Morten Bilde: Introducing the card game bridge to young people.

Today’s guest is Denmark's Morten Bilde. In addition to being a world-class bridge player with a win and a second in the U.S. Vanderbilt, Morten left his day job in 2015 to focus on getting bridge in the schools in Denmark. Stay tuned to find out why Morten says that's the best job he's ever had, as well as what the challenges are in that undertaking. Morten and his wife, Dorte met through bridge and their son, Dennis, is a real bridge superstar.

The three of them teamed up at the recent Icelandic Bridge Festival and won the team event for both the festival and the World Bridge Tour event, which preceded it. Those of you with children might be interested to learn how Morten approached teaching Dennis the game. If you've got a passion for introducing youth to bridge like I do, then Morten is your guy. He's happy to answer any of your questions, and he gives his email address towards the end of our conversation. Please enjoy my conversation with Morten Bilde.

[2:10] Quitting his day job to dedicate himself to teaching bridge in schools.

[6:15] Meeting his wife, Dorte, as a Junior player in college.

[10:20] Player, captain or coach? The value of a NPC.

[14:55] Playing with John in the midnights; the psychological advantage of a natural system.

[17:30] Focusing on having a winning mentality. Even “pretty good” bridge players can be better

by staying calm at the table.

[20:10] Being down 80 or 90 IMPs at halftime and coming back to win the Vanderbilt.

[22:30] Moving on from mistakes.

[28:25] An example of remembering system by logic.

[33:42] Danish Open Team lineups and partnership history.

[35:20] Morten has introduced bridge to over 20,000 kids. The challenges of retention and

opportunity for kids to play.

[41:54] Stories about raising Dennis.

[47:30] Goals vs. reality of getting bridge in schools.

[54:10] A best day in bridge.

[1:00:08] Handling director calls.

[1:07:15] Seeing an uptick in Juniors, more girls. The benefit of kids being able to play with their

peers, developing connections.

Morten Bilde and his wife, Dorte, host and feed several tables of Junior players. — Morten Bilde and his wife, Dorte, host and feed several tables of Junior bridge players.

John McAllister: Hi, my name's 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 Denmark's Morten Bilde. In addition to being a world-class bridge player with a win and a second in the U.S. Vanderbilt, Morten left his day job in 2015 to focus on getting bridge in the schools in Denmark. Stay tuned to find out why Morten says that's the best job he's ever had, as well as what the challenges are in that undertaking. Morten and his wife, Dorta met through bridge and their son, Dennis, is a real bridge superstar.

John McAllister: Hi, I'm here with Morten Bilde. Thanks so much for being here, Morten. You recently won both team events at the Icelandic Bridge Festival, partnering your wife and then, teaming up with your son, Dennis.

I think it's fair to say that you're one of the friendliest people in the Bridge world.

Morten Bilde: Thank you.

John McAllister: You're also a champion. You won the Vanderbilt in 2013 partnering Dennis and came in second two years ago. It's great to have you on the Setting Trick, and I haven't even mentioned anything about your Danish school bridge program, so it's good to see you, and we were just talking a little bit before I started recording and you were talking about something which was interesting. So, I said, let's record and here we are, you're telling me today, you're coming back from Aarhus.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, I came back from Aarhus where I was meeting with a group of volunteers who are helping our School Bridge program to shuffle cards because when we go out to schools, we bring a lot of cards and for each lesson we have sort of eight deals that match the lesson. And it's very important that all these deals are correct. And so when you come out into the classes that cards are not wrong. The problem is a lot of kids, when they have played the deal, they're not always so good at putting them right in the back, same position. So we have within sort of every month or every second month, we go through all our cards.

And luckily, I have a group of volunteers here in my area and in the Copenhagen area, we have another group who are doing that stuff. It's all these things that need to be done in order to run a teaching program is great to have volunteer help for that.

John McAllister: So let's go back to ... Dennis was in the well, your son Dennis. And he said that you basically quit your day job in 2015 to get bridge into schools in Denmark. And perhaps that was influenced by some legislation in 2013 that said, we're going to make children be in school for longer.

Morten Bilde: Yes, that's true. Actually, I have been involved since around the year 2000 to try and get bridge into schools, and I've been working with Youth Bridge, but it has been tough to get it into the schools because the afterschool programs or volunteer programs were locked, so it was very tough to come with new stuff and get it in. You had to go through the Ministry of Education, which was tough, but then in 2013, there was a new law that, as you say, made the kids spend more time in the school, but more importantly, it let the schools decide what sort of stuff they wanted as extra curriculums. So it was much easier now to go to the school and suggest in bridge.

So that made me say, okay now, I want to give this a try. So I quit my job and went full-time into this. And luckily enough, I've had a really, really lot of volunteers helping me because you can't do this on your own. You need a lot of people to help. And now, we actually have an organization which is represented in most parts of Denmark. We have, I think, a very good teaching program. We have a lot of people who help teaching. We have a lot of volunteers that are coming out with us into the schools and obviously, it's a lot of work because we are competing with other stuff, sports and computers and other things. I think we have reached a place now where it will stay.

We see schools coming back, asking us to run programs again, and that's basically very good. So you don't have to go out into the schools and ask them to come in.

John McAllister: What was your decision like in 2015, how did you make that decision?

Morten Bilde: Well, obviously, I talked to my wife about it and because there's some economy involved when you go from making money to not making money, then you have to make sure that you can sort of keep your life going, but our kids were grown up and we could throw them out, so we didn't have to pay too much for them. And we are staying at a pretty cheap place in the countryside. So we decided that it was worth a try and luckily, also our organization are applying foundations for support. So we have been able to get some money that we spend on different things, but also are sometimes enabled to get some salary. So for the time being, it works out very nicely and it's the best job I've ever had, so I'm very happy.

John McAllister: Really?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, really.

John McAllister: It's the best job you've ever had.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, I mean, working with young people and working with volunteers who all sort of love the game and the stuff that you are trying to teach is just fun. And obviously, you also need the support of your family but luckily, my wife plays bridge also, and so most of my family understand what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.

John McAllister: Did you meet your wife through Bridge?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, I did.

John McAllister: What's that story?

Morten Bilde: Well, I had just joined a junior group. I think I was 19 or something like that. And we played bridge while going to the university, meaning we mostly played bridge. She also comes from a card playing family, so she played bridge with her brother who is actually a world champion in the seniors. So it's a pretty good bridge place we have here. And then, she's four years older than me, but still at the time our group was pretty young, so we did a lot of things together. And then, at some point I just stayed at her house and that was it.

John McAllister: So is this Dennis's uncle-

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: That's your wife's brother?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, and as for the fun of the story, he actually lose in our place also because when we moved out here, when Dennis was I think four, four and a half. We decided to move from the Aarhus, the city where we lived, and out on the countryside just because I'm not really sure why we did it, but we just wanted to try something new. None of us come from somewhere outside city, but then we moved out here and we found out we needed one more person to make all this and he didn't have anywhere to stay, so he moved with us and he has actually stayed there and Solof has been an extra parent for our three kids.

John McAllister: So your son Dennis, I reached out to him in advance of this interview and I said, is there anything I should ask your father? And because you mentioned him, his first question was ask him for a power ranking of his family, including Uncle Jurgen.

Morten Bilde: Well, I must say Uncle Jurgen is the best competitor in our family. Obviously, Dennis is probably a better all-around bridge player, but Jurgen is amazing when he sits, he's just a natural talent. When he sits down, he basically always does the right thing, and he can't always explain why he does it. And the funny thing is when he plays here in Denmark, he's not really winning as much as he should, but when he plays internationally and he sits down and focuses, he's just amazing. Actually, the funny thing is we are now ... you might know the European championships are going to be in Denmark this summer, and I'm going to be captain of the open team and I'm fighting with the captain of the Seniors team because I want Jurgen on my team, but I can't have him.

So surely the ranking is that Dennis is usually by now, better than the rest of us. I think I admire Jurgen the most because he doesn't do any work with bridge. I don't think ... it just comes to him.

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah. So, you were the NPC of that team, like that won the-

Morten Bilde: I was the coach. I was the coach.

John McAllister: You're the coach?

Morten Bilde: Yeah. Yeah, basically, I worked also as NPC because I know all the players very well. My official title was coach.

John McAllister: So you guys won the Senior World Championships last year in Morocco, right?

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah, and Dennis's other question was which do you enjoy more being a player, a captain, or a coach?

Morten Bilde: That's tough. I think I enjoy being coach and captain for young players more than playing. When they're grown up, it's tough because it's easier to work with young players and develop them. When bridge players have reached some level of play and age, it's very tough to do something with them. Here on the open team for this championship this summer, it has been a lot of ... I have been discussing a lot with the selection committee about what to do because obviously, I could play, but I think I'm giving more value to the team as a captain, but we'll see.

John McAllister: Really?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, we'll see.

John McAllister: Do you think you can get more value as a captain?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, because I think there's more, I mean, a lot of NPCs and coaches are thinking very much in bridge training and bridge system and all that stuff, but I think if you can get the right psychology into your players, there's many more IMPs in that than the other thing. And in order to do that as a captain or a coach, you need to know your players very well. You need to understand what is it to sit and play in these competitions. And a lot of our potential captains and coaches don't have that ability, obviously, because they haven't played. So I hope I'm right, but we'll see.

John McAllister: Do you think that was the case in Marrakesh?

Morten Bilde: I think our team spirit was very good in Marrakesh. The players knew each other, and we had ... there were no problems with people arguing or people wanting to play more or less than others. I had a very important job to buy six beers every afternoon and come and bring them to a specific room where the captain didn't know or wasn't supposed to know that we did that. And obviously, that helped the team's spirit very much. I would only do this on a team like this because these guys, it helped them. They were happy and I mean, in a Junior team or an Open team, I would hopefully never do that, but in the Senior team, it was obvious.

John McAllister: Yeah. How did you guys do in the round-robin?

Morten Bilde: I think we were fourth or fifth, but we were never in danger of not qualifying. And I'm pretty sure that the fact that we rest ... everybody played in the round-robin only two matches, and so we were more fresh, especially against Poland. I think the anchor pair from Poland were getting tired. They also said that Klishin and Stakovsky and because they played very much also in the round-robin, I think one of the reasons we beat Poland in the knockouts was that they were sort of tired.

John McAllister: You guys just ... I mean playing with your wife in Iceland. You won both team events, how often do you two play together?

Morten Bilde: Well, we usually play on Iceland actually because we have done that quite a few years with Sabine and Roy. We play some open mixed championships, and we haven't played on the national team or something because she plays on the ladies’ team, but it works out nicely when we are playing.

John McAllister: Do you play the same system with your wife that you play with Dennis?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, and that I play with all the young kids.

John McAllister: Do you remember when we played together?

Morten Bilde: Yes, in the midnights? I don't remember what system we played though. I guess it was sort of natural because that's all I can play.

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Morten Bilde: No, because I think the psychology and the mental state of the players is so important. Obviously, I believe that natural systems have an advantage here because I think you should spend as little mental energy as possible on system, but that's my approach. I mean, other people have other thoughts about it and they're doing very well. So I think it's different from person to person.

John McAllister: Where in Denmark, I did not know that European championships were going to be in Denmark. Where in Denmark is that going to be?

Morten Bilde: Actually, it's a pretty small place called Herning, but they have a lot of ... it's very well-designed, this little place for championships they have every time some sort of world championship in any sports events and it comes to Denmark. It's there in ice hockey, handball. When the Tour de France started, they are very, very good at that. So I think we will have a very nice event.

John McAllister: How does the selection work for the Danish teams?

Morten Bilde: We have selection committees for all four categories, because our country is too small to have sort of competitions between teams. We wouldn't really have, let's say three strong teams that could compete. So we have selection committees and they select three pairs for each team and a captain and a coach. And I think in a country like Denmark, that's the right way to do it.

John McAllister: And are you on the selection committees?

Morten Bilde: Actually not, but as I'm the captain of the team, I'm in a close dialogue with the selection committee, so we try to have the captain work very close with the selection committee because you need a team that the captain thinks will work.

John McAllister: Yeah, that's something that I try to do actually is, I try to ... I know that technically there's plenty of people that are stronger bridge players than me, but I try to have a winning mentality as something that I focus on and I do varying degrees of well-

Morten Bilde: Well, but I think that's something that people should look more into because there are so many Bridge players who are pretty good. So, it's not really the difference in abilities to take finances or make squeezes. It's the ability to sit down and stay calm at the table that will make the difference. Obviously, if you can find players like Dennis or Jurgen for that case who are just naturally gifted, it's easier, but I don't think it's ... it's not worth the work to get all these perfect details. Obviously, some people like Michael, Michael Rosenberg. He can do it, but that's probably the only guy.

John McAllister: Where do you rank winning the Vanderbilt in 2013, partnering Dennis and playing with Roy and Sabina. One of the major events in the US, where do you rank that in your list of life achievements?

Morten Bilde: Well, bridge wise, I think that was the best thing I've had also, because it was the first time I played in the U.S., so I had never played in the U.S. before and only heard about it and read about it. At some point, we have known Sabina for many years because she lives in Denmark and we've been skiing together with our families since the kids were small. At some point, she then met Roy and he also joined on the ski holiday. And then, we decided to try and go and play a tournament and that was in the Vanderbilt. And to me, it was the first time in the U.S. which obviously, makes it more amazing, even though also, it's fun to play with your son and good friends and all that stuff.

So for sure that was the best. I must admit, I have never won any medals for Denmark, I have won some Junior medals but no world championships, so there's nothing I can really compare to that.

John McAllister: When did you start to think about actually winning the event?

Morten Bilde: I think it was after the famous match against the tournament team where we were down by 80 or 90 IMPs at halftime.

John McAllister: My gosh. I didn't know that.

Morten Bilde: No, but it was really crazy and the last session, I think we won by 50 or 60 IMPs, but that wasn't enough but then, there was a ruling from one of the other sessions and we went to bed and at some point, Roy texted us and told us that we had to ... they rule in our favor, get some sleep.

John McAllister: My gosh.

Morten Bilde: We have to play tomorrow. Then obviously, he said, "Okay, if we can win this match then we can win any match."

John McAllister: Right. You're a pretty mild-mannered, good-spirited person. What's the angriest you think you've ever been at the bridge table?

Morten Bilde: Actually, I think it's when opponents don't behave very nicely.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Morten Bilde: I remember actually, I played in a mixed tournament not with my wife but with someone else. And there was a guy who was really unpleasant to his ... I don't know if it was his wife, but I remember I got so angry with him, I said he should go out and find another partner for his partner because ... so that's probably the worst. I don't really remember being very angry at my partner. Obviously, you get a little bit angry with yourself when you make stupid things, but probably it must be if I have played with Dennis or Ceren and they have done something stupid.

John McAllister: Can you give me an example of making a mistake and how you kind of moved on from it?

Morten Bilde: Yeah. The way I try to handle this is whenever I have a tough decision, I try to convince myself that I use all the information I have and use it to the best of my knowledge. And if I can do that and I make a wrong decision, I'm happy. I say, "Okay, that's fine. You did your best." And this is what I try to tell all the young kids also, because you can't avoid making mistakes, but you can avoid not trying to use the information you have.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: So if I have done something where I thought I knew what was going on and it turned out I didn't, if I didn't think about the things that I should have known, I can be angry with myself. Also, actually, one situation is that when you know your partner has to do something and he doesn't do it and then, you miss a chance to save him. I actually did that a few weeks ago with Ceren and I was so unhappy that he didn't because I thought it was obvious that I didn't think and saved the situation. I was very unhappy with myself about that. The feeling you can see if your partner does this, the contract is down for sure, now he does something else and you say, why didn't he do it? Then, you lost your focus and actually, missed a defense that could have saved the day.

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah. I had that the other day, at a sectional tournament, and I did not ... there was an inference available to me that my partner had a holding in the suit that they ... that I led something and then, they returned the suit that I led, and I had the ace of diamonds and they had the king of diamonds. I mean, it looked like I had control of clubs, which was dummy's long suit. She could have played a diamond back, but basically her logic was that she had control in diamonds, she had the king, so she wasn't worried about if declarer had the king of spades now. And so I misdefended and it was the first board of ... sorry, it was the second board of a full day event and it really wore on me for a while.

Morten Bilde: Yeah. That's exactly what we need to work with, with bridge players because it's so tough, if you are not prepared to handle these situations, they can cost you so much focus in the next boards.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, and just accept that you'll make mistakes because it's impossible to play bridge without making mistakes.

John McAllister: I think ... Go ahead, sorry.

Morten Bilde: And just learn to handle the situation when you realize you've made a mistake.

John McAllister: I think the other thing that frustrated me about that board was that I felt like I wasn't ready. We played the best team in the event or the second best we won, but we played him in the first round and I just felt like I wasn't warm. I felt like with golf for example, I go, I hit balls on the range, but in this situation, I was just kind of came in cold and wasn't really in a great frame of mind either.

Morten Bilde: No, and that's also very important when I play with Vinita most of our time, we spend trying to work out how can we get into the right mindset before playing because it's so ... I remember, actually, in the period when I played with Dennis, I was still working. So I had to go to quit work and go to the airport and fly to U.S. or wherever we were playing. And usually, it would take me one or two days to get into the right mode because before you finish work and clean your desk and get everything settled to stay away for 10 days, then you have a lot of things in your mind. So if your mind is not clear, just as you said here, you come and you sit down, you're not really ready. It's so important to be able to know how can you prepare yourself mentally for a bridge game or for an important bridge game.

John McAllister: How do you and Vinita do that?

Morten Bilde: Well, we usually try to have a day or two before the tournament starts where discuss, we play a pretty simple system. We discuss just the system and then, I talk about some stuff about ... we always try to play a bid. It is what it looks like if you are in doubt about what the bid means, it means what it looks like. So, try to talk about the logic of the game and always ... whatever partner does in the bidding or in the defense, we try to follow logic instead of system. And this I think is very, very good because you can then adjust your system. If you can remember your system by logic, it's much easier.

John McAllister: What's an example of that?

Morten Bilde: When we started playing, there was an expression called a stolen bid in Vinita's notes, and it was ... let's say they opened one diamond, I over call one spade and next time cue bids two spades. Now if partner doubles, it was named a stolen bid and it could mean ... in some situations, you would've bid two spades or whatever. She was very confused about it and I had never heard the expression, but it was obvious, there was no logic in her mind about what was this. So after some time, I decided that we would just play the bid and it is what it looks like. If you double spades, you have spades. You're not saying anything about, if you would've bid two spades or whatever, you just have spades. You have something in spades, and partner is welcome to lead a spade.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: So, this apparently was easier to handle because it was more logic that if you double two spades, you have spades. If you don't, you don't have spades.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: If it's called a stolen bid or not, in some situations, that really doesn't matter.

John McAllister: So we're talking about Vinita Gupta.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: Who is ... you played with her in the Vanderbilt in 2022 when you guys lost the final.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: How did you and Vinita get started playing-

Morten Bilde: Well, that was actually also a very nice story because in 2019, a friend of mine was very ill from cancer and he had never played in the U.S. and he wanted to try and play international. So I said, okay, let's go and play and it was in San Francisco in 2019. I think it was summer or fall-

John McAllister: Yeah, it was fall. It was the last national, before COVID.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, it was fall. Yeah, that's right, but his problem was that he had also some other illnesses. He couldn't really lie down and sleep. He had to ... if he was sleeping in a bed, he had to sit up, sort of. So it wasn't easy for him to stay in a hotel for 10 days. So Dennis and I had actually played on Vinita's team for a year or two in 2014 or '15. And I remember she lived in San Francisco, so I emailed her and I said, I have this friend. We are coming to the U.S., can we stay at your place because he needs some extra? She said, "Yeah, sure." So we went over there and stayed a few nights at the hotel and then, stayed out at her house outside San Francisco and drove and that was pretty nice and we were very happy about that.

And he died a half a year later, but he had a great experience. Then, I didn't know ... at the time, Vinita didn't play much and I didn't know she had a plan of starting to play again, but she talked to one of her personal assistants, was at the house and I talked to her also and Vinita said, "Oh, she was looking for a partner." Then, this assistant said, "Oh, why don't you call Morten? He seemed like a nice guy." So she emailed me and said, "Oh, if I wanted to play," and at first, I said, "I'm sorry I don't have the time to play," but then I rethought it and said, if we can bring over our young players, I don't want to play on team with expensive professionals.

If we can bring in young players and make them mature, give them a good ... then it's okay, and she was happy with that. So that's the story, and I think she's still very happy with it. I'm very happy and we're having fun with these teams.

John McAllister: So Emil and-

Morten Bilde: Emil and Andreas and Ceren. And then, we have had some different [inaudible 00:34:18] ... right now, we have Simon Igonber on the team. We have had Simon Hooten also, and I'm sort of looking around and if there are some new young players, obviously, they need to be able to play somewhat but ... and it's fun.

John McAllister: Finish second in the Vanderbilt is not bad.

Morten Bilde: That's not bad.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Morten Bilde: We have to give a lot of credit to Simon Cope. He was actually playing on the team that year and played very well. So it's not only Junior players. I don't think we can call Simon a Junior anymore. He did greatly.

John McAllister: Are Emil and Andrea, are they in the running to be on the Danish Open team for the summer-

Morten Bilde: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dennis is playing with a new ... De has been playing with Emil since they were 12 years old. They played Juniors for I think 15 years and then they played quite a few years also in Denmark on the national team, but they split up because we thought actually that Emil could do better for the team by playing with another partner because Emil got a little bit too passive when he played with Dennis. So we didn't get the full potential out of his ... So now, we are trying to split them up and Dennis is playing with Martin Schertz, do you think you have met him?

John McAllister: I don't don't know if I've met him. I mean, my friend Kerr Golbeck has talked about Martin in the past.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, he's very talented. He's 40 years old now, so we can call him an ex-Junior and it seems it's going quite well with him and Dennis.

John McAllister: Well, they won all three events in Iceland.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, not bad.

John McAllister: I mean, I don't know. Going back to the schools, you said you're getting invited back to schools?

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: Somewhere on the internet, on your Danish school Bridge page ... I saw you've introduced bridge maybe to 20,000 kids it says.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, what we do is that when we go out into a school, we usually start by having an introduction to let's say 50 to 75 kids. And then, we have a program of ... depending on the school, 10 to 15 lessons and sometimes it's all the kids and sometimes they let the kids choose if they want to have bridge. So all these numbers amount, but a lot of them have only played, let's say 10 lessons. So it's not that we have 10,000 kids playing in the school right now, but our main goal is also to introduce the game to the kids so that they know what it's about and to the teachers so they can see this is pretty good for the kids. So, that the teachers can get back with the next group of kids that comes in and say, "Oh, we also want these to have some bridge."

And obviously, the tough part is to keep all these young kids in the game, because there's no really opportunities. The bridge clubs in Denmark are very often playing from seven in the evening to 11 in the evening. A lot of older people and too long time for young kids. So we miss opportunities to keep them even they catch interest in the game. We lose too many of them and this is bad, but it's obviously, something that you have to accept that happens because you teach them something and not everybody likes what they learn, but it's a little bit sad that some of the kids who really like it and want to play, don't get the opportunity. So actually, we are right now working on, if we can do something to find all the online opportunities for young new players so that they can find some of their equals and play online.

We need to think in online terms, because it's too tough to get the clubs to give youth opportunities. We have one place in Copenhagen where we have quite a lot of schools in an area where we have started a youth, a live youth Bridge club every Tuesday afternoon, and this is good. And obviously, it's tough sometimes we have only two or three tables, but we are running it through a year and then see what happens. It seems the kids are coming back and we are happy with it, so this is something we we're going to try again, but you can only do that in places where you have quite a lot of schools where you have kids playing Bridge within not too far away from each other. So you have to think along the online thing.

John McAllister: Are masterpoints ... are they getting masterpoints in that game or is that something you think about?

Morten Bilde: No, no. masterpoints are not as popular in Denmark as in the U.S. We have masterpoints, we also have a ranking system like in golf, a handicap system, but for the kids, this is not really something ... I mean the most important thing when you want kids to play bridge is to appreciate, it's a social game. They are having fun with their friends doing something that they like. The competitive part of it can come later.

John McAllister: What is your ranking in the handicap system?

Morten Bilde: I think I'm a little under zero and the best are seven or eight, but the system is a little strange because if you play ... I only play basically on top level stuff, but the way to get a good handicap is to play with a bad partner against bad opponents.

John McAllister: What's Dennis' ranking in the system?

Morten Bilde: I think he's in top five, but obviously, people who are ranked higher than him, it's because of the ... he only plays in the top level thing, but it's fun. It doesn't really work at complete top level, but a little down below. It actually works nicely and it's used when you have ... let's say you have 100 people for a tournament, you can put them in different categories after the handicap and that works nicely.

John McAllister: How often do you and your wife play?

Morten Bilde: Probably four or five times a year. We don't play regularly in the club. We could do that, but I've been playing with Ceren and Emil and he's young, but we might start playing some more. It's basically because we don't have the time for it. We are having fun when we're playing.

John McAllister: Is Ceren your son?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, he's the youngest. Dennis is from '89 and then we have Micah, a girl in the middle from '92 and then Ceren from '93. So they're pretty close.

John McAllister: And does everybody live near each other?

Morten Bilde: Very near. Dennis and his girlfriend Penny live 20 minutes from us and Micah and her husband and kids live 15 minutes from us and Ceren lives in Aarhus, which is 25 minutes. So we are very happy with that.

John McAllister: Can you give me some stories about raising Dennis as a father?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, obviously. Well, it was very funny because he was obviously, the oldest of the kids and he was very curious. So a lot of times we lost him and when we went to some place at some point, someone would say, where's Dennis? And we would look for him and then, we would say, "Oh, he would probably find us again." And one of his favorite comments when he was very small was when he came back, he said, "Oh, you got lost." And I remember when he was in kindergarten, they had a trip to some park or something and obviously, the same thing happened and one of the grownups called, and said, "Oh, Dennis is lost, we can't find him. What should we do?" And she said, "Oh, don't worry, he'll find you again." So, that happened pretty often with him.

John McAllister: How did he come to bridge?

Morten Bilde: Well, obviously as you can guess, we are a family that love to play games and with our kids, we played a lot of games, a lot of card games, but not bridge. So all of them learned to play card games, also sort of advanced card games, but we always thought that we would not play bridge with them, until they wanted. So Dennis actually when he was 12 or 13, he found somewhere where he could go to a bridge course and he went ... for young people and he went there and they learned to play and that was fine. So he played with them and I actually only started playing with him when he was very good and I'm pretty happy about that because I think it's not always the easiest way for kids to learn to play with very ambitious parents.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Morten Bilde: Luckily he used to found Emil, the guy, he also ... he found him very early and so had a good partner who wanted also to play and they played a lot together and with other young kids, and I think that's very good. That's one of the reasons I think that they have become so good, so quickly,

John McAllister: What games do you play ... when your family gets together now? What games do you play after? Do you play after dinner or something?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, yeah. Well, we play bridge and also-

John McAllister: You do?

Morten Bilde: Yeah. Also, Micah's husband liked to play cards. He couldn't play bridge, but he needed to learn to play it and he loves to play. And Dennis' Penny has also learned it. Basically, we ... I mean, we play bridge when everyone can play bridge. If not, we can play all sorts of games, but it's also ... bridge is really great in the way that you can ... if I play with a beginner, I have a very, very big task in knowing what information can I pass to this person and what sort of information that he's trying to pass can I use? So, it's fascinating for everybody to play. I mean, if you play chess against someone who's better than you, it's not fun for anybody.

Bridge is really fun, so I think it's a very valuable game to play when you have different persons of different abilities. Obviously, there are some bridge players that you can't let into groups like this because they don't understand that some people are not so good.

John McAllister: Right, right.

Morten Bilde: So we play a lot of bridge even though that some of our ... because both Micah and Dennis have small kids now, so they don't have much time to play other things, but when they have time they like to play bridge.

John McAllister: So that sounds like more than four people though, if you get the whole family together, for example.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: So do you play two tables or do you just-

Morten Bilde: Yeah. We'll play the number of tables that's needed. We have a pretty big place here, so we have space enough. Actually, next weekend, not this weekend, but the next, I'll have something like 24 Junior players coming and these are Junior players who are going to play for the national team. So we are having a two-day training session at our place and then, Uncle Jurgen will cook for them. So not only can he teach them to play, he can also make food. That's nice.

John McAllister: Got it. You've been doing this ... so you started this project nine years ago.

Morten Bilde: The School Bridge project started in 2015. I've been involved in the youth program since, I don't know, 2000, 2002, three or something like that.

John McAllister: So what would you say ... how successful have you been versus what your goals were when you started?

Morten Bilde: Well, I remember that I thought it would be more tough than it actually is to get bridge into the schools. I thought that would really be a problem, but I think the arguments we have found and the way we introduce bridge into the schools makes it pretty easy. It's very easy for us to ... if we talk to a math teacher or someone and say, this is why you should try it. What has been less successful is, as I mentioned, I think we are losing too many of the kids who think it's fun to play because we don't have the opportunities to keep them in the game. And basically, this was not our mission when we started the school bridge program because we just wanted to introduce the game, but obviously now, you also want to keep some in the game.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: So I think we have found a good way of getting it into the schools. I think we have found a very good way of teaching. We see more and more of the normal bridge clubs adopting our teaching system because it simply gets people to play much quicker. So I'm happy about that. I'm not happy about that. We can't keep them in the game. I'm not happy about that we need more teachers who can help teaching bridge, because sometimes we have really stuck ... everyone is volunteer. We have been trying to get on the state budget and stuff like that, but it hasn't worked yet. So I would be happy to have a little more ... a more professional organization.

Plus, I'm also afraid what will happen because you know what happens when everybody is a volunteer, it's easy, if you start hiring someone, paying someone, it usually, doesn't work very well with all the volunteers. So yeah, it's tough, but if we want to expand more, I think we need to do some education of more teachers that could go out into the schools.

John McAllister: Have you been featured on Danish television or anything for this program?

Morten Bilde: Yeah, we've had quite a lot of ... when we have either school programs or training camps or sessions. Television, I think, is interesting. So we do get some of that, and I think what we ... it was a company. I think we should do more about talking to math teachers because I think that all these math ... whenever you meet one of these and you show them how it works, then it's ... they say, "Oh, this is great." So if you really wanted to get into schools, you should do some more work on the math teachers organizations, which they have but now, you need to hire people who are used to doing stuff like that. And it's not easy for our volunteers to start doing that and we need to focus on the things that we're good at.

John McAllister: What do the math teachers like about it?

Morten Bilde: They like that you get another way of doing something that a lot of kids thinks is fun, but it still has some math and some probability in it. And they see a lot of the kids, especially boys who are ... today, they all have some letters. In our time, they were just a little uneased, they couldn't concentrate too much, which is normal for a lot of boys in the school age, but a lot of them when they get to play cards, they can sit still for maybe two, two and a half hour and focus on that. And this is something that fascinates a lot of the teachers,

John McAllister: Right, right. They could sit still. They could sit still.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: How many children do you think are playing bridge actively because of this program?

Morten Bilde: It's tough to say because the only thing we can really measure it is junior players who are joining clubs, but a lot of these players are playing at home or together or on Fun Bridge or whatever. So it's really tough for me to say, but it's too few that stay in the game, that's for sure.

John McAllister: What's been your toughest day as the head of this project?

Morten Bilde: I haven't had many tough days, but probably, it's because you are working with volunteers and sometimes you are planning quite big events, let's say 120 kids or something. And some people are responsible for this and this and this. And I remember there was once, we had to go to a school with 80 kids and then, two of the people who were supposed to be responsible, I wasn't there, they just called and said they couldn't come. And that was pretty tough because then I said, okay, what can we do now? And we had to call the school and say, we need to find another day. And that was okay, but that was tough.

I didn't really know how to handle that, but obviously, you can't really say to people, well, you said you could come and do this, so you have to do it because it's volunteers, but it's very seldom that this happens. I mean, volunteers are very, very good people to work with.

John McAllister: What about best day?

Morten Bilde: The best day is usually when we have ... let's say three weeks ago we had the Danish School Bridge championships, which is for all of the players who come, they're the first tournament they come to. They come and they play with Bridgemates, they get results. They have only played in the classroom and they come. This year actually, we had some prizes that the winners would go to […] in May. There's a big tournament there, but there's also, a junior tournament. So we had the three winning pairs, got a trip to […], and these kids who came there who had never played a tournament.

And met other kids and saw these prizes when they found out if ... we play only two board rounds because it's pretty slow and they get the result out and they can see the look in the eyes of these kids is just so amazing when they play their first tournament. And it's really, then you can ... I mean, it doesn't matter how much time you've spent at that time, when you see these kids really enjoying and having fun and being, wanting to win this tournament and doing their best sitting there and you can't hear anything, this is seventh grade people, they would usually talk, but when the round is on, you can't hear anything. They're just focusing and concentrating. That's just great.

John McAllister: When did you realize that Dennis was really good?

Morten Bilde: Probably around when he was 14 because he very quickly picked up what you were supposed to do. And without really ... sometimes people need to learn the logic and understand, but it seemed that it came to him that this must be the right way to do it. So there are a few of these players in the world who are just natural talents. And in all those other sports, you have people who can just play football or whatever and they can't explain how they're doing or they're just doing it. And Dennis is one of these and obviously, as he got older and better, it became more apparent, but it was obvious to me that he knew things that basically, I hadn't told him or someone else hadn't. He just worked it out, and when you see those kind of players, then okay, these guys have potential.

John McAllister: What was that like for you?

Morten Bilde: Well, I mean, it was only a few years later where he started talking about that he wanted to be a Bridge player. So at the time, it was just fun. He was in a group of young players and it was fun. They played and had fun with it and they did well, but at some point he declared that he wanted to be a bridge player. And I said, okay, that's fine, but if he wants to do that, you have to go all in. I mean, you can't just say something and then ... and he did, and I'm pretty happy about that because it's not only the ability to play bridge, you also need to behave nicely. You also need to be able to talk to different people. And it's not easy. As you probably know, a lot of the bridge players are not easygoing, socially.

John McAllister: You've seen that with me before. Man, I was thinking about that incident we had in Memphis where I called the director because you're first to open three notrump, and that didn't meet the rules-

Morten Bilde: Yeah. Yeah.

John McAllister: I was regretting that, man. Sorry about that.

Morten Bilde: It doesn't matter. No. This is good because ... actually, it gave me insight into some rules that I didn't knew existed. So remember there was this list of rules that you were not allowed to do. So now, I can tell the young players, this is actually ... because I don't think we have these rules in Denmark. I think there are ACBL rules.

John McAllister: Yeah, I don't even remember how I came across that rule. I think it was the rule of 19. You had to have ... or 17, you had to have a number of high cards points plus cards in a suit in order to open. My gosh.

Morten Bilde: It was pretty ... obviously, this guy was not happy about it. The young kid Ceren, but it really opened my eyes that there were these rules. So I'm happy that I learned that.

John McAllister: Man. Yeah, we were playing Morten's team and he was on a team with some young people at the NABC in Memphis in I think spring of 2019. And they opened three notrump against me in the Swiss. And it turned out, he didn't have a solid suit. We got a bad result on the board, and I called the director. I don't even remember how I came across this rule of 17. I had come across it semi-recently somehow. Yeah, I was worried actually, when I asked you what's the angers you'd been at bridge with that. You were going to say, "Well, you did that?"

Morten Bilde: No, I mean that's very different. It's also a very important thing to be able to handle directors and director calls because some players take it personally and when someone calls the director they say, "Oh, you are accusing me of cheating and all that stuff." So I try to tell my partners and my players that whatever happens if someone calls a director, just lean back, let the director do his job. Because when we are playing high level tournaments, usually the directors know what they're doing and don't take it personal. That can be tough. I mean, I have had players who came back to me four times and said, "What do you think about this?" I mean, I was not hesitating. I said, shut up.

John McAllister: Man. My gosh. So are you coming to Louisville? Go ahead.

Morten Bilde: I actually had a pretty funny talking about director rulings in the Danish first division. The bidding went ... I was third seat, it went pass, pass. I opened four hearts and now, we're playing the screens and now, the tray comes back after, I don't know, 20, 24, but it was obvious there had been a hesitation.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Morten Bilde: So this guy, my right-hand opponent looks at me and said, "Oh, am I allowed to bid?" No. I said, "Just bid your cards." We both knew that obviously, the hesitation was his partner’s, but if you have a bid, just bid, I mean, don't worry. And he doubled and it went past five diamonds from his partner, five hearts from my partner, doubled one down and his double was perfect. He had a 4, 1, 4, 4 hand with nine points. To me, it was obvious to double. So the funny thing is ... so after the match, our teammates come and say, "Oh, we have a director call." So there might be an adjustment. "Oh, I said, what's the problem?" Well, the bidding went the same way and then, they didn't talk, he just doubled.

And then, it was right to double, so they called the director, and the director ruled you're not allowed to double. So that was pretty funny. So we needed to ... so I told the director, "Well, that's pretty funny because the same thing happened at our table. So what are you going to do about that?" And then, the funny thing is that they misdefended. So I got 10 tricks and our opponents got only nine tricks, which says [inaudible 01:04:02]. So we won five IMPs. Now, the director ruled, he said he wasn't really a good bridge player, so he thought, "Oh, you can't double that. I would never double."

He said, that's fine, but so he ruled no one can double. And then, I said, "Oh, that's great. Then we win 10 IMPs because I got ten tricks." And then, he said, "Oh no, I can't do that." I said, "Do whatever you want but ..." And then, I think it went into an appeals committee and they ruled that they would not allow to double and 50% of the time I would get my 10 tricks and 50% of the time I would not. So I think we are stuck with our five IMPs. The situation was so funny, and I understand that the director didn't know what to do.

John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah.

Morten Bilde: This is a classic example, it was two of the young kids playing at our team and they were unhappy because the opponents called the director. I said, don't worry about it. They said, "Oh, we didn't hesitate. They said we hesitated one minute and it was only 40 seconds or whatever." I said, "Don't worry about it, just ..."

John McAllister: What did the hesitation ... the guy who hesitated, what did they have?

Morten Bilde: They had actually a tough hand. They had ace, king, jack six times in diamonds. Ace, queen, third of spades, two little hearts and two little clubs. After pass pass four hearts, obviously ... but that fitted very nicely with the 4 1 4 4 hand so they could make five diamonds.

John McAllister: Right.

Morten Bilde: And to me, the double was obvious. I mean, a hesitation or not, you have pass pass four hearts, pass pass double, you have 4, 1, 4, 4 with something like nine points or 10 points or something. I would be unhappy if my players didn't double.

John McAllister: You think they hesitated, and should have taken a call?

Morten Bilde: No, I think it's fine to pass, and I think it's fine to double because I think the guy with the stiff heart has to take action if he can, but it was an interesting situation.

John McAllister: Who's your partner for the Danish-

Morten Bilde: Well, I play on a team with both Ceren and Andreas and Emil, and we switch a little bit around. So here, I played with Emil in this match.

John McAllister: So you're coming to Louisville?

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: You've been there the whole time?

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: Playing on Vinita's team.

Morten Bilde: Yeah, with […] and Emil and Andreas and so on, so that would be fun.

John McAllister: Well, I look forward to seeing you. It's been a pleasure to have you here on the show. I love what you're doing.

Morten Bilde: Thank you.

John McAllister: I'm grateful.

Morten Bilde: It's been great being here. And just as you know, if anyone needs any help or any good advice or whatever, they can always contact me.

John McAllister: What's the best way to do that?

Morten Bilde: Email.

John McAllister: Email.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: All right.

Morten Bilde: I'm old fashioned. I'm not so good at the social media.

John McAllister: It's Morten. M-O-R-T-E-N. Yeah,

Morten Bilde: Dot bilde at gmail.com

John McAllister: Okay. All right. Well-

Morten Bilde: I'm happy to give all sorts of advice and to give what ... if they can use whatever we have for material. Usually, when people want to try and start some youth program, they don't really know how to get started, and I think that the best advice I can give is to tell them what can work and how could they do it.

John McAllister: Are you seeing an uptick in Juniors between 2015 and now, like that are in, you're having this 24 kid training session?

Morten Bilde: I think we are seeing more in the girls and we actually made a decision to try and get a girls team over the last five or six years. We have a nice group of girls and also in the under 16, and the under 16 is obviously from the school program, because we didn't have those before, but still we haven't really worked out how to keep these in the game. We need some more interesting experiences like the weekend I'm talking about here, so that they can look forward to coming and having some social fun with their friends while playing bridge.

John McAllister: I can only imagine, like I didn't learn how to play bridge until I was 18 and it was with my parents and I didn't really have peers that were playing. And so I didn't play nearly as much. I can only imagine being in middle school and being introduced to bridge like what a revelation that would've been for me and to have kids to play with. My god, I mean, that would be so cool. So I think it's great that you're doing that for so many kids

Morten Bilde: Yes, and it's these kids, they get such a great network. When they get out and play some tournament somewhere, they meet other kids and it's just so great and they have fun together and it's just perfect to see.

John McAllister: Yeah, I'm looking here. I reached out to Amaresh Deshpande and he said ... I asked him about you because you guys did that thing in India a while back and he said, you're incredibly committed to spreading the game to young people.

Morten Bilde: That's true. Yeah. It was a fun trip we had. We might redo it. Actually, some of the kids that were with us were now older, they asked me, "Oh, when are we going to India again?" So maybe I'll talk to Pasach, the president of the federation and see if we should do something again. It could be fun.

John McAllister: All right, well, it's great to see you. I look forward to seeing you next month and give my best to Dennis and everybody else.

Morten Bilde: Yeah. I will. Thank you. See you in Louisville.

John McAllister: All right.

Morten Bilde: Yeah.

John McAllister: Thanks Morten .

Morten Bilde: Thanks. Bye-bye.

John McAllister: It's really a pleasure to be able to share Morten 's story with you all and I hope it inspires you to take action. You don't have to quit your job, but there's something you can do today to help further the future of bridge. And please let me know what you're inspired to do. Email me john@thesettingtrick.com, and thanks as always for listening.