Ep 73 Rise and Fly! Lamont Jones and The Gist of Bid Whist

[00:00:01] Hi, my name is John McAllister. Welcome to the Setting Trick podcast where we get inside the minds of some of the world's greatest bridge players. If you're looking for a way to engage with bridge away from the table then the setting trick is here for you.

[00:00:19] Normally this is a bridge podcast, but today my guest is Bid Whist evangelist Lamont Jones. Lamont recently published the book called The Gist of Bid Whist, culminating a project he began in earnest in 2012. He's on a mission to share his love for Bid Whist with a wider audience.

[00:00:40] If you've ever been curious about Bid Whist as I have been recently, Lamont and I go through a lot of the differences as well as the similarities between Bid Whist and Bridge.

[00:00:54] One of the things we don't have in Bridge is trash talk and that seems to be a huge part of the Bid Whist culture.

[00:01:03] Whether it's trash talking about taking your opponents to Boston or telling them to rise and fly, I definitely think Bid Whist has Bridge beat when it comes to talking smack.

[00:01:18] I could not believe when I read in The Gist of Bid Whist that none other than Bob Hammond said Bid Whist is more complex than Bridge. My question to you as a listener is, is that a good thing?

[00:01:37] Overall, I've just found Lamont to be a super positive, delightful person and I hope you enjoy engaging with him as I did. I have with me today Lamont Jones and for everybody listening who thinks this is a Bridge podcast, think again.

[00:02:00] Lamont is the author of The Gist of Bid Whist in addition to being quite accomplished as an attorney and he also plays a little bit of Bridge. Lamont, for those watching on video there's a picture of your book which just came out on February 27th I believe.

[00:02:25] And we kind of have a shared passion of what I'm wanting to do for Bridge. I think you're wanting to do for Bid Whist. You're wanting people to know what a great game it is and get them playing.

[00:02:39] Matt, that is absolutely correct. I wrote the Gist of Bid Whist because first of all, I believe the card games connect people. And secondly, I believe that the rich story of Bid Whist is one that deserves to be widely known.

[00:02:53] I think it's the ultimate trump card game and I want to share it with people, especially people who like spades and hearts and oh hell and yuker and pinocchio and Bridge. So I think that and I'll say this John, this is where you and I are united.

[00:03:09] I think that the card game tradition, the trick-taking game tradition is no less grand than the chess tradition and that we ought to help card games reclaim their place of cultural prominence. When was the last time you played Bid Whist? Last night.

[00:03:29] I happened to have a book event in Brooklyn at the Weeksville Heritage Center and we had a nice robust crew come out and support the book. But also we had some free play. We played spades, we played Bid Whist.

[00:03:44] I mentioned offline that my good friend Jeff Beion of Honors Bridge Club was there. Man, he picked up Bid Whist so quickly. I was stunned. I mean that guy's a card game genius we know. He picked it up as quick as anybody I've ever seen pick it up.

[00:04:02] And you and I played Bid Whist online. We had one failed attempt in preparation for this interview.

[00:04:10] And then the second time we finally got it together and I'll be honest with you John, I thought you had set me up because like the first two games like you roared through.

[00:04:20] You know you ripped me. And I thought man this guy set me up. He's like stacked the deck somehow. But we went on and got a little bit more even over time.

[00:04:29] But again, as a Bridge player it didn't seem to take you very long at all to pick up Bid Whist. Yeah. I mean it's different. How do you explain like this event in Brooklyn Jeff came, are you friends with Jeff from prior to that?

[00:04:47] Or did he come based on the Bid Whist? Just wanted to check it out. No, I met Jeff a few years ago at a convention for Bridge teachers and either Toronto or Montreal I don't remember which.

[00:04:58] So we became friendly then. I enjoyed his book and his wife Barbara actually has helped me a lot with my just a Bid Whist project. She's helped me prepare the workshop that I use to try to teach the game to people.

[00:05:12] So Jeff and Barbara have been great supporters and it was a real thrill to shout them out in the acknowledgements of the just a Bid Whist. Got it. So you're on a book tour for the book?

[00:05:27] I am. Thankfully we've got a bit of sponsorship from the United States playing card company best known for the bicycle brand of cards. We've got stops. We had to stop last night in Brooklyn. We've got three stops next week in Los Angeles.

[00:05:42] We're planning our Chicago stop and I'm sure there'll be more along the way. But again, the objective is to help spread the word about what I think is the coolest card game. See that's where we're going to have odds you know.

[00:05:57] You gotta have tension. You gotta have a look at the conflict to keep things spicy. So are you coming to us from New York today or are you back in Chicago? I'm actually in New Jersey. Okay. How was the event last night?

[00:06:15] Man it was terrific. It was just sort of uplifting and affirming. We were at the Weeksville Heritage Center. So we talked quite a bit about the history and the origins of the game. My understanding is that Weeksville was one of the first free African-American communities in the country.

[00:06:32] So we talked a lot about the Pullman porters and their role in popularizing big whisk. First of all, their role is sort of respected and revered figures in African-American culture, especially in the early decades of the 20th century.

[00:06:50] They were folks who worked tethered to one place for their jobs. They traveled all across the country right? And in traveling they shared information. They shared the black newspapers like the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier.

[00:07:05] And they shared information, hey if you're coming to this city, this is where you can find housing or this is where you might find job opportunities. And they shared cultural offerings. Hey I heard about this bad new jazz cat. You want to check them out?

[00:07:19] Or these are the latest blues coming from down south. And one of the things they shared was their favorite pastime, their favorite car game, Big Whist. They played it so much that it was called the porters game.

[00:07:32] And John imagine just for a second if you will, a gathering in Kansas City or New York City or Chicago where you might have 100 or 200 or 300 porters on layovers as they're getting ready to disperse across the nation.

[00:07:46] And they're all getting together that night and they're playing cards and talking smack and trying to see who's the best. So the porters were instrumental in popularizing Big Whist.

[00:07:56] But also the thing that fascinates me about the research about the porters in Big Whist is that the game was pivotal for the porters because they had a long period where it was really tough for them. They weren't able to negotiate a deal with the Pullman Company.

[00:08:13] They weren't even recognized by the Pullman Company. They didn't have any money and the leadership in order to keep morale up would spend time traveling to different cities playing cards, playing Big Whist during some of the dark years.

[00:08:27] So I'd like to think that the game provided scaffolding for some of the later achievements of the porters in terms of what they contributed to American society. And your book, by the way, is very well researched.

[00:08:40] I was impressed with the depth of knowledge that you came up with. Thank you, John. That's really meaningful. I really appreciate it. I think the game deserves... There's a lot of lore associated with the game. I'll tell you my favorite piece of it.

[00:09:00] But I think the game deserves to be celebrated and dealt with in a really full, some sort of way. So for example, we acknowledge that a lot of the terms seem to have come from the Pullman porters and their journeys across the country.

[00:09:14] So we use terms like uptown and downtown and going all the way to Boston. But as it turns out, this thing about Boston, which as you know is one of the singular achievements in Big Whist, it's like the Grand Slam in chess when you win all the tricks.

[00:09:30] I like to say it's like analogous to a slam dunk and a knockout and a home run all in one, right? But that doesn't necessarily come from the porters, right? So what the research shows is that the old game of Whist, I like to call it original Whist,

[00:09:48] was the most popular game in the whole world. In the 1500s, the 1600s, the 1700s, the 1800s. Not just the most popular car game but the most popular game. It was the most popular game in the world except in one country, France.

[00:10:02] France had their own version of a trick-taking game very similar to Whist, but they named it in a way to tweak their rivals, the British, by reminding the British about the lost North American colonies, right? So they call their game Boston.

[00:10:20] And in that game of Boston, if you won all the tricks, that was also called the Teaving of Boston. So I think that's where we get the term Boston from in the Whist. And in the Whist, do you have to bid?

[00:10:32] In order, like say you get a Boston, you win all the tricks. Do you have to bid seven to get the credit for it? Is it like bridge or is it like auction bridge in that way? Love that question. I don't know auction bridge.

[00:10:46] So I can't answer to that extent. But what I can tell you is, no, you score the number points based on the number of tricks you win, not just the number of tricks you bid. Right? So I think that that's a distinction from bridge.

[00:11:05] And I think it provides an advantage in bid Whist, especially with respect to the no-trump bids. That thought that you just shared there is the basis for my favorite chapter of the just a bid Whist.

[00:11:18] It's the chapter that I call Jeopardy, the Golden State Warriors and the no-trump advantage. Yeah. Right? And what I did in that chapter is, first of all, there was a guy 10, 12 years ago on Jeopardy who just like ran through the game. This was before Hosehauer more recently, right?

[00:11:37] Yeah. And this fellow talked about how he detected a flaw in the structure of the game and he exploited that flaw and that's what allowed him to succeed on Jeopardy. And I talk about how the Golden State Warriors 10, 12 years ago,

[00:11:50] they identified what they considered to be a market inefficiency in basketball. Teams weren't valuing the three-point shot enough. They constructed their roster and their team and their philosophy around that three-point shot before other people.

[00:12:03] And I think in bid Whist, right, the no-trump, because you don't have to bid the number of tricks, because you can score more points even than the number of tricks you bid, right? Because on a no-trump bid, you're able to play first. You're able to lead first. Yeah.

[00:12:21] So the defense has less of an opportunity to refine your weaknesses. I think it's an advantage in no-trumps that can be exploited in bid Whist. You've gone into bridge. Tell us about, like, I mean, you're writing books about bid Whist. You played bid Whist with your daughter.

[00:12:40] You've played in, you know, kind of national tournaments. You've also played a little bit of bridge. Tell us a little bit about your bridge journey. Yeah, key words, little bit. Here's the thing.

[00:12:50] When I learned to play bid Whist in law school, and then I moved from the city where I went to law school to another city, and I didn't have a bid Whist crew, right? Right. And I missed playing cards. Yeah.

[00:13:03] But every day in the newspapers, I'd see something that kind of resembled bid Whist. There's cards, there's talk. Right. I learned it was bridge, right? Yeah. So I decided to take bridge lessons. I went to a founded bridge club, and I took lessons on Monday nights, right?

[00:13:18] Three hours a night, eight weeks, whatever the case was. And I found that a lot of the concepts that I had encountered in bid Whist, I was encountering in bridge. Yeah. But I thought, man, it's so cool that this is taught in such a structured way. Yeah.

[00:13:33] It's taught in such an unintimidating fashion. Right. It could be cool if bid Whist could be taught in that room, right? Right. So, and then after that, of course, I started reading some bridge books, loved reading bridge books, you know, playing from time to time. Yeah.

[00:13:49] My favorite bridge book, by the way, is Points, Smoints by Marty Bergen. Okay. Although I guess I should say my favorite bridge book is Taste of Bridge by Jeff Bay. Okay. He's at Homer. You better go. But so yeah, man. So I really love reading about bridge.

[00:14:08] I like playing from time to time and a lot of the terms, the techniques, I found very useful in trying to teach people how to play bid Whist. Yeah. So like, how many master points do you have?

[00:14:22] I don't, I mean, first of all, when I got them, it was 20, 25, 30 years ago. Yeah. But I never got up to a level beyond, you know, whatever the beginning level is. Okay. So like, you have some master points, but absolutely. Yeah.

[00:14:40] But I will say this, I always thought it was an advantage, the fact that I had as few master points as I did, because I thought I was a better player than my master points. Sure. Now my partners and opponents might not have agreed with that.

[00:14:54] So like, as a bid Whist player, are you, I mean, are you envious of the structure that we have in bridge? Yeah. And I think that's what we're doing with the American contract bridge league and tournaments.

[00:15:07] And you know, you and I tried to play on one of the bid Whist sites and we couldn't figure out how to play together. For example, like, I would do, I wouldn't say envious because first of all, bid Whist to me was a gateway game to bridge. Yeah.

[00:15:23] And then bridge it was sort of a revolving door because, you know, I think it was a gateway game to bridge. And I think it could be that for, for a lot of people, I think bid Whist can be a gateway game to bridge. Yeah.

[00:15:36] And a lot of the bridge players I've been introduced bid Whist to pick it up really quickly because the structure of the games are so similar. So I do think that they can work in tandem to help sort of revitalize the card game tradition.

[00:15:49] I don't think there has to be any, you know, any competition. No, I mean, I don't mean that. I just mean, you know, like sometimes as a bridge player, you know, I can be critical. You know, I wish things were better. I wish blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:05] But, you know, like I think about, you know, we've got hand records in bridge, for example, you know, and it shows you how many tricks you can take. And there's just an ability to study the game, you know,

[00:16:18] and I wonder if in bid Whist like you, you know, there's probably not a double dummy solver for like if you go to, if you play to a tournament, you just deal the cards or like. To your point, I'm not aware of any duplicate bid Whist. Yeah. Right.

[00:16:37] Where you can, which takes that element of randomness out of it. I'm not aware of that. Right. I do think that bid Whist can be, so I'll say this. My favorite game to use to teach people bid Whist is Oh Hell. Yeah.

[00:16:53] I think Oh Hell is a, first of all, it's a tremendous and fun game in its own right. Yeah. But it's a tremendous on-ramp game for bid Whist. Yeah. By the same token, I think that bid Whist as it was for me

[00:17:04] is and can be a tremendous on-ramp game for bridge. Yeah. So yeah, I would definitely like to see some collaboration between the bid Whist and the bridge communities. I mean, you know, you play, you talk in the book about playing with your daughter.

[00:17:22] I mean, are there like, are there many young people that are playing bid Whist? Like is there, is there like an organized bid Whist? There's like some tournament stuff I saw in your book. You referenced card sharks, bid Whist tournaments.

[00:17:40] Like what's the big, what's like the crown jewel? Like in golf, you know, I don't know if you know anything about golf, but like the masters, you know, winning one of the majors, that's a big deal.

[00:17:50] Is there a crown jewel of bid Whist that like if you could win this one thing, you know, that would be like, you know who the winners are or they broadcast it somehow? Well, first of all, I'm a sports fan and American.

[00:18:06] So of course I know what the top golf tournaments are. Yeah. But I know that there's a, you know, I know that card sharks has its national tournament. I know that there's another organization. I think it's called the National Bid Whist Alliance that also

[00:18:23] has local regional tournaments feeding into a national tournament. My understanding is that those organizations, those two organizations used to be combined, but there was some that drove them apart. I don't know the details of that.

[00:18:40] But I do part of my motivation for writing this book was I do think that the game is, you know, moving toward a demographic cliff. There are a lot of young people who play like, you know, I

[00:18:55] feel that even at my advanced age, I'm like one of the younger folks I know right who play other than, you know, my daughter who I've talked to play. So I do think that that part of our challenge is to reinvigorate the ranks with younger people, people from

[00:19:14] all different backgrounds. I think the bridge faces that challenge as well. So, you know, hopefully that's something we can tackle. So like what's your, what's like here? You talking the book about some games in Westchester outside of New York City.

[00:19:32] Like what's your, like what's the bidwist that you most look forward to? You know, like what's the version of is it playing back with the guys who taught you the game in law school? Is it playing with your daughter or do you, you know, I

[00:19:45] think about the North American Bridge championships are starting in like 10, like 14 days or something. You know, I'm fired up. I was just at a regional tournament in Williamsburg playing for three days. That was great. I mean, I basically, I like playing bridge in any form,

[00:20:03] but you know, some things are more, you know, there's just more, more prestige to them is no doubt. Listen, first of all, I'm very much relish the competition, right? Yeah. I have not yet played in any big national tournaments. That's something I look forward to.

[00:20:24] But I think my ministry so to speak right now is to is to work to try to replenish the ranks to get more people playing, you know, then we'll get into the tournaments and stuff. So I enjoy, I enjoy the social games like you mentioned the Westchester Whisters.

[00:20:43] That story is fascinating to me. I met a fellow who, you know, as a member of that group who's one of the quarterbacks of the group and they've invited me to play there a few times in a nutshell, these guys got together in the mid 90s

[00:20:56] and played bidwis one weekend just because all their wives were taking the kids on college tours. And they had such a good time that they played again the next month and the month after that, and they played together every month now for the better part of 28 years.

[00:21:12] They took a couple months off during the early parts of the pandemic. But for 28 years, these guys have gotten together monthly to play bidwis. And as they matured in their careers, they've become doctors and judges and CEOs and corporate executives and you know, politicians and that

[00:21:29] sort of thing. But what bonds them is bidwis and they talk about the fellowship and I was thrilled to write about it in my book and thrilled that so many of those guys came out last night to Brooklyn to our book event.

[00:21:43] But man, sometimes John just, you know, you're playing with the right group and there's competition in that group to be sure. You want to be the best one at the table that night. And sometimes that's can be even more powerful

[00:21:57] than, you know, winning a trophy or prizes or match points at a tournament. So when you play like in a format like that, do you have like a set partner or do you play with a partner? And then once your round is over, you find a new partner.

[00:22:12] How does that work? Usually there are some folks who sort of, you know, fancy themselves partners. But to your point, if there are 20 guys at this event or 20 people at the event, there might only be four tables, right? So we play what you call rise and fly, which

[00:22:28] is when you lose a game, you got to rise and get out of here so that the next people can come. And, you know, there's going to be some smack talking aimed at you, you know, when you lose and that sort of thing.

[00:22:41] But the loss is cushioned by, you know, some cocktails and some food and that sort of thing. So the social vibe is paramount, but the competition is nevertheless huge. Yeah. When did you start writing this book? Oh man, a long time ago.

[00:22:56] I think the first thing and you were kind of getting to this a little bit, John, which is that since there aren't a lot of players, I wasn't able to play very often after law school. Yeah. Pretty rarely. I would guess that between law school

[00:23:12] and the time I started writing this book, I probably only got to play 100 hands of big wisp, right? Few and far between. So those hands would stay with me. So if I lost or if I made a mistake, I'd be thinking about it.

[00:23:26] I'd be making notes and maybe, you know, jot down a paragraph or two about it. All right. So then when my daughter was about eight years old for mom and I had gone through a divorce, we had my daughter see a therapist and my daughter told

[00:23:39] the therapist that she was sad and angry and unhappy about her new life. And the therapist says, well, have you ever heard anybody about this? And she says, I told my daddy. And the therapist asked, well, why did you tell him? And Aliyah, my daughter in her eight

[00:23:53] year old way says, well, when I'm with my daddy, we spend a lot of time playing cards and when you're sitting there playing cards, you got to talk about something, right? Yeah. So that really triggered in me the thought that, you know, playing

[00:24:07] card games is more than just about the competition and the fun. They can be meaningful vehicles for them. I decided, hey, I want to teach my son, my daughter, my wife to play. So let me go to this Barnes and Noble

[00:24:19] right here and grab a big wisp book and share it with them. And the book wasn't there. So that's when I started this project. So there's literally no books on Ben Wisp other than Earth? I've seen a couple of books, right? There's one called Rise and Fly.

[00:24:33] But there's not one that goes into providing a comprehensive playing guard guy to actually teach people how to play. The ones I've seen have been more like, hey, big wisp is a great game. Here's some of the luminaries who play the game. It's something you should know about,

[00:24:51] et cetera. But not taking that step of actually breaking it down and teaching people how to play. So that's what I'll try to do with the gist of big wisp. Man, that's tough work, you know? Like getting people teaching them from scratch. I imagine that's

[00:25:07] a challenge that you're taking on here. It's one I welcome, though. It's a challenge, but I welcome it. And I especially try to protect newcomers, right? Because I've encountered so many people who say, man, I don't play cards. I can't play cards. I don't have the car playing.

[00:25:23] When the family plays, even Grandma beats me, right? I'm welcoming those people to the table. I'm trying to teach them to play in a step-by-step way that respects their intelligence, right? Because I believe that the fundamental car game concepts that drive all these games are accessible and understandable.

[00:25:42] So I want to protect the reader. I want to respect the readers intelligence. And I want to enthrall and entertain car players like you, people who already play spades, already play bidwis, even as we welcome the newcomers to the table. And I think we've accomplished that.

[00:25:58] So how old is Alain now? He is 23, man. And again, it was a thrill last night for him to come out because just a couple things. Number one, even when she was eight, right? And as a parent, I think parents might vibe with me on this.

[00:26:15] We try to, you know, we think we know it all. And we do as I say, right? So I remember in Alia's first bid with Gavin, I told her, you know, when we're playing defense, don't leave the other sides trumpsuit. That's a no-no. And I remember

[00:26:35] us playing, you know, just getting toward the end of the hand, maybe six cards left. She wins a trick. What does she do? She leads the other side's trumpsuit. So I'm like, I'm staring at my cards. I don't want to like signal her in any way.

[00:26:49] But she happens to win that trick. What does she do then? She leads another trumpsuit. Right. Right? And she won that trick. And after she won that trick, right? She had pulled all the trump cards and she just in a flash, she was down her remaining three cards,

[00:27:05] you know, ace, king, queen and a side two. I was like, man, I'm glad she didn't listen to her daddy's instruction. Right? But the, maybe the best part of this book journey has been, you know, well, when Alia became a teenager, she sort of moved away.

[00:27:24] She moved away from dad a little bit. It seemed, moved away from Midwest. She would only play with me like on father's day. Right? She's doing her own thing. She's in high school. She's doing her own thing.

[00:27:35] But when I finally found the publisher willing to take a chance on this sort of niche project, before I sent anything to the publisher, Alia very lovingly, very exactly edited each and every chapter of this book. And you know,

[00:27:53] her involvement in this project is one of the most heartwarming parts for me. Does she live in New York? She's in New York City starting her career, you know, doing her thing. Has she played bridge? She's not yet played bridge. Yeah.

[00:28:11] Sounds like she might be good at it. We got to get her, we got to get over to honors club. Honors club. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. You know, when I lived in New York City actually, after I graduated from college, I lived in New York City,

[00:28:27] I lived in a clubbed bridge, but the only outlet I had for bridge at that time was home. I didn't know that there were such a thing as bridge clubs had no idea. I lived like two blocks from where honors used to be never ventured there.

[00:28:43] Not one time. I mean, I just can't even imagine, you know, like if I'd known about bridge when I lived in New York City, because I had a job at points, but also had a lot of free time. I would have been there every day. Wow.

[00:29:00] What's your experience as far as the differences between playing in person and playing online? Do you discern like a big difference in the quality of those two experiences? I mean, I think playing bridge in person, I prefer, but certainly COVID really boosted online bridge.

[00:29:29] And one of my most regular bridge partners lives in Texas. So, you know, I'm so grateful that they're both, you know, like I love playing bridge just like I like I love playing bridge and whatever form. I play bridge pretty much every day in whatever form.

[00:29:49] And I prefer in person, but like I'm not disappointed to play to play bridge online at all. Do you ever suspect that your opponents might be feeding? Oh, absolutely. No, no, absolutely. Like we have this, there's this thing called a recorder.

[00:30:07] And so if you think if your opponent do something suspect, you can file a recorder form and I filed a, I filed two of those in the last month. There's actually this woman who was quite,

[00:30:23] you know, she had been the president of the bridge league and she was like on the board of the educational foundation and I played against her and her husband a couple of years ago. And they did something that I thought was just super fishy.

[00:30:37] And I couldn't believe it based on, you know, who the woman was, but I filed a recorder form and they got convicted. And I'm sure it wasn't just my thing, but you know they got convicted of cheating together and they both got,

[00:30:55] you know, suspended from the bridge league. I think it's great though that those mechanisms exist to be able to, you know, report and eventually catch them. Yeah, I mean, it definitely, you know, sometimes, you know, of the instances recently, you know,

[00:31:13] it was something that was really good and it was like suspicious, but you know that I mean we've got there's a program that's come out like since COVID called Edgar. And I think they're able to, it's pretty sophisticated software that's

[00:31:31] able to analyze like a lot of hands played. And so, you know, I don't necessarily expect that the people are, you know, if they're guilty or not, you know, like I don't want, I hate to think that, you know, they're being penalized for

[00:31:50] something that was just, you know, they just were, they made the right thing. But, you know, because of that software, it just meant, you know, I'm happy to spend five minutes to fill out a recorder form and just let, you know, whoever, you know,

[00:32:04] it feels like there is some somebody, you know, ultimately that's going to be testing this. Yeah. I'll share something here that may provide some ground for future collaboration. Okay. But let me say that, but for online bridge, excuse me, online bid-wist and specifically the Zynga bid-wist app, right?

[00:32:28] My book, just a bid-wist would not exist. Now, I'll tell you why. So I mentioned how few opportunities I had to play over the years. Yeah. But despite those few opportunities, I called myself writing a book and I drafted, you know, I drafted, you know, a manuscript.

[00:32:44] And of course, every agent in America ignored it. And of course, every publisher in America probably rightfully ignored it, right? But because again, I'm like drawing up the hands by hand, right? Like old school, you know, how would I teach this lesson, whatever.

[00:33:02] And it wasn't until about 2015, 2016 that I, after I had a manuscript that I discovered the Zynga bid-wist plus app, right? Yeah. So now I go from playing say 100 or 200 games or hands of bid-wist. Right. Now I play tens of thousands. Right.

[00:33:21] And man, I've learned a lot playing online, right? Yeah. So then I went back and I thought, man, how can I capture, you know, this feeling, this essence of sitting at the table, the thrills, the joy? How can I capture that in the book?

[00:33:35] So now I went back and I restructured and, you know, added new stuff and just took a totally different approach. So I had a whole different manuscript that I was able to go out and shop. And a whole different manuscript that all the

[00:33:49] agents could ignore and all the publishers could ignore. But it only takes one. Yeah. Thankfully we found Greg Shaw at Clive Hill Publishing. And now we have a book and I think we have a tool that experienced bid-wist players can use to give to their

[00:34:06] family members and friends to introduce them to the game and hopefully a tool that will be of interest to bridge players as well. If you could play bid-wist with one person that's a bid-wist player that you, who would it be? Easy. I would play with Thurgood Marshall.

[00:34:24] He'd be my partner. We'd play against Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah, we beat them down. So yeah, that would be my fantasy game. I'd love it if Ali and I could play bid-wist against anyone. My wife has become a good bid-wist player.

[00:34:47] We used to visit some friends in Chicago to play cards and the games were pretty competitive. And my wife Stacy would never play, right? Yeah. Because she was like, you know, they're serious about it. But she read just a bid-wist.

[00:35:00] She was confident the next time we went over there. She sat down. She played. She talked to us, Matt. She won some games. So yeah, my son Justin, my wife Stacy, my daughter Aliya, my favorite bid-wist partners living. Who's the best bid-wist player you know?

[00:35:21] I mean, come on, John. You try to make this out like egotistical and all this kind of stuff. I'm not falling for it. But yeah, I'll say this. I think strong bid-wist partnerships have an advantage over talented individual players. So yeah, I'm going to leave that one alone.

[00:35:43] Okay. Did your friends introduce you to bid-wist in law school? Now that you're playing all these games on the app, could they tell a difference? Good question. I get to play with those guys now from time to time. I'm not sure they can tell a difference though.

[00:36:04] But I mean, they're strong solid players, right? I would play with Randy Nixon or Terry Brown or Shawlone against anybody. I still learn stuff from those guys, right? Yeah. Every time I play with them, I learn stuff from them.

[00:36:18] You know, I appreciate their humor and that sort of thing. So yeah, those guys can hold their own against anybody. What's the story with going to this bridge teacher workshop? No reason. I think I just, I heard about it, right? I heard about it.

[00:36:34] I knew that I'd be able to learn techniques there that would be helpful on my bid-wist project. You know, I was hoping that I'd meet people. The most interesting fella I met at that bridge convention was Bob Hammond, right?

[00:36:54] And I approached him after he had delivered a presentation. And I said, you know, hey Mr. Hammond, my name is Lamont Jones. I'm pursuing this bid-wist project. He said, oh, bid-wist. He said, I played bid-wist. It's way more complex than bid-wist. That was mind-blowing for me, man.

[00:37:16] That was mind-blowing. Yeah, I actually called, when I read that in the book, I actually called Bob to be like, okay, what's this? He's like, yeah, because you can't see, you can only see one, you can only see your cards. Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:29] Well, and then the book as you saw, and thank you for reading it, John, I really do appreciate that. You know, even the old game of wist was considered more complex than bridge, right? Yeah, yeah. As Bob alluded to because of the presence of the dummy in bridge.

[00:37:44] Yeah. But not only do you have that in bid-wist, you have the whole uptown downtown factor that adds another layer of complexity. Right. And then of course you have the kitty, which adds more randomness and more complexity. Right. So there's a lot going on to keep players enthralled

[00:38:02] and to keep people entertained. Yeah. And then the fact that it happens in such a compressed timeframe, right? That the games, the games are short. They're like sprints. So you've got all these strategic considerations and all these tactical considerations happening immediately, happening quickly throughout the game.

[00:38:20] And then before you know what the game is over. Do you have signals in bid-wist? Like if you play like a high club says I want clubs, low club says I don't want clubs, like... And I think that goes back to an earlier question,

[00:38:32] which is, you know, I think strong partnerships, you know, have an advantage over strong, strong individual players, right? Yeah. And I suspect that the best partnerships have some sort of signals, you know, hey... I mean there are general principles for example, return your partner's suit. Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:53] So in some ways maybe that can be considered a signal. Sure. But I suspect that the best partnerships have signals that don't rise to the level of cheating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have poor cheating, but I suspect that the best partnerships

[00:39:07] have signals that I probably don't know anything about. How are you going to know if you're successful with this project? Well, first of all, having bid-wist on platforms like the setting trick helps. Yeah. But to see bid-wist talked about on more platforms, to see more people playing bid-wist,

[00:39:30] to see younger people talking about and playing bid-wist, to see people from other backgrounds talking about and playing bid-wist, you know, to help the existing bid-wist establishment by helping to recruit more players to reinvigorate that. That would be helpful. I think in general, and again,

[00:39:50] I think I'm optimistic that the Bicycle Playing Card Company will be helpful in this, but we want to get bid-wist on more platforms and we want the game to reclaim its place of cultural prominence. That's the objective, that's the mission. Yeah. And who are your family, I imagine,

[00:40:13] as among your staunchest supporters in this project? What about Terry and those guys? Love those guys. Randy was with us in Brooklyn last night. I'm sure we'll get Terry and Big Sean out. We've been texting each other, you know, needling each other all morning here.

[00:40:36] It's all trash talk. It's more trash talk than anything. That's part of the fun, bro. That's part of the fun. But those guys have been tremendous. Like I said, the Bicycle Playing Card Company has been a good strong supporter. So yeah, we've got to get the game

[00:40:56] on the lips of the right people. I think that the inherent stickiness of the game, once folks are exposed to it, as a matter of fact, man, like I said last night, Jeff was talking about how much he enjoys the game after his initial exposure.

[00:41:14] Had one buddy text me, he's like, man, this is the first time I've seen this game, but I went home and I downloaded a bid-wist app and I couldn't get off that thing until three o'clock in the morning and it became just so addictive and sticky.

[00:41:27] And again, I hope that all of the Trump car games, Uker and O'Hell and Spades and Hearts, they all deserve a moment in the sun. And if we can help with this project, lift up all of the Trump car games, I will consider that a win. Yeah.

[00:41:44] Well, congratulations. 15 years from start to finish, that's a real accomplishment. It must feel wonderful to have this thing meaningfully out in the world. Man, it's a labor of love. It's been a labor of love. It's been a passion project. But as far as I'm concerned, John,

[00:42:05] this is the beginning of the journey, not the end. Yeah. And man, it's so meaningful to me, John, that you spend as much time as you did with the book. It's clear that you actually read it. That makes my heart seem so.

[00:42:18] Thank you very much and thank you for having me on. Where can people, if people want to get in touch with you, do you have a website? Does the book have a website? Sure. JustofBitwist.com. I'm also on Twitter at Lamont6nullo. And that's a bit whist-free. Sure.

[00:42:41] But I am confident that the car players will be attracted to Bitwist. Yeah, man. It's been fun because I told you offline that I want to do a web series where I introduce primarily retired professional athletes to Bridge.

[00:43:06] And so one of the things I wanted to learn how to play Bitwist because I've seen Dwayne Wade, for example, talk about playing Bitwist growing up. And so I wanted to understand it. And the opportunity to meet you and play Bitwist together

[00:43:22] and read the book has really helped me understand it in a lot deeper level than I would have. So it's been a real blessing to have you come along. Thank you, bro. Hey, I hope that you and I will get together and play in person. Yes.

[00:43:36] We need to do that. Yes. Yeah. So I'll look for opportunities to help make that happen. All right. Well, if you're in D.C., we could maybe do something. I actually, I'll tell you what, I'm going to be in Chicago

[00:43:50] for the team trials for Bridge in the beginning of May. So I'll reach out to you then. Let's connect for sure. All right. All right. Thanks a lot, Terry. Shit. He'll love that, man. John, I'm never going to hear the end of it. He's going to love that.

[00:44:07] We'll have to keep it in there. He's the guy from the setting trick. He knows that I'm the main guy at Big West. We'll have to keep that in there. All right, Lamont. It's been a pleasure, man. Thank you, John. I appreciate you. All right.

[00:44:19] So I'm back with Lamont. This is two days after we talked initially and I realized that there were a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you that I did not. First of all, you've got your, you're a great coach. You're a great coach.

[00:44:35] You're a great coach. You're a great coach. First of all, you've got, you know, you're, you're involved in boxing and you work for a premier boxing. Is that, am I getting the name right? Premier boxing champions is the platform. It was founded by Alan Heyman,

[00:44:53] who is the advisor to, you know, dozens if not hundreds of elite professional boxers. He's probably best known in the boxing sphere for being the advisor for Floyd Mayweather Jr. But he has managed and advised, you know, dozens of champions and, you know,

[00:45:11] he is the force behind some of the best and biggest events in the boxing space. Wow. I mean, and then you were, you worked for USA, you were the head of USA Boxing. Is that right? Many years ago, I was executive director of USA Boxing,

[00:45:29] our Olympic Boxing program. That was sort of a, that too was a passion played for me because, you know, growing up, I had a couple hundred amateur boxing matches and never really got it out of my system. So it's been thrilling for me to, you know,

[00:45:45] eke out of living as a lawyer in the boxing space. When you say eke, are you exaggerating? It's been fun to be a part of it. I think I've had a, you know, a ringside seat to a lot of the goings on in the sport

[00:46:00] and that's been thrilling for me. There's a picture, for example, of you with Sugar Ray Leonard on your, on just a Midwest website. I mean, that was, that was, that was a thrill. So that was the night before Heyman officially launched the premier boxing champions platform.

[00:46:20] We did that at the, at the Saturday Night Live Studios. I had the honor of being the spokesperson for the premier boxing champions platform on that occasion. So, you know, it was a festive occasion the night before with Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns

[00:46:36] and Roberto Durant and a lot of the, a lot of the legends of the sport. Wow. And you were the emcee for that? I was the spokesperson for premier boxing champions. They had, you know, there was a, there was an NBC personality as the emcee.

[00:46:57] Got it. But you, so, so if we go, if we look on YouTube, could we find that somewhere? Oh, absolutely. No question. You'll want to look for a, there was a cool commercial because this was the first time boxing had returned

[00:47:11] to primetime network television with elite boxing matches in several decades. So NBC did a really cool commercial that featured Sugar Ray Leonard that featured Al Michaels and, you know, obviously had to have the PBC spokesperson somewhere in that commercial.

[00:47:28] So you, you, you might glimpse a familiar face there. And so this is, so that's, is that the deal still with premier that you guys are doing boxing matches on network television? Our first show on Amazon is coming up later this much March, March 30, PBC on Amazon,

[00:47:48] headlined by Tim Zoo from Australia former champion Keith one time Thurman. So that should be a fun event for boxing fans. So do you get to go to a lot of boxing matches then? That's, that's, that's one of the perks. That's cool man. I've never been to,

[00:48:07] I've never been to a, to a, to a fight. Man, nothing like it. And I think, you know, I think even people who are involved with other sports will tell you that there's nothing like the energy right before the, the bell of a big time championship

[00:48:21] boxing match. It's a, it's something special. Can you give me some of your favorite or one or two of your favorites matches that you've attended been fortunate enough to attend? Hmm. Good question man. Let's see. It was, it was special for me when,

[00:48:42] when Erol Spence who, you know, I guess I'm not supposed to have a favorite Premier boxing champions fighter, but I really have enjoyed Erol's career, you know, from the very beginning. And, you know, he had a horrific car accident,

[00:49:00] but he emerged from that and came back to the ring even during the COVID period, had a big fight at AT&T stadium in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. So that was thrilling. I think probably the best knockout of the Premier boxing champions era was when

[00:49:18] Javante Tink Davis fought my good friend Leo Santa Cruz on Halloween night in San Antonio during the depths of COVID. I was there for that, for that one. So yeah man, there's been a few 3Ls along the way for sure.

[00:49:35] And the other thing I wanted to ask you about is the trash talk of Midwest. You alluded to it a little bit the other day. You talked about Boston. You talked about Rise and Fly, which I think is hilarious. I mean, like I feel like people,

[00:49:57] I feel like when, when, how, like what does it, what does it sound like? You know, when your opponents are saying like Rise and Fly to you, I feel like they're giving it, I feel like that, you know, they say that there's some,

[00:50:08] there's some, there's some energy to it. I'll tell you the worst bid was butt whipping. I have personally sustained the reason it's memorable for me is because as the fella was admonishing this weapon, he was teaching me a word that I previously haven't heard before.

[00:50:27] So I'm sitting next to him, Jad. Imagine if he's sitting to my right. Let's say he's running speed. Okay. And I realized early on that neither my partner nor I had any speeds. And this guy's just whap, whap, whap with these speeds. Right?

[00:50:44] So when he had about five cards left, he's still hitting me with another fellow into the room. He'd arrived late, you know, had a six pack of beer or whatever. And I said, man, come on, sit down. You can take my seat.

[00:50:56] And the fella who was rapping in the room said, oh yeah, you're going to get your ass up. He said, he's like, don't act like you're being magnanimous. I'm protecting you. Shbub that seat. Get up. Rise and fly. It's part of the action, man.

[00:51:20] It's part of the charm of the game. But what I want to make sure that doesn't happen is this. I don't want the folks who are witnessing this and hearing the laughter to be intimidated by it. Right? So what we're trying to do in the just a bit,

[00:51:36] West is we want to give people the tools they need to be able to compete and play the game. And then be able to enjoy the reverie and the smack talk in the last one without feeling like you're going to necessarily be victimized by it. Right?

[00:51:50] And then Boston, you know, Boston, like, you talked about the other day, I have a hard time believing it comes from France. But like I said, you did your research. Like if someone does a Boston to you, is that just, I mean, is that the end of days?

[00:52:08] You know what? I guess to some, but my view on it might be a little bit contrarian. And by the way, on the research on Boston, I have to give credit to Professor Julian Laderman. I don't know if you know Julian. Oh yeah. May you rest in peace.

[00:52:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He passed recently. He was very helpful to me on this project. But he was the one who first alerted me to, you know, the game of Boston and its origins and that sort of thing. But here's my contrarian view.

[00:52:36] I think the Boston is kind of like the slam dunk in basketball. Yeah. Certainly you don't want to be dunked on. Right? You don't want the man putting his junk in your face or what have you. Right? But at the end of the day it's two points.

[00:52:52] So, you know, let me run a four no Trump on you. And I'm not going to be a four. You know, as my Twitter name suggests a six no Trump on you. Yeah. That's not just the mere seven points, right?

[00:53:05] A four no is eight, you know, five no is 10, six no is 12 points. So, I didn't get the Boston you want a trick or two. But if I'm getting double the points on those no Trump contracts, that to me is like the three pointer in basketball.

[00:53:20] So you can have your slam dunk. Right? You get your bragging rights with it. And you can get three pointers like the Golden State Warriors and we'll go ahead and get you up out of here so you can rise and fly. Oh man.

[00:53:36] We got to play in person, John. Yeah, we're going to do it. We're absolutely going to do it. Okay. Last thing. Craziest thing you've ever done in support of your mission here with your Midwest mission. Craziest thing. You know, nothing, nothing strikes me as a, as out of

[00:53:58] balance here. Right? I mean, the objective is to, you know, help sustain this game to bring people to the game. You know, some people would say that the terms I use to teach the game, right? Many of which I've borrowed from bridge books.

[00:54:14] I bought from the bridge classes I've taken. Yeah. Some, some, some might object to that, right? Some might say I'm watering it down so to speak. But I recognize that I've adopted a hybrid approach here. But, you know, sometimes there's a fine line between

[00:54:29] reverence and respect for the game and innovation and trying to protect and preserve it. So, you know, I'll take that criticism, but yeah, nothing, nothing strikes me as, as outland this year. Okay. I think about when I went to the UVA, I live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

[00:54:47] I was in the UVA, like, club fair a couple years ago. Yeah. And there was no, I would love, you know, we have a bridge club at UVA now because there's a young woman who's in school who's making that happen.

[00:55:02] But there was no semblance of a bridge club. But I went to the fair because I wanted to see, like if anybody was, would be just even remotely interested, just how, I just wanted to check it out, you know, see what's going on. Yeah. And anyway.

[00:55:16] I just felt like that was a, that was, I mean, it's like, what if I do it? I'd do it. So you played bridge in numerous countries. Yeah. Yeah. What's the, what's the, you know, the most, most interesting place you played or the most off the beaten path?

[00:55:36] So I played in the Europe. So every, every other year, the European championships are open to anybody in the world can play. And in 2015, they were in Tromso, Norway, which is in the Arctic Circle. So it was in the summer and we went, I went up there,

[00:55:56] I was up there for like 10 days and the sun doesn't set, you know, like, and it's so, so unusual. Like I'm so used to sort of the getting dark and that's like telling me, you know, I need to go to sleep, but it doesn't happen there.

[00:56:09] I mean, it gets darker. Yeah. And that was just a wild, you know, wild experience for me. Man. Yeah. That's, that's, that definitely stands out as like the, but part of the thing that's really cool about bridge Lamont is like I've played bridges in,

[00:56:27] I think 17 countries and I know people everywhere I go, you know, like I know there's people that I've come across at some point in time. And that's it. That, you know, and I wish that for you. Hey, I wish that for you with Midwest.

[00:56:46] No, no, no, we're, we're on the same team on this man. We're, I didn't, I'm not saying I'm not, but I want you to have, you know, like, I mean, I'm, I'm agreeing with, we're in violent agreement here. Right. Okay. Okay. We're both evangelists for car games.

[00:57:03] We're both evangelists for the trick taking game tradition. Yeah. And we both want to see it reclaim its place of prominence. You mentioned Deborah Drysdale and her efforts. What's her partner's name? I haven't met him yet. Guy named Emrash Tishpande. Emrash, yes.

[00:57:19] He's from India and I did an episode. He's been on the satin trick before. Wow. So you're joining that August crew. Yeah. I'll have to go back and check that out. But, but Jeff Vion. You know, there's, there's, there's workforce to do.

[00:57:33] And I, you know, I hope that we can, we can partner to, to bring these things back to the cultural forefront. And I had to look up, I was pretty sure that Thurgood Marshall was dead, but I had to look it up. And so since he's not available.

[00:57:47] Yeah. You know, maybe you and me can take on magic and MJ, although that I'm probably not your top choice. No, no, no, no, no, I see if I can help make that happen. I trust your skills. I'll have to,

[00:58:00] we'll have to make sure that my dad in law, but the sharp gets a chance to sit in. He's a, he's a head full player. He's more of a riverboat gambler with his, with his style. So I'm a little conservative. I've got a buddy named Jim Reynolds,

[00:58:12] who is an investment banker. He gave me a nice blurb for the book, but he's, you know, really analytical with his approach. Randy Terry, Randy Nixon, Terry Brown, Sean Long, those guys. So we will have a nice crew, man. We'll have a nice round robin situation.

[00:58:29] Okay. All right. Sounds good, man. Thanks again for coming back on you. Is there something else you wanted to... I just want to thank you, man. I want to thank you for having me on and I want to thank you

[00:58:40] for what you're doing to advance the card game tradition. Thanks, man. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure and I look forward to, you know, meeting you in person in a couple of months when I'm in Chicago. Let's do it. All right. Sorry.

[00:58:54] One of my takeaways from this conversation is just how lucky we are as bridge players. We've got this huge infrastructure around the game all the way from national bridge organizations to umptold bridge books, just this whole cornucopia of literature and online learning and films.

[00:59:19] And sometimes I take that for granted and even that's how I started on this journey with the setting trick was because we wanted to introduce bridge to more young people. But we have so much. It's such a rich game

[00:59:36] and I'm really grateful to Lamont for helping me to see that and also fired up to play some bidwist in person and maybe talk some smack. Please let me know your takeaways. Email me at johnatthesettingtrick.com Both your praise and criticism help this become a better show.

[01:00:03] And as always, thanks for listening.