Episode 64: Amber Lin – Wonder Woman

Amber Lin has already achieved a lifetime of success at age 26. A national champion and two-time world champion medalist (including gold in Morocco just a few weeks ago), Amber has found the time to develop as a bridge player, mentor and coach others, intern with the ACBL Educational Foundation, and work full-time as an energy consultant at Bain & Company. Listen to Amber’s amazing trajectory via the USBF Junior Training Program and the benefits of mentorship and learning together with friends.

[2:36] Amber’s main hobby and passion in her high school and college years was not bridge.

[4:34] Possibly the first time anyone has sung on the Setting Trick.

[5:14] Amber’s introduction to bridge via her dad, who is an active player in the North American Chinese Bridge Association.

[6:15] The beginnings of Amber’s involvement with the United States Bridge Federation’s Junior program.

[8:34] The importance of nurturing young women in bridge, getting a second Rona team to compete in the World Youth Teams Championships.

[12:18] On how providing a safe space for all young bridge players, and especially young women, helps them transition to open events, resulting in a record number of females competing in open events this year.

[14:07] The value of the experience attending the World tournaments.

[16:40] The benefit of Districts supporting their Juniors.

[17:49] Developing an intensive mentorship program with the information Amber wishes she had available to her.

[21:26] Coaching tactics that extend beyond card play and bidding.

[23:50] Attention Bay Area kids: SiVY is back!

[25:59] Winning the U.S. Team Trials with Emma Kolesnik.

[30:12] We Need to Talk About Kevin

[34:14] Board Review is a social experience. Bridge development doesn’t feel like work when hanging out with friends.

[42:34] Amber gives a shout-out to an impressive list of mentors.

[51:08] The #1 Rule for discussing bridge at a restaurant.

[59:44] Amber and Kevin’s tough last round at the U31 World Pairs Championships.

[1:04] The plan for the new SiVY.

[1:13] Thanks to the full-time, dedicated bridge workers! There are great bridge players and great people who play bridge.

[1:21] Amber’s internship with the ACBL Educational Foundation.

[1:24] Bridge-life goals.

Read about Amber winning Queen of Bridge in 2015.

Read about Amber in the Mixed World Team Championships in 2022.

The ACBL Educational Foundation.

The USBF Junior Training Program.

Silicon Valley Youth Bridge.

Center 4 Bridge Education. (San Francisco youth bridge program)

Connect with Amber at amber.y.lin@gmail.com if you’d like to talk more about junior bridge and related topics

**Amber with her best friends and Junior teammates (U26 USA2 2023) in Veldhoven, Netherlands.**

Amber and Kevin winning the 2023 U31 pairs championships in Veldhoven, Netherlands.

Transcript

John McAllister: I am here with Amber Lin, who recently won a gold medal in the Mixed World Championships in spite of being pretty young. She was the 2015 Queen of Bridge, which we're starting to see why she got that because of all the work that she's doing on behalf of young women like herself who are playing. You got a second Rona Cup team. This is not a very good introduction, but I am fired up to have you on here, Amber. Thank you so much for joining me. It's great to see you.

Amber Lin: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, John. Excited to be here, and yeah, talk about whatever your viewers are interested in.

John McAllister: So you have some friends, including your boyfriend, Kevin Rosenberg was on the podcast. I did reach out to Kevin for some suggested questions. Olivia Schireson's been on. Did you speak to either of them about what to expect?

Amber Lin: A little bit, yeah. I think I was in the next room while Kevin was doing his interview, so I have a little experience with that.

John McAllister: How do you think that one turned out?

Amber Lin: I mean, it was great. I'm probably biased because I am very happy to listen to Kevin talk. But yeah, I think it was really well done, covered a lot of breadth and had some funny moments too. I love the basketball incorporation.

John McAllister: I don't remember that, the basketball. What was the basketball incorporation?

Amber Lin: I think it was asking him about what basketball players he would want to teach Bridge, which-

John McAllister: Oh, got it.

Amber Lin: And he's a big NBA fan.

John McAllister: This is the part where I show off all the research that I did, and one of the things that I came across, there's a Facebook post of yours that talked about how you were in the Glee Club at Princeton, and I think I remember when Kevin and you, maybe before you guys started dating, I think Kevin was talking about doing some singing with you. Was my memory correct there?

Amber Lin: Yes. Yeah, so good research. So in college especially, singing in all different forms from everything from acapella, pop style, Glee Club, more choral. Also, I did some opera singing was probably my number one hobby. Unfortunately it was not bridge at the time. But yeah, it was a really big passion of mine and I did give Kevin some singing lessons for a while, more so before we were dating. He also really loved singing, but hadn't really had any formal training before. Yeah, so it was a cool way to bond outside of bridge for us too.

John McAllister: Do you guys still sing together?

Amber Lin: Definitely casually. And at nationals karaoke we usually try to do a song there, especially for Debbie, who is our number one fan of course.

John McAllister: What was your most recent karaoke song that you guys sang together?

Amber Lin: I think in the spring one we sang ... what was it called? Use Somebody together, which we hadn't practiced before, so it was a little rough. Yeah, we do the Stevie Nicks' Leather and Lace a lot too.

John McAllister: I mean, I'm sure I know the song, but I don't know it by the name. How does it go?

Amber Lin: Leather and Lace? Okay. Do you want me to sing?

John McAllister: You can sing it or you could just speak it. I mean, I don't want to necessarily... but I would love for you to sing it if you're willing.

Amber Lin: Okay. Let me actually quickly look up the lyrics, but the chorus goes like (singing). That one.

John McAllister: I think you're the first person to sing on this podcast.

Amber Lin: Well, I think there's a lot of bridge players who sing, so I think you could get some more.

John McAllister: Oh man. Let's start with bridge. I think your dad plays? And you have a brother that was playing at some point?

Amber Lin: A little bit. Yeah. So I first started off learning bridge from my dad. He's very, very passionate about the game as a hobby, but his main form of playing is he's more ... he plays online a lot with a lot of different friends. He's part of this North American Chinese Bridge Association and I think they're pretty active. So he's a big fan of the game, has hundreds of books in his library, but he's not necessarily playing at very big national events or those types of events. So he definitely instilled into me a great love for the game. He also tried teaching my brother when we were kids, but didn't go as well. So growing up in middle school and high school, I would play with my dad on weekends. That was kind of my main form of exposure to the game. And we played at our local Chinese school, so we both... Chinese school was split up into Chinese classes for half of it, and then activities and hobbies classes for the other half.

So we would teach a bridge class together and then also play some casual bridge with the other parents there. So that was really my introduction. And then a little bit later on in high school, I joined the USBF online training program and eventually some of the Junior women's teams throughout high school and college. Yeah, I think as I was saying before, bridge was not my number one hobby growing up. It was probably music and also different academic clubs and that kind of thing. So it was a little bit lower in terms of my priorities versus now.

John McAllister: But that you seem to express a wish that maybe it had been more bridge.

Amber Lin: I think it would've been ... I think I did really enjoy my other activities, so I don't really regret not getting into bridge earlier. They were a lot of fun. I met a lot of great people, so I don't think I necessarily regret it, but I do think it would've also been really cool to get more into bridge earlier and get to meet the people that I have gotten to meet and play in the tournaments and so on at a bit of a younger age. But yeah, not necessarily regret.

John McAllister: Do you remember what it was that got you into the USBF Junior program?

Amber Lin: I think my dad had just found out about the program through online research or meeting other kids who were part of the program. I went to a couple Youth NABCs, so that's kind of how I learned about it. So it's really easy to just go online and fill out a form and sign up. So that's just what I did.

John McAllister: And at this point, fast forward to today, you're doing... so as I alluded to in the introduction, which was sort of half baked, so in the Junior World Championships, it's called the World Youth Team Championships, and they just took place in August. They took place this summer, and that's a biannual event. So every two years. And the U.S. ... tournament players will know that the US gets two teams for any world championship, the U.S. gets two teams by virtue of our size. But in the junior world championships, I'm pretty sure that we had never had a second team playing in the Rona Cup, which is the women's version of the Under 26. And you got us that second team. Which I think was really well thought out by you, and I think easy to... in speaking to my fellow board members of the District 6 Education Foundation, I felt like initially they didn't quite get the importance of nurturing young women playing bridge. And obviously you saw that from your own experience. So talk to me about that, the decision to go for the second to Rona cut to...

Amber Lin: Yep. Yeah, thanks for the intro. And of course it wasn't just myself. I had a lot of support I think from Alex Kolesnik especially who was very, very for sending second teams in all the categories. But yeah, I can give some more background first. So the Junior program does have limited funding, so sending a team, a Junior team to a world championship is definitely expensive and they've obviously prioritized getting one team in each of the major categories first. And then for a second team, they've prioritized having a second U26 and U21 open team, which I think makes a lot of sense since these are the big categories open to everyone. But yeah, I think in addition to that, what I was especially inspired by was seeing in the U.S. trials how many Rona teams there were competing and a lot of them at it seemed like pretty similar levels to the winning Rona team.

So it definitely felt like we would have at least a comparable... be able to send a comparable team to the championship. So I think that was kind of the minimum requirement to doing this. And then after that, looking for sources of funding. So as I got to learn more about the ACBL Educational Foundation and learning about how they were able to help fund some teams last year going to the Transnationals tournament, it seemed like more likely that we'd have the different puzzle pieces of being able to fundraise and have the right players to send. So that was more kind of the practical, I think reasons why it made a lot of sense to do this year.

I think at a broader level, I am really passionate about having Junior women's events and promoting as many Junior women as possible to go to these events primarily because I think that when learning bridge especially, we're teaching kids, high school students, college students, it's really important to have a space where people feel comfortable and have fun and can feel like they can learn in a comfortable environment where they're not getting judged and that kind of thing.

And I think in a perfect world, if all of bridge classes and tournaments were 50-50 already, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But going into a bridge class or a tournament that is 80% male dominated becomes a much less attractive space for a young player to try to learn and get into the game. And I think that's why there are test camps for girls specifically in STEM camps for girls as well and computer science camps and so on. And I think it also applies to bridge. So I kind of see right now these women's events as being able to provide that safe space and a more fun, appealing space a little bit too for younger women to get into Bridge and learn. And then to get... once they feel like they are ready to compete at the open levels or if they already feel that way, they should be competing in the open levels too. I think this year we had a record number of women in all the open categories.

I think it was a record that we had a woman in every open category and then also a record number of them. And yeah, I think especially if you're starting younger, there's less of a gender gap. But for those starting in college, the gap has kind of already been formed by then.

John McAllister: I mean, I just interviewed Katie Sullivan, who I know that you and Kevin have been... she's told me that she's doing board reviews. You guys are giving her homework, I think is how she phrased it. But I mean, she sent me a text message. So Katie was on this USA2 team that you helped put together. And she sent me a text message at the end of the tournament that I read in the conversation I did with her. And she is just so fired up for bridge. I know Katie pretty well because she's at UVA, which is here in Charlottesville with me, and absolutely that was a home run for her.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that's a really great point. And so good to hear too. I think there's a question of since these tournaments are relatively more expensive to send kids to and fundraise for than maybe national or local tournaments, do they actually provide that much extra value to their learning experiences? And I think they really do. After having gone to this one for the first time in five years, the last tournament was in 2018, I had personally even forgotten how cool these tournaments are bringing together kids from all over the world to join in on this game they all love playing. Just being in that environment, it's a very memorable once in a lifetime kind of experience to send them to.

John McAllister: I think it also translates to... I know when I talk to people about my own bridge playing, the fact that I've played in world championships, that just has a gravitas to it that I think people... it is meaningful and it's really exciting. It didn't occur to me. I didn't see it. And so I'm so grateful that you identified this opportunity. And I also want to commend you for how you talked about the USBF supporting you and the USBF priorities because I think that speaks to... I think you were very diplomatic about that, and I think also credits to the USBF that they don't have unlimited resources. And so you went outside of the USBF purvey to help raise funds for these young women to participate.

And I just got a follow-up, a great follow-up email from you about all that, including thank you and really kind of going into more detail. The young women ended up winning the consolation B final board-a-match, which is an incredible result. And so I love too that there's the follow-up and I wonder if I can just... maybe this shouldn't be part of the interview, but I wonder if I can... can I send that to our District 6 Education Foundation board because-

Amber Lin: Yeah, for sure. That would be great.

John McAllister: Okay. Because we supported Katie going as you reconciled in the report.

Amber Lin: Yeah. No, it was really great to see support from a few different districts, individual donors in addition to the ACBL Educational Foundation. And I think supporting local players is a really great way for districts to also... I think helps with their own publicity, getting players to come to their own district events as well as helping out the players.

John McAllister: When you brought it up, who did you approach with the idea? Was it Alex that you suggested it to?

Amber Lin: Yes. I first talked to Alex. I think Alex already had the idea of sending multiple second teams, and then I worked with him to actually iron out the logistics of how we would do it.

John McAllister: Kevin told me that... so you're starting this, it's called the U26 Women's Intensive Program, and that's something that's kind of targeting the next Junior worlds, which is in two years as you mentioned. He said that the nickname for it is Kumon... I don't know if I might be saying that incorrectly?

Amber Lin: Yeah. So would love to talk more about this. So this kind of relates to Katie mentioning that we were assigning her homework. So basically the idea is we want to help especially these young women first develop their next level of Bridge ability, and a lot of them are interested in competing in the 2025 championship. So we have this clear goal, I think short-term goal to work on. So the idea of the program is essentially like I am creating the program that I wish I had been taught Bridge, and the nickname kind of goes towards this... I don't know exactly what it is, a learning center, a chain of learning centers called Kumons that are very popular around the U.S. for adding a lot of supplemental intensive training in math, reading other subjects for kids. And so the bridge version of this, maybe for context I should describe what a normal USBF Junior training program looks like.

So what we do is we have groups of four to eight work with a mentor every week, and they'll usually just do some online bridge play, I don't know, 8 to 14 hands, something like that, and then discuss them with mentors. So this is really great, but it's pretty much like a two to three hour per week commitment and dedication to bridge. And a lot of the kids have expressed more interest. We have a lot of kids who are doing this twice a week and then also doing a lot of their own online tournaments, that kind of thing outside.

So the idea for the intensive program is to take that as foundation but expand it and really enable more, a much faster, hopefully improvement and development in bridge because of that. So it takes a group training, it adds on a partnership coaching every week as well as the homework. So self assignments, an emphasis on playing in a club, hopefully ideally every week doing some live practice as well as online practice and creating kind of how... in a map as to if you wanted to spend 20 hours a week on bridge to really improve, what should you do during those 20 hours to get better as quickly as possible? And it is very tailored towards Juniors and I think structured, and a lot of them are college students. They're used to this kind of lesson plus self-practice format. So putting this in a format that they're kind of used to and familiar with doing, I think was part of the idea.

And then the actual lessons and coaching, I think one big thing that Kevin and I have been developing this program together is that we feel like there's some areas of bridge that aren't really emphasized as much in traditional training. So this carries over across both the actual technical aspects of bridge and also more intangibles. So we are doing bidding, declare, and defense, but adding in lessons on non-technical plays, practical plays, that kind of thing. And then also in terms of intangibles, thinking about when you go to tournaments, what helps you perform your best? Do you tend to go on-tilt? Are you a good partner? How can you be more supportive to your teammates? Talking about that mental aspect of the game and also social and teamwork aspect I think isn't necessarily emphasized in traditional training. So we want to make sure that people feel supported and can learn about all aspects of trying to do well.

John McAllister: Actually, I'm playing in the local club game with Katie tomorrow and we played-

Amber Lin: Yeah, it's amazing.

John McAllister: We played last Friday. We actually won. We won.

Amber Lin: Congratulations. Wow.

John McAllister: We had a 69. After two rounds, we had 91%. I thought we had a chance at 80, but we couldn't... yes. Yeah.

Amber Lin: But yeah, so you're already part of the program. And I do think once we have things like more... this is a totally a pilot, we're building these materials, learning a lot from other experienced teachers, such as Debbie, about how to teach card play, which I think Kevin has been doing for probably 10 years now, teaching kids how to play bridge. I've more had experience teaching really beginners and then some more advanced players the last couple years. So we're still learning a lot about how to teach, but hopefully once we have this more package, we'll share it with the rest of the USBF training program and see how it evolves and open it up to more players as well.

John McAllister: And Debbie, just for those that don't know, is Debbie Rosenberg, who's Kevin's mother and was also your teammate in the Mixed World Championships.

Amber Lin: And yeah, she's also renowned essentially for helping lead and start up the Silicon Valley Youth Bridge Program, which is also a separate topic that we're working on right now. But that program both taught many hundreds of players in the Bay Area, the beginnings of Bridge, and then also developed a lot of more serious and advanced players. I think there are multiple teams that went to the world championships this summer that got their start in bridge through the Silicon Valley Youth Bridge Program.

John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah, that was exciting to... in the email that Kevin sent me, I kind of missed that actually at first. It was the very last thing. But when I was going back over today, I saw that, and I think that's really exciting that you guys are reviving that.

Amber Lin: Yep. So any Bay Area listeners, definitely reach out if you're interested in volunteering or joining or bringing kids or young adults to see the programming. So we'll be starting that in November.

John McAllister: All this bridge, all this dedication to bridge, you had an internship with the ACBL Education Foundation. Do you see yourself going back into the business world or do you see yourself more doing bridge related stuff for the time being?

Amber Lin: Yeah, good question. So yeah, maybe for some context. After I graduated college, I worked for a few years at this company called Bain & Company, and I'm technically, I think still their employee. I took something called what they call an externship or internship with the ACBL Educational Foundation. So I'm actually doing that for nine months now of this year from May to the end of this year. And then I'll be returning back to Bain full-time next year. So I think I definitely want to keep volunteering in teaching bridge programs. But in the short term, I'll be going back to my full-time job, but trying to do as much as I can, I think in volunteer. It's definitely something I think I'd want to spend more time on, maybe later on in my career. But yeah, I do have a lot of interests at my work too.

John McAllister: As far as your bridge playing, I remember, I think it was the team trials in... you and Emma Kolesnik, you guys won the USA1 team trials. Was that '22 or '21?

Amber Lin: 2021, yeah.

John McAllister: 2021?

Amber Lin: It was for the 2022. Yeah. So yeah, I can talk more about that. That was our first probably exposure to really high-level bridge and our first big win for sure. And it was a big surprise, I think we were not expecting to win the trials. We were on a team of very experienced players, to be fair. But we were still in our early twenties, hadn't had too much experience with high level bridge yet. So it was a very, very exciting outcome for us.

John McAllister: I remember that's when you first got my attention for your bridge play. And that's a big win to... that's a big deal.

Amber Lin: I don't know if it's interesting to people, I can talk a little bit more about, I don't know, that kind of transition and how I think we got there. I think so as I was saying before, during college and high school, before I graduated, bridge was kind of more of a secondary hobby, probably my second or third hobby. But after college, I moved to San Francisco for my job, and then bridge kind of naturally became my number one hobby.

So it became not only just the main thing I did outside of work, but also I think the friendships and social circles, the people I was hanging out with the most. And I think that was really important for me too, because I was moving to a new city, new area, I didn't know anyone. And then the bridge community naturally kind of became my friend group. So it was just... I think remembering those six months before covid hit was a really fun time. Oh, I think also after college that summer I played in multiple regionals traveling with Emma and Finn. That was my first exposure to playing multiple days of live bridge at a regional. I met Finn for the first time. So that's essentially... they feel like family to me. We've spent so much time together, and playing bridge together.

John McAllister: Yeah, I kind of forgot about the fact that Alex was their dad. Sorry to interrupt. You were talking about Alex with the junior program and then I was like, "I forgot that." Yeah, I kind of just totally forgot.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I also got to know Alex... Alex was my surrogate dad that summer too. We had traveled together to a couple... we met Bill Gates and Warren Buffett at the Omaha Regional, which is a really cool experience and played against them too, and Bob Hamman. So I think that was in my mind the first time I really played open bridge with serious players. And then I think that really got me into it. I had friends, a partner that I wanted to work on with Emma to work towards the next Junior championships together.

And that encouraged me to... when I did move to San Francisco to find live bridge and play with people. So then there I met a really great group of friends, Chris Chen, Will Zhu, Anant, Andrew Sinclair, and they all run the CBE, the Center for Bridge Education, the San Francisco based youth program. And then I also got to know some of the former SiVY kids, so that'd be Kevin, my U26 team from this year. So Brent, Stella, Cornelius, and Richard and Cynthia weren't SiVY kids, but they were also kind of in that bridge age group friend group together. And I got to know them a lot more as we... through the being in the Bay Area and also through Online Junior Bridge.

John McAllister: And when did you and Kevin start dating?

Amber Lin: So we actually started dating in 2021 after the U.S. trials. So I think that was kind of a big moment that also helped us start dating, but we just really met in late 2019 and got a lot closer throughout the next couple years.

John McAllister: I feel like I have so many questions that involve Kevin.

Amber Lin: That's okay.

John McAllister: I mean, I've played with him. He's a great partner. I played against him in the trials, the U.S. team trials this year. And I come from an athletic background, so I've been playing sports my whole life and I just have... I think I'm just... my tendency is to dislike my opponents. And Kevin was my screenmate for maybe the second... I don't remember which set. But honestly, he's so sweet and nice that I couldn't bring myself to dislike him, which I think is a great credit to what a sweet... you're so lucky to be dating this... and well, I should be saying he's lucky to be dating you too. But to have this symbiotic relationship where bridge certainly at the beginning was at the forefront of it. But I could ask you about questions... I've got questions for days about you and Kevin's bridge relationships.

Amber Lin: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, we're both lucky to have each other of course. I think it's funny about your comment about disliking opponents because I think in bridge, well, people are just always playing against each other and it's such a small world in some sense where teams are constantly switching up. So I think it's hard to do that consistently. Maybe it's good while you're playing to really want to beat your opponents. But yeah, I mean I think that our relationship was definitely and still is really based on bridge, and I think for us it works really well because we both just want to talk about bridge for hours every day.

So we have that and we can do that with each other. And yeah, I think... I don't know. I think that it is, yeah, I do want to say that we do spend time on things outside of bridge, but it probably wouldn't be a stretch to say, I don't know, two thirds of our relationship revolves around bridge. We also play tennis, hang out. When we visit Kevin's parents, we never play bridge. We do talk about bridge a bit, but we will try to do some... we'll play tennis together or pickleball, go on walks, get dinner, watch movies more.

John McAllister: How far do you live from Debbie and Michael?

Amber Lin: We live around 15 minutes away.

John McAllister: Oh, wow. That's close.

Amber Lin: So pretty convenient.

John McAllister: And did you and Kevin get the place where you're living together or did one of you move into the other's home?

Amber Lin: We got this place, so we live in Millbrae, which is basically right in between the city, San Francisco and South Bay, so where Kevin is working, he's working in Santa Clara right now. So we got this place together so I could go easily take the train to my office and then he could also go and commute to his office.

John McAllister: And is he here right now at your place or is he somewhere else?

Amber Lin: Yeah, he's here. He's working from home today. He's in the next room.

John McAllister: Got it.

Amber Lin: Right now.

John McAllister: Maybe he's texting you suggestions. So he said, his quote was... I don't remember who it was. I don't know if it was Olivia Schireson who told me about... she referred to it as board review. And so I had heard about that a little bit. And then Kevin in his email to me said that your board review, the two of your board review is only paralleled by Michael Xu's sending emails to his dad.

Amber Lin: Yeah, that's pretty funny. Well, I think for people who've seen Michael Xu's interview, they'll have more context on this. But I mean, yeah, I can give more details on-

John McAllister: Oh, please.

Amber Lin: Maybe what... it probably sounds extremely boring, I think.

John McAllister: No.

Amber Lin: Especially I think when we were basically playing a lot of bridge with their friends and then basically going to play bridge, going to a club game, going to a sectional was never just about doing that, but also getting to go get dinner afterwards, get dessert, and then talk about the hands during that. And I think a lot of bridge players can relate to this. It's not just about being at the table, but the social experience afterwards. And I think I really like organizing things, having notes on things, spreadsheets, that kind of thing, which works great for my job. But when it comes to bridge, I think the norm is just kind of talk about it then and then move on from that. But for me, I would like to make a Google Doc pretty much on every single day of bridge we played.

John McAllister: Oh my gosh.

Amber Lin: Whether it was two hours of training or a sectional or a club game, and I would take notes on everything. So I think that was kind of the basis of a lot of the board review and not necessarily that I go back and look at these. We joke that, "Okay, when we write a bridge book, this is going to be good material for that."

It was helpful, especially throughout covid when we played a lot of online, we could easily share these notes with our friends and teammates and partners. So I feel like that maybe is part of it, taking... writing down the board name, writing down bidding comments, writing down play comments, and every single thing. I think we do that a lot less now, mainly just for online trainings, but I think that was kind of the start. Part of it was also working on system notes together. So Kevin was kind of an informal, or even formal, actually, I think partnership coach for me and Emma for a while, and we developed the first version of our system notes together and working through... and a lot of my note taking would be like, okay, adding comments to the system notes where there are gaps, where there are not.

But yeah, I think that maybe describes the basis of it. Pretty much what you would expect, I think when you hear board review, but a lot of documentation and very in depth. I think our brand of talking about hands is like we'll go down to the detail of which spot card should you have played to more likely hide this position, how could you best trick the opponents into making mistake here. We would definitely go card by card if we had the time to do it. And yeah, I think that translates into our mentorship and teaching style too. And I think that's what people have told us too, that it's slower for sure. We do not get through nearly as many boards and maybe we'll definitely go into details that are less practically helpful, but I think it really helps with the understanding of the game and seeing cool things about the game and going through alternate lines or like, "Oh, if we actually flip these two cards, there's a really cool squeeze that could have happened," going through the hypotheticals levels within reviewing the boards.

John McAllister: So Olivia Schireson gave me this double dummy problem where you can make... there's a finesse on and you can make... I think it's 7H, but she gave it... you weren't involved with that?

Amber Lin: Maybe, I don't remember immediately. I also have a really terrible memory, long-term. That's why I like bridge so much because it's like you only need to remember within this 10-minute window.

John McAllister: Were you writing up these Google Docs prior to dating Kevin?

Amber Lin: Yes.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Amber Lin: Yeah. And it wasn't just a me and Kevin thing, even though we did end up spending a lot of time together this way, but it would be a group, either the group that we had played with and everyone who went to the club or the sectional that day, we would chat about it together. Or throughout covid, Emma and I played a ton and we played all the Reynolds games, the JLalls, Schafer Games, we played so much, and then we would do Zoom calls afterwards with us and then whoever else had played in that match and then do that discussion together.

John McAllister: Wow, that's how you guys won the trials.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think it was a lot of time and effort put in for sure. Yeah, I don't know. I think that bridge requires some level of talent, and I think some people are definitely much more naturally talented. But for me, I think a lot of my bridge development has really come from just analyzing, talking about boards a lot and also breaking a lot of old habits. I don't think I learned necessarily the expert standard way of learning bridge. So there was a lot to unlearn too, but it was also just really fun. I think I want to emphasize that it wasn't feeling like we were doing schoolwork or anything because we were with our friends.

John McAllister: I mean, that's why I'm so curious too is, that's the thing about bridge. It's such a rich tapestry for learning. And your boyfriend is a great bridge player. His parents are great Bridge players. I mean, you're really at the epicenter of bridge, and they also have... they're generous with their feedback. And so I think that's a really exciting place to be if you love bridge. And I'm not saying that that's the only thing, but I mean the system notes that I play with my partners are this copy of something that Kevin shared with me that his mom made, and that's the basis for the system that I play. So I mean, Michael was the head of the USBF Junior program for several years and really did an amazing job with that. So I mean, so many people are influenced by...

Amber Lin: Yeah, totally agreed. I think it's really incredible how experienced and how good they are, the Rosenbergs at teaching, and also how much effort they've put into youth bridge. I mean, I think bridge in general is something that is really a mentorship heavy kind of game, and there's so many people out there who are really devoting and dedicating a lot of time to mentoring others. And I think part of it is that you were mentored by a lot of people when everyone had their mentors growing up. It's really hard to just learn bridge on your own or just through reading books. Even though I learned from Dan Korbel that I think he said that he read 200 bridge books or something in high school, and that-

John McAllister: Oh my gosh.

Amber Lin: Helped him learn a lot. But I think most people are not that studious and learn from mentorship. And I think also definitely I've been super lucky to learn a lot from the Rosenbergs and also many other mentors. I did want to give a shout out to a lot of the other mentors I've had recently, if that's okay.

John McAllister: You want to name some names?

Amber Lin: Yeah.

John McAllister: Absolutely. Go ahead.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I mean maybe something interesting for people would be what I think a lot of different mentors... I feel like I've learned from them. I mean, I think from the Rosenbergs, amazingly solid technical foundations for sure, and a lot of just what expert standard is and just honestly probably everything from that. And then addition to that, I've been really lucky to work with a lot of top players, especially in the past couple years. So this year I worked a lot with Chris as a partner, Chris Willenken as a partner.

And I think he is renowned as a bidding expert systems person. And I did learn some really interesting things about bidding gadgets that are... but I think even more so from him, I've learned a lot in terms of how to think about expected value decisions, how to save your mental energy at tournaments, where to prioritize your thinking time and energy and where to less do that, where it matters less. And I think that's really changed how I think about bridge and even teaching bridge and just how to think about a tournament and winning the tournament mentality versus I think the Rosenberg style is very philosophical sometimes and thinking about bridge as an academic matter, even including academically, practically what you should do versus... but yeah, so I think that's been really, really helpful.

I also got to play with Shan a couple times last year. I think obviously a super talented player, great guy. I think he was just an incredible partner and supportive teammate, and I think seeing his dynamic with his teams was also really, really inspiring. And yeah, I got to play with Palma one time. I think he was great too. We joke now that Palma's rule we've made up, I don't think I've actually told him this, was to double check your hand evaluation if you have an A-J-10 or a similar holding, because I remember one of the things he told me was he thinks that this is one of the most underrated holdings in all of bridge. So things like that are really cool to just see how different people think about bridge.

And then obviously through the USBF training program, so many mentors have dedicated so much time to teaching Juniors, and I'm really sad to be kind of aging out of this program a bit now. Our partnership coach was Roger Lee. He was so great with the U21 team this year as NPC. And then as a partnership coach, he had a really, I think, helpful philosophical style, a lot of discussion. It felt kind of Socratic in a way, imagining different... more through the bidding, but thinking about different worlds in terms of how this bidding or how this hand could have played out. And we had Dan Korbel as our NPC, more of a hands-on mentor. We had Geoff Hampson as our weekly online Junior training mentor. I think he really helped a very conservative team get more comfortable with competitive bidding and preempting and just that was really great, so.

John McAllister: These are some pretty heavy hitting like... wow, you got some great mentors.

Amber Lin: Yeah, there's just so many people who are really devoted, I think, and willing to volunteer their time to teach young players and maybe all players. Yeah, there are more infinite names. I think I also want to shout out to Kent, Kent was my first Rona NPC on the U26 women's team.

John McAllister: Kent Mignocchi?

Amber Lin: Mm-hmm. And yeah, obviously incredible person too, but he's really the... I still remember he taught me non-serious 3NT among many, many other basic conventions that I hadn't learned yet. And I spent as much time as possible as I could with him during my first U26 women's experience and just felt like, yeah, he was so happy to teach us and be there for us and also work out all the team drama, which unfortunately there's always a lot of with Junior teams, but yeah.

John McAllister: Who was your partner in the Juniors this past time?

Amber Lin: This summer I played with Cynthia.

John McAllister: Cynthia. Oh, okay, right. That's Roger's girlfriend.

Amber Lin: Yeah.

John McAllister: Okay, yeah.

Amber Lin: Sorry. Well, okay. I didn't actually get to play with her, but in my mind I still played with her because she couldn't actually come to the tournament last minute due to a visa issue. But we had trained together consistently and we're going to keep playing together whenever we can. We're also best friends, so it's a really great experience playing with her too. And yeah, I think she's super talented young player too. And then what actually happened on my team was that I ended up rotating. We played five handed with every other player, which unfortunately I also had a lot of experience doing. This is probably a funny coincidence that the last two times I'd played on the Junior women's team in 2016 and 2018, my partner had to drop out kind of last minute a couple months before, and then I ended up playing five handed. They're all okay now, I think nothing... no permanent issues. But yeah, it was pretty an unfortunate situation since we had all trained together for a year pretty much, and we're really excited for it together.

John McAllister: Right. When you play with everybody, what do you play? Their system?

Amber Lin: Yeah, so I learned one of the pair system, which was very, very similar to our system, so it wasn't too bad. And then with the other pair, Richard and Brent, they played a precision with transfer symmetric relay system. So I did not learn that one, and we just created a simple two over one card for us to play. Yeah, I think there were surprisingly few system related incidences, maybe some more from just being more practical when we didn't have agreements, but I think that part went eventually smoothly.

John McAllister: Did you guys make it to the knockout?

Amber Lin: No, we ended up... honestly, can't remember, around 12th or something. So yeah, it was still a really great experience and I think if we had some better rounds, we could have made it. But yeah.

John McAllister: How much do you and Kevin play?

Amber Lin: I think Kevin and I play a decent amount together. To describe that in more detail, we'll play local games together a lot. I think kind of the major tournament we're doing together now is the GNT. So we did that this year together as a partnership. And then we'll probably... we played the Gold Coast together too. So we'll probably try to play at least a couple tournaments every year together. But we do each have different partners too.

John McAllister: Going back to the board review, are there any rules? What are the rules for board review?

Amber Lin: When you ask that, the main one that comes to mind is that if we're at a restaurant, you have to order first or know what you're going to order before talking about hands.

John McAllister: Okay.

Amber Lin: So that's more like, I think I've heard that many bridge playing friend groups and families have that role.

John McAllister: How has it evolved? Well, you talked about that a little bit. Sorry, nevermind. Forget about that. Does Kevin ever hold back?

Amber Lin: I don't think so, or I don't know what you mean by hold back, I guess in terms of being more in a critical tone. We talk about everything, I think, and yeah, and I think we don't really use very harsh language, but we'll be very honest and direct. So I think it's because we're so used to it. I don't think board review, knock on wood, has ever led to actual arguments or anything like that. I don't know last night in the car, for example, we disagreed on whether I should have bid or passed over an undiscussed jump bid, and we, I think, talked about all the pros and cons, pretty much agreed that each was reasonable, but agreed to disagree on what ended up happening. So yeah, I think we feel super comfortable expressing opposing opinions all the time.

John McAllister: What event were you playing in last night?

Amber Lin: We played at the Palo Alto Club with different partners actually, with some other Juniors in the area with Sriram and Rory. And then it was fun. Then we did a hangout afterwards reviewing the boards.

John McAllister: In person like at a restaurant?

Amber Lin: In person. Yeah.

John McAllister: And who won of the...

Amber Lin: Well, neither of us won, but yeah, Kevin and Sriram did a bit better than me and Rory.

John McAllister: Oh wow.

Amber Lin: We did give them two tops, I think in the last round, so that probably helped.

John McAllister: Who won the game?

Amber Lin: I cannot remember their names. Sorry. But it is easily Googled information.

John McAllister: What bridge club are we talking about here?

Amber Lin: The Palo Alto Bridge Club.

John McAllister: Palo Alto Bridge Club. Was Will Watson the director?

Amber Lin: Not for this one. He directs some other games there, but I think Paul Davis helped cover actually.

John McAllister: And so do you guys play on Wednesday nights in that game a lot of the time?

Amber Lin: I think we play some... I don't know, maybe I probably play once in a while. Kevin's played a lot more. He's actually gotten two of his coworkers from his Corporate Bridge Club to start going pretty regularly and they play in the 0 to 20 section. And we saw them last night, just I think a huge success for a Corporate Bridge club.

John McAllister: Sure.

Amber Lin: That just... yeah, so we go somewhat regularly, I think every couple weeks or so.

John McAllister: And what time was the game over?

Amber Lin: It's like a 7 to 9:30, 10.

John McAllister: And so you went out-

Amber Lin: In that time pretty much.

John McAllister: Did you go to a restaurant afterwards?

Amber Lin: Yeah, we went to Jack in the Box from 10 to 12. Not many options late at night in California.

John McAllister: Fast food. I guess the reason I asked about the rules and with Katie for example, we played last week. We still haven't gone over the boards. She's been busy and I think wasn't feeling well, but I guess I wonder, I mean it's not the same, but I just wonder... yeah, I guess I only have so much time to go over the boards with her, and so I wonder where to focus.

Amber Lin: Yeah, for sure. I think board review in a mentorship context and teaching context is very different, especially with limited time. And that's something we've been discussing too within... we're doing as part of the intensive program two group trainings a week where we definitely have very limited time in what to discuss. So I mean, I think it definitely makes sense to prioritize what you think are the biggest points to cover. And then in addition to that, I know Katie will probably have a million questions of her own. So we actually, even at the session yesterday had to be like, "Okay, some of these questions we're going to answer offline or an email because they're not as important in terms of high EV decision making," but bringing back that Chris Willenken language there. So I think even when you answer, you can say, "Okay, this decision on whether you played this convention or whether you made this close bid is not going to swing a lot of IMPs in the long run, but we can talk about it from an academic perspective. But these are the decisions that will, and let's focus on those first."

So that's one way. And another way to look at it is where can you bring in, I think, broader themes that are really important? So even if the singular hand, it was too hard to really think about, okay, what was the optimal? Declarer play a line or defensive line, but instead relating it to broader themes like knocking out the side suit before drawing trump sometimes. Or if it was, I don't know, a crossruff hand or we're trying to draw declarer's trumps, that kind of thing. So always bringing those themes back versus getting focused on the exact right play on a specific hand I think is more beneficial.

John McAllister: What about when one of you, I'm talking about you and Kevin, when one of you has a blind spot? How does that... and I am thinking probably more you than Kevin, sorry, but I don't want to... when you have a blind spot on a hand and he points it out to you, how does that go?

Amber Lin: I think fine. Yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah?

Amber Lin: I'll be like, "Oh yeah, I missed that spot or something."

John McAllister: He doesn't sugar coat it though?

Amber Lin: That's what's happened.

John McAllister: When he ask-

Amber Lin: Kevin is not a sugar coater at all.

John McAllister: No?

Amber Lin: Yeah. I think actually we were having this discussion about, I was like, "Okay, I think in training before you say something critical, you should say something positive first." So start with, "Okay, a lot of what you just said was very logical and it could apply in lots of situations. However, in this situation, let's think about this instead." And Kevin's just like... kind of doesn't address what we asked him to talk about and then just goes straight into like, "Okay, what tricks are we looking for to set this contract?" So that's something we're going to work on for mentorship purposes. But yeah, I think having a really comfortable dynamic and also in your mentorship group is really important. Yeah, I am really happy that I think in our groups, we are just cold calling people to answer, "Okay, what were you thinking on that lead?" We won't go in and it's not a lecture style where we'll just say what we think.

But we'll always try to ask them first what they were thinking. And it can be so scary. I think if I was in that setting when I was in the training program in high school, I would've been so scared. But I hope that by having this small group of players who already kind of know each other pretty well too, they feel more comfortable. And we're trying to definitely call on people evenly too, depending on what comes up. So I think that is the best way to help develop people if you actually feel comfortable talking about what you were thinking, and then that's how you can adjust and insert new themes and ideas in there.

John McAllister: What about when you see Kevin make a mistake?

Amber Lin: I'll definitely call it out for sure. But I mean, yeah-

John McAllister: Do you relish it?

Amber Lin: He'll know. I mean, no, because I mean, okay, so maybe one example is we played the U31 pairs together this year. Yeah, actually I should have brought that up earlier. That was the first somewhat big event that we had played together and won. And I think on the last board of that, it was a very scary last round. I think we had two bottom boards the last round.

John McAllister: Oh wow.

Amber Lin: And one of them, Kevin had basically missed a card on the hand and had misplayed to let them make a couple... it was one or two overtricks in a no-trump contract in matchpoints. And yeah, he definitely knew it and was very upset with himself afterwards. I think also because it was a very high-pressure situation. So that one, I did not need to rub in or yeah, talk about. I mean, yeah, again, I think everyone... Kevin is obviously very perfect most of the time, but everyone will have a mistake sometimes. And even after the emotions died down, we were able to actually talk about the carding on that hand, which I think we ended up still disagreeing about and what the optimal pitches were from my hand and his hand to give each other the right information and so on. So yeah, I don't know if that helps answer your question, but...

John McAllister: How much time do you think you guys spend on a deal? Let's say there's a deal with a lot of interest. How much time do you think you spend on it?

Amber Lin: As much as we want to. Yeah. I think we could talk about a single board for a very long time if it was very interesting, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or sometimes I think something that really helped me, especially throughout a lot of learning phases in the past few years, was when he would be like, "Oh, you can make this hand, rearrange this." Then I would leave and go spend time staring at it trying to solve it. Basically solving double dummy and single dummy problems on my own time, so.

John McAllister: What about when you need some more artillery? Who do you go to? When you're having this disagreement, do you go to his parents or do you have anybody that you go to outside of the family? How does that work?

Amber Lin: I would say mainly, yeah, we go to his parents. We'll ask them what they think. And yeah, I don't know. I don't think I really will go that far out. Maybe I'll post it on Bridge Winners. That's one avenue. There's a USBF Training Bridge Winners forum, which probably could be more active. So encourage everyone to post on there where mentors will... it's mainly for juniors posting problems, and then mentors will comment and answer. So I think that's a great resource. But yeah, since we hang out with his parents pretty frequently, it'll usually come up, the ones that we were most on the fence about.

John McAllister: Do you have plans for the fall nationals?

Amber Lin: Yes. Yeah, so I'm actually excited to be playing with Juniors, so mostly my Junior team from this world championships. So I'll be playing with Cynthia and Stella and Cornelius for a bit. And then Stella and Ben Kristensen, who was on the USA1 team and was Kevin's regular Junior partner.

John McAllister: Oh, that's cool. I haven't seen Ben at a tournament in a while. I see him on the Barbu website.

Amber Lin: Yeah, he's really good at Barbu.

John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah. I played at midnight with Ben as my partner a long time ago. I think it was in Las Vegas, so that was probably 2015.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think I've actually known Ben for way longer than I've known Kevin, even though they were partners somehow. Yeah, Ben was more sociable in a way than Kevin, and we got to... I hung out with him a bit in the different junior tournaments and Youth NABCs, so it's great. I hope to see him at some more tournaments too.

John McAllister: What are you guys going to do with SiVY, getting that back going?

Amber Lin: Yeah, so I think the main SiVY plan right now is starting small. So SiVY used to be a very large program. They had afterschool programs in many schools and a lot of events at the Palo Alto Bridge Center, which is just an awesome location that they actually have a full-time space for Bridge activities and very willing to use that space for youth activities. So starting November, we're going to be having a drop in session that we call Casual Fridays every Friday night.

And then a Winter Bridge camp. So they used to do summer camps, and this is kind of like a pilot program thinking that we'll probably get less people for a winter camp, but that might be good. So we can start small, figure out how to run a camp again. And I think one other thing that I'm trying to combine Silicon Valley Youth Bridge with, and also some things I'm working on with the ACBLEF is programming for young adults. So kind of college students to 30, 40 age range, so people who had started working probably don't usually have busy family lives yet, to capture that age range. And one idea we're going to have is after the kids' time on Friday, having a young adult night for casual bridge after that.

And I think one thing we've been hearing from the people we do play bridge with in their 20s is that it isn't really easy to teach their friends, their non-Bridge playing friends and find enough people for a game and then teach beginners from scratch. It's really hard. So I think the idea is create a space where people can just easily bring their non-bridge playing friends, have drinks and food, have it be fun, really casual, not like... some of our club games, I think people can get pretty serious. So have it very fun and casual and create that kind of environment.

And then hopefully this can also help be a model that we can start doing in other cities and areas as well. And I think the growth of the Collegiate Program, even post covid, recovering post-covid that I think Stephanie Threlkeld has done a great job with in the ACBL, has been building and recruiting so many new bridge players like Katie's program too. She's teaching so many people at UVA, but then how can we keep them continuing with bridge after they graduate? What are the similar avenues for that?

John McAllister: I think you probably need to be getting some consideration for ACBL Volunteer of the Year. I don't know how that works. I'll have to look into that.

Amber Lin: I think that, yeah, most of what I'm saying right now are still ideas and planning and we have not done anything yet. So we should talk again after we see how many people we actually get at these programs.

John McAllister: So Katie Sullivan's in this intensive program?

Amber Lin: So Katie Sullivan and four pairs total right now are in the intensive program. Kind of limited by Kevin and I'S bandwidth right now. But yeah, it's great. I think part of... I mean what motivated us to do this in the first place was seeing how motivated a lot of the players were. And Katie's a great example of that, super inquisitive, willing to dedicate a lot of time and hard work to improving up bridge.

John McAllister: Can you give me a quick Katie story from the intensive program? You got anything? Got anything?

Amber Lin: I don't know if there's anything fun to talk about, but we've done a few partnership coaching sessions with her partner, Caroline. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure there's anything-

John McAllister: How do you structure that?

Amber Lin: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I know you were also helping partnership coach, so really appreciate that. So I think that for more broader context too, I'm trying to think about the partnership coaching sessions in conjunction with the overall training program and having a plan essentially laid out for what topics we want to cover throughout the rest of the year and then cover those topics. So the way we're doing it right now is I think focusing the next two months on doing a bidding overview essentially of creating, building their full system at probably a high level and then covering any gaps within that at a high level.

So running everything from your opening style, one minor, one major competitive auctions, constructive auctions, and sectioning that out into each of the weekly sessions. So we would do that coverage for an hour and then do free bidding tables to work on bidding judgment and just kind of have fun with random hands for the next hour. And I think after that crash course in system, November, December, the plan will be to focus on defense. So dealing with the carding, doing some different exercises, haven't fully thought out that part yet.

But I think part of the idea is that I think people tend to learn very piecemeal right now, the way it's taught is we play these random hands that come up and then we talk about whatever comes up in these hands. And there's a lot of repeated themes. People will eventually learn everything through this method. But I think for me, going back to the way I wish I'd been taught bridge is that I kind of want this encyclopedia of reference of what is expert standard on everything and in card play, what is the full conceptual toolkit of declarer and defensive plays that I should at least be aware of. And then those are categorized from more basic to advanced and at least giving them all the awareness and understanding of all these plays while then combining that with more fun casual group training, or not casual, but more random hands and then showing how all these themes can be then applied to a random hand.

Yeah. Sorry, going back to the full partnership method, it's kind of a similar thing, filling in all the bidding gaps, making sure they understand at some level the basics of slam bidding or what are all the tools and conventions that you'll see. I think something that I felt scared or uncomfortable with was when I would play people at a table and they would be talking about something I'd never heard of before. I remember when I first played against someone who did odd/even discards or Lavinthal, I was like, "What is that? I'm so confused." So at least giving people that exposure so they feel like they've heard of things before, even if they don't need to add it to their own system or own carding or agreements.

John McAllister: Yeah, I think that's one thing that Migry taught me was she taught me to always ask people what their agreements are.

Amber Lin: Yeah, very good advice.

John McAllister: I think sometimes when I think about bridge, I think it's fair to say that we're both pretty into it.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

John McAllister: When I think about bridge sometimes in the broader context of life, I think about... I'll say somebody's a great bridge player. And I think sometimes more recently have I started to think this, I feel like such a dork by kind of defining people by being great bridge players. I'm like, "How does that sound?" And I wonder if you have any of those same kind of misgivings ever about... I mean, it's not that I don't love it. I mean, look, I initiated this conversation with you because I love bridge and I'm asking these things because I'm genuinely curious and I see it helping me do what I want to do better. But how do you think about your relationship to bridge in the broader context of life?

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that's a really great question and I think very relevant to me personally since I'm basically spending my full time on bridge or bridge-related activities right now. And I've taken time off my regular job to do that. So yeah, I mean I think it's a really personal question in terms of whether you want to be full-time dedicated to bridge or not. And I think I'm so happy that there are so many people who are full-time dedicated because in order for this game to survive, we need that. And I think it brings so much joy in community and so many good things to so many people throughout the world. So I mean, I think it is... yeah, so in that context, maybe less so thinking about people in terms of, "Oh, they're a really great bridge player, or they're a really great person who plays bridge," is okay in that sense, I think.

I think for me personally, I also do have a lot of interests outside of bridge that I am really passionate about. So I studied civil environmental engineering in college and even in high school throughout that time period, I found myself just being really passionate about environmental and energy work and the climate crisis. So I feel like I kind of knew that's what I wanted to spend a lot of time on from an early age. And then I really have enjoyed a lot of the work I've done at Bain in this area throughout the past few years. So that's why I do want to go back and do a full-time job that's centered around that. But bridge has also, of course, been a huge part of my life and very, very positive. So I think, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what balance I personally want to have between the two, but I think it's more of a personal thing of how I'm super interested in these other topics.

John McAllister: I guess what I'm relating is that sometimes I'll say somebody, "Oh, they're a great bridge player," I'll say that about somebody. And I'll think how much that means to me and how much I admire that about them. And then I think about other niche... I would say bridge is a fairly niche activity. And I think about other niche activities where someone's probably really good but I can't... or they are really good, but I don't have access to appreciate how good they are because I don't even really understand the basics of the game. And when I say that, I just notice, when I say, "They're a great bridge player," and even the noun player, to me it's a little bit goofy, I think. Anyway, I'm not sure that I-

Amber Lin: I think of that in a ways similar to saying X is a great basketball player or a tennis player. I think that's a great thing to admire about somebody being very good at a certain activity. But yeah, it's just more because bridge is a smaller and less well-known activity. Yeah, I think I could probably say that about myself and probably a lot of sports that I don't understand them to enough of a level to appreciate why this person is a great player in this sport. But I think it's still good to admire someone for their ability, hard work and achievements and activity.

John McAllister: I guess with sports, I think that people I think it's... I'm from sports, that's my life. And so I think of sports as being easier to appreciate with the naked eye. And so with bridge, I mean obviously it's an amazing game, but it's so just even crack the surface to someone is so... it's just so hard to do. And...

Amber Lin: Yeah. That's a really hard issue that I think that as people with shared interest in making this game, I don't know, survive or continue to be played in future generations, that's something that we want to try to figure out. I think common topic, I think in bridge discussions has been like, "Okay, how has chess gotten so popular with Twitch streaming and Queen's Gambit and all these things? Why can't we do the same for bridge?" And I'm sure that's a very complicated reason to talk about, but yeah, I think the accessibility and getting more [inaudible 01:18:24] is a big barrier to getting more people into the game.

John McAllister: I don't like teaching beginners, I don't enjoy it. Like you say that you have a lot of experience doing that. I mean, if you know how to play bridge,

Amber Lin: Yeah, it's really hard.

John McAllister: I'm so fired up. But beginners, it's just like...

Amber Lin: It's really hard. Yeah, I think for me, I really like working with kids, so... working with kids who are beginners is still can be very energy inducing to me because there's also that component. And I don't know, I think I like thinking about very basic concepts of why I like bridge or why bridge is cool and being able to show them that, is a great foundation versus getting to the weeds of, "Okay, what do all these bids mean?" Or I don't know. Kevin has been, I think really great at teaching beginners. His corporate club, very much people completely brand new to bridge and he spends on average a couple hours a week with them doing this. And I think part of it... I mean I haven't actually been there for these sessions, but I think part of it is introducing them to cool card play techniques very early on, getting them hooked into the actual strategy or ways of thinking.

And then a lot, they end up just taking on their own. They just started reading Bridge Winners and reading lots of maybe some sources that aren't as helpful, but sources on learning the bidding basics and going through some beginner... I think there's really great sources online for doing beginner's courses. So I think maybe the future teaching beginners is kind of a combination of some face-to-face time, but also getting them to spend their own time using these different programs online to ramp up. And then I think once you get to a certain level, it's a lot more effective to learn in person and from people.

John McAllister: When you play tennis with Kevin, do you guys play singles?

Amber Lin: Yes, pretty much. Unless there's... yeah, I mean we're happy to play doubles with people, but it's just more effort to coordinate.

John McAllister: And do you guys keep score?

Amber Lin: Sometimes. Yeah. So I mean for context, I am pretty much a beginner new tennis player and Kevin has had a lot more experience. Well, his experience was his JV Tennis team in high school, but still a lot more relatively experienced. So I mean I think he's pretty much been kind of teaching me and we mainly do it for good exercise too.

John McAllister: Yeah. Tell me about the Educational Foundation, I mean, have you been a full-time intern there or?

Amber Lin: Yeah, so I've pretty much been a full-time intern outside of all the bridge tournaments, which has been a lot throughout the period, but I'm pretty much full-time for the rest of the year. And yeah, I mean I think I'd never heard of the Educational Foundation before I started working with them and I learned about it... honestly, I'm not sure. I think I learned about it through the funding for the Transnationals program and talking to them about funding the Rona team and then really liked the experiences I had working with Kristen and Robert and Michael Berkowitz and then that... so then I asked them about whether they'd be interested in trying to put together an internship program for me to do. And yeah, I mean I think maybe I should just explain what it is, or maybe you should do that as a member of the board for your viewers.

John McAllister: Yeah, I'm a board member of the ACBL Educational Foundation. Broadly speaking, our goal is to support initiatives that are growing the game of bridge, I would say. Yeah. And I'm sure that knowing Robert, you said you were interested in interning, that he probably said yes in about half a second. He was like, "What can we do?" Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure it was very enthusiastic.

Amber Lin: Yeah, I think it's basically a really awesome organization run by people who are really passionate about keeping this game alive and teaching new people and supporting more intermediate players and advanced players as well. So I think my official title or something is a Young Adult Program Intern. So that's mainly been my focus, but also has kind of spread into working on other youth programs, collegiate programs. And also my main focus for earlier this year was helping Tracey run the charity auction. And I know she was also on this podcast talking a bit more about that. So fundraising for Junior Bridge is a big part of it. And then the other part, I think I spoke a little bit with SiVY, but working on thinking about program design for the young adult demographic.

They've also started up in the past few years, the Whiz Kids Program, I think, which is an online class course-based program for kids to learn bridge. They have some beginner and intermediate modules and yeah, I think that's been going pretty well. So that's kind of like their demographic based teaching program strategy is how to describe it. So they have a youth offering. So I'm working on figuring out the young adult offering.

John McAllister: Got it.

Amber Lin: And they have plenty for the older age demographics already.

John McAllister: What's your goal? What's your goal for bridge 10 years...

Amber Lin: Yeah, great question. I don't think that I necessarily have a 5, 10, 15 year goal for bridge, but I think a lot of that has developed for me recently. I mean, I think definitely my biggest goal is just getting better and better. I think I'm still in a stage where I am really motivated by seeing improvements in my game and hopefully that continues for a while. And I think longer term, I'm definitely willing to put in, I think, the effort and the hard work to try to get to whatever the highest levels are. I think my dream goal would be winning some type of big event like a Bermuda Bowl or Rosenblum with an all-female team. And I think we're going to need a lot more female bridge players to make that happen. So I'm basically working on that.

John McAllister: Love that.

Amber Lin: From all angles.

John McAllister: Well, it's great to connect with you, Amber, and it was really fun to just really dig deeper into all that you're doing because I have so much admiration for that, and I think we're so lucky... as a bridge player, I'm so grateful that you love the game and to be able to share your story with our listeners hopefully will... I think people will be inspired and I love that goal. I was wondering if you were going to say with Kevin, but I like the all-female.

Amber Lin: Yeah, maybe I can do one with Kevin too. We'll see if he makes the cut. Yeah. But yeah, thank you so much for having me. Also, really admire everything you do for bridge. Yeah. Running podcasts, supporting Youth Bridge all through the district, the ACBL Educational Foundation. It's been very, very inspiring too.

John McAllister: All right, well give my best to Kevin and Debbie and Michael and sorry that you won't be in Ventura. I got excited thinking about the possibility of maybe playing with you guys there. So anyway, I'll be in touch when this is... I'm going to stop recording.

Amber Lin: Yeah, maybe next time.

The Setting Trick

Episode 64: Amber Lin