was played, you could, it would just show up like on your screen, just like a little like tally of the, of the results from each table and then the score. So I mean, sometimes earlier in the thing, you click just to see how you did in the set, and then you go out and you compare.
That was pretty much the standard, this last set. And, I think also the last set before, in the last year, I try not to on the last set, look at the score, you know? Right. So like this last set, I didn't look at the score, but like I walked up the stairs. Their team is like right to the right. They say, congratulations. So like you guys, well, that my team's not even there. My team's outside. I'm like, I'm coming out by myself. Yeah. So I come out and they're like, congratulations. I'm like, thank you. So now I'm like, yeah, buddy. and I'm like, I turn to the left and my see my team, like they come out and they're like, I think Johnny, just a mess with me. He was like, sorry. And I was like, dude, I already heard. He's like, okay, fine. Yeah. Like good play.
Hey, like, so it's really, it's, I mean, it's wonderful. They, they have that team trials in Schaumburg, and I think I've been there like a hundred times now, and like some years I'm like, God, I can't believe I'm back at this place.
But like now I'm just like, you know what? I know I'm gonna go to Schaumburg in May. That's like going to be my thing, you know? It's gonna be like sometime around Mother's Day, I'm headed to Schaumburg, and I know exactly what I do. I get in like a day early or two days early. I go to Whole Foods. I buy all my food for like the first week. They have a falafel place that's like a five minute drive or like a two minute drive. I do that every day for lunch. Same thing. I ordered the same thing. It's like lettuce, half lettuce, half rice, falafel bowl with like hummus, baba ganoush, mouhamara and like the sometimes double mouhamara. It's like the same thing every day. Yeah, it is pretty funny because I look up like my credit card statement and it's just the same thing. It's just like falafel. And like I would get, like when I was by myself it was like $14 and 92 cents, like, but it was like eight of those in a row. And that was the only thing on my credit card, and then it would be like Marriott, $1,400 or Hyatt Regency is what it is. Yeah. But yeah, now I've just sort of come to embrace Schaumburg and be like, oh great, here we go. Like when I was younger I played with a guy named Seymon Deutsch, may he rest in peace, greatest, greatest player to play with.
But we'd go to Morton's every single night. So it was just like eating like steak and potatoes and like just getting completely full every single night. And like now I try to be vegan or plant-based as much as possible. And so I, we go to different places that I can do that at, you know? Right. And I haven't been back to Morton's and I think it's been 10 years or something.
[01:14:40] John McAllister: So did you guys run the boards after, did you, did you actually compare it? Did you do the comparison?
[01:14:44] John Kranyak: Yeah. I always do the comparison just for, just for the sake of doing the comparison. Yeah. But truthfully, I was not paying attention. Yeah. They, they told me we won. They read the comparisons. I didn't remember, like I, at the time, I don't remember any board. I just remember I missed a slam on the first one and I bid one no; three no with eight points. And then later I had some hand where I had a heart void and they had stopped in three hearts. And it's like the rule, like I have no business double. Like if they bid like three hearts pass six hearts, I wouldn't have doubled. But when they stop in three and you have no trump, it means … And Vince couldn't make a penalty double on the hand. So I was like a little bit light on points. I didn't really want to compete, but it just felt like a hundred percent of the time Vince was passing.
And it was like, it was a hand where like, honestly, hearts could have been like 7, 6, 0, 0, like around the table, you know? And like nobody would know what to do, you know? So I doubled. And then like the dummy hit with like a hand that I would've expected to like sort of race to four hearts. Maybe. But they were, they were on the same page that they wouldn't, but Vince just had like a monster. Like he had like king-queen-10 fifth of hearts. He had like, another queen. He had another king. I mean, it was just, and another jack or something, like he had an opening bid with king-queen-10-fifth of hearts, and I'd shown an opening bid. You know?
[01:16:12] John McAllister: And he was over the hearts.
[01:16:14] John Kranyak: Yeah. And he was behind the hearts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, he was just like, oh my God, Kran, if you double, it's just like, not gonna be possible, you know? And then I come back up and he is like, my man. And I'm over there like crap, I mean, excuse my language, but like, I was not feeling good, like the D was going.
And like, I remember it was like, I forget, like he like led something. They won, they like were able to cross the dummy, guess a suit on the way back they came with another thing. Vince like led like a high card in the, in one suit, like intending to stay on lead. And I overtook. And once I overtook, I was like, Ah, man, why’d I do that? Vince was like, keep me on lead partner. And I was like, no, I have no idea what to do, but I'm gonna at least get on lead. Then, and then eventually it was just like, okay, plus 300 and like, I think we maybe could have got 500, like if I had done the other thing.
But like plus 300, I was fine with that. Those were like the only four I kind of remember. And everything else it seemed like we, we were solid, like we competed in the right partscores, we bid our games that were bid at the other table, you know? And so I didn't, it, it just felt like both of 'em felt sort of the same.
It felt like we did not do a lot wrong, but if your teammates come back with a terrible set, we were gonna lose, you know? And both times our teammates came back with the same opinion we did, which was, we didn't do a lot wrong. If our teammates have a really, really bad set, we're gonna lose. If our teammates have a bad set, we might lose.
If our teammates have a good set, we're gonna win handily. You know? And both times it was the same situation. Both sides had good clean sets and you won by 50, you know.
[01:18:10] John McAllister: Was your screen mate declaring the, three hearts doubled or was it the other?
[01:18:14] John Kranyak: No. No. It was, it was the other way. It was not my screenmate.
[01:18:16] John McAllister: What was Bobby, what did Bobby say about that, about that hand?
[01:18:20] John Kranyak: I mean, he sort of like knew, he expected more or less than I expected from Stevie's hand. Cuz at some point it was like trick whatever. And Bobby was like, Vince is probably out like king-queen-jack-fifth of hearts, you know? And I'm like, no way.
And then like the next card that comes out of Vince's hand is king of hearts, I'm like, Hey, I'm in, dude. Like, it was funny because it was like a hand that I told Stevie he probably shouldn't have bid, and he agreed. However, he did say that he felt like he was down at that point, and this would be, it went like three clubs from his partner, three diamonds, and they play a little gadget where three hearts is non forcing.
So he thought, well, if I can find a four heart game on this hand, it's like such a home run and it feels like I'm losing the match. So that could be like a really big, sort of advantage here where the other side's not gonna get to find that. So he bid like a little marginal three hearts, caught like a hand that I would think might raise the four hearts, but him and Bobby both knew that that hand does not raise the four hearts.
So they were on the same picture there, but, yeah, I mean, I just remember like, he was like, yeah, Vince has like great hearts. And I'm like, no. and then the king of hearts comes out and I'm like, yeah, buddy. All right. Yeah. Like, we going beat this now. Yeah. Oh man, that was, but that was like a fun hand because it was just like, it was honestly like you have a void and they stopped at three.
It means your partner is trap passing. And it's like, it's like a good lesson. I had a crazy hand with my mom once, and I'll, and I'll leave you with this, but, I had, get what my exact hand was, but I want to say it was like five little, singleton, four little, three little, okay. And I was like, white, white in first chair. Or maybe I was white. White, I think. And I opened a club, psyching, playing with my mom against like Mark Itabashi and another player. I forget who it was, but I opened a club just completely psyching. Okay. And it goes three hearts, and it goes pass, pass.
And I'm like, yeah, it worked. I have noth I have no points, you know? Wonderful. I'm so good. Like, dancing up and down, you know. And so I passed, and then, the play goes like a certain way. And turns out my mom had like 18 high with like ace-queen-10-eight-fourth of hearts and was just waiting for the reopening double. Like, and it's kinda weird because like if you look at the hand, even though you've opened a zero count, like they bid three hearts and then they pass, and you only have one heart. It probably means your partner's trap passing and maybe you should reopen with a double. You know? So I tell that story, like kind of in jest as a joke, but in reality it's not so far off, you know?
[01:21:37] John McAllister: Oh, my God. Oh, this is a lot of fun, Kran.
[01:21:43] John Kranyak: Yeah. Yeah. I had a great time. Thanks a lot for having me. I was a little bit offended, I'm not gonna lie. When I looked and saw how many people you've interviewed already that I wasn't like, I don't gotta be number one. I don't gotta be number five on your list. I'm like, number 47. I feel like you're, you're scraping the barrel a little bit here. Yeah, I know that's not true. I mean, I, it's a, it's a wonderful thing what you're doing.
Very cool. you're helping out Junior Bridge and your documentary that you made is really like, is really good for the game, man. At some point in my life, I promise I'm going to do more for the young players of this game. And a lot of that is gonna be because of you and what you're doing for the young players of the game.
Sadly some of it may be a lost cause, but as long as we have people like you to, at least try and keep it running, it shouldn't be a time that we give up because bridge is just like best game ever. And I can't even, like I love it so much and I think that pretty much everybody who takes the time to learn the game ends up just loving it so much and really what you do for it is wonderful, John.
[01:22:54] John McAllister: Well that's quite an exit. I appreciate it and I definitely, there's a lot more questions that I want to ask you, so we'll have to do it again.
[01:23:09] John Kranyak: Let's do, let's do a Johnny Kran round two, yeah, for sure. We'll talk about, maybe you'll gimme some golf tips, about rotating my hips,
[01:23:13] John McAllister: We'll see. All right, man. Well, enjoy the US Open this weekend, if you're gonna watch some golf. Check on that Dartmouth Bridge team too.
[01:23:24] John Kranyak: Yeah, yeah, actually, I think I might actually do that. I'm going to play a couple regionals, but when I come back, I'm gonna actually live about, maybe three quarters of a mile away from like the main Dartmouth courtyard, so, so I won't be far from wherever they're having the bridge group meeting, if they're having it, so we'll see what happens, you know?
But thanks for having me, man. And you be good, homie.