Transcript:

John McAllister:

This is John McAllister, host of The Setting Trick, and I'm doing an intro again because I want to tell you about the Spark! Foundation Pro/Am. This is your chance to play with and against your favorite Setting Trick guest, Bob Hamman, Jeff Meckstroth, Adam and Zach Grossack, [inaudible 00:00:24] or best of all, me. The Pro/Am takes place on Monday evening, July 10th at 7:00 PM Eastern Time on the website, Real Bridge.

If you go to the settingtrick.com or our Instagram or Facebook pages, we'll have a link to the auction site where you can bid on the chance to play with one of these or many other great players. And best of all, the funds from the Spark Foundation go to benefit Junior Bridge. I look forward to playing with and against you on July 10th and don't delay because the auction ends on July 5th.

So, I'm here with Tracey Bauer, who recently made it to the finals of the mixed trials here in the United States. I think it's certainly your best result to date. And you had reached out to me before that event because you're organizing a fundraiser for Junior Bridge and you wanted to share that with our audience. And now, you're almost went in the mixed trials. So, what was that like? I mean, you were on a six-person Dinkin team. You barely made it out of the round robin and then you just can't stop winning.

Tracey Bauer:

Well, I think we just got really lucky. And I think, John, look, you're a giver. I think the more that we give out to other people, the more the universe brings back to us. So, Bronia Jenkins had just gotten the position for the executive director of the ACBL. She was originally supposed to be on the Dinkin team.

So when that happened, they needed somebody to play with Billy Cohen. And I got the phone call. I actually got the phone call on the last day of the online women's event, which the WBF does. I have won that a couple of times, but I came in second this time. I called Deb Smith, the beast. She's out of New Zealand. She has won it the last two times and she can beat me. So, she must be a beast.

John McAllister:

It's WBF. What is it? It's a women's festival?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. The World Bridge Federation has been putting on this online women's festival. It's a week long. It goes seven days. There's seven tournaments a day for seven days long. I call it the Iron Woman of Bridge. There's two individuals which I call Russian roulette because there's women from all over the world. People are coming in at all different times. So, here I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, so timing 2:00 AM in the morning is an individual that's matchpoints, 5:30 AM ... Look at John's face, if you could see him on video, is like the thought of playing bridge.

Now listen to the schedule, it's insane. So, 2:00 AM is an individual matchpoints. So, Russian roulette, 10 boards, that only takes an hour, each one of these, unless the robots take a lot less. At 5:30 in the morning is a robot game that's match points. 7:10 AM would be another individual, but now it's going to be IMPs. At 11:00 AM in the morning is a pair event.

Now I work and I am an outside sales rep and my region is from LA to Canada and all the mountain states. So, I have played that women's game on the side of the highway watching people pick strawberries. So, I'll pull over and play for the hour. So, 11:00 AM is a pair event. This past cycle, I played mostly either with Yoko Sobel, who was on my Dinkin team, and Emma Kolesnik came in a couple of the sets and played with me and helped me out. So, that was pretty awesome.

3:00 in the afternoon was a pair event that's IMPs. So, it's really testing you both matchpoint and IMPs in different venues. 6:00 PM is a robot that's IMPs. And then the very last one on the day is 10:00 PM, which is a robot matchpoints. So, the very last day I was playing that and I was leading some of it. I looked like I might win the event and if I had won the event, I was going to take Yoko with me to the next world championships because you get a free entry to the women's. And that's last year I did Poland because I had gotten a free entry from winning it previously.

And then I get a text from Yoko as I'm playing my last set. And she's like, "As soon as you're done playing, give me a ring." And they needed a woman and could I take some time off of work and go. Then I was like, "Play with Billy Cohen? Oh, my god, yeah, I think I can manage that."

And the way the US Bridge Championships are, they're in Schaumburg, and it's there for a whole month. So, they did the open, then they go into the mixed. And we started off, there was 10 teams in a round robin and we were hoping we would get out of the round robin. And then you go into the knockout phase. And I was actually just listening to your last podcast this week, and I think you said, I don't know, you've maybe gotten through one of the knockout phases.

John McAllister:

Well, I've played three round robins and I've gotten out of the round robin one time in the open trials.

Tracey Bauer:

Right, So, that was the same thing for our team. We had Sam Dinkin, who does this interesting system, the Dinkin diamond, which has a lot of swings to it. Some are good, some are bad. So, you never know what's going to happen depending on the set of boards. He was playing with Olivia Schireson, who's a child prodigy, who I started playing with when I think she was 14 here in the Bay Area.

And what was so cute of me going is I got to tell everyone I even came into the USBF because of Olivia, the very first JLALL, she had a group of juniors that were playing and she needed one more person. And I had been playing with Olivia, mentoring her a little bit during the pandemic and she called me up and she's like, "Tracey, can you help us out?" And that's a couple of days before the first JLALL. Jan Martel was setting me up with my USBF membership. And that's how I met George Jacobs and I played with him a little bit.

John McAllister:

The women's festival is 49 events then?

Tracey Bauer:

It's 49 events over seven days. And it's around a world clock so anybody in the world can play. So, the way most people play it, and I think Deb Smith just wrote an article about this as well. I've been doing this since I think 2009. So, when I first started playing in this, when it first started, I was a bumpkin. I mean, I really knew nothing. I feel so sorry for the people that came against me because I was self-taught and I mean, I can only imagine. I could play cards really well. I think you asked a little bit about bios. I was a very good spades player, so I can definitely take tricks and play cards, but I didn't know the bidding very well.

And I know some of the women got really upset with me in the first couple of years that I was playing, but I just kept getting better and better. And I think that's what the bridge journey is. I have read so many memoirs of different bridge players and listen to all the podcasts. And I really believe that you need to play this game about 20 years to see where you are going to go in the game.

John McAllister:

How do they keep score for this women's festival?

Tracey Bauer:

So, you go, I can send you the link later that you can look at it, but they do your 10 best scores. So, you do not have to play in all of them. But to make the top overalls, you'll need to have first, second, and thirds in at least 10 of the events or you're not going to make the top overalls. So, in the beginning of the week, scratches will help you look good on the leaderboard, but they're not going to matter by the time you get to that Sunday. So, it starts on a Monday, and finishes on a Sunday.

John McAllister:

And how they, let's say you win the pairs by a lot or it's just first, second and third. It's just like if you had ten first, would you automatically win?

Tracey Bauer:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Usually the winner has about, usually about five firsts, out of the 49 events. And then the WBF is also BBO and the WBF, they run it through cheating software as well. So, sometimes they wait a little while until they publish the events to make sure.

John McAllister:

And in the individual, how many boards do you play with your partner?

Tracey Bauer:

So, it's 10 boards. All of the events are 10 boards. So, it's you're done in an hour in the individual. It's two boards per player. So, the first thing I sit down is I write chat into the chat box, 1430 UDCA okay, and away you go. And then if somebody says they don't play upside down, then standard. And at least if we get into a slam, we know what we're doing. And otherwise, you try to play as simple as possible. I would imagine a lot of the better women players might fudge their no trumps a little bit to control the auction, but I don't know how many times.

So, I've counseled people on how to do well in these things. John, I'm nuts. So, beginning of the week, I usually don't do the 2:00 AM individual. You need to sleep.

John McAllister:

But then you get hungry, then you get hungry, you get hungry. I know hungry.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, exactly. By midweek, if I'm doing well, then I double down and now I don't sleep. And my family, my husband is amazing because we sleep together and my alarm's going off at 1:50 AM.

John McAllister:

Oh, my god.

Tracey Bauer:

And then I set an alarm-

John McAllister:

The 1:50 one is the individual or the 2:00?

Tracey Bauer:

So, 2:00 AM is the individual. And then the robot game is at 5:30 in the morning. So, I set an alarm for 5:25. And now I try to not really wake up. So, the alarm goes off, I turn on my iPad, I go to BBO. I log in. And then I hit another alarm for 30 minutes later and I go back to sleep.

John McAllister:

So, your iPad is logged in?

Tracey Bauer:

Right, because you have 70 minutes to finish it. So then, I go back to sleep for another half an hour to try to get ... I try not to wake myself fully. And then I get that an extra 30 minutes of sleep, and now I get up and I have only 35 minutes, 40 minutes to finish the robot game, which any of us that do robots, you can do a robot game in 10, 15 minutes usually.

John McAllister:

And I mean, your daughter was just helping set up this configuration, so you're in your daughter's bedroom because she has a legit mic, her phone for gaming. What does your daughter say about this schedule?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, I mean, I'm crazy. Come on, all bridge players are crazy.

John McAllister:

I want specific words. What does she say? Or does she even know? You hide it? You hide it from them?

Tracey Bauer:

No, I mean, when I'm doing that, I mean, when you're doing that World Bridge Federation thing that's a week long, by Thursday or Friday, you are sleep-deprived. It is hilarious to watch some women try it for the first time and to hear them talk on Friday or Saturday. And I started out in the beginning of the week. I have this whole thing, I try to do meditation before I play bridge. I try to get exercise when I'm playing high level bridge, which was one thing that the Dinkin team was doing. So, Sam-

John McAllister:

Yeah, I saw a photo of something.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, the badminton. Yeah. So, we were out walking every morning. So, Sam and I went out walking in the early mornings. And then I would come back, grab coffee. Yoko and I were rooming together. I'd wake her up with a latte and then we'd go downstairs and eat and then we would go play badminton. So, Yoko brought her guitar. She brought badminton. She brought a jump rope. I mean, just to keep us in a really good mood.

And we started out the round robin. I was not myself yet. I don't know if it was the nerves. I had some work stuff happening. I did not play very well during the round robin sets. So, we started play on Wednesday. And I wouldn't say that I really fully was in my body until that Sunday. When we started to take on the Lewis team, I was fully there. And that was the cool thing is, I played bridge a lot with Ron, I played bridge with Yoko, I played bridge with Olivia. So, we all know what I'm capable of and I wasn't playing my best yet. And that was the cool thing is we knew we had some upside to us as the week was going.

John McAllister:

And what about, do you ask to take a couple of days off work and then you ended up playing in this event for eight days or whatever. How does that go?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, yeah. When I called my director to ask for the time off, I told her, I'm like, look, "I've been asked to go to the US trials. It's going to be the first time for me and I really want to do this and we're going to leave on Tuesday. I'm probably going to be home Saturday. Mother's Day is on Sunday and I'll be back to work on Monday."

I mean, we did not expect. The Dinkin team did not bring enough clothes when we got through Pollack. Oh, my god. No, I think everybody was fine with trying to ... We got through Pollack and then we're going to take on the Lewis team that represented the United States the year before. So, that was Janice Molson, Dan Korbel, Mark Itabashi, Disa, Linda and Paul Lewis, a bunch of chumps.

So, we were all just going to wear our clothes. We can wear clothes another day or two, just stretch it out. I also had the added thing of being a woman who's just at that midlife and needing estrogen. And I didn't bring enough of that either. So, I joked with everybody. I think I'm pretty good natured most of the time. And I was like, "If I start to get a little testy, I'm really sorry," which I did. So, yeah, so when we beat the Lewis team, Sam had to go shopping.

John McAllister:

That's the thing though. The thing is, but you're forgetting, you're admitting from this is the Dinkin team comes with a sweatshirt. So, you guys had more clothes than a regular team would have because you had the sweatshirt.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, yeah. It was so cute. Yeah. So, Sam makes a sweatshirt for everybody with our name on it with the USBF logos. I saw him the other day. He's getting ready to do the GNTs with Finn for District 16. So, he got his whole team hoodies for that as well. Sam is the nicest guy.

John McAllister:

What do you mean you saw him the other day, virtually saw him or you saw him in person somewhere?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, he was commentating.

John McAllister:

Oh, oh, okay.

Tracey Bauer:

For the US Bridge Federation.

John McAllister:

Got it.

Tracey Bauer:

And that's something for all of you guys listening. I just twisted John's arm to help commentate today on the seniors. So, today is the very last day of the seniors. And we have the Wolfson team up against the Hamman team. And Hamman is right now up 137 to Wolfson's 102 because I am a crazy person and I have it in the background, John. And it's been so hard because I have friends on every team. I want them all to win.

And this was the other thing about the Bridge Championships. I had such an amazing time. Everybody was so nice and everybody was just so sweet to our team. They were calling us the Giant Killers and the Cinderellas. And I talked with Amy Casanova. I think there's going to be a little tiny bridge article that they're writing about our Cinderella run. But yeah, I mean, we just had a lot of gratitude.

Well, that was the other thing is people through US Bridge Championships every morning, I wrote notes to people. So, I brought two stacks of cards with me. So, I think I wrote about 30 cards or something during that week and gave them to different people each day. First off starting off with Jan and thanking her for running everything. And I really thanked her later in the week because she had some estrogen that she gave me to take me through the end tournament.

John McAllister:

I bet that she really appreciated that. That's really thoughtful. I bet that's rare too, to get something like that from a bridge player. Jan Martel we're talking about who does a lot. I mean, she is of service to bridge like no doubt.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. I mean, what she does and everything she does is amazing. And that's the thing is I think we all have to look at what ways we can help the organization. So much in bridge is run by the volunteers. And I think like you doing Double Dummy and doing these podcasts was a way for you to use your skill sets to give back to bridge.

So, I studied chemical engineering, but I actually left college and I ended up falling into the optical industry and eventually, I ended up on the wholesale end of the business. And I've worked wholesale sales for about 25 years now. And in the role that I work on now on the Chanel brand in the eyewear industry, we work very tightly with the Chanel brand. And I do everything. I do a lot of social media. We actually teach small businesses how to do better social media and stuff. So, I've been trying to help the bridge community with that.

Over a decade ago, I helped the ACBL with their social media plan that they rolled out back then. There's a lot of very small non-monetary things that we could do to make bridge have more exposure. And I've been trying to explain that to people.

But unfortunately, the age differences and what people's knowledge base are, and this is one of the things is I really think some of the rules that we have would be better served if we had more groups or committees and of different age groups, like the commentating and the people that have been watching the commentating on the US Bridge Championships. We have Brent Xiao and Cynthia Huang have been working on different ways that we can stream better. So, by the next time we stream, it should be a lot better.

We need to put together a whole PDF and how to and get all of the hosts up to doing it in that better way. And that's my hope by the next time. So, we learned a lot. I would say the commentating and what people are getting now is so much better than what it used to be using that LoveBridge platform. We use Zoom. We have it on Twitch. We can interact with the people that are listening.

We're doing a better product, but it can still be a thousand times better. And the more we improve our marketing and the way that we come across as a community to the outside world, the more people we can bring into our game and have interested in our game.

I did a simple thing, John on the USBF's Twitch site. I added some tags. And when I added a few tags, we got a couple of guys that came into our commentary and had been watching for a couple of weeks now that played bridge at some time in their life. They're gaming somewhere else. The USBF channel was recommended and then they got hooked and they've been watching for weeks now. And it's just because I added tags. We had no tags on it before.

John McAllister:

So, are you the person that's hosting the one that we're going to be doing in a couple hours?

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. Yeah. So, today's last day I'm helping Jan out. I'm hosting the second one with Geoff Hampson, the colonel, Colonel K, and I think maybe Jim Krekorian might be coming in on that one or he is coming in on yours. So, they just won USA one for the seniors.

John McAllister:

Oh, okay.

Tracey Bauer:

And then on the second one or on the third one, Jeff Roman's going to be there as well. So, I handle the tech stuff in the background.

John McAllister:

Got it.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes.

John McAllister:

Which is amazing because your daughter, every 10 seconds you were calling your daughter back into the room to get this ... I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm making-

Tracey Bauer:

If you're listening to this, you can't see. I'm giving him faces. Yeah, no. I was on the very first MUD back in engineering days, so back in the '80s, so multiuser Dungeons and Dragons, and it was all typing. So, I went to WPI, which is in Worcester, Massachusetts for college, and my boyfriend was at Syracuse. And it was a way that we communicated with each other. And then there's a joke with my family, you don't play games with Tracey because she always wins.

John McAllister:

That's not what your daughter said. Your daughter said she's better at hearts.

Tracey Bauer:

Well, my kids are good. My friends don't want to play. No, so we played on this silly thing. This was back in the 2400 […] days. This was Telnet. This was before there was the internet. And it was a game based out of Sweden. So, I don't know, I've been gaming a long time.

John McAllister:

All right. So, one of the things that got my attention when we were talking before this is you said that you've helped a lot of people listen to the podcast.

Tracey Bauer:

Mm-hmm. So, last night, I am going to be playing here at the Sacramento Regional with a friend of mine, and he's been begging me to play. It's his last chance at the zero to 6000s in Chicago. And I don't love doing the limited events. Even my second year of playing at the nationals, all I've ever cared about was getting Platinum points. Seriously. That was all I ever cared about and was getting enough Platinums to play the Platinum Pairs because I want to play against the best.

John McAllister:

But you played in this year with Yoko?

Tracey Bauer:

I did, yes. And anybody that's read anything that I've written, it upsets me that we had 264 people playing the Platinum Pairs. Only 27 of them were women. Yoko and I were playing together for the first time. And we actually almost for both of you qualified for day two.

John McAllister:

It was both your first time playing in the Platinum Pairs?

Tracey Bauer:

No, no, no. I played in the Platinums before. Yeah.

John McAllister:

Oh, you were playing as partners for the first time?

Tracey Bauer:

Right. Yeah. But I would like to see more people get to that stage and be able to compete at that level and more diversity and how do we do that? And that's been kind of a thing, is how do we mentor people to not be afraid to put themselves out there.

John McAllister:

That's amazing. Did you count it yourself or did somebody else do that for you? You just went down the list.

Tracey Bauer:

I did. I have been tracking this kind of stuff for a while now. Yeah. I mean, anybody that's gotten to play with me at a nationals has seen some pretty bad behavior towards women. I had an incident in Phoenix that happened that actually an international world champion got sanctioned for it. But I have for a long time, John, I sit east for a reason. And the reason why is most people are right-handed and they will send the score thing to the right, just naturally. So, when I sit east, there's no little microaggressions that I'm not getting it.

But I had a friend of mine who's a sponsor, who had me sit west and I asked him, "Please don't make me sit west." And he is very stubborn. And he's like, "It's all in your head." It's not in my head. We have actually, with Samantha Punch, Nicolas Hammond, we have actually tallied multiple, if I sit east or if I sit west, was I sitting with a woman, was I sitting with a man? How many times did I get the score thing sent to me by a player? Who was passing it? Was it a woman or a man?

John McAllister:

I might do that. I mean, actually I played in a regional this week in Virginia. And I played with a woman and she was talking about this with another woman.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. And this is the thing is the men think we're crazy. We feel the microaggressions that happen towards to us all the time. You'll hear women, you'll be in a group, and all of my friends know this about me, John, now. I am a 99% visual person. So, bridge to me, it's a big grid and it's all visual for me. So, when I'm sitting with a group of people, and you guys are all zipping off hands, and I listened to you the other day on the podcast with, is it Selena or I'm saying her name wrong. Solana. Sorry.

John McAllister:

Selena. Selena. Len. Len. Len.

Tracey Bauer:

Lena. Okay. So, when they start whipping the hands off, it's hard on me. If you really want my opinion, you have to let me write it down because that's how my brain processes things. And as somebody that does sales, I always make sure that I'm giving somebody a visual presentation and an auditory presentation at the same time. Because there's different type of learning types.

And I feel like I feel stupid sometimes in those moments when people are whipping off the hands and talking really fast and that I can't do it. But those little microaggressions that happen to women, not all women are strong enough to move past them. And I found that sitting east, then it doesn't bother me. And at the very end of a set, I will never leave a table until I check all the scores and make sure it checks against my scorecard. So, that way, I don't have to be in control all the way through, but I check it before I leave the ballroom. So, yeah, I get away with it that way.

And then I don't think we finished our thought, but John knows what I'm talking about. So, when you're playing duplicate bridge at a regional or a national, many times people will hand the score thing to the guy in a partnership. So, even if they're right-handed, they will go out of their way to hand it to the person to their left, if it's a guy. Although when I've done my tallies, John, the younger generation doesn't do that. And actually, a lot of the younger generation puts it in the middle of the table and lets whoever wants to pick it up, pick it up. So, it's just we have these ingrained things. Come on, John. How many times-

John McAllister:

No. I'm just interested to see if I do it. Honestly, I'm interested to play and see. I'm going to purposely sit north next time I play just to see if I do it.

Tracey Bauer:

You do it?

John McAllister:

No, just to see. I mean, I know what you're talking about, but I wonder if I do that.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. Play with the woman, put the woman as west and see if they start handing you the score thing anyways, even if they're right-handed.

John McAllister:

Well, I want to see if I do it before, that's my priority.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, yeah.

John McAllister:

I'm more interested in that.

Tracey Bauer:

And I think if we are aware of our biases, we're aware of these things, it's just being a little bit more mindful. But going back to women and how do we get more women at the top level, you have to be really, really strong to get through all of those barriers. How many times have I been at the bar and listened to men just rip on how bad women bridge players are with me hanging out there right in front of my face?

And I just don't think a lot of the women have the same opportunities at really truly top-level competition because that's where you're going to get ... You need to be in those pressure cooker environments to hone your game. You need to be in the Vanderbilt on a big team.

John McAllister:

I mean, it's different. It's definitely different playing in the Vanderbilt versus playing a speed ball. It's a big difference in how I feel about it.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

I also think just to encourage you, it's gotten easier for me when people give me bridge hands. It's definitely gotten easier the more I do it, the more practice I get in it.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. And I am better at it than I used to be. But for me to really analyze a hand, I still will want to write it down. If I want to follow along with a conversation, I can do it listening and I am a thousand times better. And that's the thing is people that understand learning differences, they're pretty cool with it. And there's some people that they're just like, come on, just get it and get frustrated with me. But it is really hard for me auditory wise.

John McAllister:

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Tracey Bauer:

Well, I know we've been babbling for quite a while now and I wanted this to be really short and not take up a lot of your time or I really wanted to-

John McAllister:

Well, I'm headed there, too. I'm headed there, too. [inaudible 00:34:04] you again.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, I really wanted to come here to talk about the ACBL Educational Foundations Charity event that we're going to be putting on. So, you signed up last year to help us out and I know you signed up again to help us out and you're on the board of the Educational Foundation as well.

John McAllister:

That's true. Yes.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. Do you want to tell the listeners about the educational foundation and what they're doing?

John McAllister:

Well actually, so, this is a specifically for a program that the Ed Foundation runs called Spark. And...

Tracey Bauer:

Well, this I can tell you about, but just the foundation in general. Yeah. So, last year, Alex Kolesnik and Zach Grossack came to me and panicked right now about this timeframe. It was at the Sacramento Regional. And they're like, "We need money to send 14 kids to Italy later this summer. Can you help us?" And I've done different fundraising things. And I looked at my schedule and thought about it and I was like, "Yeah, I think I can find some time to help you guys."

And I took a concept of using an online auction and creating a Pro/Am and let me auction off BBO games and other things. And we ended up raising $54,000 and we did it last summer pretty much on grassroots marketing. It's just the people that were in it, myself, we didn't really market it fully like it's going to happen this year. So, it was pretty successful.

The Educational Foundation ended up naming the fund, the Spark Fund. The Spark Fund is to give grants to any kind of program for juniors. And in juniors, we're talking ages 17 to 31.

So, what they're hoping to do this year, and I'm really hoping to raise about six figures this year, is we're hoping to build programs to increase the collegiate program to eventually try to do an alumni program is one of the things that Kristen Frederick, who is the executive director of the Educational Foundation, they'd like to do a bridge for those that leave the collegiate program, but keep them connected to bridge once they get out into their working life. Because what happens a lot of times is we lose people for a decade or two.

So, it's also the fund is there to help the USBF or other organizations that have kids that need ... Like last year was going to the Transnationals. They did not have enough money to send a second RONA team, which is the girls team, the women's team. So, they're going to send a second women's team to the world's this year on that money.

John McAllister:

From the money that we're raising from this auction that you're organizing, right?

Tracey Bauer:

Exactly, yeah. So, there's still money in the fund from last year, but we're adding to it because-

John McAllister:

Got it.

Tracey Bauer:

Right. Because there's a lot of projects that we would like to do, but we need the money to be able to do those projects. And my whole thought and process was all of us can give a little bit of our time. If everybody gives a little bit of our time, and there's many, many, many bridge players that would love the opportunity to connect and play with, or even just interact with some of the world's best bridge players. And not just the world's best bridge players, but I also call them our bridge personalities. We have Jeopardy James, James Holzhauer, yourself, Jocelyn Startz, other people like that.

This was something else I was showing my friend that I'm going to play the zero to 6000 in Chicago and he's going to make a donation to the upcoming fundraiser for me to do that. So, he was over last night and we were working on our card and I was showing him. And this guy, he's got 5000 points. He's been playing bridge for I think most of his life. And he would be too intimidated to play with some of the people, but he was not too intimidated to play with some of the nicer people in the group.

So, I'm trying to get regional teachers, all different types of people that we're going to be auctioning off, but it's pretty amazing. We have 120 different people that are auctioning themselves off for either the ProAm, a BBO game, an hour lesson. Dinkin is putting up some of his sweatshirts. So, you can order a hoodie with your name on it. Your name put on.

John McAllister:

An hour lesson, what's an hour lesson? You play...

Tracey Bauer:

You could go on to BBO and play for an hour or any other type of-

John McAllister:

Got it.

Tracey Bauer:

You could do a Zoom meeting and talk about your convention card. It's an hour with that person. So, however the two people decide they want to use it. So, the ProAm is going to be on online. It's going to be on July 10th. We're using the real bridge platform. That's the Monday right before Chicago, the Chicago Nationals, and then the BBO games, the hour lessons, that kind of things, people will schedule with the pro when they win them. And that's going to be any time after Chicago before the end of the year.

John McAllister:

And so, there's a game on July 10th and there's like the top 30 highest people that get auctioned off for the top 30 highest amounts playing in an A flight and then there's another flight or something like that.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. So, let me just explain that real quick. So, there's tons of pros to bid on and it's actually going to be the top 25 pros by dollar value. So, last year, Kevin Rosenberg went for $2,000. So, the ProAm is going to be on July 10th. Once on June 1st, the auction's going to go live. You're going to be able to ... It's going to be in the Bridge Bulletin. It's going to be up on Bridge Winners. It's going to be out in an email by the ACBL. It's going to go out in emails by the ACBL Educational Foundation. It'll be out on social media. So, hopefully most bridge players will eventually see it.

I know John, you'll send it out to all your subscribers probably because they're going to want to bid on John. You're going to have a chance to-

John McAllister:

That's right. That's right.

Tracey Bauer:

Yup. So, the way it's going to work is June 1st, you're going to start bidding on people. Everybody's starting at $50 and then we'll see where the auction takes them. Last year, Kevin Rosenberg went for $2,000 BBO-

John McAllister:

Twenty-two twenty, that's what we're going for for the set for me, gang. Let's see the listeners come out and force to break the record.

Tracey Bauer:

How about this, John? Yeah. If somebody does 2220 for you for the ProAm, would you throw in a golf game at a national?

John McAllister:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, are you kidding?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

I'll host them at my club. My golf club's in Charlottesville. They can be my guest for a weekend.

Tracey Bauer:

Okay, that would be amazing. So, maybe I should bid on you.

John McAllister:

Do you play golf? Oh, yeah, you should bid. Yeah. Well, you might get stuck with it. You don't have an address yet. You don't know the address. So, the auction site address is not ... We're going to be-

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah, I'm not publishing that yet.

John McAllister:

We need people to be on the lookout around the 1st of June from various emails on Bridge Winners, et cetera, where you can bid on players like me and you.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. And when we go live too, when you put this podcast up, I will give you the links to it.

John McAllister:

Okay. So, we'll put it in the show notes. There'll be a link in the podcast show notes as well.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes, because it'll be live then. And the auction, the online auction is going to go from June 1st through July 5th. And then we all know how bridge players are a bunch of gamers. So, last year's auction, people were having a lot of fun with it. In the last 20 minutes, Gavin Wolpert went from about, I think a 600 or $800 bill a bid for a BBO game all the way up to $1500 in 20 minutes. So, when we finished, Gavin was pretty awesome. I asked him, I'm like, "Gavin, can I give a second one? So, the second place bidder." So, we were able to double dip and bring in $3,000 for the fund for two BBO games.

John McAllister:

Wow.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. So, I did a lot of that, a lot of configuration. If somebody does get outbid for the ProAm, I will probably have a few pros in my back pocket. The day of the ProAm, I was still hooking people up to be able to play in it. So, my Gmail for this is futureofbridge@gmail.com.

John McAllister:

If people want to put their name in the hopper to be auctioned off either for the ProAm or the BBO game.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes.

John McAllister:

What happens to the people that are not in the top 25?

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. So, what's going to happen? So, the top 40, oh, it's actually, you know what? It's not top 25. The top 40 players are going to be in the group A. So, it's going to be the 35 pros plus I have five tickets where somebody can play in that top ProAm with their own partner. So, for $500, a regular bridge player and their partner could buy an entry for $500 into group A. But there's only five spaces. In that group A, those players are going to play one board rounds. So, 21 board rounds.

John McAllister:

Oh wow.

Tracey Bauer:

So, not only are you going to partner Jeff Meckstroth, but you're going to play against Larry Cohen and David Berkowitz and Michael Rosenberg and Debbie Rosenberg. And I mean, there's so many people playing. Almost everybody that played at the USBF Bridge Championships, the trials, has signed up and auctioned themselves off.

And then Olivia Schireson has been texting and WhatsApping a lot of the internationals. So, I hear that we have the Rimstedt brothers signed up now and a bunch of other people from Europe who come here to the United States regularly. And one of the things that I try to create is the whole website is a win-win for people. So, people that play professionally and stuff, it's another way for them to give back to the community, but also get some exposure for themselves.

So, as the pros, the top 35 will be up in that upper bracket and then the rest will be in another bracket. The second bracket will probably be doing two board rounds to make it smoother. And you can get an entry with your regular partner in that bracket for just $100. So, that's a little bit more reasonable, but you're still giving a donation back. There'll be tons of pros in that bracket.

The top bracket will have commentary by Bronia Jenkins and Barry Rigal. And Barry Rigal has been working on the hands. So, anybody's playing in this ProAm is going to get hand analysis when we finish playing that's been done by Barry Rigal and some other people. But keeping that a little bit under wraps.

And then we will also have, for people that are newer to the game, not comfortable to actually play in the ProAm, but want to listen to the commentary and get to see all of these players, we are going to have a backstage pass to that group A, so that way, you can see Meckstroth and Berkowitz and Cohen and the Rosenbergs and everybody else that's playing in the event, talking with everybody, joking around at the table. You'll hear the expert commentary from Bronia and Barry Rigal. You'll be able to ask questions of them too. And so, okay.

John McAllister:

I got a text message and it is just funny.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah.

John McAllister:

Yeah. Somebody's asking me to be their non-playing captain on a world championship team on the ... Yeah. So, it's amusing that-

Tracey Bauer:

We're talking about all of this. And then here-

John McAllister:

That I respond? Yeah. Unexpected how he's sending me that.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. That'd be awesome. So, you're going to go to Morocco.

John McAllister:

I don't think so. I was thinking it's too much. There's a lot of things like details that ... I mean, I imagine, on one level being a non-playing captain, there's like, what do you do really. But on another level, there's a lot of bases that you need to cover. And if somehow for some reason my not covering one of those bases leads to a bad outcome, I wouldn't want that.

Tracey Bauer:

You don't want that responsibility?

John McAllister:

Well, I'm just not sure. I mean, I was telling them I didn't think I should do it. And he is coming back with, "Come on, man."

Tracey Bauer:

Well, yeah.

John McAllister:

We'll see.

Tracey Bauer:

Well, and that's the thing is Morocco, the WBF added that extra week after where it's going to be a transnationals. So, those listening, that means it opens it up for not just the teams representing their countries, but anybody can come in for the following week and play. So, which is exciting. I've never been to Morocco.

John McAllister:

Are you going?

Tracey Bauer:

I have not made plans yet, but I would love to go.

John McAllister:

Yeah, sure.

Tracey Bauer:

So, yeah, we'll see what happens.

John McAllister:

Sure.

Tracey Bauer:

So, John, yeah, thank you.

John McAllister:

Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure.

Tracey Bauer:

And then I'm going to see you in a few hours.

John McAllister:

Oh, right, on the thing. And tell us a story about facilitating someone listening to the Setting Trick thanks to your...

Tracey Bauer:

Oh, that's right. Yeah. So, I was telling you, my friend that came over last night, he's older and he's definitely heard about podcasts, but he didn't even know where to find them on his phone. So, this is the thing is you just have to help people. Any of us that are under 60, if we can help some of our bridge players that are over 60, use their cell phones and show them that you can find a podcast and go in and search the Setting Trick. And I found it for him and I subscribed for him. And then I downloaded a couple of episodes and I recommended that he start from the beginning and go through them.

John McAllister:

I think you maybe said you've listened to a lot, I don't know if you listened to all of them.

Tracey Bauer:

All of them.

John McAllister:

What's your favorite?

Tracey Bauer:

Oh, my god. Your laugh. You're so super goofy laugh. Oh, my god. I have a funny story though. So, I'm friends with Ron. So, was it two years ago, a group of bridge players, I think you had a part one and part two with Ron Smith, because he tells so many stories.

John McAllister:

Yeah, he goes on.

Tracey Bauer:

Yes. And then last, well, last night, I was doing the commentary with Gary Cohler and Ron Smith, who have known each other forever and Schaumburg, this is the senior trials that we're doing the commentary for, the internet went out. So, we had 30 minutes of air time that we had to fill in.

John McAllister:

Oh, my god.

Tracey Bauer:

And if you have watched any of the commentators, I'm so glad I had Ron, myself and Gary Cohler because it was just story time. We filled that air time up, it was not a problem. So, I had a group of bridge players, John, going up to Napa to do wine tasting for the day. And I loaded up Ron Smith. Ron wasn't with us, but it was friends of his, so Chewy, Jason Chiu, and Arti, and a couple of other people. So, I loaded up Ron Smith on my radio and we listened to the podcast and we were all giggling and it was fun and introduced a couple more people to listening to the podcast.

Because that's the thing is it's fun to hear the human side of all the players and getting that good mix between some hands they've played, how did they get to where they've gotten, all of that kind of stuff. So, yeah.

John McAllister:

All right.

Tracey Bauer:

Well, I can't thank you enough, John.

John McAllister:

Yeah, yeah. My pleasure, Tracey. And thank you for putting all this together. And you wrote me a hell of a, I don't know, I mean, you wrote me a hell of a bio.

Tracey Bauer:

That would be ChatGPT helped on that.

John McAllister:

Well, thank you, ChatGPT.

Tracey Bauer:

Yeah. So, there's a huge team of people that are helping this year. Have to thank all of them. So, Andrew Gumperz and I did the bulk of the work last year. Robert Todd last year, big instrumental of helping us put this all together. But Amber Lin, she is taking a six months sabbatical and her company lets her work for a nonprofit. So, she's working with the ACBL Educational Foundation.

And then she has Olivia Schireson as her little assistant. And then there's a local bridge player here. I don't know if you know Matt Haag, but his wife, Tatiana is a beginner bridge player. She's been helping me as well, because there's a lot of items. There's a lot of background work to put one of these things on. So, yeah. So, thanks everybody. And thanks John for donating your time and doing this. And thanks for commentating later.

John McAllister:

All right.

Tracey Bauer:

Will that be your virgin time commentating?

John McAllister:

I've done it in person at the world championships once, but I've never done one online.

Tracey Bauer:

Okay. So, the same kind of thing. If it's a really boring hand, we're going to want to fill it up with some storytelling, keep the audience engaged.

John McAllister:

Okay. I got to do some research on the players, so that I don't come in not knowing what's going on, just on the results, how they got to this point. Hi, it's John. Don't forget to sign up for the Spark Foundation and please tell your friends about The Setting Trick.