Ep. 91: Dennis Bilde – The Danish Ace

[00:00:00] So we played, I don't know the names in English, but for example we played something where you are three players, you have 13 cards each and you have different bits you have to make. One of the bits are spades and in that round spades are drums. One of them is no drums, one of them is about not taking tricks and so on.

[00:00:22] So obviously now you don't have a partner because you're only three people, so you play with yourself against the others, but you get a good understanding of, first of all, how they work and taking tricks. So that's one of the games. Would you bid or would you just take as many or as few tricks as you could?

[00:00:44] In this game there's four different types of bits you can make. You have to make all four, you have four turns to bid and you have to make each of the four. So you might end up having to bid spades as your last bid and you have no spades in your hand.

[00:01:04] Hello, I am here with Bridge superstar Dennis Bilda. I subscribe to Andrew Robson's daily Bridge videos Dennis and you were the featured star on the Sunday special this week. Great. And he said, yes, I'll get you a link. And he said that you are the best player in Denmark. Okay.

[00:01:35] Maybe that's not a, I mean, I don't know. That's great. Denmark is quite big. I mean, we are almost maybe half the size of New York. So it's quite nice. And so I reached out to a couple of people about, you know, you and I wanted to get some context to properly introduce you.

[00:01:59] And the first three people that I reached out to, one of them said, ask whether he can drink more than his teammates. That was Zia. Christina Madsen said, how many times have you missed your flight back home from a tournament or lost your phone? This is a terrible introduction. I thought this would be a good introduction.

[00:02:25] I tried to do the good. Anyway, your partner, your primary bridge partner, Augustine Medalla, who, like yourself, is in the conversation for best bridge player in the world. Dennis is probably the best partner ever. Other than being an extremely good bridge player, he behaves the best in the bridge world and is loved inside and outside the table. He also said, you're a slow drinker, though, but maybe you'll get better. Okay. So he gave me a good introduction.

[00:02:53] Unlike the first two. Well, Zia, to his credit, Zia did say, one of my all-time favorite partners, players, a gentleman, and Dennis is blessed with exceptional talent. Okay. Okay. You just forgot to mention that. Well, I thought that Christina had said something about drinking, but she didn't, actually. So then I realized that, like, halfway through this introduction thing.

[00:03:22] Yeah. And you're probably like, why did I agree to be on the show? John's just going to make fun of me. No, you know, every time I've played with Zia a lot, every time I play with Zia, he always says, so if you play in England, in London, I come there and he says, they need to meet me in the poker club. I'm playing poker so we can discuss the system while he's just playing hands. And I sit there. And then we go have some drinks.

[00:03:48] And then the game starts the next day. And all he cares about is when it finishes so we can have champagne. So obviously he mentions drinking. I remember kibitzing you and Zia some good number of years ago playing in, like, a pair game in the U.S. Yeah. And you guys had this delicate auction and you're like, somebody asked for key cards.

[00:04:18] And now it's apparent that you don't have enough key cards. And so, like, I forget who it was. Like, one of you guys bid five spades and then the other guys bid five no to play. And we passed. Just made. Yeah. I remember. I think this was the first time I ever played with Zia. Really? So it was, yeah, 10 years ago maybe. We played some pair tournament in the U.S. And we had this auction when we played five-nope tournament.

[00:04:47] And I remember because, I don't remember that hand, but the first two tournaments I played with Zia, we played five no to jump in one of the East tournament. And it never, it's the most rare contract in Brits, for sure. It never happens. It's never happened to me before. But the first two tournaments I played with Zia, we just played five no to jump. So I listened to, I mean, high praise from Modala, by the way. You know?

[00:05:17] He says, best partner ever and extremely good player. That's nice of him. I wonder what he's trying to get. And he's like, well, Christina, how many times he missed a flight back home or lost his phone? Well, I did miss a couple of flights, I must admit. Once, I did very well to miss my flight, actually.

[00:05:46] I was playing in Warsaw in Poland. I was playing with Zia in some tournament down there. Yeah. It ended on the Thursday. And I had to be back home, like, quite early on Friday for my cousins. She finished her education. So she had, like, a party for that. Yeah. So I had to be back quite early on Friday. So I had to take a flight basically straight after the game on Thursday.

[00:06:15] So we finished the game and we go out for dinner. I can have, like, one piece of something and then I take a taxi to the airport. I go in the taxi and I tell him, so I'm flying with Ryanair, I think I'm flying with, to here and there. And he says, okay, I'll take it to the airport. Go to the airport and my boarding pass doesn't work. So apparently I'm at the wrong airport in Warsaw. And the other airport is, like, more than an hour in the opposite direction.

[00:06:45] There's no way I can make my flight. So I'm like, okay, I'll check if there's an early flight next morning. And there's an early flight from that airport. Okay. So I leave my luggage at the airport hotel and I take a taxi back to the city where the rest of everybody is. And we end up at a casino. And I spend all night in the casino and I win more money than the extra flight ticket cost and the hotel.

[00:07:15] And I make my flight back home. What was your game? It was Blackjack, I think. One of the things that I listened to a couple of you, you were on the Sorry Partner Podcast and you're also on Jacob Kill. Yeah, Caleb. Danish guy. Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:43] Two Danish guys speaking in English, you and Jacob Kill. Yeah, that's great, man. And one of the things that was funny about Jacob's podcast is you won the Junior World Championships in 2008 playing on the Danish under-26 team, which is great, obviously. But the thing that I found funny about that was that you played in the under-21 trials for Denmark and you didn't qualify.

[00:08:13] We didn't qualify. But the under-26 team, they qualified. So I sneaked my way into the team. And we won. You know, because there's – I'm sure there's some junior bridge players who are listening to this podcast, you know, who have, you know, been disappointed in their results. And then you go, I mean, that's quite a turnaround. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

[00:08:41] But yeah, I was – we were feeling quite confident as I remember that we would qualify with the under-21 team because we had a decent team. But as usual, we didn't have any focus on the bridge. We just focused on drinking too much, I guess. We were having too much fun all night long.

[00:09:04] And in the end, in the long term, and even back then when we were superheroes and we could do anything without sleeping, it wasn't enough. How much is your – like, I remember in Tromso, for example, it just seemed like you were having a good time. Tromso at the European Championships 2015. How much is your, like, sort of – I mean, maybe this is just totally the wrong form of question to pursue. But, like, how much is your drinking? Like, you used to – but now you have two kids.

[00:09:33] You know, you got a partner. Yeah, I'm getting older also. Yeah. I think when I was younger, when I was 20, 25, I mean, it didn't really seem to affect me. I was just, okay, let's go out, have some beers, have some drinks, have fun, sleep later maybe. And then the next day you play. And the thing is, when you do something that you really love, like playing breaks, for example, with sign-off.

[00:10:04] Yeah. And being with your friends and doing all these things at the same time, you can do much more than if you just had to go on a job that you didn't really want to go to or something. Yeah. But for me, I mean, it was adrenaline, I think. I could do – well, sometimes I couldn't as well. But I used to be able to drink quite a lot and then still play quite okay.

[00:10:35] And now it's a little less. But that's what my darling said in the introduction, right? I'm a slow drinker. How many weeks do you play a year? I play like probably 10 to 12, 12 weeks, 13 weeks, something like that. So I play all the nationals. Yeah.

[00:10:56] And then I play like the Rosenblum or the Open European Championships or Open World Championships and a couple of other tournaments. But not that much anymore. So I don't like – in the US, everybody plays all the regionals and nationals. But we don't do that. We don't really have the equivalent to regionals in Denmark.

[00:11:23] So all I'm playing in Denmark is I'm playing the Danish League, which is like four weekends that I'm playing during the year. And then I play a little bit in London with SIA. I play some of the tournaments in Iceland, for example. Sometimes I play Madeira or some of the bigger tournaments that are around. You do okay in Iceland, right? Like you won – what have you won?

[00:11:50] You won all three a year ago. Yeah, a year ago I won all three. Yeah, that was quite amazing. This year I did quite bad compared, I guess. I only won the pairs. And we came – I think we came third in the teams. So we were up there. But we lost – in the last round, we lost against the winners. If we'd won that match, we could have won the tournament. Oh, wow. Yeah.

[00:12:20] Did you – well, I know you're too much of a gentleman to ever say it. Were you happy with how you played that match? Yeah. Yeah, we did okay. I think there was – as I remember, there was like a borderline slam that we didn't bid that was making. But there was a very, very cheap save against it. So if they'd taken the save, we would have gotten even less than we got now for not bidding the slam action.

[00:12:50] It was – I had – that's difficult to judge. At the other table, they did bid the slam and our teammates did not save. So that was expensive. But we could have bid the slam. Was it favorable – were the opponents favorable? Yeah, they were. Yeah. Were they in the auction? They were very much in. They bid like one spade and four spades. So they had a very good chance to save. But it was a weak pair. I'm not sure. It was some polls called Cali Tag.

[00:13:21] They don't know much about the game. Well, you know, I used to have a segment on the show where I had asked the guests if they were better than Kalita. Yeah? Yeah. And most people said yes or most people said maybe? You know, it started with – I was interviewing Jeff Max Stroth. Yeah. And he was – I think maybe they had just – Poland had just won the world championship or something. Oh, yeah. And, you know, he was saying that they play really well.

[00:13:50] And I said, well, are you better than them? Or is he better than you? You know, is Kalita – he's like – I think I said, is he better than you? Because I'd had him – Kalita on the – no, I don't think I'd had Kalita on the podcast yet. And I think Max Stroth. Well, I'm not saying that. No, he's not saying that. You're never getting him to say that. So then I started asking people if they were better than Kalita. Yeah. Like it became a thing. Yeah. So what do you got for that? Not that day. That's difficult.

[00:14:19] You don't ask that question anymore, do you? No. Because his partner, Michael, admitted to cheating on the internet. So it was like – I decided not to ask it anymore. Here we are. Here we are. Obviously, very, very good. But I think it's actually a very tough question.

[00:14:44] Because in Brits, you can't really decide – well, sometimes you can, but to have the best single player doesn't always work. You need a good partnership, right? Yeah. So at the moment, Kalita with Klukowski is probably in the best partnership in the world. But who is the best player? But who is the best player? Who can say that? I don't know. But it doesn't really matter because you need the partnership, right? What about you and August?

[00:15:14] Yeah. Well, we are a good partnership. But I think – well, I know we play too little together. We need to play more. Yeah. To have the last bit of sharpness that we sometimes need. We can be great, but sometimes we just have too much of uncertainty because we only play the three or four tournaments a year. So we play. But I'm not saying we are not a good partnership.

[00:15:44] Yeah. I'm trying to – but I'm saying to be able to say that you are the best or at least, I think we need to play a little bit more. So that's our plan. Start playing some more together. Like live or what do you mean? Yeah. Some more live tournaments maybe, but also just to do a little bit more of practicing when we aren't together. Because, I mean, he's living in Argentina. I'm living in Denmark.

[00:16:13] So it's half the way around the world to meet up to play a tournament. Do you guys practice in Qubits? We have a bit like 30 hands, I think. Not that much. No, we have been a bit lazy with that. We played together for a long time, so we know a lot of what we do.

[00:16:41] But we just need to refresh it a little bit more often, I think. Well, that's very candid of you to reveal that for everybody listening. Maybe that was... We can delete it if you want. No, no, that's fine. What do you think when I tell you that he said you're probably the best partner ever? I'm not sure if I can trust him. You see? Because he might just want me to pay his next bar bill.

[00:17:10] I don't know. No, but it's something that many people say that I'm a good partner. And I think it has to do with mostly my attitude towards the game. For example, playing with Madala. He's not known for being the best partner. But he has much more emotion when he plays. So all his emotions, they are showing like this.

[00:17:39] It's not like he's angry with me or angry with the whole world. Sometimes it looks that way because he has all his emotions outside of his skin. He's South American. And on the other hand, on the complete other hand, I'm Scandinavian. I'm Danish. And we are just kind of, well, happy and smiling alone.

[00:18:04] And I mean, to me, I'm just finding it enjoyable to play most times. Yeah. And I don't know why, but I don't get that frustrated at the table. Don't get me wrong. I really want to win when I'm sitting there. I really want to win. But if something goes wrong, you can see it instantly on Madala. And on me, you can probably not see anything.

[00:18:35] And it's just a different way to express the emotions there. Yeah. I don't know why. It's always been like that. I've just been enjoying most of my time at the Red Saver. Too much to spend my energy on being mad. How do you think you guys could be better? Or can you speak more specifically about how you think you could be better? Well, we should practice.

[00:19:03] We actually agreed now that we should start to practice like once a week or once every second week. Just to have kind of like a flow. Because sometimes if we meet up and we haven't played or seen each other for three months, you meet up and you have to get into the flow again. Right. And you kind of need to have that going for you. So the flow is not ending. It's there.

[00:19:32] You see a lot of the partnerships nowadays. For example, our teammates, the Rimsteads, Michael and Ola. Yeah. They're playing all the time and they play together and they spend time together. And we live on the opposite side of the planet and we play four tournaments a year. So we need to just keep the flow in the partnership. Don't have breaks for three months and then play again. What do you do when you're at home and you're not playing great?

[00:20:01] And you've got two daughters. I don't know. I have two daughters. Yeah. Well, I spend... Now I'm training to run a marathon. Oh, really? Not that I spend all my time doing that. But I obviously I spend a lot of time with my family now. I have two daughters who is the youngest one and the oldest is two and a half. And I spend a lot of time with my family, my friends.

[00:20:30] We have a house with a garden. I need to spend some time here to keep it a little bit. Being a stay-at-home dad when I'm home, I guess. But yeah, I started to play golf three years ago. And this year I haven't played a single round because I haven't found the time to do it. Yeah. So, yeah. I have a golf course five minutes from my house that I'm a member of. And I should be able to go there every day.

[00:21:00] And I probably could prioritize to go there more often, but I haven't been there yet. It must be nice, though, to be home and just not like you were saying. When you're home, you're able to do kind of whatever you want. It must be cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool. It's great. Is your best friend a bridge player? Who are your best friends? Are they bridge players? Are they... My best friend, he's not a bridge player. No. Yeah. But I have a lot of very close friends in the bridge.

[00:21:30] I have, for example, Madala is a good friend of mine. Yeah. Which is obviously good when you're partnering him as well. The guy I play with in Denmark, Martin Schals, is a good friend of mine. Yeah. I have a lot of close friends around in the bridge community. But when I'm home, I spend most of my time either with people who doesn't play a lot of bridge. Yeah. Or bridge at all. Or with my family. All my family plays bridge.

[00:21:59] Right. It's kind of hard to imagine you in a non-bridge environment for me. Because whenever I see you, we're at a bridge tournament. And that's just... And I love bridge tournaments. They're so much fun. There's all these... I mean, like Madala, for example. I'd never really spoken to him before until in Memphis last month. And we sat next to each other at this big dinner.

[00:22:29] Yeah. And he's a great guy. He's a great guy. I'd never talk to him. Yeah. And he was talking about... There was some viewgraph... People were watching some viewgraph that was going on in the Vanderbilt. And there was some slam swing that... I think there was a director called on some slam hand. And Madala, it was just amazing to hear him talk about it. He's like, it's impossible that it could be a 20...

[00:22:56] There's no combination of slam swing that could be 26 amps. I forget what he was saying exactly. But I just remember thinking, oh my God. This guy knows so much more about me at bridge. Because just listening to how fluent he is in talking about this. I'm like, wait. Can we start at the beginning? What do I hold? I have ace third of spades. We're not talking about the hand.

[00:23:25] But just the fluency that he had for it. And he's already talking about the imps total. And you're still getting the hand right. No. I mean, I was using that as sort of trying to make a comparison. Yeah. But I understand. I understand. I was just like... I think I know what he was talking about. Oh, you do? Yeah, I understand. Oh, you were at that dinner. I think so. That's right. You were at that dinner. Yeah. But I think it was a hand from the winter games, the winter transnationals or something.

[00:23:54] Where one pair had bit and made a slam of two aces. And in the first trick, the opponents, they cast a random ace. And then they still had the ace of trumps left. Right. And then they still had the ace of trumps left. So they had one trick and they had the ace of trumps. So how can that disappear? And then because it was like the guy didn't follow suit to the first trick, maybe he... In trumps. In trumps, I think it was. Maybe in trumps, yeah.

[00:24:22] Maybe he cast a side ace and then he cast a trump ace and the guy didn't follow suit. I guess he didn't care anymore. So now the director said, okay, I guess you get the trick and you make the slam. So how should you be able to make a slam when they already cast an outside ace and they still have the trump ace? It's just... I mean, in your logical head, it doesn't make sense, right?

[00:24:50] And Brits is supposed to be a logical game, but I guess it wasn't here. Anyway. Okay. I spoke to two other people who I haven't mentioned. So I'll go to Cor. Cor Galbach. Yeah. You know, Dane used to come to all the nationals. Now he's got children too. Yeah.

[00:25:17] He's a professor at Fordham in New York. And I said, he said, ask him when Denmark will be back in the Bermuda Bowl again. I predict he'll say it depends on my return. Well, he's almost right. Because Denmark is actually back in the Bermuda Bowl this year. Oh, right. Right.

[00:25:47] But not because we qualified, but because we're hosting it. Is your dad going to be the team captain? Yes, he is. Of the open team? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. But obviously, you can tell Cor that we want him back. We need him back. You know, actually, when I won in 2008, you mentioned before that I won the world championships of juniors. Yeah.

[00:26:16] And then in that tournament, Cor was the captain. Okay. Or the coach. The coach and the captain. Right. I think he had a hard time making sure that we kept our bedtime and didn't drink alcohol or too much alcohol. It wasn't the easiest task. But you won. We won, yeah.

[00:26:40] At one point in the tournament, Cor had to go to the president of the WBF to make an apology. I apologize for our team's behavior, maybe my behavior. That's the funny thing. It's like, so you won the Platinum Pairs with Justin Law. Yeah. And you say on Jacob's podcast that you're great friends.

[00:27:11] And it's like funny because Justin Law, they seem like such a, I mean, great guy, obviously, but seem like so, I don't know, like so reckless. And like, you're kind of similar, but like just so much more buttoned up than, you know, like you got to put together a lot and you're still here. So. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I was good friends with Justin. He was a great guy.

[00:27:40] But as you said, yeah, he was reckless. He was what you, I mean, he got the most out of his life, I guess. He really just wanted to do whatever he wanted to do. He didn't really care about what people told him to do. I mean, he had fun the way he wanted to. And he was a great guy and a great player. And I'm very happy that I got to play and win a tournament with him. That was amazing. That's a good memory to have.

[00:28:08] I still remember that very well. Was it, that was in Kansas City, I think. It was in Kansas City. And I was supposed to get there the day before. And I think I flew to Washington or something. And then I missed the connection because my first flight was delayed. And then I had to spend the night in Washington and fly to somewhere else and then to Kansas.

[00:28:35] And so I got there like 10 minutes before game time. Wow. And we spent eight minutes just talking and then two minutes discussing system. And that's all the system we discussed for the whole three days. No way. That was enough. Yeah. Are you serious? I'm serious. You must have added some things like after like a hand was over. You must have been like, hey, do you want to play? Maybe one or two things.

[00:29:01] But really, I mean, Justin was such a natural player, which I am a big believer in too. So we just said, okay, let's play natural grids. And that's mostly what we did. What if it goes, okay, playing natural, let's say it goes like one heart and they overcalled two clubs. Yeah. With no discussion, what would you think three spades is by partner?

[00:29:30] One heart and two clubs with no discussion, it would show spades and then we can't. What about four diamonds? That would be a fit showing. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd be confident making that bit? No, no, no, no. I wouldn't. Let me just imagine. But with a random partner, no.

[00:29:55] Because those things are also so dependent on the style of the player or the style of where that player is from. Right? Some people would just play this as a splinter. Some people would play it as something else. To me, if I have a splinter, if they overcalled, I can only splinter in their suit. Yeah. Show my suits otherwise. Yeah. And I think Justin was a big believer of if he bit something, that's what he has.

[00:30:30] You came and played rubber bridge at the Regency once, didn't you? I did, yeah. That was fun. But I was there like three days before we had to play in Philadelphia. And Cia wrote me and said, come play rubber bridge. Okay. I'll try. So I go there. And Cia is there. And Joe Gru is there. And I don't remember if you were there the first day. You were there the second day for sure. Okay.

[00:30:58] But the first day, maybe you were there as well. And maybe Sam Lev is there. Yeah. So Joe, he does the money. So he asked me if I want to play $1 a point or half a dollar a point. And I've never played rubber bridge before. That sounds a little bit expensive. But okay. Let's take half a dollar a point. Right. So he's like, he does some calculations and he's like, oh, no, it doesn't add up. You have to play $1 a point. But we can stake you if you want.

[00:31:29] Okay. Let's play. So I play $1 a point. Right. So we play for three, four hours and I win everything. I just win all the robbers almost. So I win $3,500 or something. That's pretty good. For the first time. All right. Great. So actually, I'm in New York to visit Cor at the point. So that night we go out. Me, Cor, Joe, a lot of people.

[00:32:00] Great dinner, drinks. And I'm like, oh, let me pay this and that and this. I have all this money. I know it's coming. I know it's coming. I know it's coming. Okay. Great. We have a great night. A very expensive night. So the next day, I walk back a little blurry eyed and Joe's there again and said, what do you want to play? One dollar please. And I lose every game. And I lose all the money.

[00:32:30] So I'm about even for my Robert Brakes adventures. Oh, man. I was going to say, how come you haven't come back? And then now you, the second day. I need to earn some money to come back first. But it's fun. But you're going to Nantucket with the team before. Yes, before Philadelphia. Before the Philadelphia tournament.

[00:32:59] We go to visit Larry. He has this new, what do you call it, a holiday house or something, holiday home. He and his wife built last year or something. Well, they didn't win it, but they hadn't built. So we go to visit him like four or five days before. And I'm planning on bringing my girlfriend and our two daughters. Oh, cool. Yeah. So are they coming to the tournament too or just Nantucket? That's the plan. That's the plan.

[00:33:27] So we plan on going like a week before Nantucket. Then we spend some time somewhere. We haven't planned yet. Then we go to Nantucket to visit Larry with the team and the girls as well. And we come to Philadelphia, all of us. So the plan is that they stay for the whole period. Wow. Yeah. What does your wife do? Does she have a job? At the moment, she doesn't. She used to be a school teacher for the younger classes.

[00:33:58] And now she, well, obviously we had our two kids. So she had a lot of maternity leave. That just ended. You know, in Denmark, you have like almost, you have like a year off. But it just ended. And now for the next, I don't know, we didn't plan, but at least six months or maybe more, she's going to just be stay at home mom.

[00:34:23] Because that way they can come sometimes when I'm going. Because when I'm going away to play these big tournaments, I'm away for sometimes two weeks. And it's a long time. So for this summer, it works out. So she can, they can all come. Well, the flight will probably be fun with the kids. It's going to be fun for the rest of the passengers on the flight, right?

[00:34:54] I don't know. We never traveled with a flight with Sasha, the youngest. But our oldest, we did it a couple of times. And that worked great. She was just sleeping the whole time. Oh, nice. But we never took a long flight like this to the US. This is going to be like a 10 hour flight. Wow. It's going to be interesting. Two little kids and a 10 hour flight.

[00:35:22] Previously, you talked about playing trick-taking games before bridge. Yeah. Like at home. Yeah. What games did you guys, what was like your, what games did y'all play? So we played, I don't know the names in English, but for example, we played something where you have three players and you have 13 cards each and you have different bits you have to make. Like one of the bits are spades and that round spades are trumps. One of them is no trumps.

[00:35:50] One of them is about not taking tricks and so on. So you obviously now you don't have a partner because you're only three people. So you play with yourself against the others, but you get a good understanding of, first of all, trumps, how they work and taking tricks. So that's one of the games. That's another game. Would you bid or would you just take as many or as few tricks as you could? Sorry? No. So you have to.

[00:36:19] Would you bid? Right. Yeah. So 13 cards are just out of play though? No, 13 cards you can change.

[00:36:45] So whenever you made a bid, you can change a certain number of cards with the blind cards. And then the next person in line can change whatever he or she wants to change. And the last one usually doesn't get to change anything. And you have to play with three people. It only works. It's only a three person. This is a three person game. Yeah. Okay. And there's another game where if you translate it directly, it's called matches.

[00:37:11] So you can be three, four, five players and you start with 10 cards and then you have to use matches and put it in your hand and hide it in the middle of the table. And when everybody put matches and each match is the number of tricks you think you take. So if you have three matches, you think you take three tricks and you have to take exactly three tricks.

[00:37:38] And then you have nine cards, eight cards, seven cards down to one and then up to 10 again. That's confusing. There's a lot of great card games. And we used to play a lot of cards in our house. We never played bridge section. We just played card games. Both your parents are like, you know, strong bridge players. They were in the game that you won in Iceland. Yeah. Yeah. They're very good.

[00:38:05] They played on the Danish national team for many years. My mom, she came third in the Venice cup in 2000 when I was 10 years old. And then I started when I was 11. I started to play. I couldn't believe it when you said on one of these podcasts that your mom doesn't know how to do a squeeze. That's true. See, I mean, sometimes you randomly will make a squeeze as you can do like a very, very super

[00:38:34] simple squeeze, but he doesn't really. I mean, honestly, how often do you make a squeeze? You never make squeezes, right? It's just, it's a nice word to say if you have to sound clever about bridge. Yeah. I know all these things. I can make squeezes. They never come up. She doesn't really know how to make squeezes. She can take her finesses and pull trumps and this is quite good in the bidding and that's enough.

[00:39:04] Oh man. Your dad is the fifth person I talked to. He asked me to talk to you, ask you about bridge and family. Yeah. Like, yeah, with your family, like how you balance kind of like, obviously your wife's not going to take a job for the time being since you can travel with you some. Yeah. So, well, it's tough because obviously when it's easy when I'm at home, because all the time I'm at home, we can be as flexible as we want. We can do more or less whatever we want.

[00:39:32] And when I'm away, she has to deal with both of the kids on her own. So it's tough. It's a tough job. I mean, I've only tried to have them on my own for two days in a row and that's difficult. It's great. It's great. You love it. You are in love with being around your kids, but sometimes you also just want to sleep on them. Maybe.

[00:40:03] So when she has to be alone with them for 12 days, it's tough on her. But, well, she's great. She does it. She's great. And she has, well, her parents live quite close to us and my parents does. So we have a lot of possibilities to get extra hands when we need to. When you come to your dad. Sorry. Sorry.

[00:40:29] And after I became a dad, I really experienced that when I'm away, I look forward to coming home much more. So during the tournament, I'm much more thinking of, okay, there's three days and then I can go home to see my kids again. So I really miss them more and more as the tournament comes along. And even though, I mean, I love being there. I love playing the tournaments, especially if I'm in the main tournament still, right?

[00:40:56] But it's just, you miss these little creatures that you've made. And then you come home and they are devils again. And you're like, okay, when is my next trip? But you really miss them. And it's actually, it's been the best way to deal with jet lag for me to have kids. Because before you come home and you were jet lagged and you slept. Sometimes you couldn't sleep during the night.

[00:41:26] You slept all day. And now you come home, you have kids. You have to be up all day whenever they are up and you have to sleep a little bit of night. So that's just what you have to do. There's no, nothing you can do. So jet lag is just history now. I was telling you before we started recording that my sister has a two and a half year old that they're potty training. How's the potty training going with the older one? That's a weird training.

[00:41:54] She didn't completely get rid of the diaper yet. But actually on Thursday, we have the Easter holidays. And they're going to be home for, well, they have like 10 days at home. Oh, wow. So we will get rid of the diaper in those 10 days. That's the plan. We got the pacifier. We got rid of like three weeks ago.

[00:42:23] And that's great. That's great. She did that. Right. But we just thought, don't do both at the same time. Only one of those big life-changing things. At once. So, you know, a lot of the people that listen to this podcast are tournament players. And so they know you and they know your dad, Morton Bilda, who I've interviewed previously on this podcast. They know that he comes to a lot of tournaments and he plays professionally as well.

[00:42:51] And, you know, arguably your biggest win was at Vanderbilt in 2013 playing with your dad. Yeah. But my question is when you and your dad are both at a tournament in the U.S., do you share a room? We used to when we played together as partners. Yeah. But we don't do it anymore. Now, he usually has Airbnb somewhere with his team. So they all stay there.

[00:43:19] So I share a room with Alan Biermann usually. Oh, okay. Yeah. He's the one. He books a hotel. He does everything. And I just have to meet him there. That's great. That's a good deal for me. You pay half, right? I pay half, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I wouldn't have expected that you and Alan would share a room. No? Why not? I don't know. I mean, I just... No, I like Alan very much. I just... One of the few.

[00:43:49] No, that's cool. No. We did that for many years. Yeah? I think... How did that start? How did that start? That's so many years. I don't remember. Maybe we do... I mean, we've known each other for more than 20 years. Since juniors, we played... We are almost the same age. So we played juniors for many years, since I was 13 or something, 14. And we've just been good friends.

[00:44:19] And then... That's cool, man. I think that's really cool. I guess when we just started to come to the nationals, both of us, we just happened to share a room. Sometimes it's nice, you know, to not share a room with your partner. Because you spend a lot of time with your partner. And sometimes you just need to talk to someone else about all your partner's stupid mistakes. How much bridge do you two talk? Not that much. You went along. Yeah, we talk a little bit. Not that much. But we...

[00:44:49] Sometimes... I mean, a lot of the time we play the same hands. So we talk a little bit. He doesn't have children, does he? No. He has a little niece now. His sister just got one. It was six months, I think. And he really... Now he wants to have children. After getting the uncle title. Now he wants to have some kids. But it's difficult because he travels a lot with bridge.

[00:45:19] He travels more than I do. And he has a big festival in Israel. In Eilat, the Red Sea Festival. Which he spends a lot of time working on. And it's in the beginning of November. I was actually there just... When Rose, my oldest, was... What was she? Five months? We went there. Me and Pernille, my girlfriend, and Rose. We took her. We went there.

[00:45:48] It's a great place. Weather is nice. Everything is amazing. And there's a lot of players. And it's a great venue. So I would recommend it. But he organizes that. His father used to organize it for 25 years. Sadly, he passed away. But now Alain took over. So he's in charge of that. That's a lot of organizing. Does he live there? He lives in Tel Aviv. And this is in Eilat. So it's in Israel. Right?

[00:46:18] Yeah. I was just thinking, you know, like, it's really cool that you and your dad both come to these tournaments. You know? And that you have that bond together. Yeah. And my brother, he's coming to many of them as well now. Yeah. I often mistake him for you. Like, I see him. Yeah. People do that. Across the room. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, no. That's not me. The first time I got so offended. I mean, what the fuck are you talking about? I look much nicer than him. And I'm, what are you talking about?

[00:46:49] But, okay, I see now that we look kind of similar. I'm just, I'm a little bit taller than him. So. If you look at both of you, like, straight on. Yeah. You don't really look that much alike. But, like, you're kind of. From a distance. Yeah, from a distance. From a side and a distance. And I used to always say that you can see it on the hair. Because, son, he likes some hair up here. But then I started to see some pictures of myself. And I don't know if I should reveal it.

[00:47:18] But I like a little hair up here, too. I think you're pretty good. Your hair is very short. Yeah. Your hair is very short. Yeah. The one who cuts my hair. She tells me, Danny, it's not like you don't have any hair. It's just very light up there. So you can really see it. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. What else? You're a jokester. I think it's fair to say that you've got, like,

[00:47:47] a playful sense of humor. Yeah. I do. Do you ever play, like, a practical joke on anybody? I don't do that very much, actually. No? No. When did I do that? I don't even know. No, I just joke around with the girls. And they seem to like it. My girlfriend doesn't always like it, I must admit. What does she get mad at you when you joke around with your daughters?

[00:48:15] For example, now, when we sit at the table and we eat a meal. My youngest, who's now one, she has this thing where she takes the spoon or the, whatever she has to eat with, in her mouth. And then she sits with it in her mouth, like, And then the oldest one follows up. And then I do the same. And I'm like, No, don't teach them that. Don't teach them that. Teach them that they can't do that.

[00:48:46] I can't help you. It's the cutest thing you've ever seen. And then... How did you meet... I'm going to call her Penny because I can't quite say. Okay, that's fine. Penila is a name, but it's difficult. Penila. Okay. How did you two meet? We met... It was around when COVID was there. It was like five years ago.

[00:49:12] And actually, one of my friends, he called me on FaceTime. And I was playing some Brits game there. So after the game, I called him back and said, Hey, Dennis, what's up? You called me. Yeah, I'm at this party. Okay. I have a date for you. Oh, great. So he took his phone. And then a girl at this party had her phone where she had called Penila. No way. So he called me and she had called Penila.

[00:49:43] Wow. And he did like this. So we FaceTimed each other through several phones. Wow. And she was sitting at home. It was a Saturday night. And she was sitting at home just relaxing, watching TV. And I was like, Hey, nice to meet you. And I was like, Hey, nice to meet you. What do you want to talk about? I don't know.

[00:50:10] So at this party that my friend was at, all of a sudden, this other girl named Rikke, she stood up and she just shouted, Does anybody know any nice single guy around 30 or something? Oh, my God. Because I have my girlfriend. She needs someone. And Casper, my friend, is like, Yeah, I know someone. Let's call them. Is it Casper the bridge player? No, no, it's Casper.

[00:50:39] He's actually my best friend outside of Brits. Ah. So yeah, that's, we talked to each other for a little bit there and I got her phone number. And then one week later, we met. Wow. And so she's from kind of near where you're from too, right? Yeah. She is. Because her parents live near you and your parents, your parents live near your parents. Yeah, yeah. So we're from the same area, more or less. Wow. That was great.

[00:51:09] And then, yeah. That's an amazing story. We met up and then there was all this COVID, lockdown all of a sudden. So we had to spend a lot of time together. We just, we couldn't really see people, right? So we just, it felt like when we'd known each other for four months, it felt like we'd known each other for five years. Hmm. Hmm. Because we just, you spend all every day together almost. Hmm. So yeah.

[00:51:38] Does she speak English as well as you do? Well, she does a little more British English. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. But it sounds better when she speaks English than I, when I do. What percentage of the time do you think you speak English? Me? And I don't know. Like in the time that you're speaking, no, just in your life in general, what percentage of the time you think you speak English? All the time that I'm playing brains, I speak English. So I don't know.

[00:52:03] Maybe I speak English 20, not 20%, less, but 15 to 20%. I think 20%. Yeah. Like that's amazing. That's the only way that I know you as an English speaker. And like so much more of your life is spent speaking Danish, which I would not understand. Yeah.

[00:52:22] And it's funny because you kind of feel like, so when I'm speaking Danish, obviously I know Danish, the language I know much more and I know much better than English. I mean, I can communicate, I can speak to everybody in English, but you don't feel as much at home than you do with your own natural language, which is Danish now.

[00:52:47] So in Danish, I know all the expressions, I know all the jokes, I know all this. And I think sometimes I can be funny. And in English, it's a bit difficult because you need to learn the other language. Then you need to learn the expressions and the humor and all these things. It's not quite the same. But that being said, in Denmark, we do learn to speak English quite early.

[00:53:15] I think nowadays they learn it in first grade in school, actually. Yeah. Your fluency is, I know how to speak a little bit of French from school. Yeah. But just, yeah, no comparison. I admire that, you know, about so many of the, so all the foreign players, you know, they just know English. But you know, especially when you live in a country like Denmark, we are 6 million people in Denmark.

[00:53:43] It's not like that many. So, and there's no one else, no other countries that speak Danish. So we have to learn other languages. I mean, we need to. So obviously everybody's learning English. Some is learning German or French. Since I learned German in school, not that I can speak it now, I can understand a little bit, but I've never used it. Because it's so easy to speak English to everybody nowadays.

[00:54:13] You were in the well on Bridgewinners some years ago. I think it was when you won Sportsman. Was it Sportsman of the Year? I'm not sure. Yeah, I think it was. I won Sportsman of the Year. Player of the Year. I think it was Player of the Year. Yeah. So I had the most master points, right? The Player of the Year. Oh, okay. Wasn't it then? I think so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 2017. Yeah, you did. Sorry. Excuse me. Player of the Year.

[00:54:42] And you were Sportsman of the Year in 2020, but you probably were in the well for 2017. Yeah. And you said, somebody said, what's your favorite convention? And I thought this was hilarious. You said penalty double. And that was a rare convention for me at the time. Because in 2017, I played on the Lavazza team. So I played with the Italians.

[00:55:11] And if there's one word that they don't speak in Italy, it's penalty doubles. They don't know what it means. It's like penalty. I don't know what penalty is. It's take out. Take out. Cards. Take out. There's a rarity in these days. Now it's... Still, I play a lot of... I'm formed by the Italians. So I play a lot of takeout doubles.

[00:55:40] But we have the odd penalty double now and again. What was playing on the Lavazza team like? That was... Actually, it was great. I played there for five, six years, I think. And, you know, you get to play with all these big champions. It was Bokit, Waring, Madala. And then there was a little bit of change for the rest of the team. But those were the three that were there all the time.

[00:56:10] And they've all won so many European championships, world championships, titles all over. Right. So they have this charisma. They have this... They just know the game all the time. They know all the situations. They have so much knowledge. And it was actually... It was great to come in. And obviously, at the time, I was a good player.

[00:56:38] I mean, I wouldn't be invited to play with them if I wasn't a good player. But I just could learn so much from them. All the bidding technique that they have, the thinking. It was great. I mean, I really enjoyed it. I think they were... Or still are. They're all very nice guys. They're all super friendly. The only thing that I never really got around to was learning to speak fluent Italian.

[00:57:07] And you know, when you have five Italians and one day in a restaurant, what language are we speaking? We're speaking mostly Italian. Yeah, si, si, yeah. Si, grazie, grazie. Spaghetti. How is Madala's Italian? He's fluent. Is he speak Italian? Yeah, he's fluent. But he's from Argentina. So he speaks Spanish as his mother language.

[00:57:33] It's not the same as Italian, but it's the same kind of language family. So, and then he lived in Italy for four or five years where he even picked it up quite easy. And he's very good with languages. I'm not that good with languages. So I tried. At the time I was living in Norway. No, I was living in Denmark at the time where I started to play for the Novarty team.

[00:58:03] So I took some private lessons in Denmark. At first I tried this. Yeah. First I tried this app Duolingo, which is fine. But it's not really for me. I like to have it in person. So I had this Italian girl living in Denmark who gave me some private lessons. And that was great. And I had those for like three, four months. And then I moved to Norway. Because at the time I had a Norwegian girlfriend. So I moved there. Yeah.

[00:58:32] And no more lessons for me. So I picked up the basics, but didn't really get to know the language really. And then after a year, a year and a half or something in Norway, I found somewhere where I could get lessons there. Right. And I didn't find it was so easy to find because with all the Brits I played, I traveled all the time.

[00:58:59] I couldn't like, they usually had like every Monday you come here for the next three months. Right. And I would only be there for three Mondays. It wouldn't be enough. So I finally have found something that I could attend most of the classes. And I did that. And then after one and a half month of those classes, we broke up and I moved back to Denmark. So I learned all the basics of Italian a couple of times.

[00:59:30] And I know all the Brits Italian. So when they speak Brits in Italian, I understand and I can speak. Then I speak in English. But yeah, I can understand something, but not a lot. And I'm probably also a bit lazy with languages. Well, I'm impressed that you went to that length, you know. To try to learn.

[00:59:52] Yeah, well, in Italy, most of the people are very proud to be Italian. So they speak Italian and they don't really. I mean, the only reason that they all speak English now is that they play Brits internationally. So they had kind of had to learn English. Otherwise, they were just... So the English isn't like great. I mean, Giorgio Dubuang is very good in English. And Madala is very good in English.

[01:00:20] But Bocchi, not so good. And Samantha, who was there, not the greatest. I mean, we can speak, but they prefer Italian a lot. So it would be natural for them to speak Italian. So obviously, it would be great also for me if I could be in the conversation in Italian. But I never got that far. Even though I mean... That was a scary team, though, because they didn't have a sponsor on the team, you know, like the Lavazza team. Exactly, yeah.

[01:00:50] Like it was like a real pro team. Yeah, it's great. Sometimes we played as though we had a lot of sponsors in our team. But that's the thing, you know, like when I explained Bridge to my friends that don't play Bridge, that like the sponsorship concept, like I was talking to this friend the other day and she works in advertising. And I could tell that she thought that like sponsoring the team, I mean, for Lavazza, it

[01:01:19] was the case, actually, that, you know, Lavazza is a coffee brand. And so, I mean, you know, did you get to meet Madame Lavazza much? Yeah, yeah. She actually used to travel around to most of the tournaments with the team. So she had this team for almost 50 years, 45 years or something. And in the beginning, she traveled with the team all over and she played as well.

[01:01:48] She used to be a decent player, not top player, but a decent player. But when I joined the team, she was only playing like one or two tournaments a year. Like in Billerich in France, she played with them. Mostly she didn't play. She came along for some of the tournaments. But when we played in the US, she never came. But she was terrific.

[01:02:13] And every year at Christmas time, they had this big Christmas dinner at their place in Turin, so it was Maria Teresa and the whole family. I mean, her son and grandkids and everybody was there in their house. And it was great. They were all very, very nice people. Yeah, I could see wanting to learn Italian from moments like that for sure. Yeah.

[01:02:40] You know, you're on the team and you're coming to their house for Christmas or, you know, it's probably not Christmas Day, but, you know. No, no, it wasn't Christmas Day, but it was the Christmas dinner they did for the team and the family. Yeah. So it was like being in like part of the Lavazza family kind of because we did spend a lot of time together where she also would come and either her son or daughter-in-law would

[01:03:08] come and play sometimes as well. Does Lavazza make a Danish coffee? They did buy a Danish coffee brand while I was on the team, Meril. But they have Lavazza in Denmark. And then they bought one of the biggest Danish coffee brands while I was on the team. And actually, that was great because when I started on the team, we had like a yearly salary.

[01:03:35] And then they bought this coffee brand and they said, oh, Dennis, now you pay so much in tax in Denmark. It's amazing. We have to pay you more. Thank you. That's great. Because half of it goes to tax. But you didn't realize, you didn't really hear my question properly. If, no, maybe I didn't. Do they make a Danish coffee? Ah.

[01:04:10] No. No. And that's the reason I never really fit on that team, right? They don't like it. They don't make a proper Danish coffee. No. So for those who are wondering what we're laughing about here. Sometimes, you know, like at the tournament, particularly like let's say it's a pair game and things are kind of going a little south.

[01:04:40] You might see the Danes with a, what we call a coffee cup. It has a beer. It has a beer in it. Which that's a Danish coffee in our parlance. Because you're not really allowed to have beers at the table, right? So we need to have Danish coffee since then. Some camouflage. I didn't realize that you'd won a Swiss with Anders, Hagen. Yeah. Back in your early days. Yeah.

[01:05:11] That was one of the first national titans I won. I don't know. Maybe 2013 or something. Or 12 even. I think it was 12. Yeah. I think it was at San Francisco. It was San Francisco. Yeah. That was 2012. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know you guys yet. I hadn't met you. I hadn't met you yet. Yeah. We played on a team with Reese Milner. Yeah.

[01:05:40] And he played with Lars Blaksic from Denmark and then two Polish guys, Kowalski and Romanski. Yeah. I recognize the names. I'm not. Yeah. They're senior players from Poland. Very good players. But that was great. Yeah. So we won. Very amazing. And Anders even had to leave before we finished. He had to leave like with three matches to go. Oh, really? Yeah. Because he booked the flight there. He didn't expect us to go that far, I guess.

[01:06:09] So he booked the flight. So I had to play in the last three matches with Lars Blaksic. Oh, okay. Which was fine. Yeah. I mean, it was good enough. It was good enough. Yeah. You played on the Danish team with Lars for a period of time. Yeah, we played for a couple of years in Denmark. Yeah. I know his brother Knute better. I don't know Lars that well. Yeah. I know who Lars is, but I know I've played with Knute. I think he's played on the Danish team. Yeah, you might have.

[01:06:38] Yeah, he's, they're both great players and very nice guys to hang out with. So are you playing with Martin in the Bermuda Bowl? Yeah. Yeah. I'm playing with Martin and the rest of our team is going to be Kaspar Konov and Michael Asgard and then Christian Laman and Andreas Playdrup. Oh, okay. Yeah. Is Andrea the guy who plays on your dad's team sometimes? Yes, exactly. The tall guy? He's not.

[01:07:07] No, the tall guy is Eckenberg, I think. Isn't it? Simon Eckenberg. Isn't Andrea kind of tall? Like tall and thin? I know Simon Eckenberg. Okay. Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah. He's maybe, he's kind of tall. He's maybe about my size. Hmm. Maybe I'm not. Maybe he's not the person I think he is. But he is the person who played on my dad's team for many years. So he probably is the person.

[01:07:36] So Laman's on the team. Laman is on the Danish team, yeah. I mean, he's good. He's got a lot of game. He's got a lot of talent, yeah. He's got a lot of talent. But now he just needs to get rid of all his junior habits. As we all had to. But yeah, he's good. He's a big talent. He's going to become a very good player.

[01:08:05] So it's going to be interesting because we have Andreas is, what do you say, 28, 29. And Christian is like 21 or 22 maybe, I don't know. But they're two very young players. So it's great to have some youngsters coming in. And then I'm 35 and my partner Martin is 41. So we have quite a young team. So it's going to be exciting. And we play on our home turf in Denmark.

[01:08:34] And yeah, let's see. Maybe it'll be like the Junior World Championship in 2008. Yeah, maybe we need to call the core. To ask him to come and save us and be our coach. But you didn't qualify in the trials. But then you're in the event. But this time... What would it be like to win? This time we didn't qualify from the Europeans. We didn't qualify to the World Championships.

[01:09:02] But then after that, Denmark just decided to host the tournament. That's the only way we could qualify. So maybe the story just goes again. I mean, we don't qualify and then we go there and we win. How quickly did it take you to realize that when Denmark was hosting the tournament that you got to play? Less than one second. Yeah.

[01:09:32] I knew that because we... See, I'm basically the only full-time professional player in Denmark. And as Robson said... And if Robson says it, then I'm okay with it. He said I'm the best player in Denmark, right? No. So if I have a good partnership in Denmark, which I do now with Martin, there's no question I'm going to be on the team. So I knew that.

[01:10:02] Everybody knew that. We were going to be on the team. It was only a question of if we should have the youngsters coming or we should wait a little bit. But yeah, I think they're ready. It's going to be exciting. Yeah. Yeah. I played against Larmann in the last set of the mixed Swiss in 2023, which we won. Yeah. And we were in first place and they were in second place. Oh. And I remember the day before, he had bid...

[01:10:29] His partner had opened a week two and it was our hand. And now he bids three-no-Trump with a 6-5 Yarbrough. And I don't remember. I think it was equal white. And he goes down three or something like that. And we don't double him. And I just remember after the hand, just being completely in awe of the fact that he had bid three-no-Trump with this nothing.

[01:10:56] And he's like, yeah, I figured you guys could make three spades or something or three hearts or whatever it was. And I figured it was kind of like Medalla, when he was talking about the imps, where I'm just like, how do you even see that? And so that was on the first day. And then we played him again in the last match on the second day. And I was like, no, I'm not so happy to be playing against this little genius here.

[01:11:26] But it was a seven-board match. And after the fifth board, I was like, okay, we won. So that was sweet. Yeah, you know, Christian, he's a very imaginative player. He has a lot of imagination. And he gets a lot of ideas at the table that normal human beings like you and me, we don't always see those. But Christian, he, and that's great.

[01:11:51] So he needs to learn when the ideas are actually good. Because many of them are great, but sometimes it's better to just play old-fashioned, right? Yeah. So that's where the experience comes in. And that's what all the, I mean, all young players nowadays, they psych left and right, and they have all these great ideas. And now, and then when they have the experience and grow older, they need to learn when to use their ideas.

[01:12:21] Because they're great. And it's great in Bridge to have imagination. Because you have many more possibilities in a lot of different situations. But it's a complex game. I played with Daniel Tivlin for two days in Memphis. Yeah. And he and his partner, Pepe, did really well in the Reisinger. Yeah. And I was excited to play with him. We did not play very well together, Daniel, but he's a great kid.

[01:12:51] And that's another pair, another setting. Great kid. And Daniel is, I think, 20 or 21. And his partner, Pepe, is 16, I think. So they're very young. Yeah. And they are actually going to play on my team in the league next year, in the Danish league. So that's going to be interesting. But they're great. They're good players and great kids. So I'm excited for them. I'm glad.

[01:13:19] I'm very happy to see because the last couple of years, we have had more and more young Danish players come to play more tournaments, to play the Nationals. I think he's been there two or three times now, Daniel. And they really want to play a lot of points. And they want to become better and play all the tournaments, which is great. That's what we need the young people to do. So your dad said something that kind of resonated with me.

[01:13:49] I got to play with Joe Groot for three days in Memphis, who's an American superstar. And he said that when you played with Emil Jespin, that Emil kind of deferred to you too much, I think, was how he put it. He gave you too much responsibility. He didn't play his best game. No. And I realized that with Joe, I felt a lot of pressure not to make a mistake because I'm getting to play with this great player who I don't get to play with.

[01:14:17] Somebody with his ability so much. And I think I kind of didn't play my best game. No. But you know, it's actually very difficult. So if you sit down, two players, and for example, you and Joe, you play with one that you know he's much better than you. I mean, he's one of the best players in the world, right? So he's much better than you.

[01:14:38] And it's difficult for you to have the same self-confidence about your game playing with him as if you play with your regular partner or someone that you feel you are equivalent with. Right? Right? It's super difficult. And I think that sometimes that happened to me and Emil, even though Emil was a great player and still is a great player. But he just lost his self-confidence a little bit.

[01:15:04] And whenever he played with his self-confidence, he played great. I mean, he was as good as me, basically. But then sometimes he kind of lost it. And then if you don't play your own game, if you just play not to make mistakes, you can't play well. Yeah. It's funny how that is. You know, like you think you're really, you know, you expect to do well when you play with somebody like that. For me, at least. And we were really bad.

[01:15:33] Like we had, we played six sessions of match points. I think we had two games over 50%. Yeah. And if you played with yourself, you might have probably have gotten better scores. Yeah, for sure. But then we beat him in the Vanderbilt. So that was cool. Oh, okay. So actually, it wasn't because he was a great player. It was just because he was a bad player. Amazing.

[01:16:02] Yeah, that's true. I remember that. It was the first round of the Vanderbilt, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was the true thriller. I got to tell you another Vanderbilt story. The only reason I'm telling you this is because it's funny about. So we played your team in the Vanderbilt, New Orleans in 2024. In the round of 32, we played the Leibovitz team. And Zach Grosak was still on your team. Was it 2024? No, 2023.

[01:16:32] Yeah. We played you guys in New Orleans. And so Zach Grosak was on your team. You're on Larry Leibovitz's team. Very strong team. And I see Zach that morning before the match, like in the hallway. And I say to him, I don't know if I've ever told you this. That's why I'm telling this story. I see Zach in the hallway and I go, big day today. And he goes, not for me. And that's the time you beat us, wasn't it? Yeah.

[01:17:02] That's the time we beat. Oh, God. Well, then you're right. It was a much bigger day for you. It was for him. I mean, it wasn't a good day for him. He just had one of those days where he was going to lose a match. That wasn't a big day. How much more important to you is the Vanderbilt or the Spingold versus the other events at the tournament? Like how?

[01:17:32] It's, you can't really compare it. I think to me, the Vanderbilt or the Spingold or whatever, it's the Soloway or the Rising Art, that's the main tournament. That's where you want to be. When you play at the level that I do or want to do at least, then that's where you want to be. If you lose that, it's like, okay, I'm ready to go home now.

[01:18:02] I mean, obviously then when we play the Swiss in the end, we still prefer to win that because no matter what you play, it's more fun when you do well. Yeah. But it's winning that, we've won that a couple of times with the Leverage team. But the feeling isn't the same at all. If you win one of the big events, I've won the Vanderbilt once and the Rising Art. But if you win the big events, you have this amazing feeling

[01:18:32] that you accomplished something great, which it really is. And it's great because it's so difficult to win these events. Even if you are the best team in the world, in history, you're not going to win a lot of these because you need to beat a lot of other very strong teams, right? And you need to win like six matches in a row. It's super difficult because there's so many great teams now. How does winning the Vanderbilt compare to winning the Rising?

[01:19:00] When I won the Vanderbilt in 2013 playing four-handed, it was amazing because we, first of all, we had to play bridge all the boards for seven days. Right. The Rising, even though the Rising is very tough, it's just three days, right? So seven days is more than twice as much. So the feeling was amazing.

[01:19:28] Also because at that time we were underdogs in a lot of our matches and we came out on top and we had this great comeback against the Zimmerman team. We were down by eight games at halftime and we came back and it was sensational. Like we couldn't believe it. So that was just amazing. Winning the Rising was great.

[01:19:52] I think the feeling, my feeling was I was a bit more high on winning the Vanderbilt. By the way, now it's called Vanderbilde. So when you came back, so you were down 80 amps at the half to the Zimmerman team or Monaco, they were called. Yeah, we were down 96 to 15. I was complete 96 to 13, I think.

[01:20:23] Had Zimmerman played? Did he play the third or fourth quarter? Zimmerman played the third. And we picked up a little bit and then we were down 65. And in the fourth quarter, we just had to play in the best team in the world at that point. It was Helge Mohelnes and Fantoni Nulles. And we just had to pick up 65. Wow. So we picked up almost everything. We picked up like 60.

[01:20:52] And then there was an appeal from one of the earlier rounds when Roy and Spinn played against Helge Mohelnes. And we had to wait for that to get decided. So we didn't know if we'd won or not. So at four o'clock in the morning, we finally got the message that we'd won the appeal and we'd won the match. Wow. Wow. And that was a round of eight. And then in the quarterfinal, the semifinal, the final.

[01:21:19] I mean, after a comeback like that, you just feel like you cannot lose anything anymore. So, and we couldn't. We just... In the final, we played Team Sigurin with Shorten Bas and Fanpoyin and Fahez. And they had won every single match by at least 100 hits. All the way through. And now here came we like four nobodies. Oh, well, Ryan Sabine, people in Liverpool.

[01:21:50] And me and my dad are four-handed, right? And we were just leading the whole way through. We lost the lead with like five balls to go, but then we threw it. That was great. What an experience. That was the biggest experience. And you were playing with your dad too, you know? Yeah. It was his first national too, wasn't it? It was. Yeah, I think it was, yeah. Sounds like this is a good time to wrap it up. Thank you so much for doing this. I had to reschedule twice.

[01:22:19] Once I overslept. So we got it done this time. It's been a lot of fun. You did want to get up this morning. You set three alarms. And I went to bed like, I went to bed. I mean, I've prayed my whole evening around like, yeah, oversleeping. That was great. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to speak to you and be a part of this.

[01:22:47] So I'm looking forward to listen to it. And to see you in, when will I see you in Philadelphia? At least. Or maybe in Posida? Yeah, well, I might see you in Posida. I don't have definitive plans yet, but I'd like to be there. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you.