Brian Reynolds is an LA-based bridge teacher who, with his wife, Samantha, runs an educational website, The Bridge Teachers. They specialize in teaching people who’ve “never touched a deck of cards.”

That’s how they got recommended to the production team for the bridge documentary film, “The Kids Table.” That initial meeting dramatically altered the film’s storyline. One player quit on the spot!

As a bridge pro, Brian is refreshingly candid about his bridge ability. This conversation covers a broad range of topics.

[2:17]  Bob Hamman makes a recommendation.

[6:20]  The Chappell Roan of bridge teachers Brian and his wife, Samantha, who have a website, The Bridge Teachers

[10:10]  How they changed the concept of the documentary “The Kids Table.”

[17:17]  Finally going on a date with Samantha, on one condition.

[21:20]  Encountering rude experts in the early rounds of the Spingold and other tales of “playing up.”

[27:37]  An important, match-deciding decision.

[37:20]  Launching the website; John’s impression of the Bridge Teachers site.

[51:12]  First time hearing about suit preference = brain explosion.

[56:28]  What would it be like if thousands of new players started playing tournament bridge?

[1:00:52]  Uh, are those bowling terms?

[1:16:25]  The optimal peer group for learning.

[1:18:35]  Disaster stories.

[1:28:22]  “The Kids Table” in the Reisinger

Transcript

Episode 83

Brian Reynolds – The Outlier

We're back from the dead. The Setting Trick. Frankly, I hate doing these intros. They always slow the process of making an episode down. But alas, here I am. Today's guest is Brian Reynolds, who might not be as well-known as some of my previous guests, but I knew him a while back because he was featured in the film “The Kids Table.” And Brian has a pretty interesting reveal for those of you who are listening closely. I'm going to let him go for it.

All right. I have today Brian Reynolds, who I came to know in my friend Edd Benda's film, “The Kids Table,” and we just met in person for the first time at the Las Vegas NABC.

I was very impressed that you came just to kiss the ring in the Trumpian fashion here in the realm of the new era. So, I couldn't... Yeah, the stage is yours. Brian Reynolds, one of the... has a site where you teach Bridge. It's called the Bridge Teachers and yeah, good to have you on.

Brian Reynolds:

Well, thank you for having me. I think it was your second episode you had Bob Hamman on.

John McAllister:

Yes.

Brian Reynolds:

So this will be a different side of the Bridge world. I have the distinct honor of when Bob Hamman was approached by a gentleman named Eli Borach. This is probably 20 years ago now, 20 plus years ago now. Eli Borach was a huge UCLA alumni, and I think that's how he knew Bob and he was big in the Bridge world too. I played against him and his lovely wife all the time at the Barrington Bridge Club. RIP Barrington Bridge Club.

Bob was approached and was asked to recommend a Bridge coach for the UCLA Bridge team, and he recommended me, and I have a voicemail, which I managed to... It was at a tape and I managed to save it. I have a voicemail of Bob Hamman on my answering machine saying, "Hey, this is Bob. Bob Hamman." Like I wouldn't know who Bob was because that's Bob all over. And he said, "Yeah, Eli Borach asked me who should be the Bridge coach for the UCLA Bridge team. I said, ‘You,’ so give him a call." I got to be the UCLA Bridge coach for three years. We grew from three players. When I started we had three players, which is nerve wracking when you're sort of the brief that you're given as a coach is go win a national championship and the national championship is a four-player format and you've got three players. It's a little nerve wracking.

We grew. There was a... Oh, man, I can't remember his name right now. There was a professor at UCLA who was also a huge Bridge player in the Bridge LA scene. I don't know if he ever won a national championship, but he was a very, very good... much better Bridge player than I, named Adam. I can't remember his name right now. Anyway, sorry Adam, I don't remember your last name, but I can see your face and I know I could probably tell you his system notes, but I can't tell you his last name as in the typical Bridge player fashion. But he actually also came on because you had to have a professor because it was like an extracurricular club type of thing. He obviously did a ton of work as well. But it grew from three kids to, at the end of my third year, I think we had nine tables regularly-

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

Of kids playing Bridge. And one team, I think we actually had two teams the last year competing at the Collegiate World Championships. My last year coaching, they did actually win-

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

A collegiate national championship. So it was really funny when I was listening to all these amazing people who play Bridge at such a high level, and I was thinking, "Do I belong on this podcast, right?" Because if you want to hear about the time I executed a stepping stone squeeze against Paul Soloway, you're going to be waiting a long time. That didn't happen.

I have had the honor to play against top-flight players. Samantha and I once had an amazingly unbelievable disaster playing against-

John McAllister:

Tell us who Samantha is before... I know who Samantha is.

Brian Reynolds:

Oh, great, great. Yeah, absolutely. So my wife, Samantha MacDouglas is the head teacher at thebridgeteachers.com. It's funny you mentioned the doc, The Kids Table, which was Edd Benda approached us. We didn't know Edd, and actually again, I believe Edd reached out to the ACBL who reached out to Jill Meyers and said, "Do you want to teach these four millennials how to play Bridge?" I can only imagine what Jill said. If you know Jill-

John McAllister:

Yeah, I do.

Brian Reynolds:

I can just imagine Jill being approached to give up 18 months of her life to teach four millennials to play Bridge. She said no, but they said, who should we talk to? And they recommended Samantha. So it's sort of like the Chappell Roan, I don't know if you know who Chappell Roan is. She's an artist.

John McAllister:

I do. I like the Pink Pony Club.

Brian Reynolds:

Such a great song, right? I think she was performing at Coachella and she said to the crowd, "I'm your favorite artist's favorite artist." So I've been recommended to people as their Bridge teachers. I mean, Jill's recommended me to her friends to play. I'm sort of your favorite Bridge expert's Bridge teacher.

John McAllister:

Got it.

Brian Reynolds:

Well, Samantha is. I want to be really clear on this because if you've watched the doc, The Kids Table, you would think that I was the Bridge teacher of record for The Kids Table. And the reason why is because I'm loud and obnoxious and I like to say bold things. And meanwhile, Samantha is like just not that, just doesn't have that personality. But she did most of the work in terms of coaching. She really did coach them.

John McAllister:

But was it really 18 months?

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, it was 18 months of my life. Yeah. It's good. So when they first approached us, they said, we're doing this doc. It's about people learning to play Bridge, four millennials learning to play Bridge, which at the time was people in their 20s, mid-20s. And we want to compete seriously in a national championship in the next three months.

And Samantha showed me this email and I basically said something along the lines of, "Well, we're being punked." Tell these people to kick rocks. What are they talking about? This is ridiculous. What are you talking about? You don't know what you're talking about. And she stopped me and she said, "Look, one of my main goals in teaching Bridge is to grow the game. Is to make the game, just get eyeballs on it, get more people playing." And Samantha and I have had conversations about that. Samantha and I have been together for 32 years now. We've been Bridge partners for 33 years now.

But we've talked and we've had conversations both at the sectional level or the club level, all the way to the national level with people about how do we grow the game and what our goals are as teachers. And she said, "Look, you just need to stop. We need to talk to these people. They've got the documentary, they're serious. Let's go talk to them." I said, "Okay, great. Let's go talk to them." So we drove downtown LA, which is a sacrifice in itself driving [inaudible 00:09:06] drive to downtown LA. And we were going to have a 15-minute in-person meeting that talked to them about their Bridge doc. And they sat us down and typical me fashion, I said, "Look, the email you sent us makes zero sense. The questions you asked us make no sense."

John McAllister:

It seems bad they weren't filming this.

Brian Reynolds:

They should have. Maybe they did, I don't know. Maybe they did. They were very good.

John McAllister:

Yeah, they might have.

Brian Reynolds:

That production team is crazy good. They're super successful now on a bunch of different levels. But any event, I said, "This makes no sense." I said, "What you're asking to do is you're asking to participate in the tournament world. You don't even know what the tournament world is. Like you don't know what that means." So I said, "Here's the tournament world." So I talked for about two and a half hours.

John McAllister:

Oh, my God.

Brian Reynolds:

They asked a bunch of questions. This was supposed to be a 15-minute meeting. And they said, "Well, we're about to have our three other players because Edd was one of the players. He was there for the production meeting. He says, "We're about to have our three other players come and our doc just changed. Like from your words, our doc just changed."

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And he said, "Would you stay and tell them what you just told us?"

John McAllister:

Oh, God.

Brian Reynolds:

So Samantha and I hung out. They bought us lunch. It was very nice. It was very kind. Then the kids, because they call them The Kids Table, but these young men and women came in and they said, "Okay, this is what Bridge is and this is what we're thinking about doing now that we've talked to these two experts." Because Samantha and I aren't expert players, but we're experts on the world and we're expert teachers, which I think is an important distinction, right? I mean, Samantha and I have made the cut at some national events for the second day. I've made the cut with other partners for national events, but we're not national champions.

I mean, obviously I would love to, but that's not currently where our focus is. My focus is not to get really, really good at Bridge, although I do have, as I say that I'm sitting looking at my desk and I've got “Bridge Odds for Practical Players,” which is an amazing book. And I work on my game all the time, but that's not who I am. But anyway, the point is these three other people sit down, they listened to me talk. They asked a bunch of questions. It wasn't just a monologue, although I am very good at monologues, and one of them quit on the spot.

One of them said, "I'm not doing that. Forget that. What are you talking about?" This is my whole thing with Bridge is that it is never how I would actually approach somebody who said to me, I want to learn to play Bridge. I would never approach them and go, "Oh, well, let me tell you about Nationals and let me tell you about IMPs versus matchpoints. And I would be like, "Cool, let's have as much fun as possible," because you can make it as fun as you possibly can for another human being.

In my experience, when I first started teaching, I would get these groups of four people. I was teaching one woman, and she said, "I got these group...” I put together a little group because I didn't know what I was doing. As a business person, I didn't know what I was doing. I knew what I was doing as a teacher, but she put together four people. So I always got these four people. And in my experience, every group of four people who learns to play Bridge, it's very, very simple. Two of them are going to want to play once a week. They're going to want to be with their friends. They're going to want what I call throwing cards. It's a social event. They're having fun. Maybe they'll log on once in a while and they'll play a little thing.

One of them will quit. Life is too big. Our partner, Morgan, our business partner and life partner, Morgan, she is a photographer. She loves to take photography and she travels the world and she takes photography. And once upon a time, back in the dim and misty when we were all very, very young, we taught her how to play Bridge. And one time at a Nationals, I think it was early 2000s, Morgan and I happened to be in San Francisco at the same time as the Nationals. And I was like, "Let's go play Bridge." And she's like, "Fine."

And we won an Open Side Pairs, a little 9 AM Side Pairs. We stopped in and we won the whole thing. She won't play Bridge. It has nothing to do with being good at it. It has nothing to do with her being able to understand the game. It just doesn't speak to her. Anyway, back to The Kids Table-

John McAllister:

Wait, did you just tell me you're in a throuple?

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, we're in a polyamorous triad actually. Well, quad now, but that's a whole other story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Dropped that casually. Hi, everybody. Hi. It's the ethically non-monogamous person in the room. Yeah, yeah.

My wife Samantha and I have known... Well, they've known each other since junior high. But yeah, I met Samantha in '90. I met Samantha in 1990. We became serious in '90. We started dating in '91. She said you have to meet my best friend, Morgan. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I said, "Okay, great." And then in '93 or '94, we moved out to St. Louis of all places, gross, to sort of move in. And then at that time, we discussed... Because Samantha and I had been open, we'd had an open relationship from the jump, so we'd been ethically non-monogamous.

And by the way, this is before the internet. This is before... We became a throuple one year before this very famous polyamorous book called “The Ethical Slut” was published. So we were just three kids, I mean 20, 23, 24, three kids trying to figure out how to have this paradigm that there was nothing there like it back then. At least nothing that I'd heard of. I mean, there was no connection to any community of that nature. But yeah, so the three of us have been a family now for 30 years.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. I wrote a whole play about it. If you go to our entertainment site, which is called Tubemanent.com, you can see I wrote a play called Monopoly. It's been produced twice. It's my take on ethical non-monogamy. Yeah. So yes, casually, but casually, yes. And before we get too far, no, you can't legally marry two people. I'm not legally married to Morgan. It's amazing what you can do with LLCs and powers of attorney. Definitely do your research. If you're out there and you want to be ethically non-monogamous and polyamorous, definitely do your research on the legality of things, especially in your area. Maybe flee a red state in the next week. But yeah, there's a lot of info out there, which I didn't have when I was a kid. And actually to bring it back to Bridge, when I met Samantha, we were friends for about, I don't know, a year. And then it was college. She went back east. And then when she came back, I was just kind of staring at her going, man, I really like this person a lot.

Not only attraction, smoke show, but her brain, she's one of the smartest people I've ever met. Her way of looking at the world and her way of talking, I was like, "Do you want to go out?" Because we were a friends group. "You want to go out?" She's like, "A date?" She has this way of saying things that make you feel like the stupidest person in the room. And she's like, "A date?" I'm like, "Yeah, let's go out on a date. Just the two of us, no big friends group, just the two of us." And she's like, "Yeah, okay. But you have to learn to play Bridge first."

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

Because she had been playing kitchen table... Well, no, her parents had been playing Kitchen Table Bridge for years, but never taught her the rules, like refused to teach her. I don't know why. And then right as she was leaving for college, it was like their parting gift to her or whatever. Okay, here's the rules to Bridge. But she didn't have anyone to play with. I mean, again, this is-

John McAllister:

Where did you go to college?

Brian Reynolds:

I went to the University of Arizona. Well, okay. So when I met Samantha, I had already dropped out of college. College and I did not get along. I like to learn too much to enjoy college. There's nothing that gets in the way of learning like an education. I'm obsessed with learning. I have grad little textbooks on my walls. I read neuroscience for fun. But the structure of college and I did not get along. And the other problem with college of the many problems that it did not align with what I wanted to do. At the time I was doing professional theater. I actually started doing professional theater when I was in high school. My senior year of high school, I started doing professional theater.

And so when you have rehearsals that last until 11 o'clock at night, and then you got to get back to your dorm via bus because you don't have a car, and then you have organic chemistry at 7:00 AM in the morning, schedules stop working really, really fast. And I went to the University of Arizona for chemical engineering. I wanted to be a chemical engineer. I love chemistry. I love the science and the logic of it. I love all that stuff, but I love theater way, way more. And also, I was staring down the barrel of working three jobs, going to school and waiting and waiting to be a chemical engineer or working three jobs and doing professional theater right away and loving it. So it was an easy choice. So when I met Samantha, I'd already dropped out of college.

I do have a Paul Soloway story. I do have a Paul Soloway story. I was sitting down at the table with Paul, I forget what event it was. Obviously I wasn't playing with him.

John McAllister:

Was he from LA?

Brian Reynolds:

I don't know if Paul was from LA.

John McAllister:

Did he live there?

Brian Reynolds:

No, this was at a Nationals.

John McAllister:

Okay.

Brian Reynolds:

I just bumped into him. We were in some pairs event, and he came. I think I was playing with a client actually. And he came and sat down at my table and beat us up pretty good as Paul did to everybody.

John McAllister:

I never met him.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. Yeah. He passed away shortly after this story, actually. Unfortunately, RIP Paul. He's such a sweet man. I mean, my experience is the better you get at Bridge, the nicer you become. I've had very few negative experiences playing against top-flight players. Medium flight players, I've had a few negative experiences. And I actually did once get into it with, I don't know who they were, but I did once get into it with a couple of experts. I think it was the first round of the Spingold. And they were so angry that they were playing me and Samantha. They were so ticked off. I'm like, "Look, if you have a problem with baby teams playing the Spingold, talk to the ACBL. It's not my problem I want to play against you."

And at one point they asked about our discards, and we were playing Lavinthal at the time, and they were like, what is this nonsense Lavinthal? I'm like, "Oh, yeah, it's only been around since 1930. Whatever. Okay, whatever dude." And so he said something to his partner, "It's like it's just odd/even except they don't have the problem if they don't have a low card to discard." And so then later they were defending some hand and the guy had a discarding problem because he didn't have any odd cards. And he and his partner, they navigated anyway, they're experts, but they caught down. And he's like, "Yeah, I threw the four of clubs because that's all I could do."

And I said to Samantha, I said, "Yeah, they're playing odd/even discards. It's kind of like Lavinthal except we don't have the problem if we don't have any odd cards." And he was not happy. He was like, "How dare you talk to me with your 1100 masterpoints."

John McAllister:

Who won the match?

Brian Reynolds:

Oh, they did. Yeah. Yeah. We've never won a match in Spingold. The closest, again, Bridge stories, baby Bridge stories, right? You're not going to hear stories of Bob not leading the correct ace and costing his team the World Championships, which I got a chance to talk to him about once, which was really cool. He's like, "Yeah, I should have known." That dude is the coolest of cool.

We were playing against... We were playing in, I believe it was Reno. And at the time, my knockout team had won something like 72 straight knockout matches because it was me, Samantha, and our GNT partners. And I think collectively we had something like 1200 masterpoints. But the problem was is that we were way better than that, right? I mean, if I were to be brutally honest with myself, we probably had about the ability of let's say people with 3000 or 4000 masterpoints each, right?

John McAllister:

Got it. Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Just being brutally honest with myself.

John McAllister:

Sure.

Brian Reynolds:

But the problem with that is when you've got a team that should have 13,000 masterpoints or 12,000 masterpoints, and you're playing against people who also have 1000 masterpoints collectively, the score is ridiculous. We would win matches by over a hundred on 24-board matches. So we go to the tournament directors and we say, "Look, we would like to play up. This isn't fun for them. It isn't fun for us. We'd like to play up."

And at this point, we were nine days into a nationals and we won every match playing in three sessions a day on a four-person team, which is crazy, but what are you going to do? And they said it kind of like to put us in our place. They said, "Okay, well, you have a choice. You can play in the top bracket, or you can play in your bracket. That's the only thing we can do under the rules." And they were expecting us to crawl back to our table bracket with our tails behind us. And I said, "Oh, absolutely. We'll take it. We'll take the top bracket. We'll take the... Yes, right now, do it." And they went, "Oh, wait. No, no, no, no." I'm like, "No, no, no, no. You just said we're holding you to that. We're playing in the top bracket. We're playing in the top bracket."

Now at the time, again, baby Bridge player, I didn't know the firestorm that I had just created because this is a nationals, it's not the 9 AM game, it's the 10:30 or whatever, or the 1:00 game. And I just bumped some team from, I don't know, Hungary or wherever, or some national team from Scotland. The national team from Scotland just got bumped out of the second bracket. And that cascaded all the way down through all the brackets. And I didn't know. And the directors shouldn't have pulled this garbage so all of a sudden everybody hated us.

Brian Reynolds:

Everybody hated us. I mean, we got people walking up to us saying, "You shouldn't do this. This is unethical. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "You're talking to a guy with 400 masterpoints like he thinks he knows what just happened? Go talk to the directors."

They gave me a choice. They gave me a choice, which was to go beat up on another team, make everybody unhappy, or play against the best players in the world. And what do you think I'm going to choose? I love playing against the best in the world. Do I care that I've never won a match in the [inaudible 00:26:31]? No.

I learned so much by watching Bobby Wolff have me have an absolute disaster at the bridge table. Nothing like having a disaster when Bobby Wolff is kibitzing over your wife's shoulder. It's fantastic. It's definitely a learning experience.

But anyway, so we sat down against Irina, I can never pronounce her last name, a client team, our sponsor team that I think they were getting ready to compete in the Women's World Championships like six months later.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Oh, they were mad. They were so mad. They're like, "What is this nonsense? Why are we playing against these people?" And I was like, "Now you know how I feel sitting in the bottom bracket all day. You think you're going to... You're beat the absolute tar out of me. Yeah, absolutely. This sucks. Sucks for everybody involved. Too bad." And then we were up by two at halftime.

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And they weren't laughing anymore. And they were mad, but they were mad for a different reason. And on the very last board, we were winning the match. I think we were up by five with the last board to come. And they were playing a precision club system with a mini, I think it was 12 to 14, it might've been 13 to 15, but they were playing a mini no trump or a medium no trump, whatever you want to call it, which was exactly the same system that my partners were playing at the other table. They were playing the same thing.

So at both tables, the auction goes one no trump, double, which at my table was strength but ostensibly take out, and at the other table was just pure strength/penalty.

John McAllister:

Right.

Brian Reynolds:

And at my table it went, one no trump, double, pass. And at the other table, when one no trump, double passed and the person sitting in my chair passed and one no trump double went for 500.

John McAllister:

All right.

Brian Reynolds:

And there's really no good run out. Anywhere you run out to... Both players sitting to my right were absolutely hosed. I think they were even playing the same rescue system. It's just one of those hands where you're going for 500. Good luck.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

But in my partnership, that was ostensibly takeout, and I must have sat there for, I don't know, five minutes and just like, "This is wrong. I should pass. I should violate system agreement. I should violate partnership agreement. I should violate all the talks we've had about how we're dealing with the mini no trump, all the ways we've been coached." I'm like, "I should just violate it. I should just pass. I should pass." And I didn't.

Eventually, I bid two hearts and we got our non-vulnerable game and we lost the match by one, and we were never allowed to move up brackets again. But Arena was very sweet. She came up to us afterwards and said, "I thought it was a joke. I thought you guys were a joke. You played great. You're really good players. Keep working on it. By the way, here's the system that I think you should be playing over a mini no trump that's way better than the system you're playing. Reach out to me if you need to talk or want to talk." Very, very sweet.

But man, can you imagine if we'd knocked them out in the first round? It's like, who's laughing now? But that's what I love about bridge, is that I've gotten to play against the best in the world, even though I'm not the best in the world.

Now, do I think that's good for tournament bridge? I don't necessarily think it is good for tournament bridge. Is it good for me? Yeah, it's absolutely good for me. Is it good for Samantha? Sure. And is it good for people who have those aspirations? Yes. To get to sit down and play against Bob, if you're lucky, or even someone like...

I know I've listened to your podcast and you're pretty self-depreciating about your bridge journey, but you're serious about the game and you're a very, very good player. You're an expert level player. And I know you're already smiling like, "Ah, I don't know if I'd call myself expert," which is kind of the mark of an expert, but if I got to sit down and play against you and your team, let's say Samantha and I had a team, I would say our chances of winning are very small. It'd depend on my teammates a lot, but just mathematically, statistically, my chances of winning a match against you and your very good team are very small, especially the longer the match. But I would learn so much and I would grow so much as a player, and the next time you saw me, be a little tougher and a little tougher after that. I think that's really great for the game of bridge in terms of that's how it's accessed by people.

But I think the challenge that players of a high enough level face is that in order for the game to grow, they have to have a less enjoyable experience than they might otherwise have. Like you mentioned, I actually flew all the way out to Vegas just to meet you because I really wanted to be on this podcast. If Bob Hammond calls you and says, I want to be in your podcast, you don't ask him to fly out to Vegas.

John McAllister:

Well, I thought you might be there for the tournament.

Brian Reynolds:

I wish I could. Samantha and I have not gotten to play regular tournament bridge in years just because we've been teaching so much. I miss it. I miss going to the nationals and playing for 11 straight days, and I definitely was a better player.

Actually, right before COVID, I was playing on a sponsored team and I was playing with a really, really good player. Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm so bad with names. I can see his face and I can see him yelling at me for passing three spades doubled. It's the guy who plays with Finn. John.

John McAllister:

Oh, Ramos.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, John Ramos. I was playing with John Ramos and I was playing with him regularly. I got to play with John and Samantha was playing with the sponsor, and oh my God, John is a masterclass. By the way, if you are a bridge player and you're listening to this podcast and you're like an intermediate or advanced player, you're playing in tournaments and you got aspirations to get way better at tournament play, look up John Ramos, call him up. Call him up, say, "Hey, I want to take lessons from you," because I specialize in people who've never touched a deck of cards before.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Right?

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

If you're already good and you want to get better, John Ramos, man, he gave me an education at the table every single session and he was great to play with. I love playing with John. Love playing with him.

John McAllister:

I actually texted John before this interview because I looked up your name in ACBL Live. I saw that you guys were on a team that had won a knockout together, so I texted him.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, our sponsor wanted to... Well, she was more about learning the game, but she was in position to win I think it was a Rookie of the Year or one of the Masterpoint Races, and John was teaching her at that time, as well. That was sort of a co-co-partnership between him and Samantha.

And he sort of put together a tournament schedule. And then going into 2020, we were putting together a tournament schedule and I was tasked, asked to put together a tournament schedule, so I put together a huge tournament schedule for 2020, which I was sure I was more excited for that tournament schedule than John was.

I like to think that every session with me was a better experience than the one before with John, because I'm very passionate about my own game and I do listen and I do respect him a lot as a player and as teacher, and I don't have that thing where, "I'm a teacher, too, so what can I learn?" I don't have that thing. It's like, wake me up when you've won as many championships as Bob has, and then you can stop worrying about learning. You know?

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

When they call you Meckwell, then you can worry about not learning anymore. But yeah, we got a few tournaments into 2020 and then all of a sudden, no more tournaments.

John McAllister:

Well, it looks like you haven't played in a tournament since 2020, according to the ACBL.

Brian Reynolds:

Nope. I haven't left my house for seven months. Well, I didn't leave my house for seven months.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Then I went off and made a movie. We made our first feature film that I wrote and directed. It's a thriller. We had been asking our clients for years to learn virtually rather than in person and they wouldn't do it. They didn't care about the technology that was available. They didn't care that it's actually better. It's so much better to learn online than it is to learn in person. I have an auto dealer machine in my office gathering dust because I used to have to deal out lesson hands and take them to people and drive all over LA, which is not fun.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

And so when the pandemic hit, for a week, we didn't have any students. For one week, we didn't have any students, and Samantha was freaking out and she was like, "Oh my God, we just lost our entire livelihood." I'm like, "They think this is going to be over in a week. They think this is going to be over in a week. Just tell them next week you're doing virtual." And then a week later, started getting groups back and we switched to virtual.

And the other thing is we had been wanting to launch our bridge website. We had been working on it steadily. It's actually mentioned in the doc.

John McAllister:

In “The Kids Table,” you mean?

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. At the very end of “The Kids Table,” you can see us in our original setup, where we actually had a camera pointed down at a bridge table, and I would move cards around for Samantha, so it was like I got to hand act for her.

John McAllister:

So you don't see the hands. I watched some of the videos. You don't see the hands like the... Right.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, we would edit them out, but sometimes you can see me point or whatever in the very, very early ones. She might've refilmed them because now she will go on BridgeBase and she'll highlight a hand or she'll set up lesson hands to talk about. I'm curious. I feel like I've talked for a solid hour. I'm curious what you thought of our teaching website for beginners.

John McAllister:

I mean, I had some issues getting connected at first.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

And we fixed that. And when we met up in Vegas, you told me you had a two-minute video.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

Figure out how to watch bridge, and so I watched that, and then I watched a couple of those things. It seemed like there was a menu of a lot of things. I would wonder how people consume it.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. One of the things we are currently in the process of adding in is me saying, "Hi, welcome to the site. You might see this library of over 500 videos, and you might think, 'Oh my God.' Just start here." And me pointing at a thing and saying, "When you've watched these, come back and I'll have another little thing for you. If you're confused, watch this."

Because that's the whole thing about bridge, right? Kanter talks about teaching play first. I think Bob also thinks you should teach play first.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Other people think you should teach bidding first. I think bidding's a lot easier to teach than card play, especially defense. Teaching people defense is really difficult. It's difficult for them. It's difficult for you. It's sort of the last thing people get even sort of competent at is defense. And I think it's really easy for us to know the game to see the entirety, the gestalt of the game; and then to take out a little piece and go, "Well, I'm going to teach you this little piece," but in our heads, we can see how that little piece connects to every single other piece of bridge.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Right? No, that's great. That's great feedback. I mean, that's what we're always seeking to do, is understand the end user experience of the site. The big thing for us as teachers right now is if we managed to get your eyeballs on our site and would love for you to sign up, then we want it to be something where you feel like we're there giving you the game as opposed to, "Yeah, here's a huge pool. Jump in and swim."

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Which has always been our attitude towards teaching bridge. I sort of feel like the crazy prophet in the wilderness, but I have never cared about making a good bridge player ever.

John McAllister:

Huh.

Brian Reynolds:

I don't care. I don't care. Because let's imagine, John, that you could wave a wand and tomorrow, a million people decide they want to learn to play bridge.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Well, what do we know, just statistically? In my very small data set experience, by the next month, 250,000 of them are going to quit.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

500,000 of them are going to become casual bridge players, ranging from social to maybe a regional here and there. Right? And 250,000 people will become you.

John McAllister:

What? No. I mean, I am as in on bridge as anybody. I mean, you'd ask me what I do? I play a lot of bridge.

Brian Reynolds:

But wait, you don't think those people are out there?

John McAllister:

I mean, I definitely think that they're... I don't know. I think that I'm hyper... Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

I once met a woman at a bridge club. I was playing at the Beverly Hills Bridge Club, which is still around, thank goodness. And I was playing with a student, and she sat down with her partner, and she had a sheet that looked like a serial killer had filled it out. It was like the tiniest writing I'd ever seen. It was just like one page, and on the other side, it was the tiniest writing I'd ever seen, and it was filled with these incredibly neat, detailed algorithm notes.

I was looking at her and she'd look at her sheet, she'd read it and then she'd set it down, then she'd play a hand of bridge, and then she'd pick up her sheet and she'd read it, and she'd set it down and she'd play a hand of bridge. And I watched this, and we played her for a round, and she made some pretty basic mistakes. And I said to her, "If you don't mind me asking, could you tell me..."

John McAllister:

"I'm about to crush you. If you don't mind me asking, I'm about to just eviscerate you with this question."

Brian Reynolds:

You might be surprised by what I was interested in. I said, "I'm really curious. Is that your note sheet?" And she says, "Yeah." I said, "Oh, great. So you're taking classes or you're reading books?" She says, "Yeah, I'm taking classes with this teacher in LA." I said, "Oh, yeah, I know that person. They're a great teacher. That's awesome. How are you enjoying the classes?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Do you feel that those notes are helping you?"

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

And she says, "Yeah, I really feel they are." I said, "That's awesome. Can I ask you how long you've been playing at the club and stuff?" And she goes, "This is my first time ever at the club."

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And I went, "You're playing Flannery. You're playing Jordan two no trump." I mean, they had a full card. It wasn't like we showed up and, "What are these boxes?" Her card was something out of any tournament player's card.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

And I was like, "This is your first time playing?" And she's like, "Yeah, I've been taking lessons for a year, but this is my first time playing." And I'm like, "Okay, sure." I didn't say anything. I'm like, "Okay." And she goes, "Well, how did I do?" Or something like that. I'm like, "On the boards you played against me?" She goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well, here's some things you could think about next time." And she goes, "Ah, I never thought of that." I'm like, "Yeah, just something to think about."

And then I'm walking away, right? Because my big thing is I don't like it when people poach students.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

I don't like it.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

I've had people talk to my students right in front of me and tell me that they should take lessons from them instead of from me.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

And that to me is like, "What are you doing? What are you doing? That's not cool." I've had people tell other teachers or experts, or tell my students, "These people aren't good enough at bridge to teach you bridge. I'm better than them, so you should take lessons from me." And I'm like, "Okay. I mean, you are better than me. I'm not going to argue with that. Are you a better teacher?"

But anyway, so I walk away, and she says, "Well, can I get your number?" I said, "I mean, yes you can, but you have a good teacher. You should keep teaching with this teacher or learning from this teacher." She says, "Yeah, but was that your student today?" I said, "Yeah, that was my student." And she's like, "Well, you guys scored 56%. We scored 38%." I said, "Yes, but you were playing with another beginner. That makes a difference." She says, "Yeah, but I know." I'm like, "Okay." "And my other teacher doesn't play, only gives classroom lessons." I said, "Okay."

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

She says, "I want to play with you." I said, "Okay." And then I proceeded to play with her in something like 170 tournament days over a year.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And that's my thing, is that you say there isn't another person like you out there, but for me, one of the things I love to do is bowl. I love bowling.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Right? And people who love bowling, guess what? They buy a new bowling ball every week, right? People who love rock climbing, if you want to start talking to them about rock climbing, they'll talk your ear off about finger holds and leverage and da, da, da, da. So there is, in the US, let's say, there's another 10,000 John McAllisters out there. Now, are they going to ever be as good as you at the game? No. Some of them will be slightly better. Most of them will be worse. Some will be right around your level. They'll get there. Just talent, time, opportunity and all that stuff. But they'll dive headfirst into the game. And in my experience, you don't have to do anything to get those people to show up at a tournament.

John McAllister:

Right.

Brian Reynolds:

I don't know a lot about... When did you learn to play?

John McAllister:

I learned I was a freshman in college, but it was at my parents' house.

Brian Reynolds:

Okay, cool.

John McAllister:

My aunt was visiting and she suggested. We were going to play hearts. She said, "We should be playing bridge."

Brian Reynolds:

There you go.

John McAllister:

Yeah. And it was like, I loved it from the moment... I was a little reluctant at first, but then when we started playing, I just loved it, and I wanted to play as often as I could, but I really only knew to do it with my parents.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

And then obviously, it evolved over time to where I had a bridge teacher, my first bridge teacher.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

And she took me to the local bridge club, which I wouldn't have thought about.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

And so I think about, I have a lot of gratitude for my aunt for suggesting it, for my sister for telling me that she had a group of four that needed... Sorry, a group of three that needed a fourth for bridge classes.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

For that first teacher who took me to the local bridge club. I mean, all those things were really important in terms of my... I loved bridge, but I just didn't have outlets for it. Now I have tons of outlets.

Brian Reynolds:

Same. Same, yeah.

John McAllister:

Including this podcast because...

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. So when Samantha and I met and she taught me the rules, I didn't know anything about bridge. She didn't know anything about bridge. We got some bridge books. I think we got Frank Stewart's book and some other books. Completely incomprehensible to us. Like, "What? What's going on?"

We played kitchen table bridge. We were terrible. We played against friends, parents, got our clocks cleaned, and bridge was just like this thing we did for fun with our friends. And I probably would've never played tournament bridge in my life, honestly. And then I was on a national tour of Romeo and Juliet, and I fractured my leg in the middle of the sword fight, fractured my leg in the middle of the sword fight, and flew back home to DC, couldn't walk for six months, I was on crutches for six months. Luckily, didn't have to have surgery. But OKbridge had just launched.

And I could sit in front of a computer and do this for eight to 10 hours a day.

And again, no idea what I was doing. No idea. Obviously, I was just crippled with depression. I wasn't on tour performing. I was sitting at home with my leg up, and Samantha found a bridge club, called them up and said, "Hey, we know how to play, but we want to come play."

And they said, "Oh, we just started this thing called Easy Bridge." I don't know if you remember Easy Bridge.

John McAllister:

I think [inaudible 00:51:09].

I think she died, though.

John McAllister:

Yeah, she died. Recently.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. And we went to the bridge club and we got a little 10-minute Easy Bridge lesson, which was cool. It was fine. And then the four of us... There were four of us. Actually there were five of us because I was sitting out. Yeah, there were five of us. I was sitting out and we started just dealing cards and playing for ourselves, right?

And this older gentleman walked up and he said, "Can I kibitz you guys?" And I, played chess as a kid, so I knew what kibitz meant. Nobody else did. I'm like, "It means he wants to watch." And they're like, "Oh, yeah. I mean, we're terrible, but okay." And he's like, "That's fine, I don't care." And he sits down. And he's sitting over Samantha's right shoulder, and her partner leads the ace of clubs, and dummy comes down and Dummy plays, and Samantha goes to play a card. He says, "Oh, don't play that card." She goes, "What do you mean don't play this card? My partner's winning the ace. Why would I play a higher card?" He goes, "No, play the eight instead of the two, and that way he'll know you like it." For Samantha and I, it was like a shotgun blast went off in our skull.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

I was like, "I'm sorry, what did you just say? Could you say that again really slowly?" Super, super slowly?" Okay. So he led the ace of clubs. Bill led the ace of clubs. Shout out Bill Kenny. Then Bill, if you're out there, I love you, buddy. Doesn't play Bridge, but okay. So he led the ace of clubs, and Dummy's playing low. My partner's winning the trick. It's a suit contract. Okay. Play the eight instead of the two, and then my partner will know what? And I said, "Okay, what else can you tell us? Tell us everything. Tell us everything."

And one of the players was Morgan. Not her thing. She learned to play but not her thing. One of the things was my friend, Bill Kenny, another friend, Jesse. They didn't become bridge players, but Samantha and I, we started playing tournaments. We started playing at the club the next day. I would crutch in, they would give me a north-south even though this is back in the day when you had to be 90 years old to get a north-south. They'd give me a north-south, and someone would be pissed. It's like, "Well, he can't walk." "I can't walk either." And we got our clocks absolutely cleaned. I think the reason Samantha and I stuck with it is because we tend to laugh when we have our clocks cleaned.

I don't remember a lot. I remember hands now, but I don't remember a lot of hands from that day, but I do remember playing five clubs, redoubled in a three one fit.

John McAllister:

Oh. How many tricks did you take on that one?

Brian Reynolds:

Like two.

John McAllister:

That's a big score.

Brian Reynolds:

It's a big score. It was a big score. It was the biggest score I think I've ever been a part of. But yeah, we've always laughed though. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why Samantha and I survived is many, many years ago we were playing in a KO, and it was 9:00 AM, it was day 10 of a nationals, and there's a joke in our family and my partnership that I always F up key card, always. To this day, I always F up key card. I'll stare at the box and go 1, 4, 3 0, 2. I'll still mess it up. So Samantha and I have a key card auction, and I bid seven no trump. And he leads, and I realize I'm off three cashing aces. This is board one of 9:00 AM knockout, the finals of a 9:00 AM knockout on day 11 or whatever in nationals. My brain is mush at this point. Four-person team, four sessions a day for 11 days.

John McAllister:

And they didn't double you?

Brian Reynolds:

They did not double me. And my lefty was on lead with an ace, did not lead it. My righty was on lead with two aces or not on lead, but my righty was on.

John McAllister:

There's no way you can make seven no trump with no aces.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, so I'm down four. I'm down four. So I say to Samantha, "Thank you, partner." I proceed to play it as fast as I can because just rip the bandaid off. We're down four, and Samantha and I bust out laughing. We are laughing hysterically. She's like, "You always F up key card." I'm like, "I always F up key card." Man, our opponents are staring at us like, "What is wrong with these people? How come they're not screaming at each other?" And I'm like, "That's hilarious." Lose 13. Lose 13. And then we won the match 113 to 13.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

Baby Bridge, right?

But back to getting players, I wish that a million people tomorrow would try Bridge.

John McAllister:

Yeah, for sure.

Brian Reynolds:

But the thing is, this is my question, do you think that would be a positive experience for tournament players who already exist if, let's say you got a million people to look at Bridge and try Bridge seriously, they tried it for three months.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

And you got 500,000 new tournament players across the US.

John McAllister:

Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

Do you think that would be a positive experience for the current tournament player?

John McAllister:

I mean, certainly my, without much thought response, I can see how it would be, yeah, there's going to be some turbulence. Absolutely. Because you got all these new players. It would be amazing. I made a documentary movie about Bridge.

Brian Reynolds:

I saw it. It was great.

John McAllister:

And thank you. And my goal absolutely Bridge, I mean, you don't need me to tell you this. We would love it, but yeah, it probably would be difficult for sure, but that's just not even, 500,000 tournament players. What is the event that creates that? I just don't see any event.

Brian Reynolds:

Queen's Gambit.

John McAllister:

Yeah. I mean even then-

Brian Reynolds:

Look at Chess.com, right?

John McAllister:

Even then they're going to have to, there's going to be a learning curve. You don't just become a tournament player. You don't just become a tournament player.

Brian Reynolds:

So this is my thing. What is a tournament player?

John McAllister:

I would say a tournament player is somebody who plays in tournaments.

Brian Reynolds:

Right. Right. If they follow the rules, they're not revoking, they don't realize they need to bid five clubs over four spades instead of four clubs, right? First time I ever played at a Bridge club, I tried to claim by collecting all of cards from Dummy, got my hand slapped, literally slapped, and the woman apologized. I read to reach for the cards in Dummy, and she slapped my hand. She says, "I'm so sorry, but if you do that, it's going to screw up the entire game." I'm like, "Not a problem." But if they're not doing that, right, if they're not that, the fact that they show up, and they pay their card fees, to me, that makes them a tournament player.

And I think there's a perception in the Bridge world of, not from you, but I think for most people it's like a tournament player, well, they have to know Stayman, or they have to know this, or they have to know third-hand high, second-hand low, third-hand high. And my whole thing is no, a tournament player is someone who shows up and gives you whatever it is for card fees, $20 in card fees, and sits down and plays Bridge. That's a tournament player.

John McAllister:

I do think that I make this distinction sometimes since we're talking about it.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

I think of a club player as somebody who goes to the local Bridge club regularly, and I think of a tournament player as somebody who, yeah, there's a sectional tournament in town, maybe that's not a tournament player, but a tournament player is certainly somebody that goes to regionals or travels to sectionals. I think I would define that as a tournament player.

Brian Reynolds:

Right. And you're always going to have this wedding cake. You're always going to have this cake of there are people who play online because they have half an hour, and they jump in, and they hop on Bridge Base and take me to a table and they play for half an hour. That's always going to be your biggest base.

And then you're going to have the people who play in tournaments on Bridge Base, and then people who play at Bridge clubs and the people who play at sectionals and so on and so forth, all the way to the nationals. So statistically, that's always going to be your wedding cake. And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about, I bowl a lot. I love bowling. I didn't bowl for years and years and years, and I just got back into it a year and a half ago, and I love it. You want to talk about cover stocks and weight blocks and oil patterns? I'll talk about that all day.

John McAllister:

I never heard of any of those.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, yeah. I like to go like tournaments, and I've even gone to bigger tournaments in Vegas and stuff like that. And then there are people who bowl with me in a league.

John McAllister:

Which is bigger, Bridge or bowling?

Brian Reynolds:

That's a great question. It's so funny. I sort of have a fetish for games that were super popular in the fifties and are kind of dying, so they're both kind of the same.

John McAllister:

Which are you better at?

Brian Reynolds:

Oh God, that's tough. I'm currently a better Bridge player, but I have the potential to be, I bowled my first 300 this year.

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. But I switched to two-handed. I actually bowled semi-professionally back in the nineties, and I bowled one-handed. When I came back this year and a half ago, I switched to a two-handed style.

John McAllister:

Where you throw it between your legs?

Brian Reynolds:

No, no. You have both hands on the ball until the moment of release?

John McAllister:

Oh, I thought you were like-

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. I like to stand on one foot and just bounce it off my head. No, if there's a guy named Jason Belmonte, you can look him up on YouTube, he revolutionized. Well-

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

He was one of a couple of people who revolutionized two-handed bowling. It's actually more popular with juniors now than it is for, it's very similar actually in sort of the precision system thing that happened in the seventies where this sort of weird system that CC Wei put together or commissioned to put together or however you want to think of it, and then all of a sudden it became like this thing. That's currently what's happening in the bowling world.

But the point is that I am an outlier. Whenever you talk about people who play tournaments, even if you're not talking skill level, which is a whole nother discussion, even if you're not talking about skill level, there's always going to be a wedding cake of commitment. Commitment. And my whole thing is you never have to incentivize people's commitment. And in fact, I don't think neurologically you can incentivize people's commitment to Bridge or anything.

I just told you about cover stocks and weight blocks. Are you going to go take up bowling tomorrow? No.

John McAllister:

No. A hundred percent.

Brian Reynolds:

No. A hundred percent not. If I took you to a bowling alley, and I showed you how to be a better bowler and the path to being a better bowler, would you suddenly take up bowling? No. Would you bowl once in a while maybe? Maybe. Would you maybe buy your own bowling ball and shoes so you don't have to rent shoes? Maybe. Would you join a league? Maybe. Right?

But I literally, I have no methodology to incentivize you to take up bowling, but somewhere out there, there's some guy who just retired or some woman who has extra time because her kids left for college, or there's a young kid who is never going to be tall enough to play basketball, but loves sports who, if they take up bowling, all of a sudden they might be the next, they might start bowling and tournaments. And will they become a world champion? I don't know. But you don't have to incentivize them to go to the bowling alley.

I've gotten to work, I've gotten to teach a bunch of things. I've taught chess, I've taught acting, I've taught stage combat, sword fighting, I've taught Bridge, I've taught bowling, I've taught all these things. And in my experience, you neither have to nor can incentivize someone to be committed to their activity. You just can't. Right? I bet I never had to force you, I bet no one ever had to force you to crack open a Bridge book.

John McAllister:

No. Yeah, no.

Brian Reynolds:

Or sit down at the table and figure out a double dummy problem.

John McAllister:

That's harder.

Brian Reynolds:

It's harder, but I bet you did it. But my whole point is I love this game so much. I'll shout from the rooftops how I think this is the best game on the planet. I think this is an amazing game, and I play so many games. And it's like, I think the only difference between a thriving tournament scene for Bridge and what we currently experience, which is a dying tournament scene, it's literally dying, is eyeballs. Just eyeballs.

And I think there's some other problems too. I actually have a question for you.

John McAllister:

Okay.

Brian Reynolds:

Which is, what is your opinion of masterpoints?

John McAllister:

Love masterpoints.

Brian Reynolds:

You do?

John McAllister:

Give them to me. Yeah.

Brian Reynolds:

You mean you like getting them?

John McAllister:

Yeah, for sure.

Brian Reynolds:

Do you think they're good for the game of Bridge?

John McAllister:

I mean, I don't know. Yeah, probably because they incentivize people to play. Maybe they incentivize people. I don't know. I take pride in the amount of masterpoints I have. I was talking to my Bridge partner recently about how many masterpoints she has, and I was like, "How do you have that many masterpoints? You haven't even been playing that long." So I think masterpoints, I mean, yeah, I don't think they're, I don't know.

Brian Reynolds:

So in “The Kids Table,” I wasn't there for that interview, so it was great to see it afterwards. They interviewed the head of the ACBL at the time, and they talked about masterpoints. I believe the sequence in the doc starts with me going, "Masterpoints." Like some grumpy old man get off my lawn type of thing.

I think that masterpoints have to be treated with reverence and care, and I think that when you talk about people about their masterpoints, we have to really honor and acknowledge the significance of masterpoints. If you say to me, "I have this many masterpoints and X number of them are platinum." I think it's very, very important that the Bridge community as a whole go, "Wow."

And I'll tell you why. Because masterpoints are really hard won. In a certain extent, you can just sort of sit in the water and accumulate masterpoints, but that's not true for a lot of people's masterpoint experience.

John McAllister:

Right.

Brian Reynolds:

The problem that I have with masterpoints is what it does to people who are playing Bridge for the first time.

John McAllister:

Right.

Brian Reynolds:

Oh, I never got to finish my Paul Soloway story. This is a good time for this. So Paul cleans my student and I's clock for two boards, and we're sitting there, and I think we had two claimers, so we had another eight or nine minutes of the clock. And Paul doesn't know what to say to us, and I don't know Paul. So finally it's like we're just kind of chit-chatting, and he just had a fall, so I was asking about his health and stuff like that.

And he was kind of going through it, I think, outside of the Bridge table. And right as he got up to leave, I said to my student, I said, "I'd love to give you a little interesting trivia fact." And she goes, "Okay." I said, "If you take my masterpoints," and Paul was the number one masterpoint holder at the time, "and you divide it by this gentleman's masterpoints, you have my GPA from college." And Paul laughed, and then I think he kind of felt bad about laughing, and he says, "Oh, you must've been a really good student." I'm like, "Paul, we both know what the joke was." But I didn't say that.

And I'll tell you another story about masterpoints. So when Samantha and I first, Samantha and I took easy Bridge and then Andre Leroux, who was the gentleman who told Samantha, "Play the eight of clubs instead the two of clubs," who two years after that day gave away my wife at our wedding, walked her down the aisle, and gave away my wife at our wedding. Shout out to Andre Leroux. He taught us a little bit. I think we kind of knew Stayman sort of. And they said, "There's a tournament this weekend." And Samantha and I were like, "Let's go."

So we go in the play in, the zero to five, and we had an 81%.

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

So then we play in the 49er I think, and we had a 78%.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And we said, "You know what? To heck with this, we're going to play in the 299er." And we had a 70%. I said, "This isn't Bridge. I don't know what this is, but I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't fun. We're going to go play in the open pairs." Samantha says, "Absolutely, let's go play in the open pairs." We did okay. I think we had a 39, 40%. We didn't embarrass ourselves. We didn't have like a 25.

John McAllister:

Right.

Brian Reynolds:

But oh my God, it was so much more fun. And then the last event, Sunday evening of a sectional, I think, it was a huge tournament, sectional. This is back east in DC. They had a Pro-Am. They took everybody in the field, and they arranged them by masterpoints, and the top played with the bottom and so on and so forth until the two middle players played together. And I had like 0.1 more master points than Samantha because somebody had invited me to play with him at the club when Samantha was working. She's working three jobs.

So Samantha goes off with some top flight player, I don't know who it was, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The name is lost in the mist of time. But they won, by the way, they won the whole thing.

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

It wasn't close because Samantha, Samantha was way better than, I think she had 0.3 of a masterpoint. And I had 0.45 of a masterpoint. So I sit down across from the gentleman who was advanced in years let's say, and I say, "Hello, I'm Brian. I'll be your partner. I'm a beginner, but I have a card." And he does not respond to me at all. Doesn't even look at me.

So I'm sitting there and I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what's going on, but expert level player, I'm just going to be over here with my cards." First board comes out and non-competitive auction, the opponents bid to four spades or whatever. My partner leads, and in the fullness of time, he revokes twice on the first hand. Just doesn't follow suit. So the director comes over, adjudicates the result, goes away. Second board, he revokes twice on the second board, just doesn't follow suit.

And I go up to the director's table, I said, "Excuse me, I'm so sorry to say this, but I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding. You see, I am playing in the Pro-Am, and I have 0.45 of master points, and I should be playing with a player who has the most amount of masterpoints, and I am clearly playing with another beginner right now. I think there's been an error. I think I'm playing with either the number one player who doesn't have the least amount of masterpoints or somewhere in that range." And the director said, "No, that's not possible. We do this all the time." I'm like, "No, I'm serious. I really do think there's been an error." She goes, "No, there hasn't been." I said, "Well, my partner just revoked four times in two boards, so you tell me what's up."

At this point, I was a very angry young man, and the filters were coming off, and she does this. If this is me, she goes, "Oh." I say, "What do you mean, 'Oh?' What's oh?" And she goes, "Oh, well that's Jerry Smith or whatever." I'm like, "You say that like I should know who Jerry Smith is. What?" And she's like, "He's one of the top players in the DC area. He's won every tournament in DC for the last 40 years." "Uh-huh." "He has over 10,000 master points." Which back in 1990, whatever, was a ton. I said, "Uh-huh." "But he had a stroke six months ago."

John McAllister:

I figured that was the case.

Brian Reynolds:

And I'm like, "Okay." And she goes, "Do the best you can." I'm like, "Okay." I grew up, my grandmother was very big into philanthropy, and I took care of a lot of older citizens in my youth, and I took care of my grandmother when she was getting older and in the hospice situation and all that stuff, so it's like, "Okay, I'll go take care of Jerry for 24 boards." And it really stuck with me. That moment stuck with me.

And then throughout my time as a Bridge player, masterpoints have consistently been something that has lessened my enjoyment of the game of Bridge.

And as I learned more and more about the neuroscience of learning, there's one particular factor, when you're in a community or group, there's one particular factor or in your learning experience that is pretty predominant, which is the quality of your peers.

So let's say you're learning knitting, for instance. If you are in a group with people who are all better than you at knitting by a substantial amount, you don't learn as well.

John McAllister:

Oh, interesting.

Brian Reynolds:

And if you are in a group where you are better than everyone else, you don't learn as well. The absolute optimal experience for you personally is to be in a group of people where everyone is a little tiny bit better than you. So the optimal peer group for learning is something where everyone is about the same level when it comes to learning.

John McAllister:

Interesting.

Brian Reynolds:

And they also find that it's also the best optimal experience for just joy, right? Well, what's joy? Let's measure it in terms of dopamine, serotonin, and all that, the cocktail of chemicals, so we can keep it in the science realm, is when if you sit down at the Bridge table, and it's kind of a coin flip of whether or not you're going to win or lose-

Whether or not you're going to win or lose, that is the optimal conditions for enjoyment of your competitive experience.

John McAllister:

Interesting.

Brian Reynolds:

If you know you're going to lose, when I sat down, I can't remember their names, I'm so sorry. It was like everyone called him Pratap or Piratap. He played this weird system where they were playing two or one when they were vulnerable at some yee-haw mini notrump system when they were not vulnerable.

John McAllister:

There's a guy named Pratap.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were playing against him in the first round of the Spingold. Bobby Wolff was sitting over Samantha's shoulder. They won the silver in the World Championships like six months later. They cleaned our clocks, of course, and Samantha and I had our disaster. It went two clubs, two diamonds, and Samantha passed. And in the fullness of time, they bid seven diamonds and I took the push to seven notrump, went doubled and went for 500. Or no, went for like, sorry, 1400. And they told us, "Hey, do you have a system over interference over two clubs?" I'm like, no. They're like, "Oh, well this is the system you should play." I'm like, "Cool, awesome." But yeah, Bobby Wolff got to watch that happen.

John McAllister:

How can they make seven diamonds, but you have a stopper in their suit for notrump? Are they going to guess you're-

Brian Reynolds:

So what ended up happening was I bid two clubs and I had some 22 to 24 count, and my lefty had every other high card in the deck with a long diamond suit missing the ace, but every other high card in the deck. Maybe I didn't. No, did I have a ... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did have-

John McAllister:

Did their partner have the ace?

Brian Reynolds:

No, my partner had nothing.

John McAllister:

No, their partner had the ace of diamonds.

Brian Reynolds:

It got wild. No one knew what was going on. Right? I think he bid seven diamonds 'cause he thought I'd ... He literally told me later, he's like, "I thought you were psyching." And I'm like, "It's illegal to psych a two club opening." He's like, "Yeah, I didn't think you knew that." I'm like, "Okay, well, fair enough, fair enough. I mean, I got 700 masterpoints. I get it." But yeah, no, it was wild. That was wild. I wish I had the whole hand, but I didn't write it down. I was too busy going, "Wow!"

And Samantha was mortified. Poor Samantha. She was just sitting over there passing and not understanding what was going on. Why was I bidding like a wild man? And I, at the time, I don't know why I thought she had something, but I thought this guy was just bidding preemptively, yada, yada, yada. But I learned a lot in that moment.

But the thing is, I am an outlier. You're an outlier. We look at those moments and go, yeah, I got my head beat in. It's, quote, embarrassing. I don't find it embarrassing. I think that's the key, right? It's like the first time Samantha and I ever played in a regional, it goes two notrump by Samantha, I bid three hearts. Super excited to try this new convention we learned called transfers. So it goes two notrump, two hearts, three hearts, four hearts by Samantha.

John McAllister:

Uh-oh.

Brian Reynolds:

Four spades. Five hearts by Samantha.

John McAllister:

Oh, no!

Brian Reynolds:

Five spades. Six hearts by Samantha. Six spades. And all the blood drains from Samantha's face. She goes white as a ghost. She never forgot transfers again. Like, ever. But that's the whole thing, right? It's like bridge requires you to pay in blood. Literally, bridge demands that if you want to be good, you have to suffer. I bet if I asked you for some disaster stories, I bet you have some Lulus.

John McAllister:

Trying to think. I played with this kid who's at ... So UVA has a bridge club, and I played with the president of the club in a sectional Sunday, sectional Swiss, and we drove to Richmond, which is like an hour drive each way. And he told me this story about how I played with another kid from the club a year ago in a sectional in Lynchburg, which is like an hour in the other direction, and we had driven down there. It was our first time, the only time we played together. And he said there was a hand where I guess he threw ... my partner was declaring, and he threw away the wrong card at Trick 12, and I walked away from the table for five minutes.

And I was like, oh man, I didn't realize that he knew that. And then I was thinking about it 'cause I could remember the deal, and I remembered that the reason I was so pissed is because the person had, he saved the card from a suit that the person had already showed out on that knowingly was going to be on lead. They had already shown out in that suit and he'd save that card.

So yeah, I messaged that guy today and we had a laugh about it.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, yeah. Samantha and I were playing in a really big, I think it was a regional, it was at the LA Casino down in Inglewood, and it was our GNT team. And with one round to go, we were leading the Swiss, we were leading the Sunday Swiss, and it was a big deal. It was a big deal. And Samantha and I bid to six spades and she didn't rough out dummy's hearts and make the contract. So we lost and we took second or third, I can't remember which one, and she was gutted. Oh my God, she was so devastated. She cost us the match, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, "Oh, that was a lot of bridge. That was a lot of bridge to point out one hand. Learn that if you take away from this, that ruff out a suit to set up dummy so you can discard. If you take that lesson away from today, worth it. Right? Does it suck to not win this open Swiss in front of, front of Jill Meyers, in front of all these, Sid Brown, seeing all these players that we admire, Ed Davis, Mitch Dunitz? To win a Swiss with those people in the field, would it have been a huge feather in our cap? Yeah. Does it suck we lost? Yeah. It's not your fault. I mean, I didn't play perfect bridge. What are you talking about? It's a two-session Swiss. I could have definitely won us more victory points earlier in the day, whatever. Let's not make this all about you."

But she was gutted. That was one of the worst drives home ever. Are you kidding me? To win a two-session Swiss with that field? That would've been crazy. Ifti was there, everybody was there. And she had, oh my God, we were once playing against Mitch and Ifti and some side pair thing or whatever. And they sit down and they're playing a multi two diamond against us, and they hand us the sheets and they're like, "We recommend you play the complicated version." I'm like, "Okay, we'll play the complicated version." And they bid it against us, and we end up in a Moysian in four spades and, if he leads, dummy comes down. I say, "Good luck, partner." Or say good luck, and Mitch does this thing where if you say good luck, he'll say "Thank you," even though he's your opponent.

Shout out Mitch Dunitz, doing the Lord's work when it comes to getting the educational fund and educational part of the ACBL. Mitch is amazing in so many ways, and a great guy, super friendly, always been there for beginning players and things like that. Love Mitch. Anyway, point is Samantha starts playing this Moysian fit in game, and it was a team match, so it was like IMPs, and I just see her doing this ... Her hands are just shaking, and I can't tell you what happened 'cause I was more concerned about my partner's mental health at that point. But she made it. And after she made it, Ifti turned to her and said, "You played that beautifully." And she could have floated home from Reno or where we were. She could have flown on her own.

So, the highs and lows of bridge. And I think the more we can give people that experience with bridge, and for most people it's not going to be sitting down and getting to play against world-class players and getting your heads beat in and learning. That's not going to be a good experience for 99% of human beings. You have to really want something really, really bad to go through that. So my whole thing about masterpoints is you've earned your masterpoints and we can't just say, "Let's get rid of masterpoints." We can't do that because that is a disservice to everything that's gone before in bridge, right? Bridge has a very rich history. It's definitely facing a lot of challenges in this modern time in terms of keeping the game alive and thriving and building it. I mean, I'd love to see it get built, but I don't think that comes from just jettisoning what it had and what it has. But I think that there's a place for adding something like an ELO system.

John McAllister:

Oh yeah, that'd be great. Absolutely.

Brian Reynolds:

And I think that would be, tell the Kids Table doc story, your perspective on them playing in the Reisinger Board-AM.

John McAllister:

Yeah, so at the San Diego Nationals, Fall Nationals 2017 I think it was, I mean the Reisinger, for those who aren't experienced tournament players, don't play at the NABCs, the Reisinger is arguably the toughest event on the ACBL calendar. It's board-a-match, it's the best teams, it's the best players playing with their top partnerships. It is a nasty thing. And Edd Benda, who I came to be friends with, because I was making a movie and he reached out to me and he came to our initial screening of Double Dummy in Toronto at the Summer NABC that year.

And so yeah, their team entered the Reisinger and we played against them. We played two boards. It was the first day, and I mean they got to one ridiculous contract on one of the boards, and we won both boards and I think they got two and a half points, thirteen's average, 26 max. They got like two and a half points in the round that we played against them, the session that we played against them. And there's this woman named Debbie Rosenberg, who's a friend of mine, who's a pro, and there were four sections in the Reisinger, and so only two of the sections got to play against Edd's team, or maybe there were three sections, I don't remember which it was. But Debbie was complaining that her team didn't get to play against Edd.

Brian Reynolds:

Which is valid. I mean, that's a valid complaint. I mean, if it affects the data table of what it's going to take to make the cut. I mean, once upon a time with my GNT team, we lost ... we were in the mix for the second day of the Reisinger, and we lost on the seventh tie-break.

John McAllister:

Oh, wow.

Brian Reynolds:

And I was mad at one of my teammates 'cause they did something unbelievably dumb, and I was like, "To me, there's bridge mistakes and then there's just like what brain cell went on the fritz when you did that?" And I was mad. And then we didn't make the second day of the Reisinger. But, yeah-

John McAllister:

That was the first time I made the second day of the Reisinger, by the way.

Brian Reynolds:

Amazing. Congratulations. Shout out to Edd Benda for getting John McAllister into the second day of the ... No, but she's not wrong. And that's my whole thing is I happen to think, and I don't think it's intentional, I don't think that anyone is out there saying, "I don't want a whole new influx of new tournament players or bridge players." I don't want that. And Debbie Rosenberg is a perfect example because she's really big on education. She's a great teacher. She's passionate about getting people to play the game. Even with her being, and my perspective on it was she didn't just complain. I mean, I think she was really, really ticked off. And again, justifiably, justifiably.

But six months later I was playing in the Nationals and one of the people had to step out. So I was playing in, I forget what event it was, it was some big event, a team event, and apparently I won her some money because I was playing with Monique Thomas, I think, and we were in a round-robin and we only lost our matches by a combined 78 IMPs. And she had the over-under at a hundred. So apparently she made some money off of us, betting on us.

But Debbie has two lives as a bridge community member. She has a competitive life and she has an educational life. And the competitive part of herself looks at that and goes, well, this data table is corrupted, is polluted by results that would not happen, probably will never happen again in the history of the Reisinger. Right? No one will ever have a score as low as they did in the history of the Reisinger.

John McAllister:

Yeah, I'd be surprised. I mean, I think they talked about changing the rules. I don't know if they did.

Brian Reynolds:

Right.

John McAllister:

Of entry.

Brian Reynolds:

Yes. Yes. I've had people have that conversation about me many, many times. I've had people talk say, "Well, those guys shouldn't be allowed to enter the Spingold. We shouldn't have to play them on the first day. We shouldn't have to sit down and-

John McAllister:

I don't think people complain about playing a weak opponent on the first day of the Spingold, though.

Brian Reynolds:

Oh yeah, they do. Yeah, they do.

John McAllister:

Really?

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. That's my whole thing. And that's

John McAllister:

I'm happy to play a weak opponent on the first day of the Spingold.

Brian Reynolds:

But that's why I wanted to be on your podcast. Right? And I really appreciate you having me on. There's a reason why I flew to Vegas just to meet you, is because I want to be on your podcast because I am not an expert level player. When people ask me how good ... like, you asked me how good I am, am I better at bowling or bridge? When people ask me how good I am at bridge and they have no perspective on bridge, I compare myself to your local golf pro. I'm a scratch golfer. If we go on the links, I'll beat the tar out of you. If the PGA rolls through and I get to play in the PGA because they're at my club, will I make the cut? Maybe; I know the course really well, but the odds are against me.

So when it comes to bridge, I'm a scratch golfer, but my experience as being someone who's played with clients in big tournaments, played a lot of sponsor bridge, gotten to play with and against top players, my experience is way different than the people who, the John McAllisters of the world or the people who play a lot of tournament bridge at high levels. And I got to tell you, I've had people say really nasty things to me at the bridge table, which I don't care, I laugh, but I've had people say really nasty things to Samantha at the bridge table, which is a whole different animal. I don't play. You want to say something mean to my wife, we're going to have a discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with bridge.

John McAllister:

So what's going on with “The Kids Table,” to wrap this up? What's down with the kids from “The Kids Table”? What are they-

Brian Reynolds:

They don't play bridge.

John McAllister:

Any of them playing bridge?

Brian Reynolds:

No.

John McAllister:

None of them?

Brian Reynolds:

No. Why would they? Why would they? Legit question, why would someone play bridge in 2025? And that's the-

John McAllister:

Great game.

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah-

John McAllister:

Love it.

Brian Reynolds:

... but we don't make it easy for people to play bridge. We don't make it easy for people to play bridge. And we need to make it easy and we need to make it fun. We need to really ... I know our website is not perfect at all. It's not even close. We are constantly thinking about how can we make this easier for someone who's never played to navigate our website to, like, "I don't know what to learn next." "Hey, here's what you should learn next." We constantly are trying to iterate towards it being in a better end user experience. Because until that happens, our subscriptions base isn't going to be where we want it to be.

And it's the same thing with bridge. Until we make bridge enjoyable to be a part of ... Just think about this. You're Edd Benda and you've spent the week in pre-production, post-production, filming, you've been on set 16 hours a day, and here comes the weekend. Hey, there's a sectional in Pasadena. You want to go play bridge for four hours?

John McAllister:

Yeah, okay.

Brian Reynolds:

Right? But I mean Bridge Base, shout out to Bridge Base, man. Shout out to Bridge Base. Seriously, for all of Bridge Base's ... I have notes, 'cause just who I am as a person, but man, Bridge Base, it's the closest thing we have to something that's going to be accessible for people who don't play bridge. I talk about it all the time. Sign on, make an account, you could be playing in five minutes. Are you going to be good? No. Are you going to piss off your partner? Yeah. Play against robots if you're awkward. They have robots. You don't even have to embarrass yourself in front of human beings. And you can play for five minutes and then you can go home or you can click on something else.

But that's my whole thing, right? It's like, let's get a million people playing bridge and then we'll get, I don't know, 10,000 John McAllisters. Which is what we want. We want 10,000 people who are like, "Yeah, I spend my weekends playing bridge with kids from UVA." You play, you spend your weekends playing bridge with kids from UVA.

John McAllister:

Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed ...

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah, we need 10,000 more of you. We need one of you in every college from community college to D1 in the US. We need one of you in every college in the US, right? And then you'll have all the bridge players you want. You'll have have a regional every weekend. But we won't have 10,000 of you until we have a million people who log onto Bridge Base once a month and play for half an hour.

John McAllister:

All right.

Brian Reynolds:

Told you I was a crazy prophet wandering the wilderness, spouting my theories.

John McAllister:

Well, I mean, maybe I should have been more rigorous when you said, "How long can my answers be?"

Brian Reynolds:

For sure. Edit the heck out of me. Edit the heck out of me. Edit the heck out of me. Do it, John.

John McAllister:

I don't think we have the ... I don't know. I don't think ...

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

Yeah. But I do have to run. I have to go [inaudible 01:39:41]-

Brian Reynolds:

Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you for your time. And on the serious note, if I talk too much, I totally get it. I'm sorry for that. I apologize. I just, I'm passionate about the game and I really like your podcast, so thank you for having me.

John McAllister:

Thank you. Thank you. It's been entertaining. All right.

Brian Reynolds:

Talk to you soon.

John McAllister:

I'll keep in touch.

Brian Reynolds:

Great. Talk to you later. Bye.

John McAllister:

Bye. Thank you for listening, and I hope you'll check out my new web series. It's called Bridge with Ballers. You can find it on YouTube. There'll be a link in the show notes at thesettingtrick.com. And it's my first guest; it's a trial episode that I recorded with a friend named Danny McNally, who I've known since we were sports camp counselors together after my junior year of high school. So please check that out and let me know what you think. Thanks.