In this episode of The Setting Trick, you are in for a treat as you get to hear from Olin Hubert, a true star in the world of bridge. He is an exceptional American bridge player who has made a mark in the world of bridge. He has achieved the coveted title of American Contract Bridge League Grand Life Master owing to his impressive achievements in the game. Olin's exceptional skills as a North American champion bridge player have earned him accolades and recognition from the bridge community worldwide.
His extensive experience in the game has led to some remarkable accomplishments, including winning the Grand National Teams in 2022 and the North American Bridge Championships. Additionally, Olin has been a runner-up in the Nail Life Master Open Pairs competition in 2021, proving his mettle as a consistent and formidable player.
Apart from his impressive career in the bridge, Olin has also served as a retired tournament director for the American Contract Bridge League. He currently resides in the vibrant city of Atlanta, where he continues to inspire and influence the bridge community through his expertise and passion for the game.
As Olin shares his story, you will learn about his journey to becoming a professional bridge player. Although he faced financial challenges along the way, his dedication and passion ultimately paid off, and he is now a highly sought-after pro. Olin shares his experience, learnings, thinking, and tips throughout the discussion. Also, Olin recalls his triumph at the North American Bridge Championship, hosted by the American Contract Bridge League last summer, and his achievement of Grand Life Master ranking by winning the GNT Championship Flight. In a nutshell, you will be inspired by Olin's story and impressed by his accomplishments and experience in the world of bridge. Hence, he will surely be a memorable guest on this episode of The Setting Trick.
[08:39] Olin's Story – Olin shares how he started learning to play bridge.
[16:26] Tournament Director – We discuss how Olin became a tournament director. Moreover, we explore what the tournament environment was like back then.
[26:36] Keep the Skill – Olin explains how he maintains his skill when not playing.
[28:30] GNT – Winning Grand National Teams and receiving the "Grand Life Master" ACBL ranking.
[45:47] Bridge – Olin's favorite thing about bridge.
[01:00:30] Tips – Use Olin's insights and playing expertise to raise your bridge game.
Resources:
Connect with Olin:
Website: bridgewinners.com/profile/olin-hubert-2-7fnpfuvmb2/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/olin-hubert-89409a250/
Email: ohubert@bellsouth.net
The Squeeze hand:
The vice hand is below. What I think is instructive is that I didn't know what end position I was looking for. I think I was 22 or 23 years old. I was playing rubber bridge every day and I had read Reese's great book Master Play with the chapter about the secondary squeezes the Vice, the Winkle and the Stepping Stone, but I couldn't have told you what a vice was.
I didn't want to depend on leading a club to the king if I could find another way to make it. After losing the trump finesse I could see four discreet lines of play.
1) run the hearts first and discard a diamond from dummy - that won't work
2) run the hearts first, pitching a club from dummy - nope
3) run spades first, pitching a diamond from hand - no
4) what still seems the least intuitive, run spades first and blank the ♣K.
Now I end up in my hand with a diamond and the stiff ♣K. East has no good discard. Voila! A two-card ending with no entry to either hand.
It's really a simple play, but hard to see.
♠ A Q J 4
♥ 10 9 6 5
♦ K 4 3
♣ J 2
♠ 6 5 3 ♠ 10 9 2
♥ K 4 ♥ 8 3
♦ A 2 ♦ Q J 10 9 6
♣ A 10 9 6 4 3 ♣ Q 7 5
♠ K 8 7
♥ A Q J 7 2
♦ 8 7 5
♣ K 8
West North East South
1♥
2♣ 3♥ Pass 4♥
All Pass
3♥ still showed a good hand in those days.
West led ♦A, Q from East; then ♦ to the king. Heart finesse losing, spade shift.
The end position is:
♣ J x
♦ J
♣ A 10 ♣ Q
♦ 8
♣ K
East was squeezed on the previous trick.
[00:00:00] John McAllister: Hi, my name is John McAllister and welcome to the Setting Trick Podcast.
[00:00:11] I am here today with Olin Hubert. Olin is a former director, and recently, last summer, became a Grand Life Master, and we took a car from the airport in Providence where he won his first NABC event, before that happened, and I really decided that I wanted to interview you, Olin, after you told the story of the Gasper coup, which is something that is in Bridge in the Menagerie, which I was reading on the airplane, and then it was me, you, and Jerry Helms.
[00:00:55] At the luggage, got our bags, and then you recounted the story of the Gasper coup, which had me in tears when I was reading it on the plane. So, you've got a great mind for details. Do you remember that?
[00:01:09] Olin Hubert: Oh, yeah. Well, of course, Victor Mollo deserves the credit for that, but I've always remembered that exactly his, many of his exact words in that particular chapter.
[00:01:24] John McAllister: How many times do you think you've read it?
[00:01:26] Olin Hubert: Oh, I haven't read it in many years. I mean, I read it in my early twenties. There's not that many of those, of those hands that I can …
[00:01:35] John McAllister: And you just remembered it just because it was …
[00:01:37] Olin Hubert: Well, that one particular, yeah, the Gasper, the where the Hideous Hog made the grand slam made seven diamonds on the three-two fit.
[00:01:45] That was the, that was, one of the most famous hands from the original Bridge in the Menagerie book. When I was young, I, I was like 21 years old. I mean, we, we read a lot of Bridge Worlds and of course this was we had the book and we, we talked and joked about the, the Bridge in the Menagerie.
[00:02:06] I, I read both of the, the, the Bridge in the Menagerie and the second book was the Hog and the Fourth Dimension. And I don't remember the exact words. The one I remember from the second one was where the hog put the disposed of one of his cards by putting it in a sandwich and eating it. And then it was it was called the 12-card coup.
[00:02:30] He got to the last trick, and he didn't have a card, which would've been a loser. So, so the lead then passed to the left. Which meant that the defense had to give the dummy the last trick as the dummy had a winner. That was a 12-card coup. But those were so, they were so funny. Those especially the early the early Mollo books.
[00:02:55] But yeah, the Gasper coup just the idea of the, the hog making seven diamonds on the three-two fit.
[00:03:04] John McAllister: And can you explain for those who aren't as familiar with it, what exactly happened in the Gasper coup? Like can you, can you, can you set the stage?
[00:03:12] Olin Hubert: Right because it's only really the last line that I remember the words, but, but the idea was, to make 13 tricks on the three-two fit, he had to be able to cash three club tricks.
[00:03:25] I mean, he had to be able to cash eight tricks ain all, but he had to cash three club tricks with ace queen, fourth in the dummy and four to the king in his hand. So obviously one of the opponents is gonna have a doubleton. So, he decided he, if he led, low to the queen and then cashed the ace and then back, led back a low one, his right hand opponent,
[00:03:47] if they had the trump wouldn't, would think he was gonna ruff, so they would discard. But the problem playing at the Griffins was he knew that if he led a club to the queen, that his left-hand opponent would reach for the trick and give away the location of the king. So he led a club to the queen simultaneously offering his left hand opponent a cigarette, knowing full well he did not smoke.
[00:04:17] Now that's the part, the, the exact words I remember was knowing full well that he did not smoke. So, he cashed his three club tricks, then crossruffed for 13 tricks to make seven diamonds on the three-two fit.
[00:04:30] John McAllister: What were the trumps that he had in diamonds? Do you remember?
[00:04:33] Olin Hubert: Well, he had all the top, he had the top five so he could crossruff high.
[00:04:37] Once he got there, he could crossruff high.
[00:04:41] John McAllister: For the duplicate players out there who haven't played a lot of like kitchen table or rubber bridge, there's something like how, how does it work in rubber bridge? What's the protocol? Whoever's taking the tricks takes 'em for both sides. Is that …
[00:04:57] Olin Hubert: No, you play it, all cards are just played in the middle. This is what non-duplicate players know as bridge, right? No, you just play your, you just play your cards in the middle and whoever wins the trick takes, takes the trick.
[00:05:13] John McAllister: But the thinking was that that person was gonna, his partner when he played the queen, not having the king, they were going to reach for the trick to take it expecting their partner …
[00:05:22] Olin Hubert: Yeah. Right, right. Expecting their partner to win the king. Right. Of course, this was, the Griffin's was not quite a real rubber bridge club, but it was a lot like it. I had, I had that was what my first job in bridge was running a rubber bridge club, owning and running a rubber bridge club.
[00:05:39] And like the Griffins we, many of the players had animal nicknames. Foxy Hall still plays today. The bird, the squirrel, that kind of thing. So that, that much is, is true to life, although not quite true to life.
[00:05:56] John McAllister: Now where, where was this rubber bridge club?
Olin Hubert: Atlanta
John McAllister: And you took it over for somebody, or you started it from scratch?
[00:06:05] Olin Hubert: I bought it from, so I bought it from somebody. Yeah.
[00:06:07] John McAllister: And how old were you when you did that?
[00:06:11] Olin Hubert: Well, let's see, I guess I was 23 maybe.
[00:06:18] John McAllister: And like rubber bridge clubs, I've read on Bridge Winners, I think that rubber bridge clubs used to, there used to be rubber bridge clubs all around the country. And that's like sort of the first, first level of the game that's died out.
[00:06:31] Is that, does that, would you say that's …
[00:06:33] Olin Hubert: Yeah. There used to be quite, there used to be quite a few. Yeah, most of 'em have gone away. Larry Coker had one in St. Louis. He's dead now. Ron von Derporten had one in San Francisco. I played at Bobby Nail’s Club in Houston that was there for many years.
[00:06:48] Very popular club. And then of course they had three or four different in New York the Cavendish Club was, was originally a rubber ridge club and the Mayfair and, but that, yeah, those are pretty gone, pretty much gone away.
John McAllister: Was that a good business?
Olin Hubert: No, it was not, it was, you had to worry about your friends stabbing you in the back and not paying their bills.
[00:07:16] And there was no way to go. There was nowhere to really expand, although we did have a good business. Cause the time I had it was when backgammon was really coming in to vogue. So we had we had quite a few, we had a daily of you know backgammon. So, and how much also, they played a lot of gin rummy at my credit.
[00:07:35] John McAllister: How much would you take from the backgammon or the bridge or whatever? Like, how did that work?
[00:07:42] Olin Hubert: Well, it was, it's straight fees. Not a percentage, but a straight fee. And it was ridiculously small on most, I mean, compared to now, I think it was like three and a half, $4 for cut for a session.
[00:07:53] John McAllister: Did you play in the Rubber Ridge game?
Olin Hubert: Yeah, I played when I was, I played when I was needed to fill in the game.
[00:08:02] John McAllister: For full stakes? Or for like partial?
[00:08:03] Olin Hubert: No, I play it. It, it was not a big, even though, I mean, it was a penny a point, which is nothing today. It was something, but it wasn't, it wasn't high stakes.
[00:08:13] Sometimes it would get up to 2 cents a point, but no, I, in fact, before I, I mean I started playing rubber bridge full time before I bought the club, so I was already, experienced player rubber bridge player.
[00:08:27] John McAllister: And you were playing at the, at the club that you bought?
Olin Hubert: Yeah.
John McAllister: So you live in Atlanta now, are you, is that where you're from?
[00:08:34] Olin Hubert: Yeah, Atlanta. All my life.
[00:08:35] John McAllister: How did you start learning to play bridge?
[00:08:40] Olin Hubert: Well, my parents, mostly my father, taught us, although my parents were not bridge players. He, he had played some, I guess, at the Elks Club, but I mean, they knew how to play. But the then I played one summer at an academic program I was at in Macon, Georgia for the summer.
[00:08:56] And found a partner there and we played, but we were maybe the best of the lot, but we still knew almost nothing about the play of the cards or anything. I mean, I had read the one beginning Goren book that we had at home and about all I knew about the play of the hand was count your winners at notrump and your losers in a suit contract.
[00:09:18] But when I started school at the University of Georgia my brother was already playing a lot. And so, I got in we had a a rubber bridge game, a daily rubber bridge game in the snack bar there at the student center that would, and we had, probably a dozen players who really became good players, which is very rare for a college bridge at all.
[00:09:38] It sort of grows up that way in pockets like well, I'm sure it's true all over the country. The, the Carolina … Duke and the North Carolina area had, had a number of players who were, are still very fine players today that, but people all sort of learned together. But yeah, we would, our game would start maybe one in the afternoon and go till seven at night or so, and you could tell the people who weren't serious about their bridge, cuz they would cut out and go to class.
[00:10:10] But I was not in that group.
[00:10:13] John McAllister: Did you end up graduating from Georgia?
[00:10:15] Olin Hubert: Well, yeah, 15 years later.
[00:10:20] John McAllister: Did y'all play other schools, like in intercollegiate type stuff back then?
[00:10:24] Olin Hubert: I played in, I played yes. Played twice in the national intercollegiate finals with some players who are still well-known players today.
[00:10:34] I mean, not, not, against them. Yeah. Mark Feldman was in there one year. Jeff, I played against Jeff Hand two years. He and his partner from the University of Maryland, Paul Deport, who became a good player, but he's been living in Amsterdam for many years. But he's, he's one of the funniest people I've ever known.
[00:10:55] And Les Bart was there one year that I, when I was.
[00:10:59] John McAllister: What is, what makes him so funny? This fellow from lives in the Amsterdam.
[00:11:04] Olin Hubert: Well, he's the author of Deport’s Law. Which is the more stoned you are, the more stoned your opponents will play.
[00:11:16] John McAllister: Is that, have you experienced that to be true?
[00:11:19] Olin Hubert: Oh, quite a … yes.
[00:11:20] I've verified that on many occasions.
[00:11:27] John McAllister: I remember when you, when you hung your, you hung up the spikes as being a director. I remember reading about it, I guess it was maybe in an NABC bulletin, but it said you wanted to play more. Is that, is my memory serving me there?
[00:11:43] Olin Hubert: Yeah, I guess so. But let me correct one thing. Tournament director, not, I wasn't just a director.
[00:11:48] John McAllister: Okay.
Olin Hubert: The tournament directors don't like to be referred to simply as director. There's a big difference between a director and a tournament director.
[00:11:57] John McAllister: See that's the kind of stuff that I, that I want to know about. What is a tournament director then?
[00:12:01] Olin Hubert: Well, I mean, it's, I mean, anybody who gets certified can direct a club game.
[00:12:09] But you have to show that you can, certain degree of competence in a lot of things to be a tournament director. When I first started, just the first few years, cuz I never had to do it much, but the directors kept score with pencil and paper on a big, long recap sheet about three feet wide.
[00:12:29] And you had to, as the scores came in from the caddies, every round, you had to post them. And then when the last round came in, you had to start matchpointing the boards. When you got all the boards matchpointed, then you added the scores across to see what the player's scores were. And then you had to get in balance.
[00:12:49] Then you had to do that in 15 or 20 minutes. So that was, if you could do a sheet, you could be a tournament director in those days. Now, so I was there when that first started the computer scoring. Now that's, that was different than it is now. And there was no bridgemates again, the caddies still brought the tickets in every round.
[00:13:09] But we entered, we entered the scores into ACBLscore, although it wasn't ACBLscore to begin with, but a program. But then, so that's what you had to be able to do, and, but there's a lot of other things involved in tournament directing. You know it's a lot harder to sell a session at a regional or national tournament than it is to just sell a club game because, you have, you might have five or six different events that you're selling, not at the same place, but whoever's in charge of the tournament has to, allot the space and see that everybody has the right entries and have a backup plan, with, if you have more or fewer tables than you're expecting, you have to, sometimes you even have to change the setup around to, to accommodate all that.
[00:13:57] So there's a lot involved in, in tournament directing. In addition, you gotta have people making rulings all day too.
[00:14:05] John McAllister: Like there was a situation, you and I were both playing in the regional at Hilton Head recently and there was a situation, I was playing in the two-session pair game. And to your point, I really appreciated the, like it, I think tournament directors can be unsung in some ways.
[00:14:24] I mean, I'm sure you can. I'm sure you can elaborate on that, but there was a situation when we were starting the pair game where I don't really know what was going on, but there was a lot of stuff happening and they were kind of, I think maybe getting another pair or something. Not exactly sure what was going on, but it seemed a lot more complicated than something that I would be like, I just appreciated that, that they had the ability to do that.
[00:14:51] Olin Hubert: Yeah, in a timely fashion, those last minute changes you, like you have to add somebody to one bracket and, and then move teams down to other brackets. You, it takes a bit of a little concentration. It's not that hard, but with everything going crazy around you, you have to be able to watch what you're doing.
[00:15:13] John McAllister: They were changing the table numbers and then moving tables and then creating like the sections because it wasn't necessarily set up where it was set up.
[00:15:23] Olin Hubert: I don't know exactly what was going on there.
[00:15:25] John McAllister: How did you become a tournament director for the ACBL?
[00:15:29] Olin Hubert: Well, after I closed my rubber bridge club, I was playing professionally, but that's not really, I wasn't making any money to speak of.
[00:15:38] There just weren't nearly as many as sponsors as there are today. And that's not really what I wanted anyway. I didn't mind playing with a student, but the business aspect of it, trying to drum up clients and such did not appeal to me. So, I started, I started the way you started those days, you did a backup sheet, it's called, in other words I posted a sheet that one of the other directors at the tournament were posting and see, to see how it came out.
[00:16:08] So you had to do that for a while, unpaid. And then I became a trainee, I guess, and just moved. It, it took quite a while. I mean I had very few assignments maybe for in the first 10 years or so, although I was still playing, I was still playing professionally at the same time, making a little that way, et cetera.
[00:16:29] So mainly I did it to making a living. But I always preferred playing. I'd always rather play than work. Anytime.
[00:16:39] John McAllister: What year are we talking about when we're still doing these by hand, these calculations by hand.
[00:16:45] Olin Hubert: Oh, late seventies. End of the eighties, ’82 or three, I guess.
[00:16:50] John McAllister: And what happened? What happened when you, when it wasn't in balance? Like, what was, was that a nightmare?
[00:16:57] Olin Hubert: Well, yeah, you had to find it or else somebody had to come and find it for you, you know? But you had, you had to be able to do it or you weren't gonna be working there.
[00:17:07] John McAllister: Do you miss that aspect of it?
[00:17:10] Olin Hubert: Oh, no. I mean, well kind of, there's, looking back on it, yes. At the time, no, I wouldn't have … it was stressful of course. Directing as stressful enough as it is.
[00:17:23] John McAllister: What was the tournament scene like back then?
[00:17:27] Olin Hubert: Well, for one thing the largest day of the tournament was always Saturday.
[00:17:31] I'm talking a regional. And the regionals weren't even seven days long at the first, but then they became seven days long. But the largest day would be Saturday, and the second largest day would be Sunday. And now they're the two smallest days of the tournament. The open pairs on Saturday would usually be a qualifying session in the afternoon, and then the finals at night.
[00:17:53] And then there was a consolation event for the people who did not qualify. And then played on a 25 top in the finals. And they, they would qualify two sections and score across two sections, qualify on a 25 top, which is nothing today with computers. But that was, that was a hard work to do a, a sheet on a 25 top.
[00:18:14] It was usually two directors would do it together. I never did work on a 25 top myself, cuz I didn't, I didn't work that many years and, or, that many tournaments where you had, where we were doing manual scoring. But and of course then they had midnight games for a while. Those well they still have a few, but those were kind of basically drunk games, and that was not a lot of fun to work for most, most directors.
[00:18:39] John McAllister: What was the attendance like in tournaments? Back in those days? I mean like in terms like we were in Hilton Head. I was there the year before. I don't remember if you were there or not, but there was a lot, it felt like there was a lot more people, it seemed like there was a fair amount more people at the tournament this year than last year, for example.
[00:18:54] Olin Hubert: I think so. I, but still, it's only about half of the size it was before Covid. They weren't that big. I mean, when I started district seven, where I live is Georgia Carolinas and Eastern Tennessee. That and district six, which was Washington, DC and Virginia and Maryland, they, they went together.
[00:19:20] They had gone together and formed the Mid-Atlantic Conference, and they really ran the most successful regionals in the country. And they, they just kept getting better and better and bigger and bigger. Gatlinburg being an example I'm sure, I mean, I played in it for quite a few years before I ever directed there, and before they even had the big convention center where they have it now.
[00:19:43] But even after I started playing, I remember it was 3,600 tables one year. Which I'm sure was the largest in the country that year. The next year it was up 25% to 4500, which is, that's for, a 25% increase in a, a tournament is, is huge. But for a 3600-table tournament to, to go up in 25% in one year, it was ridiculous.
[00:20:08] And it just kept going up from there to where it hit about 10,000 tables. Before it started receding a little. But it got to be for a few years Las Vegas and Gatlinburg would go back and forth being the largest regional tournament of the country. That's probably when they were about at the 5,000 level.
[00:20:27] And then Gatlinburg took off from there. But I always thought it was odd that there's probably no two cities that have tournaments that are less alike than Las Vegas and Gatlinburg, but they had the, they had the two biggest. But, but then since then Gatlinburg has been the biggest in the country every year, and almost always, at least twice as big as the second largest.
[00:20:49] But Hilton Head was, was a real big one. Before the covid it, it was up to 4,000 tables, which is gigantic. It that would normally, often be the second largest in the country.
[00:21:00] John McAllister: So, were they using more hotel space then back in those days? Because it seemed like the rooms that we were using were pretty full at this last tournament.
[00:21:11] Olin Hubert: Yeah, well, I think that's one reason why Gatlinburg got so big was all the cheap hotels. Because you could go up to Pigeon Forge and get a room actually for 15 or $20 you could get a, a hotel room and in those days, you could drive from Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg in about five minutes. Now it takes a half an hour at least, I'm sure.
[00:21:31] But there wasn't the amount of traffic there is now. But there's you might, I'm sure there's places in Gatlinburg to stay, that you could always find. I, I don't think they take up all the hotel rooms. Maybe the ones right near the tournament, but there's a lot of little hotels there in Gatlinburg.
[00:21:49] I was gonna say, when I was a player, when I was a player, we would several times we rent a, would rent a chalet up on the mountain and have, 10 or 12 people stay together and just go back and forth. Cause I think there was free parking back then, but even if there wasn't it was, a full of carload, it wouldn't be a big deal.
[00:22:09] But oh, we had some great times that way. That was a great way to go to a tournament.
[00:22:16] John McAllister: So, you retired from directing in 2014. What are you, how much do you play now?
[00:22:23] Olin Hubert: Well, I've been playing at all the nationals. I can't afford not to play in the nationals because as a retired 20-year tournament director, I, my entry fees are all free.
[00:22:33] And, and I prefer to play in the national events when I, when I, I'm able. So, you, you can imagine how much that is. Those entry fees have really gotten up there. So I play in the three nationals and pretty much the district seven regionals. I used to play in the Vegas every year, but kind of gotten outta that habit.
[00:22:53] I did play in Daytona Beach the last couple of times they had tournaments, including this year where they, they had to cancel the tournament after two days because of the hurricane. But I went down there to play with my good friend Spike Lay, who just passed away about two weeks ago.
[00:23:13] But so that was the last time I saw him. I went down there to stay with, I would stay at his place, and we did play the first two days of the Daytona Beach Regional. And, but I don't travel, but, so that's, maybe I play maybe a half a dozen regionals a year. And then I play at the club couple of times a week.
[00:23:33] And then I'm I've got some private matches on that I play online a couple of nights a week.
[00:23:40] John McAllister: Do you enjoy bridge more now that you're not a tournament director?
[00:23:45] Olin Hubert: Well, yeah. I mean, you can't, you can't play seriously, I mean, I didn't play in a single national event for 25 years, I guess. I mean, and I would play at most one regional.
[00:23:56] That was the, I would try to go to the Vegas regional cause I usually wasn't working that week. So, you can't very be very serious. I try not to be overly serious, but I mean, I consider myself a serious player. But you can't do that and be a tournament director. Even Jenni Carmichael, my good, my good buddy Jenni Carmichael, who worked with me quite a bit before they left Atlanta. She's, she's still a serious player, but she doesn't, she doesn't get to play many tournaments, but she does have her own national championship.
[00:24:28] John McAllister: How does your skill kind of, how do you keep your skill there when you're not playing for, but you're working in the game?
[00:24:34] Olin Hubert: Well, I don't know. Cause see, I, I would still play local duplicates. So, it's not the skill, but it's the, it's more the concentration that after not playing really competitively for 25 years I sometimes fail to focus. I still know how to make all the plays and and of course I've, since I started back, I've made a lot of changes in bidding.
[00:25:00] I just basically play what my partners play. But I mean, they're, that's a lot more than we played, before I became a director. A lot of bidding advances since I quit playing.
[00:25:16] John McAllister: Let's talk about the winning the GNTs. You won the, the Grand National teams open flight last summer to get your Grand Life Master.
[00:25:26] I think basically you won it on the last board, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:25:32] Olin Hubert: Yes. It was even going to the last board. Then I, when the bidding went a diamond pass, a notrump all pass, I made the comment, not with a bang, but a whimper, cause it was just a one no little one notrump contract. Then it turned out that was the, the decider in the whole match.
[00:25:53] John McAllister: What was the score? So, were you playing? You were playing then? And what was the score going into the last quarter?
[00:26:02] Olin Hubert: I was playing, yeah. I don't know the IMP score. It was tied. Oh, going into the last quarter, we were down 22 IMPs.
[00:26:09] John McAllister: And so, you felt like you had a chance based on the, the results at your table?
[00:26:15] Olin Hubert: I didn't, no. I thought we were unlikely to have won. Cause we weren't, we didn't have a perfect set. We had a couple of good boards which turned out to be, pretty big swings. But I was not feeling terribly optimistic. I mean, I didn't feel like, we couldn't win, but I mean, I just thought we were the underdog.
[00:26:31] John McAllister: So, you managed to set one notrump, right? By one trick? So, I actually watched the play on video at the other table, which is available on YouTube. We'll put that in the show notes.
[00:26:49] Olin Hubert: I don't know if it's accurate. I mean, I guess it's accurate on YouTube, but they had some problem on vugraph at the other table, and you couldn't, I, I haven't seen it where you could actually tell the plays because there was some, some mistaken entry there.
[00:27:09] And it's hard to tell exactly how the play of the last few tricks went.
[00:27:14] John McAllister: Well, it's possible that our listeners are gonna hate me for this because I know, I know the layout, but what was the defense? What, were you on lead or were you, was your partner on lead?
[00:27:28] Olin Hubert: No, my partner was on lead. The key was play of trick one.
[00:27:32] He led a heart from the jack-nine-eight-deuce or something. Turns out the nine would've been the killing lead, but that's not a normal lead. But he led low. Gary Cohler was the declarer, he was looking at the king-10-small in the dummy, and three to the seven in his hand.
[00:27:53] I had the ace-queen-small, but I didn't, my small one could not beat the seven. Now he made the technically correct play, I believe, putting in the 10. It turns out since, since my partner had led away from the nine and the eight, if he had ducked around to his seven, he would've, that would've forced my queen.
[00:28:13] He would've made the hand. But when he put in the 10, I won the queen and shifted to a spade into the dummy’s ace-jack doubleton, but partner had the king-queen. And so, so he was able, when they set, set up their trick, he was able to now come through the heart again. And even though declarer ducked and won the third heart, I was still able to get to partner with the spade for the setting trick.
[00:28:40] John McAllister: And that's the name of this podcast.
[00:28:43] Olin Hubert: There you go.
[00:28:45] John McAllister: So as you said at the time, out with the whimper, what was it like coming out of the room, finding out that you won?
[00:28:57] Olin Hubert: Well, when I got up from the table, the vugraph operator, Marie France, told us that well, you were tied going to the last board, but you won it on the last board.
[00:29:06] So, but then it was, so that's how I found out. But then we got out of the room and everybody, and of course I already knew, and that was, that was a lot of fun. What can I say.
[00:29:15] John McAllister: How many masterpoints did you have? So, you, you went from being a Platinum to a Grand Life Master? How many masterpoints did you have when you won?
[00:29:26] Olin Hubert: 14,000 and something?
[00:29:27] I don't know. I'm still, I'm not over 15,000 yet, but I don't have too far to go. But I had already had 14,000 and something because I had, I think I had about 8,000 points when I started direct, as a full-time tournament director, and probably about 9,000 when I retired, but then that was almost nine years ago now.
[00:29:50] So one of course, those 8,000, it was a lot harder win those 8,000 than, than it is to win 8,000 now. I mean, they just weren't there.
[00:29:59] John McAllister: And, and you were playing with Wayne Stewart on that team.
[00:30:03] Olin Hubert: Right. By the way I got there, I, my Wayne's team, Wayne was playing with the same team, but with John Rice from North Carolina.
[00:30:14] And they actually beat my team in the district finals, but then John had to drop out. And Wayne, I had, I had been playing some with Wayne. We had done very well at Regionals. So, he asked me to join the team. So, so I, I did, and we won.
[00:30:31] John McAllister: And they, so they were six handed when they played in the qualifying? So, were you playing against Meckstroth then in the final?
[00:30:45] Olin Hubert: In the final set, yeah. Meckstroth in the, yeah. Yeah. Meckstroth was the dummy on the final hand in one notrump.
[00:30:52] John McAllister: Did he offer any commentary as the play was taking place?
Olin Hubert: No.
[00:31:00] John McAllister: That's pretty sweet to beat Meckstroth for your first national title.
[00:31:08] Olin Hubert: Oh, no kidding. I mean, I've, I've beat him, I've had my share of wins at regionals against him, but of course anybody's share is very small. So, I beat him a few times in a regional, but a chance has to win. And plus, 60 board matches every day. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun.
[00:31:24] John McAllister: We have Meckstroth on our poster for Double Dummy.
[00:31:29] I made it, I don't know if you know, I made a documentary movie about the American Junior team playing the …
[00:31:34] Olin Hubert: Yes. I haven't seen it yet,
[00:31:36] John McAllister: I will send you a link where you can watch it. It's on pbs but it's, it's available on pbs.org.
[00:31:41] Olin Hubert: Yeah, I looked it, I looked for it actually. Yeah, it wasn't on, on it wasn't on TV here, anywhere that I could find in.
[00:31:48] John McAllister: We're hoping it will be on it'll be broadcast. I'm not sure if we've got an agreement with Atlanta, but we've got a company that basically their job is to go out to the different stations across the country and, get them to play it. And we've had, we've had some success with that. I think about 40% of stations have carried it so far, so that's good.
[00:32:10] And it is freely available on pbs.org. So, I'll send you that link. And now I forget why I was telling you that.
[00:32:19] Olin Hubert: Shoot.
[00:32:21] John McAllister: Yeah. Can't remember.
[00:32:22] Olin Hubert: No, I hear it's really good. I I would enjoy watching it.
[00:32:27] John McAllister: Why was I telling you that? So, back to directing. How do you get assigned as a tournament director?
[00:32:34] How do you get assigned? How's it work, like with tournaments? I think Kevin Perkins was the director in charge of Hilton Head each of the last two years. Like do you did basically, does the tournament, once you establish in a relationship with the tournament, then they're kind of keen to invite you and is it the, the regional organizers that are doing that? Or how's it work?
[00:32:55] Olin Hubert: Well, assuming it's done the same way now as when I was working. No, the, the assignments are made out of Memphis or out of Horn Lake. There's a the, the tournament can request you, but that doesn't necessarily mean they request a DIC usually it's the, he got I mean, there's so many changes now, but, but when I was working, it would usually be the same director, DIC is director in charge.
[00:33:20] Every year. And then once they have assigned a DIC, he makes requests from the league of which directors he would like and, and which sessions. And they, of course, sometimes there's a conflict between two different tournaments. So that has to be straightened out in Memphis, but they assign the league then assigns the tournaments the, the directors to the tournaments.
[00:33:48] John McAllister: So if you're living in Atlanta, are you mostly like in the southeast doing tournaments or are they flying you all across the country doing tournaments?
[00:33:55] Olin Hubert: Yeah. Yeah. Mostly, mostly in the Southeast. Sometimes they, well, probably more so now than, than when I was working, they would you might be working a long ways from home.
[00:34:05] But, but usually yes, they try to keep a lid on the transportation expenses. That, that was the, the main thing. So that's why, and I was, I would not be working at the week of the Las Vegas regional, which was always in June in those days. And I didn't ever have a place. So that's how I was able to go play in that, that one regional almost all years.
[00:34:28] And also having people from the same area. I mean, they get to know each other and work together all the time. Right. And so, there's like a, a half a dozen other directors that I would be working with at almost any mid-Atlantic tournament when I was there. And so, so it you get to be real good friends and of course of the working relationship, there's not just one way to, to do tournaments, you, it's up to kind of up to the directors.
[00:34:54] Know the way the DIC likes them done and to do it that way. But, but, but working together with the same people all the time, it really helps your performance.
[00:35:03] John McAllister: Got it. There was a funny story. I was reading some of your Bridge Winners comments and you said one time you got called to the table and the dummy, the person who was supposed to be the dummy on the hand had …
[00:35:19] Olin Hubert: Yeah, that's, that's probably my funniest, probably my funniest ruling story.
[00:35:23] The, the putative dummy had made the opening lead out of turn, and then the next player put their hand down as the dummy and that player's partner said, what's my contract? I've never bid!
[00:35:44] So that one usually gets a laugh, but that's honest, honest truth.
John McAllister: How did you adjudicate that?
Olin Hubert: Well, I think we just, I think we just ruled it as an unplayable hand.
[00:35:58] John McAllister: Okay, so you get like an average minus for the like, I guess both.
[00:36:15] Olin Hubert: Something like that.
[00:36:21] John McAllister: I didn't realize that that was even a pos, I mean it makes sense. It's an unplayable hand, but I didn't realize that was a possibility.
[00:36:30] Olin Hubert: Well, that's, you could, I suppose you could rule that one hand was 13 penalty cards, but that's not the way that we were told to do it in those days.
[00:36:39] John McAllister: 13 penalty cards.
[00:36:41] Wow. Wow. So, would you get quizzed on the rules or like by the league? Was they, how did you keep up to date with …
[00:36:53] Olin Hubert: Well, there, well we had a forum, an online forum where people we would discuss different types of rulings and that kind of, and other, other things having to do with directing.
[00:37:04] But and also wasn't so much rulings, but they, we had a new chief tournament director who arranged to have three groups of, full-time directors each brought to Memphis, where it was, the league was in those days. And we had a, they had had you guess you could call continuing education, but it was alive.
[00:37:27] It was self-help people and, things like that seminars they call 'em. But most of the directors kind of mocked at those people. But we had some very good discussions of the tournaments of the, the directors themselves. So, there was, a lot of value and, and we got to know some better people that we don't, didn't get a chance to work with all the time.
[00:37:48] But I thought that was a real good idea.
John McAllister: The continuing education?
Olin Hubert: Well, yeah. I mean to, well, just to have like I said, they had those three groups. They, I don't think they ever went forward with it after that, but yeah, that I think it was just three or four days that we went to, to Memphis for.
[00:38:09] John McAllister: So how are you enjoying playing more? You retired to play more. How are you enjoying that?
[00:38:15] Olin Hubert: Well, I mean, I retired cuz I didn't wanna work anymore. I mean, of course that's what I was gonna do when I retired. Oh, I, I, I enjoy playing. I've got, one of my Emory Whitaker, who's a good friend of mine and one of my regular partners, but he, he was working on his PhD in math at Georgia when I was an undergraduate.
[00:38:36] We, we would play in a number of sectionals together. Cause you can go a lot of places from Athens, Georgia, besides in Georgia, Augusta Macon and Atlanta. But you can go, you've got Greenville and Spartanburg and Columbia and they had tournaments. So, we've played quite a few sectionals and then we remained good friends over the years, but we didn't, didn't play again for probably 30 years.
[00:39:02] Then he was, when I retired, he was the first one to ask me to play, I believe, at least in the nationals. We played in the nationals Fast Pairs, we actually were leading the event after one session and second after two, we ended up sixth. That was the year the the Grossacks just ran away with it.
[00:39:22] Had a huge second day of a tournament and won, but we ended up sixth, which I didn't think was too bad for my first nationals in 30 years. Or 25 years maybe.
[00:39:32] John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah. I was happy when the Grossacks won that, they're sort of the, they're the unexpected gift of Double Dummy. I, I went there to that tournament, really focused on Adam Kaplan, who, I mean, has had a, has had an excellent career, but I mean, the Grossacks have really taken off since 2012 when we, when we filmed them for that.
[00:39:54] Olin Hubert: Yep, for sure. Zach was the player of the year this year.
[00:39:59] John McAllister: I know. I've been, I've been in a lot of emails that I've been addressing to fellow bridge stakeholders. That has been one of my primary points. What's your favorite thing about bridge?
[00:40:15] Olin Hubert: Well, I mean, I don't know exactly how to answer that. I mean I think I've had almost as a detective story, you're, not only do you have to draw inferences, but you have to look for clues, look for to clues about the, the distribution and the, and the high cards from, from both the bidding and the play.
[00:40:34] I actually enjoy defense. Most people say that's their least favorite aspect of it. I, I, I really enjoy defense as much as anything. But yeah, as a declarer, I, I really do, like I say, trying to find out what's going on and then interpreting what's going on and having the techniques to, to deal with it.
[00:40:53] The, seeing the opening lead. When you're playing a hand in that and, and sometimes you have to think about what's gotta happen at trick 11 or 12 and you have to start planning it right then. One, that's one of my favorite hands. It was just like that. And from rubber bridge too, when I was still a very young player.
[00:41:16] You don't want a whole hand, do you?
[00:41:18] John McAllister: Try me.
[00:41:22] Olin Hubert: Okay. Well, my hand, I mean, it's really a fairly simple play, but it's very hard to see. My hand was king-third, ace-queen-jack-fifth, three small and king-doubleton. And I opened a heart and they bid two clubs on my left. Everybody was vulnerable, partner bid three hearts, which in those days still showed a good hand.
[00:41:50] So I bid four hearts. And the dummy, they led the ace of diamonds. The dummy had the ace, queen jack, fourth of diamonds [spades] opposite my king-third; 10-9-fourth of hearts opposite my ace-queen-jack-fifth, king-third of diamonds opposite my three little. And the jack doubleton of clubs opposite my king-doubleton, the two club overcaller was on my left.
[00:42:16] So ace of diamonds and right-hand opponent played the queen. It continued a diamond. I won the king in the dummy. I took a heart finesse losing to the king, and he got out with a spade, obviously having no more diamonds. So, I had read the book, it was then called Master Play by Terence Reese.
[00:42:39] It's now been repackaged with other books. I don't know what the title is now, but there was a chapter called the Vice, the Winkle and the Stepping Stone. Three one loser-type squeezes. And I had read it, but I certainly had not mastered it and I couldn't have told you what a vice was. It turns out, but the reason I thought this was so instructive is that if you if you plan the play ahead, if you play it out mentally, there's really only four things you can do after you draw trumps.
[00:43:13] You can run your hearts first and pitch a diamond from the dummy and then run the spades, which case you end up with jack-doubleton of clubs in the dummy and right hand opponent can throw their diamond away. You by the way, you can't make the hand if the ace-queen of clubs are both offside. You have to hope that there's a way to play for the queen on your right.
[00:43:36] If not, then I would've just led a club to the king, just hoping against hope that the ace is onside. But if you play the, if you play your hearts first and throw a club from dummy, now you end up. Now when you play the hearts, the spades, you end up with a stiff diamond and a stiff jack of clubs in the dummy and right hand opponent can hold onto his diamond and just blank his queen of clubs.
[00:43:59] If after drawing trumps, you play spades first and throw a diamond from your hand, now when you run your heart, you're in your hand with king doubleton of clubs and no diamond threat. A right-hand opponent can just throw his diamond away and hold onto queen-doubleton of clubs you have to lead away from the king.
[00:44:16] But, and this was last one I came to, seems like the least intuitive. If you run the spades first and blank your king of clubs. Now when you run the hearts, you can throw a diamond from dummy. So now you're in your hand with a diamond and the stiff king of clubs and the dummy is down to jack and one club.
[00:44:40] And right hand opponent has to either throw his diamond away or blank his queen of clubs. And now I smothered it with my stiff king. So like I say, it's really a very simple play, but seeing it is the hard part. But it was unusual I thought, in that I wasn't looking for a certain end position cuz I didn't know, if I had been more experienced, if I had really mastered the vice, I would've known what to look for.
[00:45:08] But I didn't know what I was look, usually you're, you're looking to get to a certain end position and try to play it that way. This one, I just, like I said, there was only really four, four lines of play. And when I got to that last one, I saw, hey, that would work. Of course, I was sure I was gonna lay down the king of clubs and LHO was gonna just take the last two trips with the ace-queen.
[00:45:31] But nope, RHO actually had the queen of clubs. So that was that's one of my most fun hands.
John McAllister: When was that?
Olin Hubert: In the, it was before 1975. I was playing rubber bridge at the club.
[00:45:49] John McAllister: That's a good one. What, what is the tech? It's called a Vice Squeeze?
Olin Hubert: A Vice, yeah.
[00:45:56] John McAllister: I think that's …Meckstroth, when he first played with Rodwell, I think the story is that that Rodwell did a vice squeeze.
[00:46:03] Olin Hubert: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. The chapters, the vi, he calls it the, the vice cause that squeeze weather, the Winkle squeeze block suit, that's where you have to squeeze the opponents down into blocking a suit and then give 'em a trick.
[00:46:17] And then the steppingstone, I forget his that's maybe a squeeze overtake, I'm not sure. I was gonna say the vice and and the steppingstone are not that complicated. The Winkle is really, really tough one. And I'm sure I couldn't do one today without, really thinking a long, long time.
[00:46:40] John McAllister: That's a good one. That's a good hand story. I hope that'll work for our listeners. Cause I wanna keep that in there. I've heard before that that hands can be tough, but I think you did a good job of talking through it.
[00:46:56] Olin Hubert: Yeah. If they would write the hand and then look at as I go through it, it can, it's easy to see.
[00:47:05] John McAllister: Yeah, definitely. So you're playing in New Orleans from the sound of it. What's your schedule there?
[00:47:14] Olin Hubert: I'm playing with Kevin Collins in the Platinum Pairs. He's one of my regular partners from here in Atlanta, and he's, he's a very good player. He's Patty Tucker's husband. Most of the people know who Patty Tucker is.
[00:47:27] But yeah, I always try to play in the, well, so far I've been able to find somebody to play in the Platinum. A lot of people don't, they'd rather play in the, the other, the Silver Ribbon or whatever it is. But I'm not I wanna play in the top one if I can. Cause I, that I was talking about Spike the last time we played we did make it to the third day of the, of the Platinum.
[00:47:50] That's, an achievement in itself. So, then I think I think I'm also, I'm playing with Kevin and Patty, I believe and another pair in the Vanderbilt. Then I'm playing with Hugh Brown from South Carolina in the, what is it? Pair game, whatever the pair game is, and then the, and then we're playing with Kevin and Patty and another pair, I believe in the in the Swiss at the end.
[00:48:16] John McAllister: And you and Kevin came second in the Life Master Pairs?
[00:48:19] Olin Hubert: Nail Life Master Open Pairs. Not the, it is the four session, not the Life Master Pairs, but the, the Bobby Nail. Yeah. We were second by about two and a half matchpoints. And then Kevin and Patty won the North American Pairs one year.
[00:48:39] John McAllister: Matchpoints for me are when you say that, like, when you say that it does, I mean, I know what it means, but I feel like I've grown up playing on bridgemates and so it's always been like a percentage.
[00:48:55] Olin Hubert: I've never been, no one knows anything but percents anymore. See, when I played. As long as you had a good enough big enough field, 156 was average.
[00:49:05] That's on a 12 top. I mean, even in a club game, if you had a good size club game, 13 tables or more, so 156 was average and a 200 game. Well, that was the mark of a real, you'd had a really good game if you had a 200 or more game. And we, but we knew, there weren't, there weren't that many different averages.
[00:49:26] If you played on a, an eight top it would be 108 average, or like I was talking about in the tournaments 25 top across two sections. That's a 325 average. But yeah, we all, we've been thinking percentages so much those days. I mean, if you had a really big game, you would figure out if you had a 70% gamer or whatever.
[00:49:49] John McAllister: That’s amazing. That that was it. It, yeah. That's amazing that that was that.
[00:49:53] Olin Hubert: Way, well, they couldn't score across five or six sections like they can now. So I mean, now nobody would know what the, the, the raw matchpoint score meant. Now, if you're playing on a 2189 average.
[00:50:10] John McAllister: So wait, you're saying, so it's just percentages in the nationals, for example, before they had computers. When you had like the life, the life, the three-day life master pairs, how would they, would you only then your scores would only count for like two sections? Is that how it worked?
[00:50:27] Olin Hubert: Yeah, I believe they would just matchpoint them across two sections.
[00:50:29] I don't know if they ever did any more than that. I didn't. I really wasn't working at national events. Well, I did work in one board a match event. That's, that's not too hard. It's either a one top, it's a one top, a one half or a zero. So, but so I never worked on one of those big tops at the nationals.
[00:50:50] I think, I think 25 was the, the main, the main thing.
[00:50:56] John McAllister: But you became a national tournament director eventually.
[00:50:57] Olin Hubert: Well, associate national is not actually a full national tournament director, but associate nationals means you can run a regional tournament. So I, I was director in charge of quite a few regional tournaments and then my job at the nationals, I think both of these jobs came from being.
[00:51:22] Probably the best player among the, the tournament directors at that time. I started out, I did national appeals every, every time for probably 10 years. Where you have to look at the appeals, and present 'em to the committees and, even make changes in the ruling if so need be.
[00:51:39] And then the last five or six years I was in charge of the Vanderbilt and the Spingold was my job. So that's interesting. Cause I mean, most of the term of directors don't really care about who those foreign players are, but I got to know. I mean, I don't know that I, not bosom buddies, but I got to know all the, the top foreign players from directing those events.
[00:52:04] So I thought I found it very interesting. I have a name for working the Vanderbilt or the Spingold. The directors refer to it as watching the paint dry, because you sit there for hours and hours, you don't take any director calls, but then you, you still have to be there forever.
[00:52:27] And of course once you do take a director call, you're liable to end up in a committee. But very little fast action in those events.
[00:52:36] John McAllister: Is it because people are more experienced or because it's teams?
[00:52:41] Olin Hubert: Yeah, there's not, not a whole lot of revokes or things, and the two main things are unauthorized information or misinformation.
[00:52:52] But still they, they, A, they know their, they certainly don't all know their agreements, but they know 'em better than just random players. And, and they know what their obligations are as far as explaining. They know better than, better than the average player anyway.
[00:53:12] John McAllister: Okay. I have a question for you. Your agreement with your partner is that you lead second and fourth against notrump, so kind of an attitude lead. So second, you would not have you would tend not to have an honor, and you would not have an honor in a suit, most likely, so, we're defending against three no, and my partner makes the opening lead of, I think it was the three of hearts and dummy’s hearts are king-queen-nine-fourth and declarer has ace-third and I have jack-10-doubleton.
[00:53:49] Olin Hubert: You’re behind the dummy?
[00:53:52] John McAllister: Yeah, I'm behind the dummy. I think he has king-queen-nine- eight. So he plays the eight and I play the 10. And he says, what is your agreement? Well, I kind of, what, here's what happened. I was worried that he was gonna play another heart and she was gonna play low and it was gonna be a legitimate second and fourth lead.
[00:54:25] Olin Hubert: Well, now you said your partner led the three. Well did you, did you lead second best from three small?
[00:54:35] John McAllister: Yeah. I think I'm not …
[00:54:37] Olin Hubert: Because most people who play that play well, I don't know, high. I dunno. Cause I don't, I don't usually play that. But I would, I would just tell 'em what your agreement is.
[00:54:45] I'd say we lead low from an honor and second and second highest from a weak suit.
[00:54:50] John McAllister: So you think from three legitimate small, you just lead high.
[00:54:55] Olin Hubert: Well, I don't know. Cause I, I don't know what people's agreements are. That's sort of what I would put.
[00:55:02] John McAllister: Yeah. Well anyway, now he finessed into me.
[00:55:10] Olin Hubert: So what did you tell, what was your, what was your explanation?
[00:55:13] John McAllister: Well, I didn't think about the fact that her highest card could be, wasn't really that high and that maybe she could've just led that card. So I said our agreement is second, fourth.
Olin Hubert: Okay. Well I think that's your agreement.
John McAllister: But I kind of volunteered it cuz I was worried that she was gonna play low and now he was gonna, I didn't want …
[00:55:35] Olin Hubert: Well that's, yeah, that's your mistake in volunteering it. I mean, not because you don't want declared to know, but because your volunteered explanation might fool declarer more than if you didn't say anything. Declarer is free to ask what it is.
[00:55:54] And then you can say second and fourth.
[00:55:56] John McAllister: Yeah, I think you're right. I agree with you.
[00:56:00] Olin Hubert: Sort of like if partner led an ace and you were asked your agreement you would say, we play ace from ace-king. But if you're looking at the king and declarer doesn't say anything, and you say, we play ace from ace-king, now, that would be looked at askance.
[00:56:14] You know? If they ask that would that would still be the correct explanation to ace from ace-king even though you know that your partner doesn't have the ace-king.
[00:56:24] John McAllister: Yeah. I'm gonna have to apologize to this fella.
[00:56:30] He was nice about it, but I didn't feel like it was completely settled. I talked to him about it after, but it didn't like, as evidenced by the fact that I'm bringing it up here and having the feelings that I'm having about it here. It did not feel, not feel settled.
[00:56:49] Can you gimme a story, like a good story from a ruling, maybe a difficult situation?
[00:56:54] Olin Hubert: Well, I mean, I mean, I can tell you the one that I hate, the worst that the National Appeals Committee did, but I thought it was, that they completely messed it up. But of course the people on the winning team, but it, it decided, no, it was from the Reisinger decided the Risinger.
[00:57:19] Well, I'll try to do it without mentioning the opponent's names. It was Norberto Bocchi from Italy was the declarer. He was in three notrump, and the lead was a small heart and he had stiff king in the dummy and the queen doubleton in his hand. He played the king and it won. Now, well, he, the opponents got in and the left-hand opponent from original jack-fourth decided they would clear things up for his partner by, if he would now lead the jack, and then his partner, would go king.
[00:58:05] I mean, his partner would win the ace. And now it would be clear that they were good. But well, he had asked quite a few questions. It was a fairly simple rebid, but it wasn't, it, they were playing, an artificial, somewhat artificial sense. But the problem was he didn't know what questions his partner had asked or what information he had had gotten.
[00:58:27] So his partner said that he had, the only question he had asked was about the, the declarers two diamond rebid, I think it was. Said that it showed five diamonds. And he didn't ask. Now, now they put their whole argument on the fact that, well, he said five diamonds, that, and he had six. That, that doesn't mean five or more.
[00:58:50] Although there was no question, there was no answer in writing and no question was asked in writing. So right-hand opponent either said that he said at least five diamonds or … at any rate, they thought it was good, but the whole problem was, let's see, so what happened was when he led the jack, now his partner ducked again, but the jack was just a terrible play.
[00:59:21] John McAllister: You're saying the partner of open leader had jack-fourth of hearts?
[00:59:23] Olin Hubert: No. The opening leader had jack-fourth. And he got in and, and now led the jack. And my contention is that, well, A, he didn't know exactly what information his partner got, but whatever practically, whatever information his partner had, he was gonna play his partner for jack-third for original holding of jack-third instead of jack-fourth when he led the jack, if all he had to do was just lead his fourth.
[00:59:53] Because he left hand opponent. The opening leader knew every card. By this point. All he had to do was lead his smallest heart. His partner would win, would know, would win the ace and now they would run the heart suit. But when he led the jack, he thought he started with jack-third as who wouldn't think that he started with jack-third.
[01:00:11] So the committee reversed that decision, which I thought was a travesty of justice and, and it ended up being the deciding trick in the Reisinger.
[01:00:30] So most of my stories about rulings are , are not, are not good ones. Except for, except for dummy’s opening lead out of turn.
[01:00:41] John McAllister: Did you and Wayne – totally switching gears – did you and Wayne, did you feel like you played well when you won the GNT?
[01:00:50] Olin Hubert: Yeah. I thought we did. I had, I had a couple of senior moments, but outside of that I thought we played very well. For some reason we were, had, had become very adept at bidding grand slams. I mean, we had done that in some regionals that we played in. We had a lot of luck with grand slams getting to grand slams.
[01:01:13] But yeah, we, I thought we played very well.
[01:01:18] John McAllister: Any Jenni Carmichael stories? You wanna share?
[01:01:23] Olin Hubert: It's been so long I can't really remember. I mean, she was one of my favorite players and directors. I, I do love Jenni, but I can't really come up with a, a, a story.
[01:01:34] John McAllister: When was the last time you played?
[01:01:40] Olin Hubert: Oh, well, I don't remember how long it was.
[01:01:42] John McAllister: No, no, no. Not with Jenni. No, just, just bridge.
[01:01:47] Olin Hubert: Oh, when the last time I've played was.
[01:01:52] What's today? Wednesday, yesterday, last night. Played in a private match. We have some, mostly almost all district seven players that we have four pairs that we play on Tuesday nights, but on Thursday nights I have my team with Emory Whitaker and Jerry Helms and Sam Marks. We play against a, a team from California including our good friend Bob Etter.
[01:02:18] John McAllister: Okay. I know Bob.
Olin Hubert: Bob was, Bob lived in Atlanta. And he and his wife and I played a lot of local dupes, cuz he was, he was a, a professional place kicker for the, he kicks up for the, well, he actually originally kicked for University of Georgia, and then he kicked for the Atlanta Falcons and the Memphis team of the World Football League.
[01:02:38] Now he's been, he's been out in Sacramento for many years now, but he and Emory have kept up with each other because they're both avid video poker players. So they would meet in Las Vegas and play video poker. And then Spike and I started playing on teams with them in that tournament, and so with the four of us would meet and play in the Las Vegas Regional for, quite a, several years there.
[01:03:03] So that's our Tuesday night. We have a, you know four pairs that were play three matches.
[01:03:09] John McAllister: How many boards I played do you play?
[01:03:10] Olin Hubert: The Monday night it's usually three eight board matches, although somebody had to be late this last time, so we did only three seven board matches. On Thursday night we play 16 boards.
[01:03:23] John McAllister: What's your handle on Bridge Base?
Olin Hubert: OHubert.
[01:03:31] John McAllister: What questions should I have asked you that I haven't asked you?
[01:03:36] Olin Hubert: Oh, I don't know. I think we've covered a lot.
[01:03:39] John McAllister: Are you better than Kalita?
[01:03:42] Olin Hubert: Oh, much better. Much better.
[01:03:43] John McAllister: Much better than Kalita. And how about, how about Cliff Donn?
[01:03:49] Do you know Cliff Donn or, or his son Josh?
[01:03:52] Olin Hubert: I don't know Cliff. I know Josh.
[01:03:53] John McAllister: You got a Josh Donn story for us? Cliff is one of our most faithful listeners.
[01:03:58] Olin Hubert: No, I about, no, I don't have a Josh Donn story. I, I really don't.
[01:04:03] John McAllister: All right. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what do you suggest?
[01:04:09] Olin Hubert: Email.
[01:04:10] Email ohubert@bellsouth.net. Don't text me. Whatever you do, I don't text.
[01:04:22] John McAllister: Have you tried texting?
[01:04:23] Olin Hubert: No, I haven't. I don't want to text. For years, I didn't even have a cell phone. I, I do have one now, but it's only for emergency use. It stays in my car. I don't I don't like having to report to a telephone, I mean, soon as somebody starts using one, they're almost immediately addicted to it.
[01:04:42] And that's just, I have an answering machine on my home phone and people wanna leave me a message. They can. And I have, and I have email. I carry my tablet with me to, to all the tournaments, so they can always get me by email. But no, I'm not a, I'm not a smartphone, a so-called smartphone.
[01:05:01] John McAllister: It might be smart that you don't have the phone. I think, I mean, you're living in a different reality, than me, because I'm on that damn thing all the time.
[01:05:10] Olin Hubert: I'm not technologically challenged. I, I have a computer and I do email and I do all my banking and. watch bridge, you know BBO and Bridge Winners.
[01:05:21] I mean, I, I, I don't have a problem. I wouldn't have a problem using a cell. Well, like I say, I don't, I don't feel that it's necessary for somebody to be able to get in touch with me 24 hours a day. And if I, and I don't, I don't like to screen my calls. I think it's rude. If my telephone rings, I answer.
[01:05:42] John McAllister: I hear you. Old school.
[01:05:43] Olin Hubert: I guess so. Although I don't think of myself as old school, I mean, maybe I have some old school habits. I don't feel like I'm an old school person at all. Well,
[01:05:55] John McAllister: Unless you've got something more to say, I think that I think I'm ready to call this a wrap.
[01:06:00] Olin Hubert: Well, nothing I can think of. I hope I gave you something that you can use.
[01:06:05] John McAllister: For sure. I've enjoyed it. I do have one more question. Are you doing anything with the University of Georgia Bridge team?
[01:06:16] Olin Hubert: No. I see the Georgia Tech Bridge team more than I see the Georgia, I guess there's a Georgia team.
[01:06:25] John McAllister: I think they've had some matches with Tech in the recent …
[01:06:28] Olin Hubert: I've, nobody's ever contacted me from either one, but the, sometimes the Tech students come down to the club, when we're playing our sectional, so I know that some of them, I forgive them for being from Georgia Tech.
[01:06:43] John McAllister: Have you enjoyed the recent success of the University of Georgia football team?
[01:06:49] Olin Hubert: Oh, of course. Yeah, and the Atlanta Braves. So we'll see how it goes this year.
[01:06:59] John McAllister: I'm originally from Philadelphia, so I'm a, I'm a Phillys fan.
[01:07:05] Olin Hubert: Oh, I’m sorry. From the city that booed Santa Claus?
[01:07:12] John McAllister: Yeah, that's us. We've had a good year, kind of … lost in the Super Bowl and lost in the World Series, so I'm also a UVA grad and our basketball team, we just got blown out, well, not blown out, but beaten handily by Boston College last night we got a, we got a good team, but winning some close games that weren't supposed to be close.
[01:07:34] And we, we've gotten, we, we've become spoiled here at UVA with our basketball success.
[01:07:43] Olin Hubert: I was just gonna say, Georgia only had one successful basketball team, and that was many years ago in the, in the Dominique Wilkins era.
[01:07:55] He still does commentary on the Atlanta Hawks games. So, he's, but he's the human highlight film. They call him.
[01:08:02] John McAllister: Well, what's his name? Anthony Edwards played there only for one year, but he's a pretty good player in the NBA now.
[01:08:09] Olin Hubert: Yeah, yeah. I haven't seen him play, I, I knew that he was thought to be the top draft.
[01:08:15] I never heard of it if he actually was, but yeah, he, but I don't really watch much college basketball.
[01:08:23] John McAllister: Yeah, he was an all-star replacement; one of the people that was originally selected got hurt, so, he was a replacement all-star this year and he was the number one pick in the NBA draft when he, when he came out.
[01:08:35] Well, alright Owen, I really appreciate it. We'll probably publish in the next week or two and I'll let you know when we do that. I'll share that with you. And thanks for your time. I look forward to seeing you in New Orleans.
[01:08:49] Olin Hubert: I appreciate you asking me as long as I don't come up looking like too big a fool.
[01:08:54] John McAllister: I don't think that's I don't think that's gonna be the case. Me on the other hand …
[01:09:01] Olin Hubert: It's your job to make me sound smart.
[01:09:05] John McAllister: It's a challenging medium. It's funny, it's easier said than done, but I enjoy the challenge.
[01:09:14] Olin Hubert: Oh, I didn't, I never told you about my, I never told you about my year off from bridge, where I was a journalist on a small-town newspaper.
[01:09:23] I mean for basically no money. I went back to school in I think ’85 and then I worked for a year on a small town paper in middle Georgia. It was a twice a week paper and in addition to my, covering county government, sheriff's office, things like that.
[01:09:46] On the weekend edition, I was the woods and water editor. In other words, I wrote about fishing and hunting, even though I didn't do any fishing and hunting myself. But that was that always gets a lot of laughs. I would have to call these guys at the, at the lakes on Friday so I could do the lake report, and they'd say, well, the crappy or biting on green and yellow jigs and 10 feet of water off the bridges, at Tony Points.
[01:10:14] And I, for that lake, that would be my lake. And then I'd go out and interview and take a picture of anybody who had caught a big fish or shot something. So, although there was an amazing variety of different types of hunting. But so that was my year away from bridge. But then I, that's when I, started getting regular work as a director.
[01:10:35] And then I moved back to Atlanta and got into that full-time.
[01:10:41] John McAllister: Where'd you go back to school for?
[01:10:43] Olin Hubert: Well, the, well, I was thinking about, I mean, I wasn't making any money at bridge. I wasn't getting any sessions. Very few sessions as director. So I, I decided to go into journalism and see if I could make a living.
[01:10:56] Cause it takes quite a while to really move up to anything and, and looking for a job is perhaps my least favorite thing in all the world, applying for a job.
[01:11:07] John McAllister: So you were studying journalism in, in your, in your graduate school?
[01:11:12] Olin Hubert: Well, it wasn't graduate school. I told you I graduated 15 years later when I was playing, than when I was in school the first time. I guess it was more than 15 years.
[01:11:29] John McAllister: It kind of flew over my head originally when you said that you were doing the wildlife reporting. Once you, once you spelled it out, I got it.
[01:11:42] Olin Hubert: Yeah. But as I said, I wasn't in the group of people who were cutting out and going to class when I was in school the first time.
[01:11:47] John McAllister: Right, right, right. I wish, I mean, I was, I was in a fraternity at UVA and so that was my primary focus.
[01:11:56] Olin Hubert: Yeah. Forget about fraternity bridge.
[01:11:59] You won't find a a half decent bridge player in a fraternity game. In fact, if we could find those guys in those days, that was, like the, in the cartoons where your eyes become a cash register, that that was what it was like playing, playing bridge against fraternity boys.
[01:12:17] John McAllister: What stakes did y'all play in, in rubber bridge at UGA?
[01:12:20] Olin Hubert: I think about a half a cent of point, probably, if, if we have found somebody, like that would play penny.
[01:12:32] John McAllister: They could probably afford it.
[01:12:35] When's the last time you played rubber?
[01:12:39] Olin Hubert: Boy, I don't remember now. We had a guy who lived here, an old guy with a lot of money. He was a terrible British player, but he liked to play for a nickel a point. And for a while he had me on retainer and playing with him. I think I made more money though after I quit playing with him and started playing against him.
[01:13:01] He was the type, if you didn't think you could double him, just bid one more time. Cause he would, he would bid one more time until you thought you could double it.
[01:13:16] John McAllister: So, when he had your retainer, what did that mean? He was paying you to play with him, but you weren't, you didn't, weren't exposed to the losses.
[01:13:24] Olin Hubert: No. No. Well, I mean, retainer included tournaments too, but, but I mean, he had a no, he he would play, if we lost, he would pay the losses. If we won, I would get a quarter of the winnings.
[01:13:36] And it was just, if it was just a few points and he would give it all to me. I could give I can give you a hand. I won't I won't. The play gets pretty complicated, but just the mathematics of it it was the last hand of the day and we were down a vulnerable game swing. And my hand was two small, ace-jack-seventh, king-third and a singleton. God must be more than that. Seems like it must be more than that. I guess that's it. And he opened a notrump. Now I could have just taken my four hearts and broken even for the day. But one player actually complimented my ethics that I asked for aces before I bid six hearts.
[01:14:30] And the opponents got off to a bad lead. They led the ace of diamonds setting up my king, and then my right-hand opponent fell for a pseudo trump squeeze. Like I say, it gets a little complicated. Basically, I had to blank the dummy had the ace king, third of spades. I had to blank the a, the ace, king of spades, nonchalantly, of course, to not reveal that I now had those spade threats. So now the dummy had Ace Jack fourth of clubs, opposite my singleton, they, they came down to King, queen. Of clubs. So I was able to play ace of clubs and ruff a club, go back to the spade rough another club, setting up my 12th trick and still have the spade entry to get back and score the slam with my jack of clubs.
[01:15:20] So basically one we won by a vulnerable game swing and I got to keep the whole thing.
[01:15:26] John McAllister: Why did he compliment your ethics?
[01:15:27] Olin Hubert: What, no, some player did. Well cause they thought they understood the mathematics of the situation. I mean, it was a little cynical, I guess that in other words, this player just thought, well, why didn't you just bid six hearts?
[01:15:41] It was either win or break even, I had nothing to lose. So ah, so I ended up with some money. In other words, if I just made four hearts, we would've broken even.
[01:15:55] John McAllister: Right. I understand that. Yeah. Okay. But I'm missing the, the ethics compliment. Like, will you explain that to me?
[01:16:03] Olin Hubert: Well, that I didn't just bid six hearts.
[01:16:06] Not, not, this is not the player at the game. In the game. Yeah. Somebody else I gave…
[01:16:10] John McAllister: But why is it ethical?
[01:16:11] Olin Hubert: That I gave the, oh, I don't know. But, well, that I didn't just, I don't know, but but I at least checked to see that we weren't off two aces.
[01:16:23] John McAllister: Because you were, because you were kind of freeroll the hand.
[01:16:27] Yeah. Right. I see. Okay. Got it. Got it. All right.
[01:16:34] Olin Hubert: All right. Yeah. No, I had nothing like a, I didn't even have a slam try. Real slam. But I had a seven card suit.
[01:16:43] John McAllister: Did you play four hearts by you was to play over his one notrump? Or did you play Texas?
[01:16:53] Olin Hubert: I'm trying to remember. I, I don't remember at the time right now.
[01:16:56] I wouldn't be surprised if we played it was to play.
[01:16:59] John McAllister: It seems like that might have been a good agreement for this partnership.
[01:17:01] Olin Hubert: Well, I certainly wasn't, well, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna transfer . I wasn't gonna transfer him then try for slam. I don't think he could have made it on the pseudo trump squeeze.
[01:17:16] John McAllister: All right. Olin, thank you very much. I think this is a perfect ending and I will I'll be in touch when we got this ready to go.
[01:17:26] Olin Hubert: All right. Okay. Thank you, John. Bye.