My guest today is Matthew Brown. Matt has been my partner for the last two North American Bridge Championships and for the upcoming March NABC in Louisville.
Matt’s partnership with Michael Whibley on team New Zealand has pulled off some big-time wins and upsets. Stay tuned to hear how they went from zero to being one of the best pairs in the world.
As his partner, I’m happy to put down the dummy for Matt to play. As his teammate, I’m delighted for him to be playing a difficult contract.
See if you can see why I think our temperaments are quite different.
[8:20] Even though New Zealand has a high rate of bridge players per capita, most professionals move to Australia or other countries. Why Matt chose England.
[11:43] The amazing opportunity to partner Michael Whibley and supporting his partner.
[14:09] Matt’s favorite bridge memory.
[17:10] How Matt and Michael practice.
[25:35] Matt’s nickname.
[37:45] Meeting his wife, Andi.
[43:48] Matt’s favorite thing about bridge.
Link to hand defended by Matt from IPBA Bulletin
[49:15] Maintaining partnership agreements and going through them, including (especially) late-round bidding.
[54:22] Loving having a strong partner be the declarer.
[56:05] Everyday life in England.
[1:01:50] Playing against Meckwell.
[1:06:28] On not having to be the best team to win; being the underdog.
[1:09:49] The challenging partnership aspects of bridge.
Matt’s zodiac sign is …
John McAllister: All right. That is a wrap. My research has shown that Matt is a Gemini, which is actually an air sign. I thought he might be a water sign, but fire signs are, I think obvious to me. But I don't know so much about earth, air, and water. So happy to be schooled.
We love to hear from our listeners, so we're setting up an anonymous feedback Google form that you can access at our website, thesettingtrick.com. Please let us know what you think about the show, good, bad, and indifferent. And until next time, we hope to see you at the bridge table.
The Setting Trick
Ep. 70 Matthew Brown
John McAllister: Hi, my name is John McAllister. Welcome to The Setting Trick Podcast, where we get inside the minds of some of the world's greatest bridge players. If you're looking for a way to engage with bridge away from the table, then The Setting Trick is here for you. Today, my guest is my partner for the last two North American Bridge Championships, as well as the upcoming NABC in Louisville, New Zealander, Matthew Brown.
One of the takeaways from this conversation with me, is just how different temperamentally Matt and I are. It actually got me wanting to know what his astrological sign is. Not that I'm even that into the Zodiac necessarily, but I'm an Aries, which is a fire sign, and Matt is just so cool and composed. I'll be interested to hear from those who are into the Zodiac, what they think Matt's sign is, and we'll reveal that in the outro. Enough about astrology. Here's my conversation with one of my favorite partners.
Welcome Matt Brown, my partner for the last two North American Bridge Championships, my partner for the upcoming NABC in Louisville, and my teammate for our win in the Mixed Swiss. It's a pleasure to have you on here. My last episode with Steve Raine was a lot of compliments about you and so it seemed time. You've been a stalwart on the New Zealand team partnering Michael Whibley for about eight years, I think, but have recently moved to England. What's happening? You got a haircut since I last saw you?
Matthew Brown: Yeah, that's a pretty accurate introduction. Played with Michael for eight years on the New Zealand team. He lives in Argentina now, and I've moved to the UK, so will be crashing at his place during the World Championships this year. And for the Nationals we've been playing the last two and the next coming one and played the Mixed with great success. When you played with Lilly, that was really, really nice. And since then, I've come back to the UK, had a haircut, chopped everything off, and slowly letting it grow back and just taking it as it comes.
John McAllister: Okay. So you're in England. You're planning on playing in the World Championships with Michael in Argentina this fall?
Matthew Brown: Yep. That's exciting. We're on the team currently, and our trials are actually this coming weekend to find out who we're teaming with.
John McAllister: So there's a trials happening, but the New Zealand powers to be have decided it's beneath you and Michael to play in the trials?
Matthew Brown: Correct.
John McAllister: Wow.
Matthew Brown: Or easier, because we're overseas and it's face-to-face trial.
John McAllister: Got it. How many pairs are playing in the trials as far as you know?
Matthew Brown: There are 4 teams of 4. And they're just having semi-finals and then a final both 96 board matches.
John McAllister: Wow.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. So that'll be cool to find out who we get.
John McAllister: Who's the number one seed?
Matthew Brown: Ashley Bach is playing with Nick Jacob.
John McAllister: Oh, wow.
Matthew Brown: And Martin Reid and Peter Newell, who you've teamed with in New Zealand. They're their teammates.
John McAllister: Oh, wow.
Matthew Brown: And they are unofficially the first seed. They got to choose their opponents for the semifinal. New Zealand Bridge decided that, so it seems like they're the first seed.
John McAllister: Wow. Did Nick ever play for, did he ever play for Australia?
Matthew Brown: Nick has never played for Australia. He played for New Zealand in 2015 in the Bermuda Bowl, but not really much since. He played again with Geir-Olav Tislevoll in 2022 in Salsomaggiore in between all the COVID. And that wasn't really a good time for any of us, so ignore that one.
John McAllister: So besides just being my partner, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here is because I think you've got a fairly unique story that goes back to ... Were you living in Australia, and then you moved back to New Zealand? Do I have that right? Or Michael was living in Australia and moved back to New Zealand.
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: So tell me about, you played in the Junior World Championships for New Zealand, and then Michael moves back to New Zealand, and somehow the two of you talk about striking up a partnership.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. So Michael trialed for Australia, and Australia has very similar to America, they've got knockout matches over almost two weeks. And they lost the final by 1 IMP to represent Australia. Which I think it was the third year in a row that the team was decided by 1 IMP, which is also very unusual.
And so he packed all his things and moved back to New Zealand and started studying horticulture, where I was studying. And so he knew I was at the university and messaged me, he says, "Do you want to catch up for a drink?" And I said, "Of course." And then he said, "Do you want to start a partnership?" So it's very weird to think what life would've been like for both of us if he represented Australia and stayed over there and if I never met him.
John McAllister: So this was in 2015 you said that they lost the trials by an IMP?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. It would've been, 2015 that he moved back over.
John McAllister: And so how old were you in 2015?
Matthew Brown: 19. 19, I think
John McAllister: 19. And you started playing bridge?
Matthew Brown: I was 12 in the start of 2009.
John McAllister: And your parents?
Matthew Brown: So mum plays and she forced me to learn, which is why I play. Dad learned all those years ago, but stopped and never restarted.
John McAllister: And then somehow you got into the New Zealand Junior Program?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. There's a bridge, he's the development officer for all of New Zealand youth. His name is Richard Solomon and he still does some things for the International Bridge Press Association, I think. But he basically took me on to represent our New Zealand's equivalent of districts without even meeting me, just on recommendations from people at my local club.
And so he invited me onto the team and I got to play that, and we ended up winning the inter-district thing. And from there it snowballed into playing youth and forming an actual youth partnership, because there wasn't anyone else at my club, and playing internationally. It was all pretty quick it happened, I think actually.
John McAllister: So you won a district-wide thing for New Zealand?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. For youth.
John McAllister: Oh, for youth.
Matthew Brown: For youth, yeah.
John McAllister: Oh, okay. Got it. In 2015, Michael Whibley moves back to New Zealand. How into bridge are you at this point?
Matthew Brown: I was very into bridge. Basically the biggest step you can take from New Zealand is to go and play in the Australian events. So I've been playing in the Gold Coast Congress and the National Open Teams that they have in January and February. And not doing that great in them, but making the step to go over and try and play International Bridge.
John McAllister: And who were you playing with?
Matthew Brown: With my youth partner. Her name is Vicki Boutone, and now she's left the game because she's got a young daughter with Nick's old partner as well, Nick's youth partner.
John McAllister: Who is that?
Matthew Brown: We've got another connection. His name is Glen.
John McAllister: Coutts?
Matthew Brown: Coutts, yeah.
John McAllister: Not the one, James Coutts was the one who was in Atlanta playing with-
Matthew Brown: Yes. There's three of them. James is the oldest and he represents Australia. He left ship to play with Liam Milne who also jumped ship.
John McAllister: Right. Right. What's it like in New Zealand when these people leave?
Matthew Brown: It's not surprising really, especially in bridge-wise, there's no pro scene on New Zealand at all. So if you wanted to try and make a living from a bridge playing at the clubs or in tournaments, you basically you're forced to go to Australia. And as well as support from the federations, just from numbers Australia has a lot more people, and so a lot more money to disperse towards the international group. Whereas New Zealand doesn't have as much to subsidize and promote bridge and support the clubs and all that. They just don't have enough money. And maybe Australia don't either, but the grass is always greener.
John McAllister: How many bridge players does New Zealand have that are members of the federation you think, approximately?
Matthew Brown: 12 to 13,000. So I think we actually have one of the highest rates of bridge players per person in the country since we only have five million. But that's still a low number for raising money and stuff.
John McAllister: You moved to England in the past this year, the past calendar year. Did you think about moving to Australia?
Matthew Brown: So we moved to England basically just to travel the world. It's a lot closer to everything. You can play all these, the Pula Bridge Festival in Madeira and tournaments like that. But Australia is attractive, because New Zealand have an agreement with Australia that you don't need a visa or you don't need to do any applications. You can move over and start living and working. So it makes it really easy for us to go to Australia, or Australians to come to New Zealand. So that might be in the future, but not yet.
John McAllister: And how is this plan working of moving to England so you can travel more, sounds like to play bridge? Your wife, you're married to Andi. I don't know how to say her last name.
Matthew Brown: I don't know either.
John McAllister: Bowie.
Matthew Brown: Bowie. Bowie, I don't know.
John McAllister: Does she know?
Matthew Brown: Probably.
John McAllister: So you're married to a bridge player, who didn't take your name, I think.
Matthew Brown: Yep.
John McAllister: And you moved to England to play more bridge. How's that going?
Matthew Brown: It's going good. We've had a quiet period the last three or four months just accumulating again to then start traveling, and then do that all over again. So we'll probably keep doing these jumps of three, four months working, or relaxing, or thing between traveling rather than just traveling all the time.
John McAllister: And is Andi coming to Louisville for the tournament?
Matthew Brown: Hopefully.
John McAllister: But it's not-
Matthew Brown: Either to vugraph or she might play in the Mixed or poke around.
John McAllister: Right. Yeah, there's a Mixed Pairs.
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: We're playing the Vanderbilt and the Platinum Pairs.
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: I say that because I talked to, well, never mind. Nevermind. Nevermind. Anyway. All right. So you're in school, Michael Whibley calls you up. Did you know who Michael Whibley was?
Matthew Brown: Vaguely. I knew he was really, really good. So I wasn't about to turn that opportunity down.
John McAllister: So he called you on the phone.
Matthew Brown: I think it was just a Facebook Message or something. Very, very informal.
John McAllister: So what was your internal response when you got that?
Matthew Brown: Just a lot of excitement. I basically, I just couldn't believe it really.
John McAllister: Wow.
Matthew Brown: The first thing was I didn't even know he was moving back to New Zealand. So getting past that and then that we might actually start playing.
John McAllister: Right. Yeah. Michael finished second in the World Pairs playing with Nabil Edgtton in Wroclaw in 2022, which is, that's a pretty good result.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. And they play our system. Nabil adds his own flavor of things, which means I have to learn that stuff as well. But we all play the same systems. That's really, really good and really, really exciting for them when that happened. I think the first pair were a pair of Polish guys, I think Buras and Lutostanski, and they were just miles ahead the whole tournament. So second was the best of the rest. It was awesome to get up.
John McAllister: How closely were you watching that?
Matthew Brown: Basically every board. I'm a big supporter. I'm proud of my partner is doing well with someone else or something. Just really, really happy.
John McAllister: Yeah, yeah. What about Michael? Michael is a lovely man. I feel like he keeps a pretty even keel.
Matthew Brown: He does. I messaged him basically straight after, "Congratulations." He said, "Thanks."
John McAllister: All right. So you and Michael start a partnership one year prior to playing in the Olympiad in 2016, and doing quite well in that event. You beat the French who picked you?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. So that's my favorite bridge memory. We got appended to the New Zealand Open Team that year as the third pair since we were both young and a new partnership. And so we were expecting to play less during the qualifying, but I don't think it turned out that way. I think we all ended up playing equally. And then Team France picked us and we played every set against France, and ended up beating them. And so that's my favorite bridge memory of them all.
John McAllister: Tell me more, because the Olympiad is this year again. And this was the Olympiad in 2016. So how does it work? What was the format then?
Matthew Brown: So in 2016, there were four groups. And I think, I can't remember how many teams in each, 8 to 10. And the top four from each group, I think got to qualify for the round of 16 knockouts. I think there might've been something in there about the highest plays 5th, maybe there was an uneven group, I can't exactly remember.
But there were a couple of extra spots to the teams who finished the best something place, and one of those ended up coming from our group, but we qualified safely in 4th or 3rd. And then from there, France, who'd won Group A and had the highest VP total of all the teams, they got to pick first. And that's also one of Michael Cornell's favorite stories, who was on our team then, is they were weighing up picking Switzerland, before Team Zimmerman, or New Zealand, and he was friendly with Lorenzini, and he said, "You don't want to pick us," and Cedric didn't listen.
John McAllister: So how many, you said that was a 96-board match?
Matthew Brown: 96 boards, yeah. We built up a big, big lead and then slowly lost it near the end, but we had too much.
John McAllister: So one year prior essentially, you start this partnership with Michael, and then you anchor the team in the match to beat France in the Olympiad.
Matthew Brown: That's pretty incredible, and very, very quick. I think we were lucky, but also just maybe in still that honeymoon phase of just everything going right, I'm not sure. But we did put a lot of work in in that year, and in the year since, to try and get up to speed with the rest of our team.
John McAllister: What do you guys do for work now, you and Whibley? You've got this tournament. You played the Asia Pacifics last year. Is that the last big tournament you guys played together?
Matthew Brown: We played in the Bermuda Bowl and the Asia Pacifics last year in 2023.
John McAllister: Right. Oh, the Asia Pacifics was before the Bermuda Bowl. Asia Pacifics was during the European Championships. Okay. Okay. So what's your run-up to those tournaments?
Matthew Brown: We mainly do a lot of bidding, especially playing online card play. We haven't found that helpful. It's hard to focus, it's hard to think meaningfully about your signals when you're just staring at a screen. But bidding something we feel is not too different from in-person. So we just do a lot of that.
We put it at 22 points or whatever between us, and bid with competition, without competition. Just all these little sequences that never come up or they need to iron out. And that's something we do after every tournament as well. So basically everything that comes up during a tournament we're not sure about, it gets written down and then we discuss and make agreements about that afterwards as well.
John McAllister: Where do you write it down?
Matthew Brown: Just a notepad or on the phone, just anywhere and then compile it all together after.
John McAllister: Practically speaking, this might sound like a ridiculous question, but how do you do it? How do you keep track of this stuff yourself before you write it in the notepad? When do you write it in the notepad?
Matthew Brown: Basically at the end of every day when we're playing at tournament. We talk about the basic thing, and if we lost IMPs we talk about why, if we had a misunderstanding either in the carding or in the bidding. We talk about what we both thought was going on and see whether the differences come up and write things down. What cards should be in this position or what bids should mean in competition versus not competition or whatever.
John McAllister: How mad have you gotten at each other in one of those little things?
Matthew Brown: I don't think we've ever gotten mad. I think we're both pretty easygoing. I don't think there's any particular agreements or things that we've had where we've thought this should be the way it is, and the other person doesn't agree or won't change. We've never had any of that, so it's been pretty easy, I think. He's a very easy person to partner.
John McAllister: What about when you really blow something in your mind? When you do something that you can't believe that you would do?
Matthew Brown: No, there's not any yelling or anything, it's just frustrations.
John McAllister: No. But how do you process that collectively? Do you do things that you can't believe you would do?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. I think still just talking about it evenly, and even if it's a complete disaster, just trying to, and maybe it's more a personal thing, trying to go through your processes of why you thought that was right or something. Or at the time versus five seconds later when you realized that was completely stupid or something. But mainly just individually, because the other person is always aware enough to know that you've completely messed up or whatever. They don't need to bring it up either.
John McAllister: What about, for example, one of the things that stuck out to me in our conversations about your partnership with Michael is that you said Michael is about the bridge. He's a purist in that sense. He's not a result, he's not about results.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. Which is very, very rare. Even if you get a good board, you win 10 IMPs or something, because you've completely flown off and made a ridiculous bid or a ridiculous play, he will not be impressed even though you're on the right side. And similarly, if you do something good and it doesn't work, then he will be complimentary and say, "You played it well, sometimes you just have to lose."
John McAllister: Right.
Matthew Brown: I think that is very, very rare to not be even a little bit colored by the results or the actual hand.
John McAllister: I had a board the other day, I was playing online in this Walt Schafer's game. Had 18 pairs and it was seven three-board rounds, cross IMPs. And I had:
♠K Q 10 x x ♥K x x ♦x ♣A 10 x x.
So I open the bidding one spade, nobody is vulnerable. There's three diamonds on my left. My partner bids four diamonds, and Riley bids five diamonds. Your bid.
Matthew Brown: I would pass.
John McAllister: Okay. I like pass. I think it's the right bid. So what are you thinking?
Matthew Brown: I'm thinking that's not what occurred.
John McAllister: What do you think of bidding five hearts?
Matthew Brown: That's a lot of bidding.
John McAllister: Yeah. So I did. I bid five hearts like a farmer, and I'm like, "I need my man to be making grand slam tries if we got a slam here." So he gives a thoughtful, takes some time, and now he bids six spades. So the dummy is:
♠A J x x x ♥A x x x ♦x x x ♣K.
And they lead a diamond and they continue diamonds. So do you know the one holding that I need for this to make?
Matthew Brown: Hearts, 2–4, and Clubs 3–5.
John McAllister: So Q J x of clubs with a preemptive was enough.
Matthew Brown: Did you have the...
John McAllister: Yeah. I had the A-10 of clubs and my man was all about it. He was all about it. I apologized to the opponents a couple of times, I was like, "Sorry, I overbid. I definitely overbid." My man's like, "I don't care. This is not the Michael Whibley approach." That's one of the things I like about partnering you is I'm like, what's my most common question do you think to you in our partnership?
Matthew Brown: I honestly have no idea.
John McAllister: What do you and Michael play?
Matthew Brown: Actually. Yeah, that is true. That's very true.
John McAllister: So for those who are not watching, Matt, he's got some red in his hair, and one of your nicknames is Ginger Helgemo. Can we put that out to the world?
Matthew Brown: I haven't been called that for a long time, but sure. It makes me look good.
John McAllister: When did that start? Who started that?
Matthew Brown: I think it was mainly from young guys around the New Zealand scene like Nick Jacob, maybe even Michael, my partner, just making. They love nicknames. Actually, I don't know who said it first. But another New Zealander, Geo Tislevoll, who wrote a book on Helgemo, and has spent a lot of time playing with and around him, really liked the nickname so I think he promoted it a bit.
John McAllister: Got it. And Geo is originally from Norway?
Matthew Brown: Yeah, yeah.
John McAllister: Yeah. So what year you think they started calling you Ginger Helgemo?
Matthew Brown: I know it was before we did so well in Poland in 2016.
John McAllister: Oh, wow.
Matthew Brown: So maybe six months into our partnership, something maybe started as a joke or something. And then...
John McAllister: One of the other things I loved about your story about you and Michael's early partnership was that you said to him, you said something to the effect of, "There's clearly a difference in ability between the two of us." Will you tell that story?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. He had trialed for Australia and missed out by an IMP, and I'd been poking around on the New Zealand youth team and we hadn't done any good anywhere really. So it was clear there was a big imbalance in ability, which I was hopeful that I could improve upon and we could reduce that gap. And so basically said, "Just be as brutal as you think is appropriate to try and get things through or to stick. Or if something is really important, how we should be thinking about a position, just let me have it," basically.
And so I think that was really helpful. Maybe it's not for everyone. And again, that's where him not focusing on the results, but rather than the bridge was amazingly helpful for someone trying to get better and focus on the bridge themselves. It was about six to nine months, I think, of that. We were playing a lot of face-to-face events then, because we lived pretty together, and just always going through it basically every day just talking about boards and what we did.
John McAllister: Were you still doing that by the time you played in that Olympiad?
Matthew Brown: No, it had reduced a lot. Maybe that was because of there was no need for it anymore. I'm not sure.
John McAllister: Because I've talked about wanting to have a similar dynamic in our partnership. One of the things, so I hire Matt to play with me and one of the things that as a sponsor, it's a bad dynamic for growth. The sponsor doesn't necessarily, it's not a dynamic where you're playing with Michael, where you're equal in the partnership. There's the fact that I'm paying you to play that takes some of that out.
I'm just thinking about this deal that I played in the GNT last month, the district qualifying, the qualifying rounds. And I was in 7 and I had all sorts of chances to make 7. It's a pretty good contract and I ended up declaring it, and basically I got to a position where now I just had to finesse, now I had to take a hard finesse instead of a squeeze and all these things. And so I did and the finesse won.
Matthew Brown: That wasn't how I thought that was going to go.
John McAllister: But it was embarrassing. It's now sometimes bridge, there's that saying about showing people your ass. Sometimes bridge can be very humbling, because there was another deal for that same thing. Where I thought I played it well, and then I ended up just having to take a finesse at the end and the opponents were like, actually it was against Mark Chen.
So Matt and I have played some boards against James Holzhauer and Mark Chen, who Mark Chen is a local to me. Or he lives in Washington DC, which about two hours away or outside of DC. And anyway. I've won two events at the North American Bridge Championships now, but it's a hell of a game. Do you feel stupid sometimes?
Matthew Brown: Absolutely. Hopefully, it feels like less and less. I'm not sure if that's because I'm becoming oblivious to it or it actually is less, but absolutely.
John McAllister: Can you remember a time where you felt stupid from when we played together?
Matthew Brown: My worst bid hand from our last National, which was Atlanta, where it was pretty clear they were walking the dog against me. And I think I shouldn't have pushed them in the first place, but then obviously once they got to game I doubled them, and they made all 13 tricks and that was pretty horrible.
John McAllister: It wasn't a minor so they would have got to the 5.
Matthew Brown: And it was pretty obvious as well. That made me feel pretty stupid.
John McAllister: But how did you process that? Because we've talked about this, not on a podcast for all the world, but how did you process that?
Matthew Brown: One of the first things that actually is that even though we're not playing together, I still talk a lot with Michael. He's playing with Nabil Edingtton in these Nationals. But we went to dinner the next night or the night after and I bring up all these hands, and we still talk about them. Just how he played them individually, but how he processes them as a partnership, and what we can do to eradicate errors even when we're not playing with each other.
John McAllister: What did Michael say about that one?
Matthew Brown: He said it was pretty obvious.
John McAllister: That's the other thing when, so Nick Jacob and I got to the Vanderbilt quarterfinals in the Spring Nationals last year. And Nabil and Michael, who are friends of mine, have become friends over the years, they had gotten knocked out and so they're watching us on vugraph. And I made this one lead against 5 Clubs doubled that was a really bad lead.
And we were watching the vugraph the next night during the semifinals together, and I'm part of this dynamic and it's really fun. We're talking about the hands and it was actually gratifying for me, because I would have an insight and I would share it and people wouldn't be like, "No, that's ridiculous." It was actually helpful for my confidence, because people would be like, "Yeah, I would do that," or, "Yeah, that seems normal."
And then there was a hand where somebody messed something up, and I realized what it was like or what it might've been like for those guys watching to have me do what I did. And I said, "Was that what it was like?" And it was like, "Yeah."
Matthew Brown: The pros and cons of them focusing on the bridge.
John McAllister: Oh, man. How much do you and Andi talk about deals?
Matthew Brown: So we don't go into in-depth analysis that often, but basically, with the exception of America because there's no hand records for a lot of events when you're hand dealing, we go through every board, every board that either of us plays. And that's just a topic of discussion, something to talk about.
But also what would you do with your mum, because Andi plays with her mother for New Zealand, so how would they bid this hand if something interesting comes up as well? So rather than just, I was stupid here, this board was good, this board was good. Just bringing up for future development for both of us.
John McAllister: And Andi played in Morocco. She played on one of the New Zealand, was it Mixed or Women's?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. She played in New Zealand Women's in Morocco with her mother, and they're hoping to be on the team again this year.
John McAllister: Is there Women's trials going on at the same time that this Men's trial is happening?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. The Women's trials are this weekend also, but Andi and her mother don't have the luxury that Michael and I do that we're already on the team. The winning Women's team of four can pick a third pair from the other selectors, or from Andi and her mother since Andi can't go back for a face-to-face trial.
John McAllister: How did they tell you that you didn't have to play in the trials? How was that communicated?
Matthew Brown: They told us about a month after Morocco. Because our captain at the time, he's the Head of the International Committee, and he had been struggling thinking of formats and how to make it work with both of us leaving. And so it was the obvious decision to either just put us on, or do what they've done with Andi and her mother.
But about a month afterwards he emailed saying, "We've had a meeting and made the decision to pre-select you, but you will have to play with whoever wins the trials." And we both agreed. It seemed silly not to play given it's in Michael's backyard now, now that he's living in Buenos Aires.
John McAllister: Yeah, yeah. They're not doing that for the US trials yet with me.
Matthew Brown: Soon enough.
John McAllister: We haven't gotten to that point. I have yet to win a match in the trials in fact.
Matthew Brown: Are you going again this year?
John McAllister: Yeah. Same team as last year.
Matthew Brown: Cool.
John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah, we're hungry. How did you meet Andi?
Matthew Brown: So we met through bridge. And with the first district thing that I played as youth, Andi was also on the team. And I think she'd been on for a year or two before me as well. And so we played on youth teams for three or four years just on a team together, but never really talking that much. And at some point that slipped into dating.
John McAllister: All right. So you said you played on youth teams for three or four years or something, but didn't talk that much.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. And then at some point started actually talking. I can't actually remember when or how, but we started chatting and then went for a couple of dates.
John McAllister: And just for those listening, I think Andi is in earshot right now from her husband.
Matthew Brown: Yep. I have to be very polite.
John McAllister: How often do you two play together?
Matthew Brown: So we, back in New Zealand, we basically never played together. Maybe the odd one or two tournaments a year. And it's not really for any reason, but she would play with her mother, and her father is also a regular on the tournament scene in New Zealand. So a lot of the time we were just playing a family team. One of us would play with one of her parents and the other one with the other, so we'd mix and match all the time. But never really we would play together, because then that would leave her parents playing together, which is a lot worse than us playing together.
John McAllister: When we won the Mixed, was she still awake?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. She didn't grasp the fact that it was a big NABC, like the Vanderbilt. But once I impressed upon her that it was a very, very good win, she was very congratulatory.
John McAllister: You had to explain that it was a good win.
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: So for listeners, so the Mixed is a two-day event, the last two days of the fall NABC, and we actually played in the Reisinger, the first day of the Reisinger, which was on Friday. And then we didn't qualify for that, so we got to play in the Mixed, which we ended up winning. So what do you think would've been a comparable finish? Not in terms of prestige, but in terms of your own internal, as in Reisinger, making the finals? Because you never played in the Reisinger. That's the first time you played in the Reisinger, right?
Matthew Brown: It is the first time I played in the Reisinger.
John McAllister: Have you played much board-a-match?
Matthew Brown: Sorry?
John McAllister: Sorry, I keep on ... Have you played much board-a-match?
Matthew Brown: No. So New Zealand had one board-a-match event a year at the National Congress, and that was only if you got knocked out of the main prestigious teams event that you could play it. And at some point, I don't know when exactly, they just got rid of it all together. So there is no board-a-match at all in New Zealand, so I haven't played much at all.
But I really enjoyed it, and I've read Sartaj Hans's book on it and all of his joys going through it. It's called Battling the Best. But I think a comparable finish would've been top five in the final for me. Making the top half of the Reisinger final day versus winning the bid. The Mixed was quite large, it was very popular as well, so I think it was awesome to win.
John McAllister: When did you start to think about winning?
Matthew Brown: It was too early to think about winning on the first day when we were qualifying, but we qualified pretty comfortably. I can't remember where exactly.
John McAllister: I think we were 6th.
Matthew Brown: And we won, I think we won our first two matches in the morning, and I know the first one we got a 20.
John McAllister: Yeah, we blitzed the first one.
Matthew Brown: Having qualified quite high, I'm thinking, "Well, we could." I think we lost one just before lunch, but not that largely. So still the dream was still alive.
John McAllister: I actually have the scorecard framed, so I have the final day scorecard.
Matthew Brown: I took a picture of all my scores of the last day.
John McAllister: So we didn't lose a match in the afternoon. We won all our matches in the afternoon and it's mostly reasonably big too.
Matthew Brown: I think my favorite thing from it was actually afterwards. It was Lilly asking, "Does this mean I can't play in the 0 to 10K anymore?" Which apparently is the case. I didn't know. It makes sense, I guess.
John McAllister: And you literally met your partner, you played with Sophie Baldysz, you met her the night before.
Matthew Brown: Yep. So I've seen her around in events for six years or something, but we'd never spoken a word before we played, and I really enjoyed it. She was an amazing partner, amazing person, and we got to win, so that was really, really good.
John McAllister: Yeah. What do you think your favorite thing about bridge is?
Matthew Brown: I like the problem solving of it. I really like sitting there thinking for five minutes about what other opponents have, or something, or what should I play? And just when I get it right, it's just the most satisfying thing, you beat to an impossible game or you make an impossible game, because they're sneaking it through. It's just, I don't think there's anything better for me, apart from my wife obviously.
John McAllister: There's a hand that you and I defended in a Swiss in Atlanta. We'd been knocked out of the Pairs and so we were playing in a Swiss, and you had ♦A K Q?
Matthew Brown: ♦A K Q 9 8.
John McAllister: Ace, king, queen, 9, 8 of diamonds, two small spades, jack, 10 third of hearts?
Matthew Brown: And 3 low clubs.
John McAllister: And 3 low clubs. And I led a diamond. I don't know if I necessarily want to go into the whole hand. Basically you created an illusion for the declarer that you had only 3 diamonds.
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: And the reason I'm bringing it up is because you did it, you just talked about thinking for five minutes or whatever. You did it all. So I led low from 3 little diamonds, and the dummy had 2 diamonds, and so you played the king and then the ace of diamonds, and now you played a club to my king. And now I played a diamond which declarer ruffed with the jack of spades, and you played the 9 or something?
Matthew Brown: The 9, yeah.
John McAllister: How did you? Basically you fooled declarer into finessing into my queen and 1 spade by seemingly having 3 diamonds, 4 hearts...
Matthew Brown: And 3 clubs.
John McAllister: ... and 3 clubs. So yeah. How did that? Did you envision the whole thing there, talk about it? And also this got written up in the IBPF, so there'll be a copy of this hand in the show notes hopefully. Anyway.
Matthew Brown: Just when dummy came down, just again trying to, one of the satisfying things is trying to figure out how can this possibly go down. Looking at my hand, I've got 2 diamond tricks and nothing else, and declarer bid strongly to their game after getting a little bit of support. And it seemed like the only way was to trick them. It didn't seem possible for you to have enough to get 2 tricks naturally.
John McAllister: Right. Right.
Matthew Brown: And then again, doing it quickly because it's what's necessary and then for certain as well, we can't think for ages and then try and deceive them. What is the most likely way that I can trick them basically, is by playing my cards in a weird order. Because you never know what problems that would cause for declarer. And I think that's one of the things in Zia's books, is basically when the contract looks pretty strong, Zia just throws away high cards and sees what happens. The wolf in the night. It actually gives a problem for declarer.
That's why it's in his books, and they think the hand is something and it's something else and they go down. Which again, is just so satisfying for me. Taking a world-class declarer down in a contract that my mother would make or something.
John McAllister: How satisfying was it when the declarer on that deal was dummy on the next deal and asked to see your hand?
Matthew Brown: I couldn't resist.
John McAllister: Was that the best part?
Matthew Brown: I couldn't resist. They pulled out the last board and said, "Do you mind?" I said, "Absolutely not. Please have a look."
John McAllister: I was sure that she had 5 diamonds, like queen fifth of diamonds. I was sure. I didn't even know.
Matthew Brown: I fooled you too.
John McAllister: Yeah. But she didn't even say anything really, I don't think.
Matthew Brown: No.
John McAllister: She just, yeah. Well, say more though. Say more about you and Michael's bidding before a tournament. When does it start? When do you start reviewing? You have this document which is strange, because you've got a third person involved in it who has the authority to change agreements. Is he telling you? Are they explaining how the agreements are changing in the process?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. So we've got a group chat as well and it's changed now from Nabil putting in his perfections of our system willy-nilly. And he has to run it by the committee first, and we all have to agree on a little change now before it gets added in. Because most of these things that he thinks are different, four or five rounds of bidding it. And so if you just say, "This is what we do now," I'm just going to forget it. It doesn't mean anything to me.
If I'm looking through our system doc, I'm not going to see in particular on page 24, that this fifth bid is different now or something. So I think that's been a big improvement for all of us trying to learn and remember, is that everything gets run through and agreed on before it goes in. And we did a big tidy up over Christmas and New Years, because Nabil would just, he was the main systems keeper for the past few years, because he was the one updating it all the time.
And it got really, really messy. We'd try to find a place to put something in and again, you just skim over it when you know 40 of the pages, you miss it. And so that was one of my errors when we played in Marrakesh, is that I forgot the system late in a match, because it was something that Nabil had changed and I had skimmed over it. I knew he'd changed it, I couldn't remember to what. And we got to the wrong game. So trying to reduce that, trying to reduce as many system errors as we can.
John McAllister: How did the three of you, when you did this purge or whatever over Christmas, how did you do it?
Matthew Brown: It was mainly me. Just a complete rewrite. There were tables missing of continuations and stuff, so even if it's redundant things are a spade, 2 diamond versus a heart, 2 diamond, just making sure they're both in there. Because that was the biggest problem before was trying to jump around and find something. Continuations after a heart, 2 diamonds. Some of them were after a different section, a major, 2 minor or something. So just putting everything where it should be so easy to find, easy to remember.
John McAllister: How did you learn our notes?
Matthew Brown: So I've talked to Michael about this and I know he doesn't do it the same. But when I read system notes I can remember where it was on the page and where I was when I read it. So if I'm trying to remember what the agreement is at the table if I'm not sure, then I can remember that I was sitting on the train and we went through a tunnel, and at the top left it said, "This showed this." So I don't know what that's called, but that's how I remember our notes. Our notes and my notes with Michael.
John McAllister: Photographic memory, do you think?
Matthew Brown: I can't remember everything, but something like that.
John McAllister: Yeah. I think people say photographic memory a lot to me, but they think that I have it. Maybe I shouldn't even say that.
Matthew Brown: It's not close to perfect, but I think that's probably close enough a description.
John McAllister: How many times do you think you had to read our notes to get them down?
Matthew Brown: Four or five. Just a slow and methodical reading and making sure that you've got everything.
John McAllister: What was the thing that was most unusual to you?
Matthew Brown: A minor, 2 heart. I'd heard of it before, but I'd never played anything like it, so that was unusual to me.
John McAllister: Have we bid that?
Matthew Brown: I think it came up once. Not in Atlanta, but in Chicago.
John McAllister: That's the one good thing. So the system that I play and that we play is we have 24 pages of notes, most of which was written by Debbie Rosenberg, and it's titled Casual Expert Partnership Notes or something like that. And one of the things that I didn't realize at first, but I've realized more recently, is that we can bid 2 notrump forcing over a minor opening, and then we can also bid this 2 hearts, which shows an invite, but also allows you to side the notrump properly. And I could see how that could be winning some IMPs, both.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. I'll jump in quickly and say that choosing to side the notrumps is one of my favorite things in bidding as well. Michael and I have that all over the place, and we can decide if we want to play it or don't want to play it.
John McAllister: Right.
Matthew Brown: I love that.
John McAllister: Do you ever find with Michael, because sometimes I do this when I'm playing with a strong partner like you, I just want to put my man on play?
Matthew Brown: Especially Michael's declarer play is just unbelievable. Not only technically, but also the skullduggery he likes to use sometimes, which I'm down the line. The tricky stuff he does to try and fool the opponents. A lot of it doesn't occur to me as declarer, it's a lot easier for me as defender. So that's why I don't go out of my way to make him declarer if I think it's wrong or something. But I love putting down the dummy. I have complete faith.
John McAllister: Similarly, when we were playing in the Mixed, there was a hand, a deal in the third from last match, where Lilly and I doubled them in 4 of a major, and we got 2. And you were going to be declaring the same board at the other table, and I was very happy knowing that you were going to be at the helm. And you only went down 1 on doubled?
Matthew Brown: Yeah, I think I wasn't doubled.
John McAllister: Yeah.
Matthew Brown: I thought I was going to make as well. And then I saw the trumps were five nil.
John McAllister: Yeah, yeah. What's your everyday life like in England?
Matthew Brown: At the moment, it's just been looking at travel and plans for the future, where we can go and things that we want to see while we're over on this side of the world. There hasn't too much going on at the moment, so it's been pretty quiet. We went into London over Christmas and New Years, and just we cat sit for someone we'd never met before. So that was pretty quiet as well, just watching over a cute little cat.
John McAllister: How much bridge are you playing now?
Matthew Brown: So I recently came back from Iceland. I played in the festival there. And Andi and I, we are playing a couple of things, UK events, the Gold Cup and Crockfords. And the early stages of those are online, but then the final stages are face-to-face, and so we've got two-ish matches a month of that. And then maybe one or two face-to-face events a month as well. At the moment, closer to one, but it'll pick up later in the year. So not that much, but still enough to be getting on with.
John McAllister: So you do play some bridge. Do you and Andi play at a bridge club over there?
Matthew Brown: We haven't yet.
John McAllister: Yeah. Just tournaments.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. Hoping to get into Club Bridge when we're in London. I don't think there's much of a scene in Reading, which is where we are at the moment.
John McAllister: So are you moving to London or you're traveling there?
Matthew Brown: In the next couple of months we will.
John McAllister: Move to London?
Matthew Brown: Yeah.
John McAllister: Got it. How did Iceland go?
Matthew Brown: We came 13th or 14th in the Pairs out of 160. I was playing with Steve Raine, your last guest. And then in the Teams, we came around 30th out of 80 or 90. We were slightly above average there.
John McAllister: Who were your teammates?
Matthew Brown: We played with Ewan McNay. He lives near New York, I think, and he has for 20 or 30 years, but he is originally from the UK. I think he still claims to be a UK person. And he was playing with Zach Grossack. So I had high-ish hopes for the Teams, but got a bit unlucky and things happened.
John McAllister: How did Zach Grossack show out?
Matthew Brown: He got picked up by an Icelandic woman at the bar one night, and he asked us, "How would you guys react to this?" And we all had to say, "This has never happened to us. I have no idea." He was very friendly, he was a great teammate, and so was Ewan. They were both very lovely.
John McAllister: I think Ewan has a UVA connection. I live in Charlottesville, Virginia where the University of Virginia is. I think Ewan has a-
Matthew Brown: That rings a bell. I think he said one of his friends or one of his old bridge partners is close friends with you. I can't remember the name.
John McAllister: John Miller maybe?
Matthew Brown: I don't think so, but I don't know.
John McAllister: Okay. Paul Mott? Did you know what Bob Hamman looked like... When you come to the United States, you know who the people... You've played tournaments around the world, but who's the person you didn't know who we were playing against perhaps in our two Nationals together? Who you found out later was like, "Oh, that's so-and-so?"
Matthew Brown: I think I knew most of the people, mainly because I'd played all three in 2019.
John McAllister: Oh, you played all three Nationals in 2019?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. So I'd met everyone for the first time then.
John McAllister: Got it. Who did you play with?
Matthew Brown: I played with Michael. And we played on...
John McAllister: Played the sponsor team?
Matthew Brown: ... Team Hansa Narasimhan with two Indian teammates, and she played with Carlos Pellegrini. I think she played with Carlos at the most recent one as well. They're still going.
John McAllister: What was your best result in that series?
Matthew Brown: We won a similar Swiss Teams at the end of one of the Nationals. I think it was at the end of Vegas.
John McAllister: Like a one day?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. But it was really big and we got 1st out of 150 teams or something, I'm not sure. So that was pretty good. But the rest of the week wasn't so flash. One of the Nationals, I can't remember which event, maybe it was the Vanderbilt, we played Josh Donn's team in the first round and beat them. And then I got to play against Meckstroth and Rodwell when they were still playing together for the first time and we got killed. So that wasn't so flash either, but that was a pleasure to play.
John McAllister: What did you think about Meckstroth, Rodwell?
Matthew Brown: Sorry?
John McAllister: What did you think about Meckstroth, Rodwell? Just their play or what was your impression of them too?
Matthew Brown: Meckstroth is really quick. That was the main surprising thing. I don't think there was a hand where he had to think for a long time. He knew it all immediately. That was the most impressive thing to me. And Rodwell was very, very methodical about everything, kind of the opposite to Meckstroth.
John McAllister: Were you intimidated?
Matthew Brown: Nah. I really just liked the opportunity, so I don't really get scared playing anyone.
John McAllister: So 2016 you had this Olympiad. Then 2017 you guys qualified for the knockout stage of the Bermuda Bowl?
Matthew Brown: Yeah. For the first time in New Zealand's history. We were quite fortunate. We averaged 10.5 or something, a match. Which is really low and we managed to qualify with that, because there was four or five teams all on 10.4, 10.4, 10.3. So we were fortunate enough to qualify ahead of Monaco and Bulgaria.
John McAllister: Monaco didn't qualify?
Matthew Brown: No.
John McAllister: So people were very happy that you guys did.
Matthew Brown: That was really funny, because France qualified 1st again and they picked China rather than us this time. And so the Netherlands qualified 2nd and they decided to pick us, and then we beat the Netherlands. So that was really good again. New Zealand never made the knockout so we qualified 8th in one of our matches, so that was really, really exciting as well.
John McAllister: And you played-
Matthew Brown: Second favorite bridge memory.
John McAllister: So then you must have played USA in the next round?
Matthew Brown: USA-
John McAllister: Or did you have to play France, because USA was playing USA.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. We played France. One of the USA teams got knocked out, but they were already on the same side of the draw, so we did end up playing France next. And either we were very happy having made it this far, and France played amazingly. And so we conceded after 4 of 6 sets, just down unimaginable amounts of IMPs. And tried to reconvene for the bronze medal match, which ends up being against Bulgaria, and we narrowly lost. That was unfortunate. It would've been really, really good to make a medal, but 4th was special enough.
John McAllister: I want to ask you a question, but I realize it's probably not a very good question. I think I've asked you questions that are similar several times in this interview. Having said that, since I've teased it, I really want to ask you if you think New Zealand can win one of these things? But it's not a great, I feel like it's not a great question because it's like what are you supposed to say? What's the answer that you can give that... Honestly you guys were, I'll stop talking.
Matthew Brown: It's obviously unlikely. Maybe somewhere between unlikely and very unlikely. But I definitely think there's a chance even if it's small. I think we have the ability to go all the way. Whether or not that that actually comes about, we play well enough or we don't get lucky enough, or we probably need significant amounts of luck if it was ever going to happen. But I definitely think it is possible in the realm of possibility rather.
John McAllister: That's the thing. In the Vanderbilt when I got to the quarterfinal, I keep wanting it to be the semifinals. But got to the quarterfinals and now it's possible. Now it's like wait, I could see you winning this.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. And it's one of the great things about bridge as well, is that you don't necessarily have to be the strongest team on paper, and you've always got a chance. So definitely.
John McAllister: How much is that part of your thinking with bridge? How do you see yourself? How do you get the best out of yourself?
Matthew Brown: I really like being the underdog. I like opponents underestimating or thinking they've got an easy ride, they're the favorites to win or whatever. I think that's how I get the best, because then I'm really, really determined to win. And if I'm in some of these New Zealand events where I play with, we used to play with Michael and our favorite teammates, a lot of the tournaments expected to win playing against New Zealand club players. And that's not as exciting or riveting really as playing in tough competitions and trying to do well.
John McAllister: Non-bridge question, what's been your impressions of England and Europe, maybe versus what you expected?
Matthew Brown: England has been cold. I think I knew it was going to be cold, but it's also cloudy and rain, not so rainy, but windy, and generally the weather is miserable, which I think UK people love to mention. But I'm really enjoying it here. I think the people are nice and New Zealand people are nice as well.
And a lot of the smaller towns like Reading where we are, it's just really, really pleasant. Especially around Christmas. In New Zealand on the other side of the hemisphere you have Christmas in summer, so it's very, very different having it with all the snow and the Christmas markets and the lights. It's all really, really nice and magical for someone who's never had that.
John McAllister: That's cool. How are we going to get ready for the Nationals? What's on the agenda?
Matthew Brown: Well, we'll bid, and we'll practice, and we'll discuss, I think. Same as Michael and I would.
John McAllister: How can we incorporate the brutal? Is that possible? Do you think you could do it?
Matthew Brown: I don't know if I have the stomach, but we can try.
John McAllister: You're too kind. Or some of the things are such abominations that you don't know if you could put voice to them.
Matthew Brown: I'm sure if something was totally atrocious I could find some words.
John McAllister: That's a challenge. It's a challenge. The partnership aspect of bridge is one of the things that's great about it, but it's also one of the challenges about it.
Matthew Brown: Yeah, definitely. And finding someone who you work with and communicate well with, and have similar goals and ideas about the game as well is an even bigger challenge. I don't know if that's why Michael and I work so well, because he mostly trained me so that most of my views are going to be his views, because that's what he told me. Or whether I just believe that myself as well. Whether things are the right way to go about looking at problems or right way to bid hands.
John McAllister: How much gratitude do you have towards Michael? Can you express it?
Matthew Brown: Sorry?
John McAllister: Can you express the gratitude towards Michael?
Matthew Brown: I've tried. After we did well at a tournament, I said that I was unbelievably grateful for basically everything over the past however many years. And he said, "It's not just a one-way thing." It's been really rewarding for him as well. This is the most successful partnership he's had as well. Maybe Nabil and him are doing amazing things internationally now since then as well. So now he's got two rewarding partnerships.
John McAllister: Yeah. I'm just imagining you guys after knocking off France, knocking off the Netherlands, what that would be like? It's a high.
Matthew Brown: Yeah. I remember in the last set against France, we'd been slowly losing our lead, and we sat and we had one bad board out of 16 and we were up 40-ish going into the set. And at the end, I was feeling confident. We were playing Thomas Bessis and Frederic Volcker, and at the end, Thomas Bessis just put his head in his hands on the table. And I didn't want to get too happy then, but I ran out of the room and...
John McAllister: Yeah. It brings back memories of my run with Nick in the Vanderbilt.
Matthew Brown: Oh, so in Iceland, it's just a side story. I played against your teammate from that event, Peter Fredin, and he was playing with Simon Ekenberg.
John McAllister: Right. Yeah.
Matthew Brown: We played in the Pairs and it was pretty clear early on he had a two-way finesse in a suit, and I had the queen. And I hadn't bid, so he played some other cards and I went out of my way to play my honors to show him I had all these points that I hadn't bid with. And he stopped and he said, "You want to show me your points, do you? I'll finesse you." No. I definitely picked the wrong person to try and fool. I don't even know how that scored, but it probably probably wasn't a good board for us. Finessed the non-bidder.
John McAllister: Oh man, that's a good one. Well, I think maybe that's a good place to end.
Matthew Brown: It was a funny moment, although not so funny that we got a bad board.
John McAllister: What did Steve say?
Matthew Brown: Well, when Fredin claimed, I threw my hand on the table and put it away. And we both laughed and he patted me on the shoulder and Steve thought it was really funny as well. And Steve agreed that I'd probably picked the wrong person to try and fool. The maestro of all foolers.
John McAllister: Shoot. All right. We got a little potential extra story. I'm not the one that minds cussing, it's Sophie that has the rule about that.
Matthew Brown: I just remembered, when we were playing in the Bermuda Bowl in 2017 and we qualified, we were playing in Monaco in the round-robin, so it's obviously a tight match. We knew both of us, they hadn't been going so well in the early stages. So we knew both of us were probably, or hopefully going to be fighting out for a qualifying spot.
And Tor Helness was in a 4 Heart contract, and partner led his Ace King and dummy had the small doubleton and so did I, but I couldn't over ruff dummy, apart from my Ace, which I didn't want to use. I wanted partner to set up my suit, and then I could get in with my Ace and cash my winner. So partner led his top one and I discouraged rather than encouraged, and he continued the second one, and then he switched to my suit. So that was good.
So we were going to get this one off. And Tor Helness won in his hand and tried ruff a third one of what my partner had led, and he just ruffed it low thinking I couldn't over ruff. So I actually did get to over ruff with my 5 or something. And Helness just burst out laughing and said, "I am a bastard." So I've never forgotten that. And that's something Michael and I always quote to each other when we make a foolish mistake or something. We use that quote from six years ago.
John McAllister: Well, I'm glad we recorded that one. All right. Well, thank you Matt.
Matthew Brown: Yep, thank you very much.
John McAllister: Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'm excited to start getting ready for Louisville here in a couple of weeks.
Matthew Brown: Looking forward to it. I think it'll be good.