Just before the Toronto NABC, John sat down with Ladawna Parham, executive director of the ACBL Educational Foundation, and Bronia Jenkins, executive director of the ACBL. Jenkins, “one year in,” still has the energy and vision she started with, if not more. Parham, who took the position in November, has had to start from the ground up, with no bridge experience (although she did do her own research prior to getting the job). She is amazed at the depth and vitality of the bridge world.

Listen to how these two women are working together within their organizations to engage and empower those who want to bring bridge to the masses.

2:10 Bronia says: Bridge is about playing bridge. Being a bridge player does not mean that you are an expert. It just means you love to play bridge

3:55 Bridge appealed to Ladawna as a way to keep kids and communities engaged with each other in a new way.

5:55 The focus of the two organizations, and how they come together.

8:29 Understanding the differences between the Ed Foundation and the ACBL.

10:54 What exactly does the ACBL do?

13:30 Can Bronia pass the club director’s test?

15:18 What happens in the tournament director’s suite after the games?

16:10 The hardest part for Ladawna: learning the internal language of bridge.

17:20 Ladawna talks about the 17 projects that have been funded with grants since she came on board.

21:12 The “duplicate” label and how it hinders the ACBL.

24:23 “Pre-bridge” and making bridge not un-fun; easy but still challenging.

30:34 Ladawna’s exposure to the world of bridge. “The vitality of the game is something I think that you just have no idea exists until you become engrossed in this world,” she said.

36:10 Partnership: A barrier to bridge.

42:15 Ladawna asks what would happen if there suddenly became one million new players. What kind of infrastructure would have to change?

48:05 What does the USBF do that’s different than what the ACBL does.

John McAllister: Hi, my name's John McAllister. Welcome to The Setting Trick podcast. Today I have an episode with two guests, and they are Bronia Jenkins, who is the executive director of the American Contract Bridge League, and Ladawna Parham, who is the executive director of the ACBL Educational Foundation, of which I am a board member. And Ladawna reached out to me over text a couple of weeks ago, asking me if we could do a conversation where we explain some of the similarities and differences between these two organizations that were once actually together. When the ACBL Education Foundation started, it was part of the ACBL.

And so just to start out, I think people probably know Bronia a little bit better. Ladawna, you're not really a bridge player. We hired you to be the executive director of the ACBL Education Foundation last year, I think.

Ladawna Parham: At the end of last year. I started in November.

John McAllister: And Bronia, you're also relatively new to the job, but you've been playing bridge for a long time. But you started not too ... When did you start as executive director?

Bronia Jenkins: I started in May, so it's been a year and a little bit. I call it one year in kind of thing. Now both these organizations are being run by phenomenal women, so we plan to go very far. And thank you for having us on the podcast. We love working together. We love what we're doing for bridge. We do have slightly different missions, but they're actually very complementary.

John McAllister: Ladawna, you were not a bridge player before you started?

Ladawna Parham: I am working on it. Although when you work as closely with someone like Bronia or you or Robert Todd or the other people who are on my board, I don't know that I'll ever feel comfortable saying I'm a bridge player within that world because there's so many amazing people that I work with every day. So I'm a novice-

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah, but bridge.... Yes, bridge is about playing bridge. There are different levels of bridge, just like there's different levels of tennis, just like there's different levels of golf. But just because you are a bad bridge player doesn't make you not a bridge player, okay? Because we all make mistakes, and we know that for a fact. From the very top bridge player to the very worst bridge player, everybody makes mistakes. And that's the fun thing about bridge.

And what keeps you coming back to bridge, just like golf, just like tennis, is when you make those good plays, when you beat somebody in a hand where you do something that you had not been able to do before, and all of a sudden you see something. And that's what makes bridge such a great game. That's what makes golf such a great game. So I think we all, in the bridge world, need to recognize that being a bridge player does not mean that you are an expert. It just means you love to play bridge.

Ladawna Parham: Yeah, coming at it as not a bridge player previously, but super passionate about the work that we do, I've been in nonprofit management for over 20 years, which is embarrassing or difficult to say out loud. Oh my gosh, has it been that long? But I have been in nonprofit management for over 20 years, in more direct service capacities. I've worked in domestic violence and elder care services and hunger and homelessness, but there are common threads throughout all of that of what communities need to stay engaged with each other to provide healthy atmospheres and hope and growth and safe spaces for kids.

And so bridge really appealed to me, one, because it was stepping out of that direct service piece in the way that I had been, but two, because I can get at some of those opportunities to keep kids and communities engaged with each other in new ways. I think I've mentioned to both of you before how with us being such a virtual world and they have every possible thing at their fingertips with social media and Snapchat and TikTok and all of the things, keeping kids connected to each other and based somewhere in a healthy way has started to go by the wayside a bit, and I think it hurts us. And so any opportunity to grow the mind sport that keeps them involved with each other, I'm super excited.

John McAllister: And Bronia, how did you first meet Ladawna?

Bronia Jenkins: I met her, I believe, at the Nationals in Louisville maybe, or in Atlanta. In Atlanta did we meet? Yes, we met in Atlanta. I'd heard of her before because I was talking with Robert Todd even before, when they were looking for a new executive director. I had worked with Kristen a little bit, although Kristen's tenure as executive director was ending as I was starting.

So Ladawna and I have had several conversations about how to work together, how to make things better, how we can focus on leveraging each other's worlds. So sharing stuff on social media. I am the commentator, for example, for the Spark Auction ... Not the Spark Auction, the Spark tournament that is happening this year, and I did it last year as well, with Barry Rigal. So how does the ACBL support the Educational Foundation so that they can raise money so that they can then get new young players to play?

I think the Educational Foundation is very focused on education, and I think the ACBL is a little bit more focused on entertainment. So basically, we're focusing on "How do we make bridge fun, and how do we have people come to tournaments and play and have a good time?" And the Educational Foundation, I think, is focusing on "How do we get new young players to want to play the game." Did I say that right, you think, Ladawna, or not so much?

Ladawna Parham: Absolutely. And certainly players across all walks of life and all ages. We have programs that touch on all of that. We've got a new grant that we're doing with the YMCA to do "Exercise Your Mind at the Y" that are for adults. But absolutely there is an emphasis on bringing in those younger players because we do want to build up that next generation of bridge.

John McAllister: One program that I know that Bronia has helped fund and that the Ed Foundation is helping fund is Patty Tucker's JumpStart Bridge program.

Bronia Jenkins: Right, so we're really excited about that program because Patty Tucker ... People have been working a long time to figure out how to get into schools, and it's been a difficult road, and it feels like we might actually have a little bit of a door opening here through this program.

So what we're doing is we're training volunteers to go to these regional gifted conferences that are run by the school districts so that we can then get the programs in the schools. This is the long game, right? Getting programs in the school is the long game. So Patty goes, but she can't be at every regional conference. Therefore, we need volunteers who she trains to go to these conferences to get us into the schools. And that's actually happening. And we funded some of it. Ladawna has funded some of it, because we're basically saying, "This is important. This is a good way to get into the schools, and if we can do it, we should just do it in whatever way that we can."

Ladawna Parham: Absolutely. And she's reached hundreds of new players, which is so exciting, and every time she reports out on it, it's just this massive success with new volunteers signing up, new teachers signing up. And working with those gifted teachers, as you mentioned, has been a huge ... That is the open door. They have so much more discretion in what they do with those classes that's really become our in. And it's so exciting to see her success with that.

John McAllister: Because when you texted me, Ladawna, your motivation for this was to help people understand differences between the two organizations. How exactly has that been coming up for you?

Ladawna Parham: I think that we both have people or groups reaching out to us thinking we do what the other organization does, and having to reroute that and support them. And obviously, we work together to support all those people, but I'll have people reach out to me asking me about tournaments, asking about their membership, and has it lapsed, and have they paid? Asking about their BBO and what they're supposed to do at each of the things. I'm like, "That is an amazing question, let me find somebody to help you with that."

And I think that Bronia's group has people reach out sometimes asking for grants that are out of the purview of what they do, that are more in line with what we do. And so I think it's just really helpful to help folks understand that we are completely separate organizations. Completely separate. Different 501 numbers, separate entities. But we do work really closely together because we're all here for the same overarching mission, which is to support bridge. We do that in different ways, just like if Joe were able to join us from the USBF or the ABTA. There are different organizations doing it, but we're all here to support bridge. But I think some of those differences need to be a little clearer for people.

John McAllister: If you get an email, somebody asking about your masterpoints or their BBO stuff, do you forward that, or do you reply and copy Bronia on that, or what's your-

Ladawna Parham: No, not Bronia. But there are different people, and I'm starting to get better because starting in November, I still feel like the new girl. There's so much in this world to take in. But I'm starting to get better about knowing who at the ACBL handles each kind of question. Like is it related to their marketing, or is it related to College Bowl? I'm probably reaching out to Stephanie. If it's related to membership, they're a member, or support, emails that I can send that to. And so I'm getting better about that on my end. Certainly not perfect, but I try not to harass Bronia with too much.

Bronia Jenkins: That's true. That is very true. And I think the big difference is we're an operation. We run the Bridge League, right? So we run the national tournaments, and then we sanction other events. That's essentially what the ACBL does. We sanction events and we run the national tournaments. So that's what we do. And sometimes people are even confused about that. I get a lot of questions about clubs or sectionals or regionals, which is something we don't actually run.

In general, there's a lot of different facets to our organizations, and it is tricky to understand. So I don't blame people for not necessarily knowing where to go. And so when I do get an email, I get lots of emails of different things, what I tend to do is I reply and I say, "I'm engaging the help of Sherry Terraciano," or "I'm engaging the help of Ladawna," or "I'm engaging the help of so-and-so to help us with this problem," whatever it is. And I send it back to the people so that I'm still communicating with them, but I'm sending them over to the place that can help them. And most of the time the people that I send them to take over and actually do a pretty good job of responding to the question.

John McAllister: It's interesting, though. I didn't even realize that you guys don't run regionals, for example. But you do oversee the directing. How's it work with the directors, the tournament directors?

Bronia Jenkins: Sure. So that's why I'm saying it's interesting because the directors work for the ACBL, so we run the directors. But what we do is we assign directors to various tournaments, and then they work with the sponsor of the tournament to make that tournament happen. So the directors work for us, but they're really working for the sponsor of that tournament when they are running that tournament.

It makes sense, but it's complicated. It's tricky and it's a challenging thing to figure out, "How many directors do we send to places? Which directors do we send to places? What kind of events should you be running?" The more events you run, the more directors you need. The more you are in different locations within your hotel, the more directors you need. So there's all sorts of complexities to running tournaments that people don't really fully grasp.

John McAllister: Aren't there directors that are also not employees of the ACBL, like club games, for example? There's a certain level of competence that you have to have to be an ACBL director, right?

Bronia Jenkins: Right. An ACBL tournament director. Now we have lots of local club directors that run their local club games. As a matter of fact, I took the club director's course a couple of months ago with Lynn Yokel, who's amazing, and it's not easy. This stuff is not easy. The rules are not easy. There's a lot of nuances to the rules, and there's a lot of nuances to a ACBLScore and to the way you're supposed to say things to people and the rules. And so I didn't take the club director's test. I'm not sure that I would've passed it, but I decided that I didn't need to take it yet. I might have to take the class one more time before I could take the test.

Ladawna Parham: That's totally fair. It's such a complicated game, and then knowing it to the level and having that competence level that you could step in that role would be tough. I certainly, regardless of my level, wouldn't want to do that. I don't even want to be a timer at my son's swimming. I'm like, "I don't want that responsibility, if I mess that up." So I can imagine.

John McAllister: Ladawna, have you played in a club game?

Ladawna Parham: Not yet. Not yet. When I have been at different tournaments, my focus has been on trying to meet people related to the Ed Foundation. So I haven't done that piece of it yet. More than a little intimidated, but I'll get there.

Bronia Jenkins: The funny thing is, when you talk to Bridge Players, one the common things you'll hear is, "You hold," right? And then they give you your hand. You hold ace-third, whatever it is, right? And the directors, they joke around and say... When you get in a group of directors, they don't say, "You hold." They say, "You rule," right? So your ruling was this, and then they talk to each other about the ruling. So the same thing kind of happens in the director's world that does happen in the bridge world, except they're talking about the ruling that they made based on what's going on. And those rules are very different from the actual mechanics of the game of bridge.

John McAllister: So they tell you what they ruled? They start out by telling you what they ruled?

Bronia Jenkins: Well, they say the same thing. When they're in the director's suite after the game discussing whatever they're discussing, they joke around like the bridge players, they say, "You hold," and the directors, they say, "You rule." And then they ask the question about the thing that they ruled about and talk to each other about "How'd do I do on that ruling?" kind of thing.

John McAllister: And the directors that work for the ACBL, is their actual title, "Tournament Director?" Is that the-

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah. So there's tournament directors, there's associate, there's several ranks within the director world, right? There's national directors, the top, and then associate national director, and I don't even know. Then there's tournament director, and then there's director in training. There's different ranks. I don't even know that I told you all the ranks correctly.

John McAllister: Ladawna, what's been the hardest part about learning this world as an outsider?

Ladawna Parham: As an outsider?

John McAllister: Becoming an insider.

Ladawna Parham: So learning the internal language because it's like a complete foreign language. Hearing everybody talk about what happens at the clubs and how they're communicating with each other, that has been very interesting. And then layering that over the grants that we do and our focus on our grants and making sure that we are staying aligned with that and understanding the difference between, "Is this something that's our purview? Is this something that's the ACBLs purview? Is this something that I should be reaching out to a different group about?" That has been a lot of it. And then communicating with people who want to submit grants or who haven't received a grant and just trying to help them refine what they're looking at, what they're asking us for so that they can come back to us with something stronger. But I've been really excited about our grant program.

John McAllister: Okay. How many grants do you think we've done since you've... How many have we looked at and how many have we funded since you started, approximately?

Ladawna Parham: Since I've started, about 17 have been funded, which has been super exciting of all sizes, but everything from... I believe I was mentioning summer camps to working with... There's a Boys and Girls Club that's partnering with a local unit to bring it to their Boys and Girls clubs, but to spread it to their sister Boys and Girls clubs in the area, to the Y, to Patty Tucker's program, to the kids that are traveling all over the world representing the US. It's been phenomenal, and it's also been really exciting to have organizations like the Australian Bridge Federation and the Ugandan Bridge Federation reach out and talk about what we're doing, how we're doing what we're doing, how they're working to support bridge in their countries and what we are doing in ours, the shared difficulty of getting into schools when the schools aren't focused on that kind of thing. It's just been completely fascinating.

John McAllister: Can the ACBL Education Foundation fund programs that are outside of the United States?

Ladawna Parham: So we don't have a set restriction that says we can't necessarily, but that is absolutely not our focus, and I don't know that the committee or the board would agree to that unless it was something that directly impacted North America, so Canada, the US, Mexico, unless it was something that directly took place here or impacted here. So for example, we are a funder of BAMSA, Bridge: A MindSport for All, a research project that's happening out of the University of Stirling, which is a phenomenal project, but it's happening across multiple countries. It'll absolutely impact us here. Some of the research is happening here. We have members of the advisory panels that are based here. So there is a clear connection, but if somebody came to us with a grant saying, "We want to grow bridge in Denmark. Can you give us money for that?" I would say, "We love that you're doing that and we will give you applause. We'll share informational resources. But as far as funding, there's not that connection." So I wouldn't expect that.

John McAllister: And Bronia, if you asked for something from the ACBL Education Foundation, do we just give it to you?

Bronia Jenkins: Of course, by definition. Whatever I say is what happens. You know what I'm saying? I say, "Give me this," and it just happens. So yeah, to some extent, yes. I mean, one of the things is that my view is right now I'm trying to build a good product, and then once we build the good product and we know what our product is really, then the concept of marketing or advertising that product becomes a more real thing. At that point, we might be asking for more real money to be able to do that. So right now, we haven't asked very much from the educational foundation in terms of funds. We have some money ourselves. So it's not like we need to ask for every dollar. I'm trying to build good product, good online product, and good support for my grassroots people. That's what I'm trying to build. And then, once we know what is working the best to say, "Okay, now we need real money to be able to deploy that nationally."

John McAllister: So when you say good product, you're talking specifically about a grassroots program where you're introducing people to bridge?

Bronia Jenkins: That's one of the things. That's one of the things, but it's not the only thing. We want to work on social bridge, making sure that people... The way I look at the ACBL right now is basically we have a division that is duplicate bridge. That is what the ACBL is. I believe the ACBL should be more than duplicate bridge. I believe it should be social bridge. I believe it should be pre-bridge. I believe it should be bridge education. So I'd like to build all of those products so that I can then deploy those products. We have a very good deployment of duplicate bridge. We have duplicate bridge clubs, we have tournaments, we have nationals. We don't have a very good deployment of these other buckets that I'm talking about that I'm trying to build up.

John McAllister: And in order to make that happen, you have to get permission from your board of directors, or how does that work?

Bronia Jenkins: No, I mean, the board of directors and management are very much aligned in what we are doing. So a lot of people talk about, "Oh my God, management versus the board." That is not happening. It's management with the board. We are working together to build these different products. We are aligned in the way that we are thinking. Yes, of course, I talk to the board and I ask them things, but it's like the educational family. We're all on the same team, okay? It's really important for the bridge world to realize that we're on the same team, that we're facing the problems together. We share each other's social media posts because that then reaches more people. When I see a social media post on bridge, I share it as myself. I ask people to share it that are on the management team of the ACBL. I think it's all about working together rather than trying to go at it alone.

Now having said that, you have to be able to actually do things. So we are doing things like Intro to Bridge, for example, which is our online educational program to teach people bridge. That's a program that I'm looking to expand. Right now, it runs like three times a year. That's not enough. There needs to be one that starts every week. So when we find new people, we can say, "Hey, I have an Intro to Bridge class that's starting next week." That's one of the things I'm working on. Same with an online social bridge game, working with various people, BBO, RealBridge, Tricky Bridge, Into Bridge. There's a lot of people. I don't even know if I want you to post all that. You might have to edit that out.

But working on the concept of social bridge and how we get people to want to come and be part of a community regardless of how they play bridge. And then the other piece is pre-bridge, before bridge. How do you get people interested? Because when you think about the people that I meet in the streets, and I meet a lot of people in the streets, believe it or not, who I talk to about bridge who are under 40 years old, their response is always the same. "Oh, my grandmother used to play bridge," if they know anything about it. So we've got to get to those people where we offer them something that they can go to without it being too un-fun. It can't be too much like going to a math class.

People don't want to go to math class. They already did that. They want to go somewhere where they can have fun, which is the concept of what we've made up a game called Bridge War, which is a combination of a hand of bridge was the game of war. What is the game of war? The highest card wins. When you say that to people, all of a sudden it's like, "Oh yeah, I could play that." They come and sit down and the claim to fame is within 30 seconds you'll be playing. There's not a lot of explanation. You just sit down and you're just basically playing. It's technically like a one no trump hand, left of the dealer leads, the dummy comes down, and you're playing one no trump. And so how do we get that and other free bridge games? It's not the only pre-bridge game, but how do we get people to bite into that so that they actually have fun playing and they want to learn more about bridge?

Ladawna Parham: And I think that's one of those areas where moving forward, a big part of my task is making bridge accessible to people who don't want to be in math class again, to people who think that it is their great-grandmother's bridge and not something that they would be invested in. And so I think those are opportunities for us to work together in supporting pre-bridge options. I shouldn't even say this on a podcast, since it's the very early stages, but I've met with a screenwriter about a movie opportunity that's coming up because we all saw it happen with chess after The Queen's Gambit where it just became mainstream to talk about it. And I think that's part of what we're missing is that mainstream accessibility and interest. So I think those are things that we want to do as well and great ways that we'll be working better in the future.

John McAllister: Ladawna, I have to tell you, we started this search for executive director, I don't know, six months maybe before Bronia was hired, maybe longer. And I've known Bronia through tournaments and we'd become friends, and I have to say that it was really exciting when I found out that Bronia was going to be the executive director of the ACBL, and I think a lot of people shared that sentiment. And Bronia and I were at this tournament at Regional in Reston here this past week, and we were talking one night. I sought her out because I knew we were having this conversation and it really, I was like, "Wow, these ideas that you're talking about with this bridge war, it's like an intro class that starts every week so that you know it's going to happen and you can point people, because I get a lot of people that are curious about bridge that want to know how they can get started. And I feel like that's like this thing.

It's like you get somebody, my friend's dad recently was like, "I'm interested in trying bridge," and I gave him something. There's a local teacher, but she requires a big commitment in terms of time, and it's just not so easy. And the idea of really making it easy for people to start playing is exciting because I bet you've probably experienced that yourself, Ladawna. How do you get started? You're trying to learn this game as you're diving into this into the deep end.

Ladawna Parham: And I think that that is the most difficult thing for all of our programs is "How do we make it something that is easy?" I know that a huge part of it is the challenge. A huge part of it is the difficulty, but when you're just starting out, you aren't ready for the challenge and the difficulty. You want it to be challenging enough that it keeps your interest, but not so much that you're like, "I cannot do this. Leave me alone."

I'll tell you the first place I started learning it was actually that app, Tricky Bridge. I think it's a phenomenal app, but as soon as I was even looking at this world, I researched it and went on there, and I think things like that are phenomenal. But bridge war, things that take it out of online apps into that next step I think are great. But everything that makes it accessible is a huge focus for us, and I think should be.

John McAllister: And in bridge war, Bronia, is it actually the person who deals the cards there to declare, and the person to their left-

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah.

John McAllister: Okay.

Bronia Jenkins: Just that way you just get it going quick. It's like left of the dealer leads. Now, I'll be honest, when we've gone to play it at pickleball events, we made up the hands to make them reasonably set up. So obviously, it's kind of important. I mean, if you deal out the cards, you may not get a good one no trump hand. That's one of the problems is that... But a lot of people have dealing machines and set up things where we can set up one no trump type hands. You don't want to call them one no trump type hands to people who don't play bridge because then they're like, "What the hell's going on?' But when you talk to bridge players and say you set up a one no trump hand, it's not that complicated. I kind of joke around and I say, "Well, bridge war seven is one no trump." And once you get to Seven Tricks, then I joke around to the people who are playing and say, "Okay, now it's about embarrassing the opponents by taking more tricks."

The next thing would be bridge war eight, which would be a two spade contract. So basically where spades is trump, right? You'd have to have a continuation. And right now we're still in the very, very preliminary stages, in my mind at least, of what do pre-bridge games look like? We have Just Declare. That exists through BBO, but how do we get people to go to that in a super way where they get there and they have fun and then they want to come back, and we don't quite have that yet.

Ladawna Parham: And getting that out to a community of people who aren't already interested in bridge because they already have that stereotype in mind that, "This isn't for me." So how do we take that and get that in front of people who would otherwise not even look at it?

John McAllister: You saw this job post for ACBL Ed Foundation executive director, Ladawna, and you started researching. Tell us some of the things that you came across that grabbed you.

Ladawna Parham: At the Ed Foundation specifically?

John McAllister: No, just about bridge, probably more broadly speaking. But yeah, I guess you could expand it to the Ed Foundation, sure.

Ladawna Parham: So one of the things that I was super interested in when I first started learning was this history of bridge that I knew nothing about. So for all my Bridgerton people out there, when you hear them talk about whist or you see them playing whist, that was a precursor to bridge. And looking at the way that's changed and evolved, but how it had this massive role in our society, even up through the '40s and '50s, there was a whole TV show, and then some of the big player names like Omar Sharif and Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, people that everybody's heard of, but that maybe if you aren't in the bridge world, you had no idea that this was such a huge part of things for them.

And I have told several people that this world is the most positive, healthy mafia that I could think of because it's totally underground for people who aren't in that world. But when you're looking at hundreds of thousands of players just in the US, and if you aren't already in the bridge world, nobody has any idea. They think it's just their grandmother at the kitchen table. They have no idea. And so it was just fascinating to me to see how massive it was. And then when I went to my first NABC in Atlanta, and there are just so many people and they're so passionate about it, and I was telling you guys earlier, just sitting there after each one of the sessions, hearing them argue about, "You should have done this and you should have done that," and just the vitality of the game is something I think that you just have no idea exists until you become engrossed in this world. And so as I started into it, that's what really hooked me and fascinated me.

Bronia Jenkins: And when you talk to people outside the bridge world about the bridge world, it actually is a pretty interesting story. People are like, "Wow, you go to tournaments, you do this, you do that, and what do you get? You get masterpoints, and what is a professional bridge player and all that kind of stuff," it's a crazy world. It's camp for adults, right? Tournaments are camps for adults. It's a camp where basically what you're doing is you're always playing bridge. In regular camp, you have one day of archery, one day of canoeing, one day of arts and crafts. In bridge tournaments you have seven days of bridge or 10 days of bridge, and yet people love it. They never want to stop playing. People just want to keep playing because there's always another hand.

I used to teach probability. So 52C, or 52C13 or whatever, how many ever different hands you can have when you play bridge. I don't know that you get the exact same hand how many times. It's like every hand is different. Then every hand has its own opportunities and pitfalls. You ruff with three little, and you shouldn't have. You needed to not ruff that trick. It's so hard not to ruff with the three of hearts, and yet that's what you needed to do.

Ladawna Parham: You would never ruff when you didn't need to ruff, Bronia.

Bronia Jenkins: I ruffed when I didn't need to ruff. I ruffed. I let Billy make his game, and he beat me in that finals of that tournament in Reston that we were both at, John.

John McAllister: For those listening, Bronia and I were at this tournament and in the Swiss on Saturday, she's playing at the same table as her partner, Billy Cohen. And she was explaining that by ruffing with her three small trumps, she gave Billy an opportunity to reach the dummy that now allowed him to make his unmakeable contract had she opted not to ruff.

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah. It's really hard to not ruff when you can. I'll tell you that. It's really hard. You really have to think about it, and I really didn't.

John McAllister: It's like my mom. I sent my mom this podcast, and she's like, "I have no idea who or what you're talking about."

Bronia Jenkins: I mean, the bridge world is a fascinating world. It is full of very intelligent people. It is full of people who are very accomplished in many ways. And then they sit down at the bridge table and it is the great equalizer, okay? It is the great equalizer because you could play against somebody who you are like, "Oh, I got no problems here," and all of a sudden they've endplayed you into making the contract three times kind of thing. And you're like, "What just happened here? How did this happen?" You don't recognize this person. You don't know who they are. And then they make some good plays against you and you're like, "Oh, okay, this person knows how to play." It's a really fascinating thing to say to somebody, "Well played. Good defense. Good bid." It's really fun to get to do that even when you lose.

Ladawna Parham: I have started having gatherings with some friends of mine who are completely not involved in the world, although most of them have started on the Tricky Bridge app. They're tipping their toes in the water, but they're like, "We need a bridge update. What's on the agenda today? What's happening in the bridge world?" And every time it's some new thing that's happened, they're like, "That is so crazy. How is that happening in this world?" And we have no idea. It's super fun.

Bronia Jenkins: One of the things that I think we're working towards, and I don't have a solution at all, is the concept of a partnership desk. How do you create partners? Because one of the big problems with new players is the ability to find a partner. I think that's a big issue. So the question is, "How do we get with a dating site like eHarmony or Match.com and create a little bridge division of Match.com so that people can find their bridge partner?"

Ladawna Parham: It's hilarious. Absolutely. We're in. Come to us. We'll talk about it.

Bronia Jenkins: Right. Sounds good.

John McAllister: That's so true. I've got a friend from here in Charlottesville who's talking about going to the Toronto NABC starts in a little over a week, and he's looking for somebody who he can play with up there, and he found some person on Bridge Winners, I think, and they're going to try it out. And I was just thinking about how much that's just going to give him so much more like, "Oh, I have this one person that I can connect with, and now we're in it together." And it is not so easy to find bridge partners, I think.

Ladawna Parham: That's a great idea, Bronia.

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah, no, I'm definitely always thinking about how do we create some sort of partnership situation for people. And right now it's done through people, and that's okay. You need an actual person that's bringing people together. So I send people to the partnership chairs of the tournaments, to the partnership chairs of the units and work to do that. It used to be in the old days that there were always standbys at the clubs, and it used to be in the old days that there were night games, and both of those things are no longer here, and that's a big problem for us.

John McAllister: Ladawna, you mentioned Tricky Bridge. The Ed Foundation actually provided a pretty big grant to that project to help make it free for people, and that's something that... I've referred a lot of people to Tricky Bridge, although I don't know if it... It's not necessarily getting people... I don't know. What's a win, Bronia, from Tricky Bridge? What do you want to see when you get somebody, when you tell somebody about bridge or refer them somewhere?

Bronia Jenkins: So the good thing about Tricky Bridge from what I understand, and I've played on it a little bit, is first of all they have some cool graphics, so it appeals to younger people, which I think is really good. And the second thing is it's very self-driven. You don't need a teacher. You just go on there and you're playing, and you like it, and so then you play more. So I do know of some young people who have gotten involved through Tricky Bridge. And so what we're trying to do is connect with Tricky Bridge so that we can work together to...

He's getting thousands of people who are loving bridge through Tricky Bridge. How do we get them from that to actually maybe getting to a social bridge scene, whether that social bridge scene be online or not online, to get to the next level, to maybe eventually get to the real duplicate scene. There has to be a path from going to, "I just go on the app by myself and I play with the robots," to then "I want to be able to play with people," to then "I want to be able to play online," to then "I want to be able to play in real life." I think there has to be some sort of path that goes like that. And so hopefully we can do that with Tricky Bridge.

John McAllister: And that's one thing I can share is that when I started to play Bridge, I absolutely loved it, and the only outlet that I knew about it was at home with my parents. And so whenever I would go home, I would want to play, and we would do that. But I had no idea. I lived in New York City two blocks from the largest bridge club in the country at the time, and it didn't even occur to me to go there. And so I think that's one of the... The challenge is that people might really... Well, I mean, maybe today it's different because there's so much information, so much more widely available through the internet and doing a Google search, for example.

Bronia Jenkins: Right. But the truth is when I wanted to start playing bridge, I sort of knew that there were these things called Bridge Clubs, but I didn't really know what they were. So I ran around asking everybody until I found this lady who worked at the YWCA or whatever, and she's like, "Oh, my brother is the president of the Bridge Club. Here's the phone number." She gave me the number, I called the guy, and he's like, "Show up anytime. We always have a standby." And there was a night game, and that's how I started to play. I showed up. And we don't have that anymore, and that's a problem. But what we do have is we have online access. The first access, in my opinion, in today's world has to be through the online world, and we've got to do that and then send them to the next piece, which is the live world. It's little different, I think, than it used to be.

John McAllister: And Bronia, you've won multiple NABC plus events. I know you played in the Junior World Championships. Did you lose in the finals?

Bronia Jenkins: I did lose in the finals to the US. I lost it to the Debbie Rosenberg and Martha Katz. Those girls always beat me no matter what. I always lose to Debbie Rosenberg. I've never beaten her once in any event, by the way. So Debbie, I'm waiting for that day to come. But yes, we lost in the finals to them. And by the way, it's not like my team was a slouch team. I think I had Geoff Hampson and Fred Gitelman on my team, so I don't know what happened there. I mean, they didn't carry us well enough, apparently. It's funny to me. And I think Brad Moss was on the other team. So there you go. And then I won my first nationals, actually, with Brad Moss, and that was his first nationals also. But he's gone on to win about a hundred world championships and I've won none, but I loved playing with those people. I always have a great time when I play bridge. It's really, really fun and it's just the best game. It's the best game.

Ladawna Parham: I'd like to ask a quick question of you guys. Just kind of stepping back a little bit, talking about the clubs and active thing, if there were suddenly a million new players, what kind of infrastructure do you think would need to be in place to support those players and keep them engaged?

Bronia Jenkins: I mean, to me, we have that infrastructure. That's the one thing we do have. We have a network of clubs across the nation. And that's the great thing about bridge is when I actually moved from Chicago to Basel, Switzerland, I found bridge players. And then when I moved from Basel, Switzerland to London, I found bridge players. And then I got married and started playing golf and I stopped playing bridge. But that was a different thing. That's the beautiful thing, is you can find bridge players wherever you go, and the game is the same. The conventions might be different, but the game is the same. So you can sort of play anywhere.

So we have that infrastructure. Now what we don't necessarily have are enough people that if those million bridge players showed up, you'd want to organize those games and make sure you had the people there to help out. But I think if you had the million bridge players, you'd find the people who are willing to help out. We'd have to set it up and be ready, and that's what I mean by setting up our product so that we're ready to welcome all these new players once we advertise nationally or internationally. "Come join the ACBL because this is what you can do here." But then I think you have that infrastructure of clubs. There's clubs all over the place.

Ladawna Parham: That had been asked of me as I was looking at different brands that have come our way or different strategies or supporting things like bridge and that kind of thing, like, "Well, what would you really do? How would you increase the infrastructure to support it if all these players came in?" So it's good to hear you say you feel like that's there, that "If you build it, they will come" kind of thing.

Bronia Jenkins: Right. But the thing is, if you do want to get some newer players in the game, younger players, you better have night games. You better have weekend games, because they're not going to be able to go at one o'clock in the afternoon to a club game. So that does have to change. It's doable, but it has to change.

John McAllister: Bronia, one of the biggest thing that the ACBL does, I think, is in sanctioning all these games is you guys keep the masterpoints. Do you know how many masterpoints you have, Ladawna? Zero? Is that a zero? Do you have zero master points? Bronia, do you know how many masterpoints you have?

Bronia Jenkins: Apparently, I do, but I'm not sure that I reported them properly at the tournament. I do know how many masterpoints I have, and I don't have very many YTD. Year to date, I didn't get a lot of masterpoints, and last year I didn't get a lot of masterpoints either because I don't... Unfortunately, I don't get to play bridge a lot. Fortunately, I think about bridge all the time, so it doesn't bother me that much.

Ladawna Parham: Yeah, no. No masterpoints for me at this.

John McAllister: Is there a target maybe by year-end that you would have, Ladawna, your first... Are you a member of the ACBL, Ladawna?

Ladawna Parham: Yes. Yeah. You kind of catch me out, but I am.

John McAllister: So do you get the Bridge Bulletin magazine and-

Ladawna Parham: I do. And the Speakeasy and all the things. The ACBL is great on communication, and it's interesting to flip through and see everybody's stories and strategies and ads for those cruises that always look amazing that I'll never get to go on. Yeah.

Bronia Jenkins: I've never been on a cruise ever. So one day maybe I'll go on a bridge cruise.

Ladawna Parham: Jealous of you and live vicariously through you.

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah.

John McAllister: Are you coming to the tournament in Toronto in a couple of weeks, Ladawna?

Ladawna Parham: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm hopeful that the board members that are there can get together and grab dinner or drinks after the meeting.

John McAllister: And maybe we'll get you your first live session.

Ladawna Parham: Oh, that sounds stressful.

John McAllister: Are they having midnights in Toronto, Bronia?

Bronia Jenkins: I think there are some evening games, but they're no longer midnights. I mean, when we change the schedule, the midnight is now at 7:30.

John McAllister: Right. Right.

Bronia Jenkins: 7:30 is the new midnight.

John McAllister: Right. Right. Right.

Ladawna Parham: 7:30 feels nice and reasonable.

John McAllister: Well, we'll have to play some time, Ladawna, or maybe do bridge war or something. We'll get you-

Ladawna Parham: Maybe bridge war. Maybe.

John McAllister: Bridge war?

Ladawna Parham: Yeah.

Bronia Jenkins: No! Play real bridge. You guys are at the real bridge level. You're not a bridge war. No, no, no, no. You've got to play real bridge.

Ladawna Parham: Level. John is like here.

Bronia Jenkins: But that's okay. I mean, I have played many, many sessions with beginning players for a variety of reasons, and it's really okay to play without conventions. It's really okay to just bid and play, and if you get into the wrong contract, you're just in the wrong contract. You play the cards and then you go to the next hand. It's really okay to be wrong. It really is.

John McAllister: Yeah. I'm fully on board with that. I think just going in, just playing, I think-

Bronia Jenkins: Just playing.

John McAllister: That's the best way to learn.

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah. Just bid three no trump a lot. If you look at your hand, your partner opens the bidding, if your partner opens the bidding and you like your hand, bid three no trump. If your partner opens a bidding in one of a major, and you look and you have some cards in the major and you like your hand, bid for the major, and let's just move right along. Otherwise, just pass and we'll just see what happens.

John McAllister: Anything else we need to cover here that you feel like we haven't mentioned?

Ladawna Parham: Is there anything that you can say about what the USBF does that's different than what we do? I think that's helpful for people to know.

Bronia Jenkins: Sure. So the USBF is the organization that organizes International Bridge. So what does that mean? So when the United States, when our zone is sending people to international tournaments, that is run and organized by the USBF. Jan Martel has been in charge of that forever. She's amazing. She organizes everything, and people go and try out to play for representing the United States at a world championship. So you get to go to the team trials, which is run every year in Schaumburg in the month of May, sometimes a little bit in April. And you go and you try out, and the two teams or one team, depending on what it is, they get to go to the international competition and they get a stipend from the USBF.

John McAllister: It's like the Olympic trials that we're just watching right now. It's the same thing. You're planning the team trials to represent the US in the upcoming world championships. There's less hubbub about it than the Olympic trials, but not much.

Ladawna Parham: Yes. I just feel like there are probably people who are watching who aren't familiar. So thank you.

Bronia Jenkins: Yeah. Right. So US, United States Bridge Federation, right? There's also the Canadian Bridge Federation and there's also the Mexican Bridge Federation, which I think it's Federation Mexico. It's FMB, I believe. And then there's also the Bermuda Federation. So there are four federations that are within the North American Bridge arm of bridge, and that North American Bridge is responsible for those four federations. Although I believe Bermuda might have gone a different way with respect to International Bridge.

John McAllister: If Bermuda wanted to have a team in the world championships, would they have to go through...

Bronia Jenkins: I think they've moved with respect to North American Bridge. So they run in a different zone to try to make it to the world championships. So I think Mexico, Canada, and the US all compete for those same spots.

Ladawna Parham: And I think if people have been watching this and want to follow up and get more information, if they're looking at info from the ACBL, they can find that at acbl.org. For the Ed Foundation, they can go to ACBLEF.org for Ed Foundation. And then I know my email address, executivedirector@acbleducationalfoundation.org is on there. People can reach me directly. And then you guys have a whole contact list that people can reach out, depending on what they're interested in at US-

Bronia Jenkins: We do. We do.

Ladawna Parham: Hopefully, if people have questions or thoughts and want to know more, be involved in some way, volunteering, or "How do I become a director?" or any of that, they can reach out to you guys. And if they are looking at submitting a grant or they want to support Youth Bridge programs or something, they can reach out to us.

Bronia Jenkins: And I definitely could have said some wrong things, especially with the USBF. I am not completely familiar with how everything works at the USBF, so I gave you my best guess, but I could definitely have been wrong about several things, like usual.

John McAllister: And both the Ed Foundation and the ACBL are set up as nonprofits, I believe. But the Ed foundation, you can actually donate. We're a 501(c)(3), so you can donate and get a tax deduction for that. And then we can support programs across a broad spectrum of grant.

Bronia Jenkins: Right. We are also a nonprofit, but we are not a 501(c)(3). So when you donate directly to the ACBL, it is not tax deductible.

Ladawna Parham: And we have a planned giving program where people can make estate gifts or planned giving donations, and we're happy to talk to folks about that to make that lasting impact.

John McAllister: All right. Well, thank you, ladies. It's been a pleasure to get to speak to you both, and I look forward to seeing you in Toronto in a little over a week.

Ladawna Parham: Yes.

Bronia Jenkins: Sounds good.

Ladawna Parham: I look forward to you being our commentator at the celebrity event on-

Bronia Jenkins: Yes. It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it also.

Ladawna Parham: Great. Thank you.

John McAllister: Yes. We just wrapped up a Spark Foundation. The show's not over, sorry. Ladawna's talking about the Spark Foundation. There's a celebrity Pro-Am on July 15th where people just bid for the opportunity to play with all sorts of strong, some of the best bridge players in the world. And Bronia is going to be commenting on that.

Ladawna Parham: And this next week between when that ended last night for the event and the players and the event itself, people can still buy kibitzing packages.

John McAllister: Right.

Bronia Jenkins: Oh, fun.

John McAllister: Right. All right. Well, thank you very much, and I will let you know when we've got this ready for publication.

Bronia Jenkins: Sounds good. All right, thanks.

Ladawna Parham: Thank you.

John McAllister: All right. Thank you.

Bronia Jenkins: All right, everybody. Bye.