EPISODE 39: Andrew Rowberg and Danning Lu
In 2017, there was no bridge club at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Then Andrew Rowberg, a recent PhD graduate in computational material science, came along. Four years later, during which bribery cookies were baked, practice sessions held, and talent developed, the UCSB Overbidders Anonymous emerged victorious in the 2021 Online North American Collegiate Bridge Championships. We’re excited to showcase the journey that this UCSB team took from having nothing to winning it all.
Danning Lu (on left), Andrew Rowberg (on right)
Episode Highlights:
2:40- The formation of the UCSB Bridge Club
4:05- How Danning learned bridge
5:34- The pieces of the champion team
12:20- COVID can’t stop dedicated college students
13:42- Defeating TST Guest 32 Richard Jeng the Georgia Tech bridge giants
19:10- Freshman clutching it up in the wild Finals match
23:29- Andrew’s teaching philosophy
28:00- Now is your perfect chance to hire a collegiate champion with a PhD in computational material science!
33:07- The overbidders in “Overbidders Anonymous” are no longer anonymous
39:30- The universally dreaded Berkeley monsters
45:35- Proof that playing bridge increases your job prospects
48:10- Danning plays the precise system and likes to take fitness
51:23- The expert’s advice on forming a collegiate championship team
56:00- The secret ingredient in bridge success: sugar
Show Notes:
Danning was referring to Deng Xiaoping, the president who helped open China up to the West. I seem to remember a Bridge Bulletin article a few years back about some of the first American bridge players who went over to China and engaged in "bridge diplomacy" - one of them actually played a few hands with Deng. He was an avid player and helped popularize the game significantly in China. Here's an NPR story about his bridge passion, released shortly after his death: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1040675
Transcript:
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, I’m excited to have Andrew and Danning from the current ACBL Collegiate Championship winning, University of California Santa Barbara Overbidders Anonymous team here on the pod. Andrew has not listened to any episodes, which we’re not going to ding him too badly for other than to make it known here in the intro. Welcome, guys.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Thanks, John, for the nice introduction. It’s good to be here, and I look forward to listening very soon.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, Andrew, my understanding is that you started this bridge club. You’re a grad student, actually. Richard Jeng told me that you graduated, or that you’ve – maybe “graduated” is not the correct way to say it, but he says he extends his congratulations to you on completing your PhD.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Mmhmm.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, congratulations.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Thank you. Just defended that last week, so this is good timing. I’m a little freer now.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How did the defense go?
ANDREW ROWBERG: You know, not too complicated. Once you get to this point where your advisor thinks you’re ready to defend, you probably are.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, how many years ago did you start out at UCSB?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I started here in 2016, in September. So, it’s going to be five years ago this coming fall.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And did you start the bridge club immediately?
ANDREW ROWBERG: No. So, the story of the bridge club – well, first of all, when I was deciding where to go to grad school, I definitely looked at a bunch of places that did have bridge clubs just because it’s a hobby I’ve had since I was in high school, and I thought it would be fun to keep up. But ultimately, I ended up going to UCSB where I knew coming in that there wasn’t a bridge club. So, I thought, well, okay, I’ll put bridge on the back burner for grad school and maybe come back to it in several years, like so many people do.
But then, I fell in with a group of board game aficionados, who overlap nicely with bridge. I’m sure most of the listeners know. And it turns out, several of them had been interested in learning how to play bridge. And once they found out that I knew and had been playing for several years, they thought, oh great, someone to teach us. So, it started pretty organically. I originally was just playing as part of that board game club now and then.
Then, the following year, in 2017, I decided, well, why not go for broke and actually start a club and see what we can do? Because we had found a couple of people who had played outside of that group. And yeah, we’ve been growing ever since. It’s been a real pleasure to have been part of it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Now, Danning, are you somebody who learned bridge from Andrew, or did you have some experience beforehand?
DANNING LU: Actually, I have a different story. I started bridge in China, and in general, it’s like a movement, I will say. I really learned to play bridge at a very young age. I started when I was in third grade. And they say, okay, bridge is something that comes from the Western world, which builds your mind. And there’s another comment. The president – well, it’s not president, but the President of China Jinping, Deng Xiaoping, he plays bridge a lot, which kind of gets a lot of people wanting to play bridge.
And that’s kind of how I started. But then, I was not playing in high school because of a lot of pressures going on and a lot of other things to do. But then, I played some in my college, and then, I came here for PhD. And I’m lucky to find this bridge club so I can play some more serious bridge, I would say.
ANDREW ROWBERG: It was very fortunate that we found Danning. I was making some posts on the Facebook pages I knew to try to see if I could shake the trees and get any bridge players to fall out. And it turns out, Danning saw the post and commented right away, “Oh, cool. A bridge club.” And I was very excited to meet him, given his experience. He’s actually played bridge longer than I have, so it was a really big boost for our club.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You went from nothing to collegiate bowl champions. When did that become a possibility?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well, we started competing that first year. So, we would have started the club in 2017, and our first Bridge Bowl appearance was in 2018. And I thought we had a pretty solid team. Most of our players were people I had taught, with the exception of Danning. And we had some pretty good success in our first experience. We ran into a Berkeley team, unfortunately, that was pretty darn stacked, back when Kevin Rosenberg was around. But we had a good showing, especially for our first year, and that made me optimistic.
The year after that, we got another very experienced bridge player to join our team – actually, someone who had played in Turkey on their international team. And we had delusions of grandeur for that summer, I suppose, unfortunately not to be. We ran into some problems, I think, in terms of how we put our pairs together. Also, ran into that Berkeley buzzsaw.
But yeah, last summer, I knew we had some pretty good pieces. We had another graduate student who actually worked with me research-wise – Nicholas Adamski, who had been playing since I started the club and is a really smart guy. He really, really knows how to think about games like bridge at a very intuitive level. And he and Danning had a really great partnership. And I started playing with a freshman, actually – the only freshman to really play in our run to the championship, Philip Tian, who – also very smart guy. Thinks a lot. That can be a little frustrating when you’re dummy and see him thinking for three minutes before he plays a single card.
But yeah, I knew we had a really good team. We had the pieces to go. It’s just, you know, a lot of the game is luck, getting the right hands and knowing what to do with them. And last summer, we did.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Danning, do you remember how you found out from Andrew, or how you found out about this Turkish player? Do you remember what that was like?
DANNING LU: Actually, yeah, at the time, I first came to the states for my PhD program and then, I saw an email talking about bridge stuff. Because I kind of gave up about bridge because I don’t know where to play bridge or where to find a partner, right? Because I kind of have partners back in China, but here, if there’s no resource, I don’t know how to find one. So, I’m so lucky to join this, and I know I always want to play bridge, and I’m lucky to find that. And I’m happy to have found some brilliant players around that won’t let me down, in most cases. So, I’m just glad that I have this opportunity.
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, Danning, you were the first person to partner with Sarp, weren’t you?
DANNING LU: Yeah, and that actually put me with a lot of pressure. So, Sarp, he found this bridge club from Andrew, right? Because I was kind of busy with my schoolwork, I didn’t go to the bridge club that often. But then, Andrew told me there’s a person named Sarp. He was Turkish, like a professional player, and we can try. And we tried, like a new partner. And the thing that surprised me a lot is – so, there’s the pair game, pairr qualification, where ACBL sends packages to the person who wins first or second online pairs qualification. And then, at that time, we hadn’t been meeting for two weeks. So, we were just like, “Well, let’s try this.” And I can’t believe we were in second place, despite being that’s the first time I played bridge with him. We ended up in second place, and just lucky.
But playing with good people always puts great pressure on me, and I’m not as casual as I am playing, for example, with Andrew because I know if I make a silly mistake, that’s never going to do.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, this Turkish fellow, he played professionally before –
ANDREW ROWBERG: I don’t think it was professionally. Sarp Kurgan is his name. He went to college in Turkey and while he was there, he played bridge, and he got really good and joined, I think, the under-21 or under-25 team. Played in a lot of international competitions, so he was well-seasoned. Actually, the story of how we met him is pretty funny. We were just playing lunch one day in the graduate student lounge, and this guy comes up and says, “Oh, can I watch?” You know, we’d never seen him before, and we just happened to be there in the right place, at the right time. Yeah, it turns out he was a real pro.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And he said, “Oh, are you guys playing bridge?”
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. He recognized it. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROWBERG: Game knows game.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And what year was this?
ANDREW ROWBERG: This was in 2019. Yeah. I think we would have run into him sometime in March 2019. And the tournament that Danning was talking about, this pairs game where they were rewarding money to go to the NABC – yeah, we met him a couple years before that tournament, and the turnaround was really convenient.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How often were you guys playing from the start in 2017? What was the regimen?
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, at a club level, we have weekly games that are just more casual, aimed more at teaching people just playing for fun. On top of that, though, those of us who are more competitively inclined – Danning and myself and also Nicholas, Sarp – we would also play at the downtown club in Santa Barbara pretty regularly. Danning, do you remember the first time we played?
DANNING LU: I remember. I was about to say, that’s how I met Andrew. We were first-time partnerships. And, yeah, I’m very aggressive. I just went to six spades contract, which is three tricks short. [Laughter] I’m like, “Oh dear.” And then, of course, the leading gave us one trick immediately, but I’m still two tricks short. The three-trick break saved me one trick. And then, I know I started, but I just [inaudible] and played them super fast for the first trick. I played them super fast, and it turns out they discarded the wrong card. It’s not a squeeze at all, but I played that. I pretend that it’s a squeeze, and they pulled the trick, and we made the six spades.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I think it was a pretty good game, in the end – 66th percent. So, Danning definitely has beginner’s luck. [Laughter] But yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of games downtown, obviously not this past year, but also a lot of college games. Just casual matches against other schools, but also, the big tournaments they run every spring, which decide who gets to go to the NABC, who gets money to do so.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And so, what happened because of COVID? How did that shake out? Because it seemed like – I read that you were involved in organizing, like they maybe weren’t even going to have it? But you kind of were involved in making that happen?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, yeah. So, we were really looking forward to going into Montreal. We had money for two people to go, and we would’ve found a way to get a team there, one way or the other. So, it was really disappointing when they canceled it. But after a couple weeks – I want to say it was probably around April 2020 – there was some talk on this college bridge players Facebook page that we have about trying to do something ourselves. Because why not? Everyone’s stuck at home. Everyone really wanted to go. Why not make something out of nothing?
So, we started organizing it, some video calls. I’d say the folks at Georgia Tech were probably more heavily involved, but I and this other fellow from Washington University in St. Louis helped organized, reached out to people. And I think we put together a pretty fun event. It was a lot more – I’d say it’s a bit more like the World Cup of bridge in terms of we had qualifying matches you could play whenever you wanted that led into a knockout phase. It was a lot more bridge than you’d ever play at a Bridge Bowl, where they just try to pack it all in over a day and a half. So, I was really happy with how it turned out.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you beat Georgia Tech in the semi-finals. Were they kind of the favorites, perhaps?
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter] Yeah. You want to talk about Georgia Tech, Danning?
DANNING LU: I just remembered the thing. So, me and Nicholas, we are the fast players, and we always finish up earlier. And we have [inaudible] for these events, and they are 30 minutes late. And when we finish that, we just watch [inaudible], so a lot of [inaudible] boards. And actually, the thing is, on the day of the – actually, I think Monday before the day of the final – we told Nicholas, “Well, we have [inaudible].” And he said, “What? Why are we here?” Andrew, remember that?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yes. He had completely given up. The last two boards we played against Georgia Tech were both slams that Nicholas played, and he went down in both of them. Last one, he should have made, but that’s another story. And yeah, for a week, he had no idea that we had actually won the game.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh my god. Are you serious?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. He was quite happy with us for pulling it together. But yeah, Georgia Tech, they’ve always been a really strong program. And Richard, obviously, has a lot of international experience.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Richard Jeng?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Richard Jeng, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: For the listeners.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. Really strong player. And they have a bunch of people who have been there for a very long time who are really dedicated to the game. We knew they’d be a tough opponent. But I also felt like we stacked up pretty well against them. They have – their players are all competent. I think our players are all pretty confident, too, especially at that point in the event. They also have a pair that’s extremely aggressive, much like Danning and Nicholas. So, with aggressive players who tend to go for those big swings, big slams out of nowhere sometimes, there’s a lot that can happen. And it was a very swingy match. We were ahead by 5 after the first
16 boards. It’s a 32-board match.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah.
ANDREW ROWBERG: And then, we quickly went down big, by like, 26, about five or six boards into the second half. And we were down by about 26, with five boards left to play, which is a pretty big margin. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah, yeah.
ANDREW ROWBERG: And then, we proceeded to score, I think, 44 unanswered IMPs over the next four boards. That’s just – that was a game that they didn’t make, that our side made. Our side was in three clubs doubled, while their side was in five clubs doubled down two, our side making.
DANNING LU: Oh yeah, three clubs double making.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. Five clubs double down three, actually. Yeah. And what else? They let me make an impossible game, where they didn’t find the club ruff that would’ve set me. And yeah, then they ended up in a six spades double down three, where they were missing five spades offside, king jack ten nine. Yeah, we made it up pretty fast.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Nicholas went down in a slam on the last –
DANNING LU: He went down two slams.
JOHN MCALLISTER: But they were doubled, and he wasn’t or something?
ANDREW ROWBERG: The first one, he was down two and six no. And they were down three doubled and six spades. [Laughter] And the second one, they were also down one and six. But the last board is actually a pretty exciting one. Let me just pull it up so I can –
DANNING LU: So, the safety play, actually he went for the six safety play that will prevent a bad club break, but it turns out the bad break is in diamonds, which is even worse, and which kind of just gave up the contract. So.
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, just for the listeners, Danning and Nicholas play precision system. I also play precision with Danning and Nicholas, but played two over one for the event. So, Danning opens a strong club, and south jumps in with four clubs, which obviously should show a pretty distributional hand. And they find their way into six diamonds, which should make. North leads a club to his partners, who wins with the ace. And then, south switches to a low heart, the two of hearts. And this was Cyrus Hettle in south. I think he made a really good play there. Because if you’re switching to a low heart, looking at king queen, little little, and dummy, that looks like – it smells like a singleton.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah.
ANDREW ROWBERG: It smells like a singleton. And Nicholas is very short on entries. He has jack fifth of diamonds. All the other diamonds are small in his hand. An ace, king, ten of diamonds on east. And his only entry would be the ace of hearts. So, he needs to decide, is he going to take a diamond finesse, since he’s missing the queen? Or is he going to hope that hearts are not 4-1, which is what they look like, and actually try to get back to his hand after cashing out ace of diamonds to be safe.
And he decides to play for the heart to be singleton. Unfortunately, it’s not, and he takes a finesse, which loses to the stiff queen of diamonds in south.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Ohh.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Where he could have easily dropped it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: He had an eight-card trump fit is what you’re saying.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, eight-card trump fit, and missing – all he was missing was the queen. So, obviously, the four clubs made it a little hard to find what probably was their best trump fit, namely hearts. But even so, it was – I credit Cyrus on the play of leading a low heart, and I don’t blame Nicholas at all for playing the way he did. It’s just quite sad. [Laughter] Especially when you find out that the queen’s a singleton after all.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And you guys had a comeback in the final too, right? Against [Claremont]?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, the final was pretty tough. You want to talk about that, Danning?
DANNING LU: Actually, I have not much memory about that. [Laughter] I remember we hold the first one by a lot, I think? And lose even more on the second round. And for the second round, it’s like IMPs really uncompetitive, and everyone can win a match. That is what I’m going to say. It’s really tough.
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, we were ahead by I think 29 after the first third. We were playing 48 boards in the final. And we stretched that lead a little bit going into the second leg. But then, I don’t really want your listeners to look for us on YouTube to watch this specifically because it’s definitely not my finest moment of bridge playing. But we got to a stretch in the second board where I was declaring hand after hand, and I was going down, down, down, including in a slam that I should’ve had easily, and a three notrump where I just guessed everything incorrectly, and another hand where I think I could’ve made it if I do an elimination play first and get them to give me a rough slough. It was not my finest hour, to put it lightly.
So, they outscored us by 40 in that segment, meaning that our 29 IMP lead had turned into an 11 in deficit going into the final 16 boards. So, I personally had a lot to think about going into that final. But that’s where my partner in the event, Philip, really came in handy because in the first seven or eight boards of the final, he was declaring hand after hand after hand, and he was making game after game after game. Two of them turned into big swings for us, one where we made game while Danning and Nicholas were making three diamonds the other direction. And the other where we got to a five clubs with a nine-card fit, while the people in north-south at the other table were playing four hearts with a seven-card fit, which doesn’t make because hearts are 5-1. You remember that hand, Danning? You almost blew that.
DANNING LU: Yeah, I had five hearts.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, you had five hearts in that one.
DANNING LU: Yeah. Do you want to talk about the six-card double stuff?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Sure.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you guys were just playing through your front four by the time you got to the knockout stage?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. We had more players playing with us going into the knockout, but we decided to tighten up the rotation going in. I think we knew who our best players were at that time. That varies. Sometimes, people get on a hot streak, are playing all the cards right. And that was the case for Philip, the guy I was playing with. He was definitely playing the cards really well.
JOHN MCALLISTER: He was the freshman?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Going to UCSB have anything to do with the fact that you guys had a bridge team there, or was it just a total coincidence? Did he know about it beforehand when he got there?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I don’t think he did. I remember getting an email from him saying that he had seen that we had a bridge club just by looking around online. And he was really happy to find us because, like Danning, he had also started playing in China and really enjoyed the game, even though he was a lot greener than Danning, hadn’t played for as long. But he’s a very smart guy, very thoughtful, very studious, and definitely eager to improve. So, that was just the kind of person we needed.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And how many people, in total, did you have in the program, like maybe last year?
ANDREW ROWBERG: If you look at the entire club, we had on the order of 16, I think? Not all of them came to our club meetings every week, but people who would come in and out and occasionally play with us, it’s probably close to that number. We had eight people playing on that team, starting with the qualifying swiss. Yeah, it’s a big improvement from where we started. My first year running the club, a lot of people didn’t come regularly. Like, Danning didn’t come regularly because he was busy with classes. And usually, we’d just have three people, with me playing two hands any given Sunday.
Yeah, we’ve come a long way since then. When we used to be in person, we could meet up and have two or three tables going simultaneously, at least. It’s been really gratifying.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Had you taught beginners previously?
ANDREW ROWBERG: To some degree.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What technology do you use?
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, when I was – I learned in high school. Actually, I learned from friends in the marching band when I was in high school. And we also had a club, so I played there. And I taught several friends over the years, mostly in high school, but I also think some at college. I’ve never really used any of the teaching programs, although I know there are some really good ones. I know there’s an app, Tricky Bridge, that I think Reese Koppel helped design that’s supposed to be pretty solid, especially for younger folks.
But yeah, usually when I teach – I’ve had different philosophies over the years, but I think I’d like people to get as much into the game as they can right away. So, even if they’re not bidding flawlessly, I like to have them know what bidding is, know how to count points, know how to play a hand. And I find that works reasonably well. It’s going to scare away some people, but those people are probably going to be scared away anyway, in my experience. So, it’s helpful to give them as many of the tools as they can handle, and then hopefully, they swim rather than sink. And hopefully, they come back for more. In our experience, a lot of them have.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, everybody on your team that was playing in the Collegiate Bowl had played bridge before they got to –
ANDREW ROWBERG: Not Nicholas, Danning’s partner. He started playing when I got here.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, I thought he’d played in Turkey?
ANDREW ROWBERG: No, no, sorry. The guy who played in Turkey was on our team the previous year. I guess that – yeah, we probably should’ve mentioned. Unfortunately, [Sarp] wasn’t able to play with us last year. He – we really wanted him to, but he’s in this PhD program at UCSB that gives him very little funding, so he has to go back and forth between the U.S. and Turkey pretty regularly. He was in Turkey at the time, and we wanted him to play with us in Montreal if we were going there in person, but once everything shut down, he kind of decided he wasn’t going to wake up at unreasonable hours to play on the internet.
So, we’ve had these struggles before where Danning goes to China now and then. He’s going to China in a few weeks. Philip’s been in China most of this year. We have people scattered all over the world and if we had them all together, I think our team would be definitely one of the best out there. But we’ve had to make do sometimes with people not being around.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Are you guys playing this year in the Collegiates again, or…? Is ACBL organizing it?
ANDREW ROWBERG: It’s still an open question as far as what’s actually going to happen. They do want to try to do something, last I heard. ACBL does. Probably going to be in July, around the same time that the Bridge Bowl usually happens. But I don’t know if we’ll be as active this year. We’ll certainly field at least one team. But as I mentioned, Danning’s going to be in China, so it makes it pretty tricky for him to be a part of it. Unless you want to wake up at ungodly hours, Danning.
DANNING LU: It’s fine for me at, like – I mean, having to play bridge when nobody is awake is actually good. You don’t have to be distracted by other stuff.
ANDREW ROWBERG: What if you’re not awake, Danning? What if you’re not awake?
DANNING LU: Then, I guess you’ll have to find a sub. [Laughter]
ANDREW ROWBERG: We’ll do the best we can.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Danning, what are you studying in graduate school? What are you getting your degree in?
DANNING LU: I’m doing mathematics, and I’m currently in my fourth year. And, yeah, that’s probably it, and close to advancements, which scares me a lot because I don’t know where to advance. [Laughter] But luckily, I do have bridge occasionally to get me away from those terrifying moments of PhD, I guess.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Where are you coming to us from today, Danning?
DANNING LU: I’m here near the school. I’m still around the U.S. right now, yeah. But I’m just glad to go back to China. I just went [inaudible]. It’s just a long time before I came home last time.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Have you been in the United States since the pandemic started?
DANNING LU: Yes, I am, which is not a good thing, I guess. Luckily, we did have some online bridge.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Andrew, what – do you have a job lined up? I looked at your PhD, some of your papers, and it was really kind of like –
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter] Well, thanks for taking a look, John.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, I looked at the titles.
ANDREW ROWBERG: No, no. I still appreciate that.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Way over my head.
ANDREW ROWBERG: All the traffic I can get on my Google Scholar page is appreciated. We played a match against Washington University, just casually, a casual scrimmage. And one guy Googled me and said, “Oh, man. Your Google Scholar is amazing.” [Laughter] It’s nice to impress people. But yeah, I don’t have a job yet. I’m in the process of applying to a couple positions. Looking around the country. Ideally, I’d like to live somewhere else, keep doing some research for a while, either for a company or potentially, for a national lab or a university. We have a lot of options out there.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Isn’t Santa Barbara the most beautiful place in the world?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: But it’s not doing it for you?
ANDREW ROWBERG: No, it’s doing it for me, but I always say you want to be careful about living in Santa Barbara for too long because you never want to take it for granted. This place is so gorgeous that…yeah. It feels like you can appreciate something more if it’s only there for you for a finite time. At least, that’s my thought process. But I’d love to come back and visit, play more bridge.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Have you guys seen Harry or Meghan or Oprah in the grocery store or at the coffee shop?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well, they are our neighbors. Have you seen them, Danning?
DANNING LU: No, I just know a lot of friends tried to spy near their place. [Laughter] Which is funny.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Oprah is our commencement speaker this year.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, wow.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. I’m looking forward to my free car.
JOHN MCALLISTER: That’s pretty cool. Has she given out free cars before?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Only on her TV program. [Laughter] No, I don’t think we’re actually getting free cars.
JOHN MCALLISTER: When is the commencement? Because UVA – I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and UVA’s – we had ours a couple of weeks ago.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, UCSB is on a quarter system, as are most of the schools out here, at least in the UC system. That means we go until the middle of June.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And what kind of job are you trying to get, Andrew? Maybe we’ve got a listener out there who is in your field. We can do some networking here on the show.
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter] I would appreciate hearing back from anyone. I do computational material science, which means I study the properties of materials, specifically energy materials, by using computer simulations. We use quantum mechanics, so, we really dig deep, go to the atomic scale. Density functional theory, for anyone in the know out there.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you’re talking about energy, you’re talking about – when I think about that, I think about, like, I don’t know – crude oil or, I mean –
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter] Renewable energy, John.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Renewable energy.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. Oil’s the past. At least, that’s the hope. Most of what I’ve done in my PhD has been focused on hydrogen energy, which hasn’t yet made it out to Virginia, sadly. But at least in California, you can get hydrogen-powered cars right now, which run in a very similar fashion to electric vehicles, like your standard Tesla or whatnot. But instead of the electricity being stored in a battery, it’s stored as hydrogen gas, H2. And it just so happens that if you split hydrogen, you can get a lot of energy out of that. But it makes for a very efficient fuel source. And the only by-product of using hydrogen is that you get water vapor. Doesn’t get a lot cleaner than that. No CO2, just H2O.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I think the space shuttle runs on hydrogen.
ANDREW ROWBERG: You’re right. They’ve been using hydrogen for the space shuttle in a lot of aerospace applications for a long time. NASA’s really interested in it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What was that last part?
ANDREW ROWBERG: NASA is really interested in hydrogen. I know I’ve talked to at least one guy at NASA who is somewhat interested in the materials I study. So, maybe they’ll be the next big investor.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Doesn’t strike me as likely. But I don’t know. I don’t know. I just think of NASA as sort of like – I’ve been to a launch. I went to see the space shuttle’s launch one time. I was living in Orlando. And we drove down, and unfortunately it got canceled because of weather. But I was at the golf course the next day when the space shuttle did, in fact, take off. And it’s like [sound effects]. Flying. And I can see it because I was only like, 45 minutes away. And I remember specifically the gas, the exhaust, was so clear. So, that’s how I learned –
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, that’s hydrogen. Yeah, we have a lot of rockets launching out here, too. We’ve very close to Vandenberg Air Base, which I guess is now under the purview of the Space Force, according to the last time I visited their website. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROWBERG: But you can go out pretty frequently to see rocket launches here. And really picturesque, as long as you’re willing to wake up early.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So Danning, is Andrew the best bridge player on the UCSB team? Give it to me straight, here.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Think carefully, Danning.
DANNING LU: [Laughter] OK, I’m just going to say one of the best. It’s about personal preference, right? The thing is, I think both me and Andrew are good players. I hope Andrew, you agree with that. The reason I don’t play with Andrew during a tournament is just, I guess I’m better with Nicholas just because, for example, if I open two of hearts with five hearts, five three three two, he will not say anything. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
DANNING LU: And Andrew will be like, “Why can you do that?” And you know, I’m kind of like the creative one, right? I don’t mind that over call was four cards, or do something extraordinary. But he will understand, and he will be like, “OK, if it’s your idea, then let’s go for it.” And don’t be afraid to – because 90% of the times I do this, it’s not going to be good for us. But it turns out, he always – sometimes it’s like magic, you know. He can know that I’m doing this thing. We’re not cheating, but he knows that this is not the typical two of hearts opening that I’m doing. Just go on magically well.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I think our team name, Overbidders Anonymous, was really made for Danning and Nicholas.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROWBERG: They also both like the blue card.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
ANDREW ROWBERG: It was against Northwestern, I think. First match of our quarter final. They were in six hearts, doubled twice. And the first time, they re-doubled, and both times, they made it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] Did they squeal on the trumps? Is that what happened?
DANNING LU: So, the thing is – actually, we were having a communication error. I had thought we are going to play clubs, and he thought we are going to play hearts. [Laughter] And nonetheless, I played six clubs, although my partner is singleton. Oh boy, I can remember that. But the guy behind us sitting was five clubs was decked in. He decided to double. And my partner knows everything, right? He bid six hearts, and I was thinking, “OK, what is that?” [Laughter] I stayed there for one minute and think, “OK, if it’s six hearts, I’m going to let him play this.” I don’t want to be here. And the guy still doubles, and he’s thinks, OK, that cannot make sense, right? Because he was asking, using the tricking of the bids we have [inaudible] every detail. And I see nothing matches.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
DANNING LU: And he just doubles anyway. Because that’s the rule, right? If a double one contract, you double every contract they have. And turns out, six hearts makes. The other, they’re expecting it to make because he thinks I have more. He thinks he knows my hand. But trick of that is even a make, his five one-heart break.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, wow.
DANNING LU: It’s [inaudible].
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, you have to have some magic in bridge sometimes, and Danning and Nicholas really know how to capture lightning in a bottle. They will do some things that they probably wish they hadn’t done, but they’ll also get those pretty incredible swings.
One time, we were playing in a team match several years back, and we got the highest IMP swing that we’ll probably ever see in our lives – 22 IMPs on one board. [Laughter] And it would’ve been 24, except I think one side wasn’t vulnerable. So, you get with a re-doubled slam at one side, and a doubled slam making at the other side.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah, 24’s lose them all.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Mm-hmm. We were close.
DANNING LU: We were close. Twenty-two.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, you guys were on the wrong side of this.
ANDREW ROWBERG: No, no. We got it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, I gotcha. Gotcha.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Who else would re-double?
DANNING LU: [Laughter] Yeah, I was going to seven, and you’re doubling our six, so let’s just go for it.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How did you make on the five one-heart break? What were the hearts?
DANNING LU: Well, we have all the trump cards, and –
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, so you could just draw trumps. You didn’t need to finesse anything.
DANNING LU: Yeah, because we are a 6-1, I think, and he still had one trump left. I didn’t remember how he treated my clubs. Probably tossed them away. Can you find that board, Andrew?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, I’m looking at it right now. Yeah, so, Nicholas had six hearts. Ace, king, jack, ten, nine. South had queen, eight, seven, six, three. There was a diamond finesse that was working. Nicholas had all the spades. He was void in clubs. Danning had ace, king of clubs. So, really, all he was going to do was lose the heart. And as long as he didn’t get tapped in trump, which wasn’t going to happen because he had high cards everywhere, there was really nothing to do. I don’t blame them for doubling, especially with the 5-1 break.
JOHN MCALLISTER: But Danning, to Andrew’s credit, he won the first – the inaugural Collegiate Individual Tournament.
ANDREW ROWBERG: You’ve done your research.
DANNING LU: Yeah, individual. I have played that once, I think, or twice.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I don’t think you did that well, Danning. I don’t think you did that well.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter]
DANNING LU: Oh, yeah, because – well, individual, that counts as a lot, right? It’s not good for creative players, right?
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] Probably not field your pscyhes as well.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Not so well. Yeah, that was the first and the last time, so far, that I’ve played in an individual event. They never brought it back, but it was a lot of fun. I feel like I am probably better at playing with less experienced players, certainly speaking to –
DANNING LU: It’s just training for it, right? Because you get trained for this every week in bridge.
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter] Yeah, I suppose I’d play with less experienced players pretty frequently when we have bridge club meetings. But you just have to know, you know. There’s psychology about it, too. You have to know when to encourage people, when to push on them a little bit, when to let the opponents beat themselves. And I think I did that pretty well in that individual event. It’s fun. Still got a trophy from it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How many days was that?
ANDREW ROWBERG: That was three sessions over a day and a half. The way they set up the Bridge Bowl that year was they had a swiss qualifier for the knockout.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Which was 2019, right?
ANDREW ROWBERG: 2018, actually, in Atlanta. We qualified out of the swiss to get into the A-team knockout. And then were promptly thwacked by Berkeley in the first round. Was not the best matchup, I’d have to say, especially since they had a professional team from Singapore at the other table, and Kevin Rosenberg at ours.
DANNING LU: And by the way, that’s the reason we switched to precision.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. We were inspired. But yeah, after we were bounced for the knockout, we dropped into the individual, which was three sessions starting in the first session of the knockout, and going two more sessions the next day while the other guys finish the knockout.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, I mean, I’ve hired Kevin Rosenberg to play a number of tournaments, and he’s a pleasure to play with. How much of a weapon is he in a Collegiate –
ANDREW ROWBERG: Man. Everyone at the NABC is rooting for his team to win as much as possible and to Spingold so that he can’t play in the Collegiates. [Laughter] Unfortunately, he hasn’t done it yet, and I guess it’s a little too late, now that he’s graduated.
DANNING LU: Did we beat the Berkeley team on the swiss, 2019?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Oh yeah. 2019, we beat Berkeley in the swiss qualifier. They had a much worse team that year, mostly because the Singaporean guys had left. But with Kevin Rosenberg, you know, they can put that behind them in a hurry. I think they snagged the fourth seed in the knockout, and they just blitzed their way to the championship that year.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How many teams play in the qualifier, the last you played in?
ANDREW ROWBERG: It varies from year to year. The first year we did it, in Atlanta, it was 11.
DANNING LU: OK.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I think it was 11. But three of the teams are from Georgia Tech, which they’re in Atlanta anyway, so they have an easier time sending people. But the year after that, it was I think more teams, maybe 12 or 13. But only four of them went to the knockout.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you’ve been in the program for four years. But then, you have to say what you’re going to study in order to – I don’t know that I under –
DANNING LU: So, I would just tell everyone OK, I’m going to do some research in this area, and I have learned this, this, and that. And do you professors think that I’m able to do the research afterwards? Do I have all my requirements? Do I have everything I need? And if they say yes, then I’m a future candidate.
ANDREW ROWBERG: So, at the start of the program, you take a lot of classes. That’s what Danning did his first year or so. And that’s what I did, too. But it really varies dramatically from program to program in terms of what the actual schedule is. For me, you start with research right away, while you’re doing classes. And you have to do what’s called the qualifying exam to make sure you’re actually good enough to stick around. And that’s pretty much what Danning’s talking about with advancement. Just proving his medal. But for him, he hasn’t been doing as much research up to now, so this is also more foreseeing where he wants to go, moving forward.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Gotcha. And you guys qualified for the NAP together? Is that right?
DANNING LU: I think that was right before the pandemic. We were still looking forward to go to Nashville, right?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I don’t think it was –
DANNING LU: Ohio, Ohio.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, Columbus.
DANNING LU: Columbus. We were so excited to go to Columbus, but they just cancelled that. And we played this year, I think. And we ended up a close race, so close to getting on the newspaper.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. [Laughter] Well, yeah. There was another junior pair ahead of us. Two of the youngsters from San Francisco. We did OK.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You guys were in Flight C.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And you finished fourth in the national event. Got it.
ANDREW ROWBERG: We’ve often done better. I mean, we’re still – I’m just barely a Life Master at this point, and Danning’s at about 300, 350 maybe. So, he’s got a little ways to go.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you are a Life Master, Andrew?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I am about four points away. I will be at some point pretty soon. But yeah, we like winning. So, you know. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: There’s nothing better.
ANDREW ROWBERG: No, definitely not.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I played my first live club game Tuesday.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Oh, great.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And it was in Austin, Texas, and it was at a man’s house. He hosts the game in his house. And we still don’t have results from the game. Which I’m like, c’mon man, I want to know. I don’t think we won. We had too much bad. But it’s exciting to be getting back into the normal kind of – being able to play bridge.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Tell me about it. We’re probably going to start meeting – probably with the students here at UCSB within a week or two, I’d say. Now that we’re all vaccinated.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You mean meeting –
ANDREW ROWBERG: In person.
JOHN MCALLISTER: To play bridge?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah. Like the bridge club at UCSB will probably start playing. And then, I imagine the local bridge club will start soon after.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How many of your bridge club members are ACBL members?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Probably most of them. It’s possible some of them have had their membership lapse. But the ACBL – in particular, I have to give credit to the collegiate program and Stephanie Threlkeld, who runs that. They’re really good about supporting clubs and giving discounts for people to join the ACBL. So, for the junior rate, which is just $5, we get that refunded for all of our – which definitely helps the ACBL membership, especially in terms of average age.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And they get the magazine, so then they’re getting some exposure to some thinking about bridge.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well, they don’t give you the magazine anymore if you’re a junior, which I think is kind of silly. [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: That’s ridiculous!
ANDREW ROWBERG: When I first joined, when I was in high school, I was getting the magazine for five or six years. And after getting my first one-and-a-half masterpoints in 2011, I went about five or six years before getting my next one. So, I was just reading the magazine. Really, that was my only involvement with ACBL. It was great. You know, you learn a lot.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Yeah, yeah. So, what about Chicago Trading Company? They were sponsoring the Collegiates. Was that part of a recruiting thing, or what was that?
ANDREW ROWBERG: As far as I understand it, they were interested in giving money to the ACBL so as to help recruit for new employees because it’s a very quantitative world, financial business and such. So, I guess they thought, well, get some bridge players. They probably know how to count, at least up to 13. [Laughter] So, there might be some good recruits out there. I don’t know how many people, if anyone, has gone on to work there. But they’re definitely very visible, and I think it’s probably a good investment on their part. Yeah. A lot of the bridge players I meet are really smart.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Danning, is that something you’re going to go into? Finance, quantitative finance?
DANNING LU: I am not. I am doing some pure mathematics which is like, nobody cares. [Laughter] And I’m glad I’m here just doing something fun and challenging while I can get a free PhD, I guess, along with it. And maybe can get a job somewhere where they can just pay me to do anything I want. And that will be perfect.
ANDREW ROWBERG: [Laughter]
JOHN MCALLISTER: OK.
DANNING LU: Everyone around me is saying, “You should get to [inaudible] or Wall Street, or anything. Or programming.” And I’m like, “Well, that earns money, but I want to do the thing I want.” Yeah.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, we’re looking for Andrew for somebody who’s going to, you know, change the world. Gas, the energy problem. And for Danning, we’re just looking for somebody who’s going to pay him to do what he wants. [Laughter] That’s good. I think that – I admire that. I admire that you are not just going to go work for somebody. You want somebody to pay you to do what you want. That is right up my alley. I like the sound of that, and I’m going to follow up. We’re going to keep track.
DANNING LU: [Laughter] That’s good. Hopefully, I can do something that can change the world, but 99.99%, that’s going to do nothing to the world. But I will be happy. Or sometime, I will just go back to the routine, get a decent job, get some money. What else?
JOHN MCALLISTER: Did you go to high school in the United States, Danning, or did you come –
DANNING LU: I only came here for my PhD program from 2017.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you didn’t even go to college in the United States.
DANNING LU: No.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Danning’s bridge vocabulary, when he came here, was a little lacking. I remember he called precision “precise” instead, which was kind of funny. And one of our first tournaments – you probably remember this, Danning. The second time we ever played together was at this 499er tournament down the coast. And maybe fifth or sixth hand, we were east-west, and I was declaring the hand. And we laid down the dummy, and suddenly they start Danning what our defensive agreements are, what our carding agreements are, even though we’re declaring the hand. And poor Danning is just sitting there thinking, oh, how do I explain that we do standard count, upside down attitude, or whatever it was. And he hadn’t been in the U.S. that long, so I felt pretty bad for him.
DANNING LU: Do you want to tell the finesse joke?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Remind me of the finesse joke.
DANNING LU: Yeah, yeah, because I was saying “fitness.”
ANDREW ROWBERG: Fitness, yeah. Fit-ness, like staying fit. [Laughter] Yeah, but he’s learned. He’s picked up a lot.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Where in China are you from, Danning?
DANNING LU: Shanghai.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Ah-ha.
DANNING LU: Shanghai, yeah. That’s a good place. That’s also where a lot of bridge is happening. Actually, there are a lot of bridge happening, especially professional bridge happening in China. And they have, I think, a several-day tournament only for college students, and that was pretty intensive. And also in my college, I don’t think I’m even qualified for our college team, back in my college, because they are professionals.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
DANNING LU: I am so happy to get to the training, and the person who was directing us is [Ting Dil], and he – how I know this is that he attended [inaudible] in 2018. He was the 32nd position [inaudible]. So, I guess he is [inaudible].
ANDREW ROWBERG: Better than us. I think we were 98th playing against the Zimmerman team.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Oh, you guys played the Zimmerman team in the –
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yeah, we thought, what the heck? Sign us up. See what happens. We were the very last seed, and they had won it the year before, so we had the pleasure of crossing swords with them, which was fun.
JOHN MCALLISTER: How many boards did you play?
DANNING LU: 60.
ANDREW ROWBERG: 64, I think.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You played them all.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Maybe 60.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What was the margin?
ANDREW ROWBERG: It wasn’t that close, but we actually were closer than a lot of the other teams that played them in the early going. I think it was 100 or so.
DANNING LU: 150-something.
ANDREW ROWBERG: But one thing they’ll never be able to take away from us is that we actually won one of the sets against them. Third set, I think, we won by two or three IMPs.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Wow.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but you know, we’ll take it.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I mean, that’s the cool thing about bridge. You can go play – you can go to NABC and play the number-one team in the world.
ANDREW ROWBERG: It’s a very accessible sport if you want to call it that.
JOHN MCALLISTER: So, you start this team. You guys win the Collegiate Championship. How do I do it? I’m an alum of the University of Virginia. I live in Charlottesville. I want to do the same thing. Tell me how to do it.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well…
JOHN MCALLISTER: I can’t play on the team, I don’t think, unfortunately.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well, I guess you could go back to school. Another PhD you want to get, or anything like that? I think having grad students is really helpful, and obviously, we’re both grad students so it’s easy for me to say that. But people who have played bridge before and enjoy it are probably well-equipped to share that passion with other people. And grad students are really fertile ground for planting the seeds of bridge, if you will. Just a lot of us like puzzles, like board games, things like that. Especially quantitative people. You know, you probably find yourselves that a lot of math and science people are the guys who get into bridge, especially at the early levels. So, just find some people who have played. Try to get them in the same room. And I think it will grow from there.
UVA is definitely a good place to start. I actually went to college – or I went to high school in Northern Virginia. And about a quarter of my graduating class went to UVA every year. So, I would bet that there are some people who play bridge at my high school who end up going there.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Did you go to Thomas Jefferson?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I did. But there was actually another bridge player I’ve met a couple of times who’s now doing his PhD out here at UCLA who went there. It’s a small world.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, that’s funny because the guy from UCSB who introduced me to you all went to UCLA and was griping – we were griping that we don’t have bridge programs. So, maybe I should put him in touch with your friend. My friend’s name is Brian – oh, shoot. I can’t remember his name…
ANDREW ROWBERG: He sent me his name. I didn’t actually recognize it. I guess he doesn’t play in Santa Barbara very often, I’m guessing. Bryan Gindoff.
JOHN MCALLISTER: That’s right. Damnit.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Almost Gandolf.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright, is there anything else you guys want to share before we wrap this up?
ANDREW ROWBERG: Well, I guess I’d just like to mention the most exciting hand we had during the run to the championship last summer. It was against Georgia Tech, first segment. Philip and I got to six spades and made exactly. Pretty straightforward slam. Vulnerable 1430. Other table, they also bid the six spades. Danning and Nicholas had fiddled around with hearts a little bit, so they knew they had a heart fit. Nicholas thinks for a while and decides to bid seven hearts over the six spades, which is promptly doubled and passed around. Seven hearts doubled goes down six for 1400. 1430 minus 1400, 30, 1 IMP. [Laughter] The most exciting IMP you’ll ever get.
JOHN MCALLISTER: [Laughter] Alright, well that’s it. That sums it up. One IMP, you know. What a match.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Mm-hmm. Don’t ever let anyone tell you a single IMP doesn’t matter.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Maybe you can send me the links for the deals that you mentioned.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Sure. I’ll do that.
JOHN MCALLISTER: OK, cool. Alright, so we’ll probably publish this in a week’s time, maybe 10 days.
ANDREW ROWBERG: OK, great.
JOHN MCALLISTER: And we’ll send it to you. And I don’t think there’s anything that you would want to edit out, but if something comes to mind, by all means.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I think I refrained from talking trash about any other bridge players too much, so. Probably none of that that needs to be scrubbed. Should be fine.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright, well, we’re glad to have you in the bridge world, both of you. And it’s great to see your efforts pay off as they have. And maybe we’ll get you to bake us some cookies sometime.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yes. I just got a note from Shaped Cookie Cutter a few months ago. Very suitable.
JOHN MCALLISTER: What kind of cookies do you make for the bridge club?
ANDREW ROWBERG: All sorts. Usually, I don’t make nuts in them because we have a guy who’s allergic to nuts. But you know, chocolate chip, M&Ms, snickerdoodle, all sorts of things. I’ve been pretty creative.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I’m a Toll House chocolate chip guy. How about you?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I haven’t tried them, I have to confess.
JOHN MCALLISTER: You don’t make your chocolate chip cookies using Toll House and the Toll House recipe?
ANDREW ROWBERG: I guess I’ll have to from now on, huh?
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, you should at least try it.
ANDREW ROWBERG: I will.
JOHN MCALLISTER: I’ve never made – well, actually, that’s not true. But I’m almost always making the Toll House recipe with the Toll House chips, I have to say. I also like to freeze mine. I like to put them in the freezer after they’re done.
ANDREW ROWBERG: OK.
JOHN MCALLISTER: A little extra chill. Danning, what’s your favorite cookie that Andrew makes?
DANNING LU: Any of his sweets, I guess, although my doctor keeps telling me not to eat anything sweet. But that’s not going to prevent me from going to bridge club.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Well, so, that was the hidden ingredient that you didn’t include, Andrew, in the success of the bridge club – your cookie baking.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Yes, the secret ingredient. Lots of sugar. Keeps them coming back.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright guys, well, thank you. It’s been fun. Congratulations, and I look forward to running into you guys at a tournament soon.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Likewise, John. Really appreciate the conversation. It’s been a pleasure.
DANNING LU: Pleasure. Thank you.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Alright. Let us know how the job hunt and the advancement goes.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Will do.
JOHN MCALLISTER: Thanks guys.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Alright.
DANNING LU: Thank you.
ANDREW ROWBERG: Take care.