Greg Humphreys, a talented software engineer and accomplished bridge player is featured in this episode of The Setting Trick. He is the winner of the Mott-Smith Trophy at the recent spring North American Bridge Championships, a three-time North American champion, and the best bridge player in Charlottesville, Virginia. He got hooked on bridge in 1998 and quickly joined a local club, where he found success playing with Walter Miller's 49er club. Greg studied computer science at Princeton and Stanford before moving to Charlottesville, VA, to teach at the University of Virginia. Also, Greg has since left academia and worked for several startups and major tech companies like Nvidia, Google, and Twitch.

In addition to his impressive career in computer science, Greg has also made a name for himself in the world of bridge. He has succeeded in various tournaments, including the Mixed Pairs, Platinum Pairs, Mixed BAM, and Fast Pairs. Greg and Jenni Carmichael typically play together once a year in the Mixed Pairs, which they won in 2016 and have also finished second, third, fourth, and fifth. In 2018 they made it to the finals of the World Open Pairs. This spring in Reno, they finished second in the Mixed Pairs. Greg also finished 11th in the Silodor Pairs and won the Fast Pairs, playing with Adam Parrish.

On the other hand, when not playing bridge, Greg enjoys spending time in his woodshop, playing video games, and traveling. He also enjoys watching RuPaul's Drag Race. Also, Greg streams his bridge games on Twitch, where he plays against friends and robots on BBO.

In this conversation, Greg shares a wealth of insights and experiences about his journey in the world of Bridge. He discusses his best-ever result in a tournament, the pressure of leading, and the impact of small mistakes. He recalls an unusual game where the opposing team doubled their bid and made a strange opening lead. Greg explains how miscommunication about a bridge bidding system leads to confusion and the importance of immersing oneself in bridge and discussing hands with better players. He also talks about his accidental discovery of bridge on Yahoo and how he fell in love with the game through books and local clubs.

Additionally, Greg discusses his unique relay precision system with Jenni and the advantages of playing a solid diamond system. He mentions his experience of streaming himself playing Bridge on Twitch and the importance of supporting your partner in Bridge and dealing with bad results. Lastly, he shares his experience playing Bridge in a competitive event, including strategies, gameplay, the desire to perform well and achieve a high ranking, and the frustrations and challenges of teaching beginners in Bridge.

[06:37] Best Result Ever – Greg discusses what he considers to be his best-ever result.

[10:11] Pressure: The pressure of leading in bridge tournaments and the impact of small mistakes.

[19:53] Unusual Tactics – Greg recalls a bridge game where the opposing team doubled their bid and made a strange opening lead.

[23:27] Bidding Confusion and Resolution – Greg explains how miscommunication about a bridge bidding system leads to confusion.

[25:50] Discovering Bridge – Greg tells how he accidentally discovered Bridge on Yahoo and fell in love with the game through books and local clubs.

[34:03] Non-Standard Homebrew System-  Bizarre Bridge System Leads to Unforeseen Victory

[43:43] UVA - Reasons for choosing UVA for an academic career

[52.48] Partnership with Jenny – Greg talks about playing Bridge with Jenny and the frequency of playing together. He also discusses their effort to practice online before a tournament and their unique relay precision system, which requires some study.

Resources:

Connect with Greg:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/greghumphreys/

Twitter: twitter.com/humper

Mentioned in the episode:

Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation: amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Theory-Imp

John McAllister (00:13.662)

Setting Trick listeners, we have a very special guest for you today. The winner of the Mott Smith trophy at the recent spring North American Bridge Championships. The best bridge player in Charlottesville, Virginia, my friend, Greg Humphreys. Hi, Greg.

Greg Humphreys (00:52.370)

Hey John, how you doing? Thanks for having me on.

John McAllister (00:55.042)

I'm doing well, thanks. You have a very high-quality camera, I can see.

Greg Humphreys (01:01.550)

Yeah, I spend a lot of time in video calls. And so, at some point I decided I would get a, I have an actual like a SLR camera instead of a webcam.

John McAllister (01:18.822)

Going through, just in preparing for this interview, I saw that you had updated the Mott Smith Wikipedia page because you won it with your 291.24 masterpoints. What was it like to see yourself on that page with Paul Soloway, Bobby, and Steve? Put your name up there with those guys?

Greg Humphreys (01:50.910)

It's unreal. I also learned, I think on Bridge Winners, somebody mentioned that it's the only time someone had managed to win the Mott Smith without entering the Vanderbilt. Just from pair stuff. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I feel like, you know, I turned a corner, I think in my bridge game and it all culminated in being on the Setting Trick, which is every bridge player's dream.

John McAllister (02:23.183)

You were saying you were talking to Gavin Wolpert, who was our first guest, and I said, please hold this for when we're recording. What were you saying about the Rubicon?

Greg Humphreys (02:35.790)

Yeah, I feel like I've made it. I mean, it's funny, because the reason I was talking to Gavin is, Gavin and I, I've known Gavin for a long time and we used to work together, but Gavin is a world-class bridge player and he taught me a lot about bridge, but he reached out to me to ask if I would be interested in commentating with him on the trials. And I was just like, wow, what a cool ask. But then I was like, yeah, but I mean, I’ll do it, but I'm on the Setting Trick, so I've already, you know, I was already like, that was the big deal.

John McAllister (03:13.302)

Are you gonna do the trials commentary on Twitch? Is that the plan?

Greg Humphreys (03:18.370)

I think so. Yeah, I mean, our conversation was a little light on details and more just figuring out if we had the time, but I imagine it would be on Twitch.

John McAllister (03:27.222)

You said you turned the corner. Are you serious about that? I mean, like your results, your results in, okay, so you did a Well, a Bridge Winner's Well. You were the subject of the Bridge Winner's [In the] Well a year ago. And in that Well, you said that, at that point, you'd won one of the mixed pairs with Jenni, and then you, at the spring NABC in March of 22, you won the fast pairs with Adam Parrish, and then you were in the Well, and there was a question about your level of expertise, I think, and you said that you had never gotten to day three of a big pair game.

Greg Humphreys (04:06.957)

Yeah. That's true.

John McAllister (04:13.522)

And now at this most recent Spring NABC, you get not only to the finals of the Platinum Pairs, but you finished third.

Greg Humphreys (04:21.570)

Yeah, yeah, I... Playing bridge this year, and last year, I think to some extent, just feels different than it ever did. I've been playing bridge for at least 20 years. I think I started in 1998, so whatever that meant, 25 years. And it just feels really qualitatively different now. Certain things that used to require a lot of effort are now more second nature, and that frees up your mind to do a lot of other things that I used to, you know you'd postmortem a hand and say, “oh I didn't think about that” because the mental energy was focused on other stuff that is now much more automatic and I think that that is a transition that happens many times in bridge player’s progression. I imagine there are more of these to come for me, I hope, but you know, when you first start playing bridge, it is a monumental effort just to count the hand. How many cards does everybody have in this? Oh, that wasn't trump, so I wasn't counting it. How many did I even start with? And you're doing it on every hand and your results suffer for it. And then at some point, hopefully that becomes a little bit more automatic and you start to focus your effort on other things. And I really felt like I could feel that happening this last past year, which has been a really cool feeling. It makes me wonder how many more times it happens.

You know, I'm very keenly aware that the really, really, really good, like the best bridge players think about hands very differently from everyone else. And so, when I feel myself starting to think about hands differently, you know, I wonder like how many more times does this have to happen before, you know, it doesn't happen anymore. I think if you ask them, they would probably tell you that it never stops happening. But it's a really cool feeling.

John McAllister (06:19.102)

Like the results in, I mean, what do you think's your best result?

Greg Humphreys (06:24.790)

Best result ever.

John McAllister (06:26.102)

Because you've got third in the Platinum Pairs, which is a three-day, like arguably the toughest pair event in the world. You've won the fast pairs. You've won the mixed pairs twice. Like what do you think?

Greg Humphreys (06:36.190)

Yeah, I think third in the Platinum Pairs has got to be the biggest result. I think coming third in that event is a bigger result than winning the mixed. I have to apologize to Jenni. We're like five minutes into this and I'm already diminishing our accomplishments in that thing. That being said, I think, I know Jenni had a conversation, I think with Chris Willenken about this, that our consistency in that event in that event is probably, has got to be a contender for that as well. Because we have come first, first, second, third, fourth, fourth, fifth, and ninth. And then there was one year where we were nowhere. But we don't talk about that year. But, you know, like that, we're just, we're just very consistent in this event. And the mixed pairs is a bit of a weird event because there's, there are very few established mixed partnerships. So, there are a lot of opportunities for good results that might not present themselves in other places. I also observed, I thought I had observed this over the years, and I went looking for it this year and I sort of confirmed my hypothesis that the men in the mixed partnerships tend to operate a lot. And the way that this manifests itself most, I think, is that they hate defending. And so they’ll just bid one more in a competitive auction in a situation where they have no business taking another call, right? Completely described their hand, no extra anything, but they're like, I don't want to defend. And so they bid one more and boom, and Jenni drops the hammer on them, they go for 200. And they're just like, “Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Oh, sorry, partner. I had a fifth trump in the suit I opened.” Yeah, no kidding. It happens a lot. It's really wild.

But yeah, no, the Platinum Pairs, if I had to pick a single result, I think it would be that. We also, Jenni and I also made the final day of the world open pairs in Philadelphia, which we got in through sort of the side door, where, you know, at the end of the, I remember at the end of the, at the middle, they separate the field into like an A group and a B group. And then the top two pairs in the B group get funneled back into the A group for the finals, and we got in that.

But whatever, we were one of the 50 best pairs in the world that year.

John McAllister (09:11.902)

The top two from the B Final get back in.

Greg Humphreys (09:15.850)

Yeah, it's like a Repetition I don't know what that's called, but that's yeah, that was really fun. That was a really fun event.

John McAllister (09:26.802)

Well, the fact that you won the mixed pairs this year, like on top of the Platinum Pairs finish, I was in New Orleans playing in the tournament and I saw, like I saw you on the first day, I think you were leading the Platinum Pairs after the first day. And I was like, wow, that's pretty good. And then, or maybe the first session, I don't know. But. So, I was like, wow, that's pretty good. And then, or maybe the first session, I don't know.

Greg Humphreys (09:48.093)

Yeah, we had a really good first session.

John McAllister (09:50.922)

And then to like be third overall and then back it up with a win and then back it up with the top five in the two day Sildador pairs and then like it was it was like you were leading the fast pairs after three three or four sessions.

Greg Humphreys (10:08.770)

Oh yeah, well we had a huge qualifying day. We kind of wasted it all on the qualifying day. And then our third set in the Fast Pairs was a little above average, but not very good. And we were still leading, but not by much. And then we just completely collapsed in the final set. We were having key card accidents, and there were revokes, and it was not a great set.

But we were still, you know, still enough to, I think we were like 18th or 17th or something.

Yeah, so it's funny how that sort of thing colors your impression of the whole thing, because you would think that I would go and see, because the Fast Pairs finishes really early, right? And so now I'm thinking, well, I still have a shot at it, but I'm now sweating the results of the Swiss, which takes forever. So, I'm out at dinner and frantically refreshing the, I went out to dinner with some friends of ours who were not bridge players, and so they're watching me frantically refreshing my phone, trying to see what's going on in the Swiss,

They don't know what a Swiss is. I'm trying to explain to them, they just have no idea. Eventually we came back to the hotel to see, and when I realized that I think there were a couple of pairs that could have caught up, but they would have needed to win the Swiss or come second or something. And when they didn't, you'd think there would be like a big, yay, but really all I was thinking about was like, man, I played like crap in the last set of the fast pairs.

Greg Humphreys (11:47.330)

The same thing happened in 2016. Jenni and I ran away with the mixed that year. I mean, we were like wire to wire. And then we got our picture taken and we ran down to the midnight game, right? We started drinking and we're playing the midnight game and we make the finals of the midnight game. And we were playing against, I think, Adam Grossack in the finals of this thing. And on the last board of the midnight event, we were like, you know, six or seven drinks in or something, and he and his partner bid a slam.

And I think I had two aces and jack ten fourth of trumps and like didn't double because I just didn't care. And not doubling this slam cost the event. And that hand haunts me. Like seven years later, I'm still thinking about like, what was I doing? How do I not double this? Yeah, in the damn midnight that day, I was so upset. I'm still upset about it.

It's hard not to focus on the silly stuff. Particularly when there's so much pressure when you have a lead. They come from behind wins are wonderful Cinderella stories or something, but when you're leading, all you can do is chuck it, right? And actually in 2016, when we were about to win the mixed for the first time, we went into the final set with a big lead and our first 10 rounds or 10 boards I think were just, I mean the absolute pits. I thought we had blown the entire lead at that point and we turned it around and I don't know, I never went back and looked at what our, if we had pulled the fire alarm at that point if we would still have had it but you know I think I passed Jenni in like a five-no-trump pick a slam and had to sit there as dummy and watch her go down six.

Yeah, it was just stuff like that and I was like shaking. I was so nervous and that was still happening in the fast pairs for sure.

We didn't turn that one around. But I don't know. I say it sounds a lot like sour grapes, I guess.

John McAllister (14:05.402)

Who was, like, who was, what were people saying to you when you won the, when you won the Mott Smith?

Greg Humphreys (14:11.710)

Well, it wasn't really known until, I mean, very few people figured it out while we were still there. Because, you know, I don't think anybody, you know, there's not like a big ceremony or presentation or anything. But a few people did. I mean, I was at the bar, I remember I was talking to Zach Grossack, who won it last year with Michael Rosenberg. He was pretty excited for me.

John McAllister (14:32.397)

Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (14:41.190)

I had been sharing some hands with him the whole week. And yeah, he was really excited about it. But yeah, there was not a lot of it. I mean, I had to catch like a 5:30 a.m. flight, so it's not like I was up partying or anything. And mostly what I did was went back to my hotel room and went over all the hands for the day with my roommate.

John McAllister (15:00.702)

What did Weinstein say about winning it? Or Gavin.

Greg Humphreys (15:05.331)

Uh, I mean they had some very hearty congratulations and, and uh, you know, I don't know, maybe they think of me as a real bridge player now, I'm not sure. But Gavin wants to commentate the trials of me, it's uh...

John McAllister (15:20.002)

Is that a paid gig?

Greg Humphreys (15:22.351)

I, you know, we didn't discuss it. I have to up my hourly rate, I guess.

John McAllister (15:31.062)

A little bit of trivia for the Setting Trick listeners. Maybe I'll ask this to you. Who did I play my first NABC event with?

Greg Humphreys (15:44.750)

First NABC event? I don't know if it was your first, but it might've been me. Yeah, was it the IMP pairs?

John McAllister (15:46.466)

Yeah.

John McAllister (15:50.142)

It was you, yeah. Yeah, the IMP Paris in 2012. Memphis, that was my first national event.

Greg Humphreys (15:56.654)

Oh wow.

Greg Humphreys (15:59.870)

2012 in Memphis.

John McAllister (16:02.062)

Yeah, we almost qualified. We were close, no, we were close to qualifying. We did not, but.

Greg Humphreys (16:03.050)

Did we win? Did we? Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (16:09.670)

We played a couple of national events, right? We made the last day of a Swiss once, you and I, and we played the Vanderbilt, I think, one year. Or Spingold?

John McAllister (16:18.922)

No, we played the, I hired you. So we played as friends in Memphis. That was the only event we played. Well, we played the, like a compact KO the next day with I think Tree and Terry as our teammates. And then I hired you for the next national to be my partner in Philadelphia. And we played the Spingold.

Greg Humphreys (16:24.578)

Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (16:31.754)

Oh yeah.

Greg Humphreys (16:37.611)

Sounds familiar.

Greg Humphreys (16:45.310)

Yeah, we've just Spingold. That's right.

Greg Humphreys (16:50.690)

That's right. That event produced my third worst result of all time. It was still on a single board. Yeah, my lifetime. Yeah, third largest negative score when declaring.

John McAllister (17:04.262)

Well, I must have been your partner then. Well, I don't remember.

Greg Humphreys (17:06.549)

Oh yeah, you were dummy. It was the last hand. We played 64 boards against, was it Carolyn Lynch's team, I think?

John McAllister (17:16.342)

No, Ish. It was Leslie Amoil’s team.

Greg Humphreys (17:18.390)

Ikay, well the only thing I really remember about it was I'm pretty sure Eddie Wold was on the other team, which is why I thought of Carolyn, because he was in my seat at the other table. And the reason I know that is because you and I freely bid up to a pretty normal looking three notrump, looking at our hands. But Ish, on opening lead, doubled three notrump out of nowhere. Like he'd taken no calls, he's on lead and he doubles. It's not like, you know, the guy on your right doubles, he wants a weird lead or something. He's just like, I'm on lead and he can't make three. Okay, so he doubles and makes a lead and I'm looking at the dummy and I'm like, it was sort of a weird lead. I was looking at it like, well, and then I constructed some layout where I was like, oh, well, if this is happening, I think I can make this. Like, I could have just won the thing and cashed out for I think down one, but that doesn't seem right. Right? You know, I want that, I want that 750. And anyway, I took the first trick, and that was it. In my attempt to make it I went minus 2000. I took, I took, they took all the rest of the tricks after trick one and weirdly the same exact auction happened at the other table. So, Eddie Wold finds himself in three no doubled. One of the Bulgarians just hit him at three no. I mean I don't even know what the guy's hand was where doubling three no was so obvious. But they made a more normal lead and Eddie looked at the dummy and said okay I'm just down two. He like, just claims minus 500. And he's all sad about it. Then, you know, they compare. And later that day, he and I were in an elevator together. We're going up and up and up. And he waits for all the other people to get off. I think we went way past his floor. And once it's just the two of us, he says, okay, can I ask you please how the play went? It's three no. And because he's trying to figure out how on earth they won like 1000 IMPs on this board.

So I said, you know, I got the Jack of diamonds lead or whatever it was and he thinks about it for a second he says, oh you tried to make it? Yeah, he's like, oh yeah, that'll do it.

Yeah, minus 2000.

Third worst result, as declarer.

John McAllister (19:44.902)

I'm impressed that you have those available. Like you have a record of them.

Greg Humphreys (19:49.014)

Well, I mean...scores at minus 2000 and above, one would hope they should stand out in your mind, right? If you have so many of them that they all kind of blend together, then maybe you're not doing something right. Yeah, I went for 2800 at a sectional. I wrote a whole story about that. That was how I won the Cat’s Ass trophy. But that was my second worst result. My worst result of all time, since you asked, was at my very first Nationals ever. I was playing with Brian Freiberger, who no one has ever heard of. I think he quit bridge. He went on to, I think he founded Invisalign, but a little weird bit of trivia, but he was, I was a grad student at Stanford. He was a grad student at Stanford. So we went down to Anaheim. I think this was in 99 or 2000 or something.

And we find ourselves playing the board a match against, and we played two boards against Max Hardy.

And so my left-hand opponent opens a diamond, I think, or a spade. Opens a spade. And my partner over calls three clubs. And I think maybe righty, he made a negative double. And I looked down at my hand. It's just this blur of small cards that includes six clubs. And I'm like, holy shit, I got to do something here. So I bid five clubs.

And it goes double and Brian removes this to five diamonds.

This gets doubled immediately and I'm too new at bridge. I don't know what's going on. Like it would never occur to me. It sounds like he psyched three clubs, right? Just on the face of it. But this didn't occur to me. I was like, man, I don't know what's going on but I don't wanna put this dummy down in five clubs doubled. I still have all these, in five diamonds doubled, right? I still have all these clubs. He showed clubs. So I bid six clubs. And it goes double and finally Brian passes and it goes pass. And then I realized what's going on. What's going on is Brian and I had been up til like two or three in the morning reading Max Hardy's book about two suited over calls. Max is at our table and you know Max is advocating you know things like top and bottom cuebids and equal level correction and something called Roman jump overcalls where when they open a minor you jump to three of the other minor to show that minor in hearts and I finally worked out that Brian has like mixed this up and he has red suits. And so I said, well, okay, it's board a match. And I've got a story already, so why not ship this back so I redouble? And this passes back to Max's client who now starts to think forever because she has a club void. And so she's just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, I'm trying to keep my best poker face. Like if I had a hoodie and sunglasses and something, I would have turtled up.

Eventually she decides to pass and I go minus 5200, I think. I mean, it was whatever, like, you know, partner just has like 11 red cards or something. It's like maybe one or two trump tricks and that's it. And then, so we're all having a good time about this. And then on the companion board of this same set, I open a club and it goes pass, and my partner responds, a diamond and I alert. And they’re like, what’s that?

And so I said, well, you know, it could be a doubleton. And they're like, what? Like, what hand responds a diamond to a club on a doubleton? I said, well, you know, if he's 3-3-2-5 and has like six or seven points, you know, he might not want to bid three clubs, and you know, we play that one-no trump, shows eight, and so like sometimes you have to fudge with a diamond. And Max looks at me and he says, what the hell system is this? And I said, Max, it's yours! And I produce from under my seat, I produced his yellow book on two over one, and I opened it up to the, because I'd seen the only bridge book I had been reading, and I was like, look, it says here, and it even says Max was like a famous national director. I said, it even says here that you have to alert the one diamond pin, and I showed it to him, and his client is laughing and laughing and laughing because Max doesn't know his own stupid system. I memorized this book, Max, like this is one of the few things I know is that I'm supposed to alert a diamond.

Yeah, we did not win the BAM, but they got a couple of good boards off.

He signed my book. He signed my book too. He was all excited. He's like, all right, I got to sign this book.

John McAllister (24:44.649)

Who were your teammates? Just people you found at the partnership?

Greg Humphreys (24:52.510)

Oh, I think they were Stanford people. I honestly don't remember, but it's entirely possible that they were just friends of ours from Stanford.

There was, I started playing it in grad school. And so there was like a small group of people there who were perfectly competent bridge players. And they were willing to put up with me being a total noob.

John McAllister (25:27.302)

There's a story in your well that you, first time you played bridge, you accidentally, you were trying to play backgammon on Yahoo and you clicked on bridge by mistake. And then the most amazing part of this, in my view, is the next day you went to the local bridge club.

Greg Humphreys (25:49.270)

Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, it was a so there were a lot of the students in my lab in grad school were really into backgammon and they were all playing on Yahoo. And I don't know anything about backgammon, but I don't want to be left out of whatever the cool kids are doing so I said I want to go play backgammon so I got a Yahoo and I like miss clicked on bridge basically, I find myself but I didn't fully realize I'm just like go to this table yeah, I was just gonna drop in cold to a backgammon game online as if that was gonna go well.

And I find myself sitting at a bridge table with three strangers. I'm like, oh no, this isn't backgammon. What do I do? And so I said, sorry, like I like chatting to these people. This is in 1998 or something. Chatting to these people. I'm like, I'm in the wrong place, but this looks really neat. Like what is this? And I said, I want to learn more about this. I said, are there books I can read? What should I do?

And the guy at the table said I should get two books. He said I should get Common Sense Bidding by Bill Root. Good old fashioned 16 to 18 no trumps, no transfers, nothing, just like old school 1950s Bill Root bridge. And he told me to also get The Law of Total Tricks, which is like a terrible recommendation for a novice. Right, like completely incomprehensible to someone who doesn't even know how bidding works. So he recommends these books and I found them at the local bookstore amazingly and bought them and looked at them. And I said, okay, I don't understand any of this. And so I just, yeah, I wandered into the Palo Alto Bridge Club because I looked it up and I called them and I said, I don't know anything about bridge but I would like to fix that. And they said, oh, we have a 49er game. It's for people with 49 or fewer masterpoints. Just come on down, we'll get you partner. Okay, so yeah, I showed up and it was a great game. Everyone there was really friendly. I was young, I was younger, the second youngest person there was like at least 40 years older than me. But they were all really excited to see someone there who, you know, was vital, I don't know. And it was run by this this wonderful guy named Walter Miller, who gave a lesson before every game and like he had food and it was it was great. And I started trying to pick up a game that way and then at some point I had accumulated like 20 or so masterpoints and a friend of mine bought me for my birthday that year bought me like a playing lesson with Walter and so we go down to the Santa Clara regional and we and he's like, okay, you know, I have he had like 9,000 master points he's like so, you know, we're gonna have to play in like the A/X pairs.

And he's like, and we're gonna get slaughtered and that's okay. Like, don't worry about it, we're here to learn. Said fine. So we play in the AX pairs and we win the goddamn thing. We had like two 63% games, which makes me now ineligible for his club, right? Cause I won like 34 gold points and it puts me over the 50 point mark. And I'm like, oh no, like I can't, what now?

So he said, well, he said, what we should do is we should start a 199er club. Because we have, they were having a lot of problems actually with, with people. Well, either people would graduate out of the 49er club or they didn't want to graduate out of the 49er club because the 49er club was really friendly and everyone was just so nice. But then you have to play in the open game where everyone's a jerk.

And nobody wanted to do that. And so what they would do is they would drop out of the ACBL when they got over 40 points or so. So the league wouldn't track their masterpoints anymore and they would all be forever eligible for the 49er club. So he had me take the director exam and then he and I like started running the 199er club together because nobody really cares in a 199er game if the director is playing in the game, right? And so we sort of co-ran the game.

And he hooked me up with a new partner who had also recently graduated from the 49er club named Barbara Sonsini, who you may know.

John McAllister (30:29.202)

Oh yeah, yeah, I know Barbara, I knew Barbara well.

Greg Humphreys (30:50.252)

Yeah. So she, yeah, so she was also cutting her teeth at the 49er club and then graduated from it like maybe, I don't know, a year before me. And he's like, yeah, you should play with Barbara. And so I played with Barbara for like a year or two. We used to fly all over the place. We went to like the Palm Springs regional.

That was wild. And then, you know, I mean, obviously she outgrew me quickly and started playing on the best teams.

John McAllister (31:00.882)

Yeah, Barbara was a character. I enjoyed my relationship with her. It was cut short, but definitely loved to needle Barbara.

Greg Humphreys (31:13.050)

Yeah, that was such a way it was such a great part of the country to learn bridge in because Northern California at the time had multiple club games a day. And there was at least two sectionals every month within driving distance. I mean, you know, if you were willing to go as far as Sacramento and there were regionals all over the place, there was a Monterey and Santa Clara and Sacramento had a regional, Oakland. And there was a nearby Nationals because Anaheim was a year later. So yeah, we played bridge all the time.

John McAllister (31:54.302)

And then it was really a hotbed, you know, like more recently with Silicon Valley Youth Bridge. But you, that was long after, long after you, you left. It's funny to me that you went to a club the day after you learned because I learned how to play bridge and it took me seven years to get to a club.

Greg Humphreys (32:13.910)

Well, I didn't know what I didn't know what else to do. I mean, like I had these books and I and I couldn't really make much sense of them. And I was like, I need to talk to somebody. And I didn't you know, it's funny, it didn't even occur to me that there might be a Stanford Bridge Club, which there was. Right. And eventually I found that and went over there and I met several regular partners there, including Adam Meyerson, who I don't know if you know him, but he's regular on Bridge Winners and he's often at Nationals.

And then so I actually played on the Stanford collegiate team at some point. And, you know, we went to, I don't remember where it was, but that's where I met Noble Shore, who became a partner of mine. He was actually my graduate student. So when I got my PhD, I went to go teach at the University of Virginia. And then at some point, Noble was trying to figure out what to do with his life.

And I said, why don't you just come be my grad student? And like we could do, we're on bridge. Like we'll just play bridge all the time. And you could like do research on computer bridge and I'll pay for it. Like I had some money burning a hole in my pocket from the university and I didn't know what to do with it. He said, great. So he showed up and we just, God, we played a really unhealthy amount of bridge.

John McAllister (33:40.762)

That was right when I started going to the club because I remember you and Noble would come sometimes and Noble had played on one of the junior teams. Like he played in the junior world championships. And I remember I didn't really, I didn't really get to know you guys, even though we were, you and I are the same age, but I didn't get to really get to know you till later.

Greg Humphreys (33:46.513)

Yeah, I had a great time playing with him. We were playing a really weird homebrew system. We were playing like a strong one diamond opener that really upset people because we didn't have any masterpoints, right? Like we thought we knew what we were doing, right? We thought we were hot stuff, but we really had no idea. But we were playing this weird homebrew system that I wrote up all the notes for. We had good results with it.

I won my very first bracket one knockout playing this weird system. But that is the thing, like the league wouldn't let us play up. And so we frequently found ourselves playing in like bracket six or seven. And we would sit down and pre-alert people like, hey, we play a strong one diamond system. And, you know, this would almost inevitably result in people losing their minds and yelling for the director and then frequently withdrawing at the half. And we're like, you know, so we felt bad because we don’t want to ruin people's experience at the bridge table, but we also don't want to just play standard American you know yellow card because people are upset. So we just kept begging the directors to let us play up and they wouldn't and they wouldn't they wouldn't they said look like everyone's having a bad everyone's complaining to you about us like let us do it and they just they wouldn't do it. And then eventually there was a tournament where Noble and I were it was just the two of us this was Hunt Valley 2004, and we were just playing pairs all week, and we had signed up for yet another pair game. And then as the game is about to start, these two old people run up to us. I didn't know anybody. They run up to us, and they're like, hey, can you guys play a team game? Like, their team had fallen apart at the last second, and they were panicking. And we said, sure. And so we sold our entry back, and they said, we're going to have to play bracket one. Is that OK?

Like that's exactly what we want to do. Great. So we sit down to play bracket one and it's first time really I think I'd ever played a bracket one knockout. And our first-round opponents were nobody that I had heard of, but we won. And then in the second round, we played against and beat Paul Soloway's team, which was wild. We had like, I had like 450 master points at the time and Noble was about the same. And so we were like, ow wow, the semifinals and we looked at the semifinals and we realized, we looked at the semifinals was like Berkowitz and Seamon, Michael Seam0n, and this crazy team. And as they're driving back, I think I was staying at Noble's parents' house with him. We're driving back there, and I said, wow, it's amazing. We like blew through these two teams playing with like random people I've never heard of. And he said, what do you mean random people? Our teammate is Mike Cappelletti senior. Like what? What do you mean?

Cappelletti was playing with, he had a client, and I don't know what happened with some emergency with their team, but the client was like, I don't want to play the pair game. Like just find a warm body to play teams. I don't care. So, okay. So we go back and we somehow win this third round. And then we find ourselves playing against Carolyn Lynch. So we've got Meckstroth, Rodwell, Eddie Wold, Mike Passell, Carolyn and I don't remember, but a six person team. And we're playing our stupid strong diamond system that made no sense. And at the half, we find ourselves up like 56 IMPs against this team. It was just absolutely wild. Like there were hands where Noble and I bid and made games on cards where Meckwell at the other table were not in the auction. It's just like completely crazy stuff going on. But then, you know, okay, so they put in their four best players and when all the smoke is cleared, we had won by nine.

And then we discover that there's some sort of kerfuffle going on about some hand, and they're like talking to the director about it. They're very upset.

And I, this is, I will never forget this hand. I had, the details aren't super important, but I had like six clubs. I was like 2=2=3=6. I had six clubs and maybe like a nine count or something. So I opened three clubs. And it goes pass and Noble bids three spades. Oh, I had three spades, I was 3=2=2=6. So it goes three clubs, pass, three spades, pass.

I'm like, what do I know? I raised to four spades. Now, Eddie Wold on my left, who couldn't act over three clubs, bids four notrump.

It goes pass and Mike Passell doesn't know what's going on either so he tries five clubs just to kick the partner back to Eddie and Eddie bids five diamonds and I think Mike now works out that Eddie must have red suits and so he corrects to five hearts and it goes all pass and I'm on lead and I'm like, well, it sure sounds like dummy’s got a million red cards so I don't think I'm gonna lead a spade like that doesn't seem productive, even though it’s our suit. So, I led a club. I figured partner's probably pretty short in clubs. What do I know? But it turns out that today, my partner has psyched his three spade bid and picked off Mike Passell’s like ace queen jack ninth of spades. He's just going to get a nine card spade suit. And it turns out the club lead is the only lead that beats the contract. And they’re very upset about this. This like a 15 IMP swing. And if I lead a spade, you know, they make five hearts and club lead beats five hearts. So they're very upset about this. And they're like talking to the director and the director, I think wisely, sort of declines to make a ruling like I don't think this is really legal. But the director says, look, whatever side I rule in, the other four, like the other side is going to appeal this ruling. And I, you know, I don't really feel like I want to have ... He's like, I'm just gonna refer you guys to the to a committee rather than having like an appealing side.

And, you know, I've mentioned this to some, I think I've told this story to Jenni and she's like, he can't do that. Like that does what does that even. But I think it was a smart PR move. So, we get in front of this committee and this is when I met Jeff Roman for the first time, because Jeff was on the committee and first, you know, Meckstroth gets up there and gives like 15 reasons why a club lead is unsupported by bridge logic. That was his phrase, unsupported by bridge logic.

And you know, I'm sweating. Right? Like, all these people I've only ever read about are now here calling me an idiot. And I do remember what I said to the committee. Jeff says, can you explain why you led a club? And I said, I'll try. I said, but before I do that, I said, I'm certainly not going to argue with Jeff Meckstroth about bridge logic, but what I will tell the committee is if I win this appeal, I'm going to become a Bronze Life Master today. So, let's keep that in mind. Right?

This is gonna put me over 500 big old points. Now these poor guys like they like …

John McAllister (41:50.006)

Oh my god. Like the two all-time winning masterpoint leaders, Passell and Meckstroth.

Greg Humphreys (41:58.651)

Yeah, yeah. So they're like, they had no idea who we were. All they know is we're on Cappelletti’s team, right? They don't think we're some clowns from nowhere. And so they're like, oh god, like why are we in this committee? They seem pretty embarrassed at this point. And so I tried to explain my reasoning for leading a club, and I think Jeff said, I was on a team with Jeff Roman recently and I was telling him this story and he didn’t remember this event at all. But I do remember what Jeff did, is eventually Jeff hears this story, and he's like, okay, so what was the result of the match? And I said, we won by nine. And he said, okay, I'm going to assign you an eight-IMP procedural penalty for something fishy happening. Like, okay, sounds good. Yeah, great. Again, also, not a legal thing, right? Like, he can't do that, but you know, I think we all understand what he's trying to do. I still have the bracket sheet for that, it's framed. I have it on my wall downstairs. It's one of my prized possessions.

John McAllister (43:01.186)

Oh my god, you gotta take a picture of that after we're done and send it to me.

Greg Humphreys

I will, I will. Yeah, it's hanging up.

John McAllister (43:10.122)

Do you know if Walter Miller is still alive?

Greg Humphreys (43:14.070)

I don't think so. I don't think he is. I would be pretty surprised. I mean, he was getting on in years, and he also ... He smoked more than any human being I have ever met, and that includes a lot of bridge players, and that's saying a lot. So I would be pretty surprised, but I'll look into it. I mean, if he is, he's gotta be …

John McAllister (43:33.362)

I'm sure somebody listening to this will know ...

Greg Humphreys (43:36.773)

Yeah, for sure.

John McAllister (43:38.648)

How did you get recruited to UVA?

Greg Humphreys (43:42.650)

UVA was just one of the schools that I, that I applied to teach at. Um, when I finished, so I don't know that I was recruited to UVA, but, um, when I finished my PhD, you know, that's where you got to decide what kind of job you want and if it's academics, there's a whole application process. And, uh, I wanted to live on the East coast. I had grown up in Washington, DC and I preferred it to the West coast. I found the weather boring and I wanted seasons and snow days and so I applied at a bunch of schools up and down the East Coast and interviewed at, I think, six different places and I had a number of offers. But I chose UVA, I think I had four job offers. I chose UVA because, first of all, my wife at the time had a bunch of family in Charlottesville, which was a non-zero consideration. And also, I felt like I could achieve a reasonable work-life balance at UVA. Like I wasn’t going to kill myself trying to get tenure, but I could still do good work. You know, it wasn't like going to, you know, like a community college where you can't, like, you know, I wanted to do research. And so you have to be in an environment where the students are of a certain caliber that they can support your research. But I didn't necessarily want to find myself at a place where that was going to be all I could possibly do. And so UVA was.

John McAllister (45:08.762)

What department were you in here?

Greg Humphreys (45:10.990)

I taught computer science in engineering school.

I did a, most of my research was in computer graphics.

John McAllister (45:20.102)

Okay, so before we completely leave Stanford, and we're gonna get to your computer graphics notoriety, but I have told this story many times of yours. So you and I are, we're both at the regional in Virginia Beach, probably in like 2013 or 14. We're not playing together, but we're both there. And I happen upon, I think you and Rob Brady, who I played with in Memphis also, but that has nothing to do with the story. I run into the two of you guys having breakfast at a restaurant before that day of play is going to start. And I remember you tell me that you got a new job at Google.

Greg Humphreys (46:07.236)

Oh yeah.

John McAllister (46:08.522)

And I'm like, oh, that's really cool. Like, how'd you get the job? And you said, well, I finally got in touch with Sergey, and he set me up. And I said, Sergey, you know Sergey Brin? And you said, yeah, we were at graduate school together. And now I'll let you take it from here about the start of Google and Greg Humphrey's role in that.

Greg Humphreys (46:38.531)

Oh yeah. Or lack thereof. Yeah, so by the way, I didn't nepotism my way into Google. I had a totally normal job interview at Google. I do think that Sergey or possibly Larry Page had to intervene at some point because Google doesn't normally have remote people. And I live in Virginia and there's no office around here. So they may have had to get involved at some point is my understanding. But yeah, when we were in grad school, I mean, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were just, they were grad students in the same, they were just a few doors down doing research on whatever they were doing. And Google was at some point was google.stanford.edu, right? I think it started just like a computer under one of their desks or something that they were running the stuff on. And then at some point in the late 90s, they decided that they were gonna quit school and turn it into a business venture. And they went around asking people if anyone wanted to come with them. Like I wasn't the only person they asked. It's not like I was, but you know, and we asked them like, well, well I asked them anyway. I was like, well, you know, okay, how are you gonna make money? And they said, we don't know. Like, okay, what's the exit strategy here? Like, are we gonna sell the Yahoo? You know, what's the plan? No, no, no, we want to go public. It's gonna be a big company. Okay, but how are you gonna make money? Like, because it was just search. That's all they had was just like a way. They had the PageRank algorithm, which, by the way, the original Google search algorithm is called PageRank, and I think everyone thinks it's because it ranks web pages, but it's not. It's because it's named after Larry. His name is Larry Page. It was just PageRank. It's his ranking algorithm. Just a coincidence that it ranked web pages.

And it was like, I don't understand. And then at some point, I think one of them, this thing was Sergey, cause this is how Sergey talks. He's like, look, dude, all we know is that this is better than school. We're gonna do something awesome. It's gonna be way more fun than going to school. And they didn't know how they were gonna make money or how they were gonna succeed, but they were very determined and they, it's all pretty well documented. Now they've racked up a huge amount of credit card debt and started building racks of servers in somebody’s garage somewhere, pretty standard Silicon Valley story, like take out a few hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt. You know, that's what you have to, you have to be at a point in your life where you can accept that kind of personal risk. Let's see, if you rack up two or $300,000 in credit card debt to build a bunch of servers in your garage for your idea and it goes nowhere, or you never get funding, well, what do you do with $300,000 in credit card debt?

You declare bankruptcy, right? Like, and they take everything. But when you're in your early 20s and you're renting an apartment and you have a beater for a car, they can't take anything from you except your credit score. And like, who cares? Right? That's the attitude. It's really like, who cares? I'll, you know, we'll just move on to the next venture. And then maybe the next venture is a little harder because you can't get $300,000 in credit now because you've just declared bankruptcy. But someone else can. You have a co-founder and it's fine. You know? And now, so I think about that. And I think about like now I'm in my 40s and I have kids and I have a house and a mortgage and like stuff and things that I want to preserve, right? And so my tolerance for risk now is much lower. That was the time to do it. Oops, you know, hindsight. Every now and then I torture myself by going looking like, I wonder who was employee number three at Google. I wonder what they're worth. But you know, also it's important to have some perspective on this stuff, too. Google or any tech company, for every tech company that becomes Google, of which there are, what, a dozen at most, there are thousands that you've never heard of that had people that were equally passionate, and maybe they had a really good idea. And it just didn't work out for whatever reason. And so involving a different group of people at the beginning of a company like Google could easily have led to a very different outcome. So I did actually, as you said, I ended up working at Google much, much, much later. And when you go work at Google now that it's this big company with big complicated culture, they have you wear these silly little beanies with the Google colors on them and a little propeller on top at orientation. Cause all the new Googlers who are called newglers show up and they have all these ridiculous hats on to identify them as new people. And I ran into Sergey after his presentation of this thing and he sort of smiled at me and he said, well better late than never I guess.

John McAllister (51:44.122)

HA HA

John McAllister (51:49.545)

When I tell the story, what you told me originally was like, you're leaving, you're leaving grad school to do search? No, no thank you.

Greg Humphreys (51:58.570)

Yeah, well, I mean, everyone thought, everyone said no, right? Like, you know, nobody, everyone was like, what? Like, because they didn't know how they were gonna make money. I mean, it took them, I don't know how many years it took them to, for someone, I think it might have actually been Eric Veach figured out like, you guys should sell advertising. Like, that'd be cool. You have a lot of eyeballs on these things. I bet we could tailor the ads to those eyeballs. And that would probably be, turn the advertising industry on its head. And they're like, oh yeah, that's how we're gonna make money.

But yeah, it took him a while.

John McAllister (52:33.002)

Um, so I got some questions from, I talked to Adam Parrish over text and he gave me some suggested questions. He said that you and Jenni play one time a year, which is the mixed pairs. Is that true?

Greg Humphreys (52:40.773)

Oh god.

Greg Humphreys (52:48.990)

That is true. There have been occasional exceptions to that. We played in the mixed Swiss recently on that team with Jeff Roman. But that was in Phoenix. That's right. Yeah, that was unexpected. I didn't have plans to go to Phoenix. And then Jenni found herself unexpectedly free for that weekend and said, hey, do you want to come play on a team with me and Jeff Roman? I said, yep, and got on a plane.

And we played in the World Pair Championships in Philly, but other than that, yeah, we play once a year. There was an effort last year, like before Reno, to, I might have the time to run that, but there was a recent effort to practice online. Because I do play bridge online with some friends. I'm actually playing tonight on a team match against Rob Brady. It's funny, you brought him up.

John McAllister (53:48.342)

Wow, haven't seen him in a long time.

Greg Humphreys (53:49.110)

I think Adam Kaplan and I are playing against Rob and his partner tonight, live on Twitch.tv. Craig Ganzer, I think? Rob plays a lot with Craig. Yeah, Rob, I think Rob has stopped playing live bridge, but he creates a ton of content online. He streams on Twitch every day, and he posts all of his streams to YouTube. They're all like, they're all, yeah, all of his YouTube videos are at least 90 minutes long and he's playing, you know, tournaments on BBO and talking through his thought process on every single hand. It's really good content. I can't recommend it enough. It's way better than my Twitch content, which is usually like me smoking weed and being an idiot and like forgetting how many trumps there were.

John McAllister (54:29.002)

Wow.

Greg Humphreys (54:42.230)

Anyway, where were we? So Jenni and I had had made an effort to practice at some point. And then, like, she got busy and or like the tournament ended. And so we like didn't pick it back up again. But yeah, we play about once a year. And so every single year, I have to get our notes and like refresh my brain about how we play because she and I play a relay precision system that requires some study. You know, we have a lot of weird artificial stuff to like our one diamond opener could be zero diamonds and like one of a major past two clubs could have no clubs like it could be a game force with either minor because we play a major past two diamonds as a limit raise of the major. Limit raise or better like Drury but by an unpassed hand which lets us stop in two of a major which is good because we open almost all of our ten counts so being able to stop a level lower than the field is something that we value.

But yeah, we do. We play the mixed pairs. I actually don't remember, Jenni's gonna kill me for saying this, but I actually don't remember how we got started playing the mixed pairs. Like I don't remember the initial conversation about like, hey, should we play? Because it's been a long time and I do not remember.

But yeah, that's, I mean, you know, Jenni's a full-time tournament director. And so, you know, we don't, she doesn't, it's not like she has a ton of time to play other stuff. And, you know, I have, I have kids and a job and stuff. And so it's not like, you know, it's not like I'm playing bridge all the time. That wasn't always true, by the way. There was a period of time where I was teaching bridge. We had a little like, cadre of bridge teachers.

John McAllister (56:43.562)

My parents, you were teaching my parents at one point. I think that was post. That was post, post, anyway, sorry I interrupted.

Greg Humphreys (56:48.750)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a conglomerate of bridge, run by a guy named Robert Todd, who you probably know. And yeah, yeah, yeah, your viewers will know Robert. And so Robert was running Adventures in Bridge and he had a whole collection of bridge teachers that would go play in tournaments and give lectures at country clubs and all over the place. And that was how I met a lot of the people that are, that's how I met Adam Parrish, it's how I met Adam Kaplan, that’s how I met Terry, one of these people that I've played a ton of bridge with. And when I was doing that, I was working full time. And traveling a lot to play bridge. And so I would play, we were six handed and I would say, OK, like I have to play halves, like I can't anchor. And I would just schedule which halves I was going to play around any meetings I was going to have or any work I needed to do. And so I would just rush back to the hotel room and frantically work during breaks and dinner time and stuff and play bridge the rest of the time. Yeah, that was rough. It was rough, but I think I owe an awful lot of any current success that I'm enjoying in bridge to that because I got to really immerse myself in bridge and it gave me an opportunity to discuss hands with people who were definitely better bridge players than I was.

And being able to travel around with your expenses paid and play bridge with your friends on teams with students who for the most part were focused on learning. So there was little pressure to win. I mean if you lost all the time that would be bad but one of the things this team had going for it was that nobody had a lot of masterpoints and so you know we were frequently in bracket four or bracket five, it's not hard to just keep the ball in the fairway and steamroll bracket five. As I've discovered, it's not that hard to keep the ball in the fairway and steamroll some national events too. I know a lot of people get mad at me for saying this, but I feel like in a lot of these events, I didn't do very many things that I think are good. I did some things that are good. There's some things I was proud of. There were a couple of things that Jenni, there's one thing in particular that Jenni wrote up for the Bulletin that's like maybe one of the best bridge things I've ever done in my life.

John McAllister (59:20.922)

Yeah, I read that.

John McAllister (59:25.902)

We'll link to that in the show notes. That's the Jack of Diamonds lead, I think.

Greg Humphreys (59:29.250)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the diamond lead. But for the most part, I feel like if you're in the right place at the right time, there's just so many hands. If we go and go through all these hands, we're like, oh yeah, here's the hand where our opponents went for 800 in a part score deal. Here's the hand where our opponent with 11 top tricks in four hearts decided to go down one. You know, you're just like, it's not super easy to... And I remember when we were sitting down to play in the Platinum Pairs, I was like, okay, this is going to be a really different experience from …

John McAllister (01:00:01.662)

Yeah, I mean that's a tough day at Bridge, I think. I mean, yeah.

Greg Humphreys

Well day three was but day one was actually felt pretty familiar. We cruised into day two. We didn't really like I don't feel like we did anything special and then on day two we had few significant gifts and we just like kind of bid tried to bid and play normally My favorite moment by the way from the whole tournament was I believe on day three of the Platinum Pairs when I sat down against Versace. I don't remember who his partner was because he was on the other side of the screen. But I sit down against him. I've played against him a few times but nothing like this ever happened. His partner opens I think a heart and it goes pass pass to me and I have a 5=3=3=2 19 count, maybe 18, with five solid spades, ace, king, queen, jack, 10. So I start with a double, and now the guy who opened a heart bids a notrump, and it goes pass. Yeah, so the guy on my left also has like 18, 19. Goes a notrump, pass, and Versace bids two spades. I'm like, okay, pretty sure I could beat this, so I double. And it goes pass, and poor Adam, not quite in on the joke here, uh, removes this, removes this to two notrump. He bids two notrump, he's like, I have two places to play. Like, okay, well, that's too bad. So I, I pass this Tudotrump bid, which means that I get to put this hand down his dummy.

And so Versace makes a lead. He's got like three kibitzers, right? And I face this hand, and everyone starts laughing. And Versace sticks his head through the screen, and he says, now, I'm not saying that I am making two spades. BUT if anyone is making two spades, it is me. Somehow Adam still went, we still got a good result because he somehow managed to go plus 120 in two no. It was fine, but we were, you know, we were obviously two spades. It was not going to be pleasant.

John McAllister (01:02:26.883)

Yeah, you just, you know partners never pass. That's so hard. It's so hard. It's so hard.

Greg Humphreys (01:02:32.618)

Yeah, yeah, it's frustrating. Of course, he's not passing.

John McAllister:

You you've played a strong diamond. Is there any benefit to playing a strong, a strong diamond?

Greg Humphreys (01:02:49.050)

Okay, yes, there is. So here's how it was explained to me and I came to believe that this is true. So first of all, most of the benefits of playing any sort of system that has an artificial strong, usually strong club comes from the hands where you don't open a club, right? It's the fact that all your other bids are limited and opener's range is narrower, which is hugely advantageous. So of course a strong diamond system has all of those advantages. But when your nebulous opening is one club instead of one diamond, those auctions can be, it doesn't seem like much because it's just one step, but those auctions can be very accurate. We were also, so we played like a relay structure over this one club. So we would open a club, basically saying like, I can't open a No Trump, and also our one of a major openings, we were five card majors, but they promised an unbalanced hand. So if you had a balanced hand, even with a five card major, you still had to open a club. So we would open a club, and the only responses to this were one diamond was like six to 13 any shape, and one notrump was 14 plus any shape, and over both of these we had shape showing relays, and so opener could show his exact shape, after one club, one diamond, and the auction was super low. It was all organized around keeping the auction really, really, really low on part score deals. So you open a club saying, I have a limited hand, partner bids a diamond saying, hey, I have a limited hand, and then opener starts to relay, and you can only really have a few different kinds of hands. You can have like a three-suited hand or both minors, or a balanced hand, or a single-suited, but like not really a single-suited minor, because you would open two of a minor with that and you know, not really both minors, because we played the two no opening as showing both minors. So the auctions were really, really, really accurate on part score deals. So it had that going for it. The one diamond auctions were pretty bad. The system, I mean, I would love to share these notes with you, the system was called recursive diamond. The idea was that when you opened a diamond, if partner made a positive response, your next bid would would say, I would have opened this strain a level lower, but my hand was too good. Okay, so the whole system was like defined in terms of itself. So let's say when like a you open a diamond partner bids a heart, which is probably artificial, and then you bid two clubs. Two clubs said I would have opened one club in our system, but my hand was too good for that. And so the one club opener, and then you have the whole same relay structure to shape out your hand, except now you're in a game force, or like a club, or like a diamond heart, two spades. I would have opened one spade, but my hand was too good. These auctions are also, by the way, a diamond, a heart, two diamonds. Says I would have opened a diamond, never mind the fact that I did. But my hand was too good. This was how you would show it, like a two club kind of hand. Like a big two club kind of hand. So, and those auctions are terrible. Like everybody knows that two club auctions are terrible. And now we're at two diamonds, we still haven't described our hand at all. So those auctions were really, really bad. We were just leaning really hard on the whole idea that you could gain a lot from these one club auctions.

John McAllister (01:06:25.102)

So it's different, it's a lot different from the Sam Dinkin strong diamond system that he plays.

Greg Humphreys (01:06:31.030)

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that that system seems like a lot of good solid thought went into it. This was like a bunch of grad student nerds at Stanford wanted to do something different for the sake of being different. And they wanted to do something vaguely computer sciency, like one of the the core, like academic things in computer science is this notion of recursion, which is procedures that are defined in terms of themselves. And so we wanted to make a bidding system that was defined in terms of itself. You know, or like the two spade bid means it's just like the one spade bid, but stronger, you know, things like that. And because we were we were geeks and we were just trying to do stuff and then we we realized, oh, maybe this is actually playable. This happens a lot like Rob Brady invented a system. I swear to God, I have played this system with Rob in actual events where one club was eight to ten balanced and one diamond was eleven to thirteen balanced and one heart was 14 to 16 balanced, and one spade was 17 to 19 balanced, right? All the balanced ranges. I think two diamonds was 23 plus. And then you would open one no trump with any one suited hand, and two no trump with any two suited hand. And then you just like figure it out from there. All the responses are transfers. It's really great when you hold balanced hands, right? Really, really good. But it's not a real system, you know? This is like something you'd play in the Midnights, and we had great results with it, but it's not a real system. Like it's the kind of thing where like, it's akin to cheesy traps in chess. You know, like if you're a chess player, there are certain things where you can, you can trap your opponent if they don't know what's going on, but you try it against a grand master and they just destroy you because the trap itself is not good, it's just that it's devastating when you don't know what's coming. So it's a little bit like that, I think.

John McAllister (01:08:33.502)

How many people does Rob Brady get on his Twitch stream?

Greg Humphreys (01:08:38.450)

You know I don't know his streams are often at odd hours so I often find myself consuming the content after the fact.

John McAllister (01:08:46.942)

You watch it at like two times speed or?

Greg Humphreys (01:09:08.810)

No I often so I do a lot of uh woodworking and I have a big tv mounted to the wall in my garage where I have on my wood shop and I'll often have like Rob Brady playing bridge uh on the tv and then I have these like uh big ear protector things because of the saws with Bluetooth headphones. And so I'm just like listening to Rob yammer on about bridge for a couple hours while I'm cutting wood. So I don't know, but I mean, his chat is overlaid in there and it's a healthy number of people. I mean, it's not thousands. There was a time, by the way, I think you'll enjoy this, there was a time when I was playing Bridge on Twitch. It was just me. I think I was playing a robot challenge, you know, where another player has played eight boards against Gib and then you play the same eight boards and you compare. And so, you know, I would, four people are watching me do this, maybe on a good day. But then a friend of mine who's someone I've known for almost a decade now, who at the time I met him was a teeny tiny Twitch streamer playing video games, but has since grown blown up into one of the biggest creators on the platform decided when he was ending his stream, he noticed that I was online, and he hosted my channel, which effectively sends his entire viewership directly to me into my chat. And so I get a little notification on my screen that says this guy is now hosting your channel with 24,000 viewers. And so 24,000 people descend on me playing cards and talking about cards, and it was just pandemonium. None of them is a bridge player, of course. So, you know, I just had to stop playing bridge for an hour and start answering their questions. This was at a time when I was working at Twitch. And so, you know, viewers of a big Twitch stream have a lot of questions about the inner workings of Twitch. Like, why'd you ban this person? Or how does this work? Or whatever. They just wanted to beat my ear about Twitch and nobody cared about bridge. It was a wild moment. Somewhere I have that video saved.

John McAllister (01:11:13.507)

I'd love to have that if you can get it. We could put it in the show notes.

Greg Humphreys (01:11:15.450)

Yeah, I'll find it with the timestamp.

John McAllister (01:11:21.723)

I tuned into one of your Twitch like saved things and it seemed like you're playing with Terry It was the most recent one, but it seemed like everybody at the table was talking.

Greg Humphreys (01:11:28.150)

Oh yeah, we just have a Zoom call open on the side, just so we can chat.

John McAllister (01:11:37.322)

So you're not, like I thought on Twitch, like people would talk about like what they were doing, what they were thinking. So it's not that.

Greg Humphreys (01:11:44.370)

Well, they're not streaming, the other three people aren't streaming. I'm the only one on Twitch. They're just playing bridge. So we just get into a Zoom call and I open it up on my screen, which is why you can hear it. I'm not showing their faces or anything. I mean, I could, I suppose, but yeah. Yeah.

John McAllister (01:12:00.602)

Right, right. But you're not, it's not like you're talking through what you're thinking, cause they would hear you.

Greg Humphreys (01:12:07.270)

Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, no, occasionally I will mute myself in the call if I wanna talk about the hand. But for the most part, the Twitch streams that I do are just like four friends playing bridge and having a good time. And sometimes people enjoy observing that phenomenon. Whereas people like Gavin streams on Twitch sometimes, or YouTube and Rob Brady and some other people, but they're often doing it very solo.

John McAllister (01:12:27.366)

Right.

Greg Humphreys (01:12:38.030)

And so then their content is a lot more educational in nature. Like, here's how we think about this hand, or here's why you should bid this and not that. Mostly this is just me and some friends of mine being clowns. I don't know what we're doing tonight. Actually, Rob and I are both going to be streaming tonight, playing with Adam and I assume Craig, but I'm not sure about that. And I asked Rob if I should be streaming. And he said yeah we both should. But I don't know if that means that we're not going to be in a call and and chatting because you know if he's talking through his thought process obviously yeah, I shouldn't hear that I'm not sure

John McAllister (01:13:19.942)

Yeah. Wait, are you playing on bridge base? And you're playing like a.

Greg Humphreys (01:13:24.130)

Yeah. I assume so, actually. I would assume. Yeah.

John McAllister (01:13:28.602)

You play vugraph deals or something like that? Or what do you play?

Greg Humphreys (01:13:31.470)

Usually, I mean, that's, well, that's what I do with, that's what I do with Terry and people when we play. We either play random vugraph deals or we'll play through like the Spingold finals or something. Sometimes the random vugraph deals are weird. Like you get weird results or sometimes the database is buggy. But the results from the actual vugraphed events are pretty good.

You say, oh look, I played this hand better than Bobby Levin.

John McAllister (01:14:04.524)

Always nice.

Greg Humphreys (01:14:04.630)

Which almost inevitably means Bobby took fewer tricks than I did because Bobby was, you know, taking a higher percentage line of play. And I'm the rueful rabbit in these scenarios always.

John McAllister (01:14:15.602)

I look forward to playing a vugraph match and then having a deal one that I've played already. I think it's happened once. Not like the whole match, but where something was sprinkled in that I had played.

Greg Humphreys (01:14:30.310)

Oh, where you find yourself, you're the your own vugraph. You know, I don't think I've ever. That's not true. I've I've been on vugraph. Well, I've played in the trials a couple of times, and I know some of those matches are vugraphed, but there was also there was a vugraph table when Jenni and I were in the finals of the World Pairs, and it was not my finest moment either. It's possible that Jenni told this story, I think, on the same podcast, but it was the hand where we had some sort of mix up disaster, Jenni finds herself going down many many many tricks and is really like she's really trying to keep it together but she's on vugraph right and it's just it's just gone down a bunch and in in a very misguided attempt to lighten the mood I think I stuck my head through the screen and said did we make it and I think she may have actually started to cry um really did not read the room uh in that moment. Not my finest moment.

John McAllister (01:15:33.583)

That was one of the things you said to me and in your email was a balance and being competitive and also like you like to have a good time at the table.

Greg Humphreys (01:15:43.890)

Oh yeah, Jenni and everyone always remarks on how much fun Jenni and I are having. They'll see us from across the room and everyone's always laughing. And I think people have started to realize, like from the consistency of our results, that we have somehow managed to engineer a situation where we're handing people zeros and they're laughing and thanks for playing with us. This was such a delight. Like, yeah, it was, wasn't it? For us too. But yeah, we have a great time.

It's a tough balance because I see a lot of people who play bridge, they're very serious about it, and they have no tolerance for anything that they think is wrong. Their partner does something, their partner played the six of hearts instead of the five, and for the next 30 minutes it's all they're going to gripe about or whatever. And that I've never understood, why bridge turns otherwise reasonable people into monsters. I mean, we've all seen bridge partners just start berating each other.

John McAllister (01:16:49.364)

Yeah, I've been that person more than once. Probably to you.

Greg Humphreys (01:17:14.490)

I don't know. I remember a hand, I think from the IMP pairs, actually, I remember a hand very clearly where you received a penalty double in three spades. You were about to declare three spades doubled. But the partner of the doubler pulled it and I remember in my head thinking oh thank God and then it came back around to you and I think you weren't in on the joke and you were like oh this must not have been a penalty double because his partner pulled it and so you've been four spades which then got ripped and went for like 1,400 or something and you weren't mad at me about it but you were pretty upset.

John McAllister (01:17:18.702)

Oh god. I remember from Philadelphia there was a hand where I think you were on lead against three no and you had like ace fifth of clubs and you didn't lead a club. And I remember being so mad at you about that later.

Greg Humphreys:

Club would have worked out, huh?

John McAllister

And Gavin somehow was there and yeah, it wasn't my finest hour. Honestly, I'm not the best technical player but one of the advantages that I can have at the bridge table is like being a good partner and having like partnership harmony and that's something that I am focused on.

Greg Humphreys (01:18:14.650)

Yeah. In many ways, I think that's a more valuable skill. Like, this is something I've never understood. Like, what you need at the bridge table is you need your, you need to get yourself together, obviously, but you need your partner to be at their best. And so when something bad happens, unless it's a misunderstanding that needs clearing up because it might happen again, your job as a bridge partner is to do whatever you need to do to help your partner get over it. Steve and Bobby talk about this all the time. It's something they're especially good at. When they have a bad result, sometimes they'll take a quick break, go out in the hallway and say, you know. They approach the game with utter contempt for their opponents, right? They're like, they just sit down. It doesn't matter if their opponents are like world champ, multiple time world champions. They're just like, these guys are idiots. Like they could barely follow suit.

John McAllister (01:18:47.463)

Yeah, it's true.

Greg Humphreys (01:19:15.010)

You know, and that's where they give themselves a little pep talk and come right back in. And it usually gets it done. And that's something that's really really nice about playing with Jenni, is we're having such a good time all the time that our bad results, you know, they're forgotten pretty quickly. Sometimes Jenni needs to vent. But it's never like, it's never mean. It's like, because if she doesn't vent, then there's like, it's on the inside and then it festers. You don't want that either. But, you know, like any good relationship, we have an understanding. But like, if she's venting, it's not because she thinks I'm stupid, it's just because she needs to like, purge these thoughts from her system and then we'll go on and, you know, beat up on these clowns in the next round and it doesn't matter. And it seems to be working.

John McAllister (01:20:09.002)

Were you and Adam surprised? Was there any point during your run to third place in the Platinum Pairs where you're like, can you believe we're doing this? Did you say that to each other afterwards?

Greg Humphreys (01:20:21.790)

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, our goal, when we sat down on day one, our goal was to make day three. Right? Adam, I thought that Adam was in the same boat I was, but Adam actually made the last day the Reisinger in Phoenix. And was not last. Our goal was to make day three. And then we made day three in like striking distance. And I think what we both took away from that was we did really well, and day two wasn't nearly as tough as either we expected or remembered from other events. I've never played the Platinum Pairs before, but I've been in the Blue Ribbon Pairs, and I know those aren't the same event, but I remember the day two of the Blue Ribbon Pairs being quite tough, and I just didn't feel like the ... I didn't feel like we encountered anything in the Platinum Pairs where I was like, wow, like that was some world-class bridge. I really don't. Even on the third day, I mean, people did well. But people made plenty of mistakes. And actually, it was funny, in our final round, so I was doing actually quite a poor job of estimating our results. Because I thought that we had had quite a weak sixth session. And we went into the final round, and I was like, yeah, I feel like we're just kind of nowhere, we're in the middle, like we're nowhere.

And I just decided that I want to come top 10 in this event.

John McAllister (01:21:55.902)

Where were you at the break between the fifth and sixth session? Where were you then?

Greg Humphreys (01:22:02.590)

I don't know. Let me look that up. One second.

Platinum Pairs, 10 a.m., leaderboards.

Well, that's not right. That says we were second. I don't believe that.

That's fr- oh that was Friday. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That's Friday. Yeah. Okay.

Here we go, Sunday. Leaderboards, 10 AM. We were fourth.

John McAllister (01:22:51.125)

You must have taken that in. I mean, you must have been like ...

Greg Humphreys (01:22:54.710)

Yeah, no, I mean, being fourth, like, it was wild. We're like, how can we be in striking distance at this event? This is crazy. Like the top of this leaderboard is like a who's who of bridge. I see that Johnny and Vince were leading after five sessions too. They held on. But I really felt like our sixth set had not been particularly good. And so we, I'm like, yeah, I feel like, you know, like it hasn't gone real well. And like, I really want to be top 10 in this event. Like that would be amazing.

So we sit down our last hand last round and I had some like 4=2=4=3 five count. Partner opens a heart and it goes pass pass. I passed this because you know whatever and I don't have a response and then now lefty balances a spade partner bids two hearts and it goes double pass two no.

And this passes back to me and I'm just like, you know what, I don't think they can make two notrump. I don't know if they can make two notrump, but I just feel like I need a thing here. They're red and I want 200. You know, like I wanna be, I wanna be top 10.

John McAllister (01:24:03.222)

Who you playing against?

Greg Humphreys:

I'm not sure. What I found out later was that the pair we were playing against was the bottom qualifier for day three and they had squeaked into day three because on day two, Adam revoked against them.

John McAllister (01:24:15.102)

Got it.

Greg Humphreys (01:24:23.510)

So, so anyway, so we were having this like sort of pseudo revenge match. I actually didn't remember that this was the same pair. Adam told me this later. So I doubled this. And I do remember that the tray was over on the other side for a really long time. And the guy who had bid two notrump at some point leans over to me and says, does your double call for a heart lead? I said, no, my double says I don't think I'm going to be top 10 in this event if I don't get 200 on this board. So I just, you're doubled in two no. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. And so anyway, eventually we get 500 against two no, which is wild on this part score deal. And with this board took like 10 minutes to deal with. And most of the other pairs in the room were done, which is wild because there are so many notoriously slow pairs in this field. Like the pace of play on day three is very, very slow. For the field to be done while we're still dealing with board one is actually a lot of unauthorized information to me, right?

John McAllister (01:25:04.584)

Right, yeah.

Greg Humphreys (01:25:23.910)

Like, what do I now know about the second hand, right? It's got to be nothing, right? Because we're all playing the same hands at the same time. It's played barometer style. There's no leaderboard, but we're playing simultaneously. So the second board comes up and righty over opens a heart. And I have a very normal one no trump overcall. I overcall a notrump and it goes penalty double.

John McAllister (01:25:41.024)

That doesn't sound like a normal fast board.

Greg Humphreys:

Okay, Jesus. Right. I'm like, what? What is happening here? Like the whole room is like, we're just just empty. It's just like us and Joel Wooldridge are the only people still left in the room, right?

John McAllister (01:25:30.565)

Yeah. A notoriously slow player.

Greg Humphreys (01:25:55.710)

Like, okay, okay. So anyway, a partner redoubles, showing a single suited hand. He wants to run, it goes pass. I bid two clubs like I'm supposed to, and it goes double and all pass. So I'm declaring two clubs doubled. And it's like cold. I'm just like plus 180. This is our last round. And I'm like, oh, and I walk out of the room. Like, I think we did it. Like, I think we got like two tops on the last two boards. Like, this is amazing. I think we've probably, I think this will put us in the top 10.

John McAllister (01:26:14.286)

Wow, wow, that's amazing. Last round. Wow.

Greg Humphreys (01:26:25.390)

And then like I walk out and I look at the leaderboard and where the thing with one round to go and we're fifth. And it's close. Like we're less than a board behind.

John McAllister

From first?

Greg Humphreys

Yeah. And we're in fifth. And I'm like, I was just like, I was like, oh my God. Like what just happened? Cause this, you know, this was like a hail Mary last round that I did largely because I was misestimating.

John McAllister (01:26:48.225)

Oh my god.

Greg Humphreys (01:26:54.210)

So, I mean, like if I knew I was fifth, you told me I was fifth, there's no world in which I'm doubling to notrump. So, now I'm sweating and now everyone, so we walk out there, of course, everyone has been out for five minutes and we walk out and everyone's like, how was your last round? How was your last round? I was like, well, we were plus 500 plus 180. And everyone's like, holy shit, like those are some results. And now like, you know, Vince and Johnny are like, oh no, like they're sweating, like they had a good last round, but not that good.

John McAllister (01:26:56.844)

Oh my god.

John McAllister (01:27:06.706)

Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (01:27:24.190)

And it wasn't quite enough, but there were only three match points between third and first. And I'm sure you saw there were two one hundredths of a match point between first and second. That's like one trick on day one worth of carryover between first and second. But yeah, so estimating.

John McAllister (01:27:29.444)

Wow.

John McAllister (01:27:52.902)

What do you think your two final round percentages were? Like your two last day Platinum percentages were.

Greg Humphreys (01:28:00.770)

Oh, well, since I have this stuff up, I can just tell you. Because I do not remember.

John McAllister (01:28:02.704)

Yeah, sure.

Greg Humphreys (01:28:09.211)

I just, ACBL Live, when you go back, it returns you to day one, or the first page rather. Let me open these in new tabs. Okay, so the recap, this is session five.

John McAllister (01:28:25.102)

Jesus, you thought you fucking had a chance to win the damn thing. I mean, you did. You were close.

Greg Humphreys (01:28:27.591)

Oh, okay, so we had a 56 in session. We had a 56 in session five and a 57 and a half in session six.

John McAllister (01:28:37.322)

Wow, man, that's impressive that that didn't win.

Greg Humphreys (01:28:40.790)

And the second play, yeah, and by the way, you know, when I was thinking about that, I mean, it was something that, I think it was Zach Grossack said to me, I, cause I told him we had these games or what it said on the thing. And he's like, that might do it. He's like, it's the plat, it's day three, the Platinum Pairs, no one's having a 60, right? Like you're not supposed to, like everyone's supposed to know what they're doing. The pair that came second, Ola Rimstedt and Irene, had a 68 to come two 100ths of a matchpoint of winning.

John McAllister (01:29:12.024)

Wow.

John McAllister (01:29:15.842)

I gotta stop saying wow.

Greg Humphreys (01:29:17.490)

But what else can you say 68 is just like, that's really something.

John McAllister (01:29:23.602)

So you indirectly are responsible for Double Dummy. Did you know that?

Greg Humphreys (01:29:30.991)

I did not.

John McAllister (01:29:32.982)

We were in Memphis, played the Plat- sorry, played the, not the Platinum Pairs, the IMP Pairs, and one of the nights there was a brainstorming session about how do we get more young people interested in learning bridge.

Greg Humphreys (01:29:39.178)

Yeah. Was it dinner with Paul Street? Was it that dinner? We went to some dinner.

John McAllister (01:29:51.562)

No, no, it was a brainstorming session when there was a free dinner.

Greg Humphreys (01:29:57.591)

Oh yeah, I remember, like the junior, mm-hmm.

John McAllister (01:30:01.082)

And you invited me to it. Like, I didn't know about it. You invited me. And that was like the beginning of what would become. Like, I remember being at that dinner and they're talking about like, how do we get more young people interested in learning bridge? And like the light bulb went off, not for a film necessarily. And then also one of the, I guess it was the IMP Pairs, between rounds, we went back to your room and your roommate was Adam Kaplan and Adam was like famous from Bridge Winners already even though he was 16. And that's how I met Adam Kaplan and what I liked about Adam Kaplan in spite of your being like 20 years older than him, he was making fun of you for the way that you were thinking about some of the deals that we were talking about. And Adam was like the reason that we made the film about him and that team. So …

Greg Humphreys (01:31:00.790)

Wow, that's really cool. Yeah, I really enjoy, I used to room with Adam at Nationals a lot. I don't really know how that happened. You would think like, it'd be this sort of thing because he was traveling, he was playing bridge full time as a teenager. And it's not like, you know, I'm friends with his parents and so they trust me or anything like that. It was just like, you know, we had this mutual relationship with Robert Todd and we just ended up rooming together all the time. I think it's because despite being, you know, 20 years older than him, I think we are, we were mentally about the same. I remember, I think that might have been the night where we accidentally ordered a second pizza, and so we had this extra pizza that we didn't want, and so he and I had a contest to see like who could throw the most pepperoni into one of those standing halogen torch lamps. It was like, this is a stupid right? I mean I was like, what, this was, I was like 30 something throwing pepperonis at a lamp with a teenager? Yeah we're having a good time. He and I once not in Memphis but maybe Louisville we were playing together and not in any national stuff we were just playing bridge and we we decided to run an experiment to see if we could physically play four sessions a day for ten days this is back when there were midnights and the games were at 1 and 7:30.

John McAllister (01:32:33.743)

Is it national or regional? Regional.

Greg Humphreys (01:32:34.030)

And so just regional stuff. We weren't planning anything big and serious. And so we were trying desperately to do this, and we were so tired. We made it about six days before we called it off.

John McAllister (01:32:50.202)

How could you call it off after six days? You got one day left.

Greg Humphreys (01:32:53.990)

No, this is at Nationals. There were 10 days. We were, it was, yeah, no, this was, this wasn't Gatlinburg. I mean, this was like, we were, we were delirious. And one of my favorite memories from any bridge tournament was in that last day, we were playing the, like a morning compact KO. You know, one of these things that goes like across two days and Adam was like, he was so tired. He's like drifting in and out of consciousness while he's like declaring some part score. And there was some point around trick seven or eight where he detaches a card from his hand, okay, faces it and then lays his head down on the table like he's about to go to sleep. And with his last ounce of strength says out loud, West is squeezed in the majors making three or something like that. Like he just claimed on a squeeze as he drifts off to sleep.

I was like, who is this kid? Insane. That round also is one of the, this is just a funny anecdote, it was one of the wildest things I've ever seen at a bridge table. Before the session started, it was like 8:55, Adam and I were sitting there with one of our opponents, which was like an elderly woman. And we're like, you know, her partner's not there yet. We're just chatting. And a kibitzer is walking through the ballroom, holding a chair above her head. And you know, things are packed close together. And as this kibitzer gets close to our table, she trips over like a poorly gaffered cable or something and brings this chair down on this old woman's head. Okay, with full force. Yeah, crack. Okay, knocks the lady, the lady's knocked unconscious.

John McAllister (01:34:55.602)

I mean, she could have killed her.

Greg Humphreys (01:34:57.070)

Yes. So this lady is knocked out, pitches forward and her head hits the table, which snaps her to. So she slams into the table, sits back up, throws her hand up and yells, Director, please, in like one swift motion. And so I think it was Sol Weinstein shows up. He's annoyed that he's been called. The game hasn't started yet.

John McAllister (01:35:26.165)

Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (01:35:27.010)

It's like, what's going on? He comes over and he's like, oh my God. Cause she's like, she's got a head, she's like bleeding down her head. And he's like, oh my God, like I'm gonna, I'll be right back, I'll be get the thing. And she says, no, no, no, I want a player, like a player memo, like a recorder form or something. And he's like, and he says, I will never forget, he says, ma'am, you are bleeding from your head. I'm getting the EMTs. So he goes and gets the, you know, they have people on call for this sort of thing.

So the emergency people show up and she's insisting that she wants she says to the the medics she's like I I want to handle this through the ACBL and they're like okay what's the ACBL like these are these are they don't know what's what an ACBL is they they usually you have a head wound and she's like no it's she refuses medical advice so they just like clean her up as best they can like you know and we played bridge like we just sat there and played our whatever it was our two boards, a morning side pairs maybe? I don't know. We just played bridge. Her partner showed up and we just played bridge. It was fine. I mean haven't you ever been in a ballroom full of people when someone is there with one of those like oxygen, portable oxygen tanks and like have you been in one where like it starts to malfunction and like the alarm starts going off? I have. And in a big ballroom full of people there's like this loud, piercing alarm because someone’s oxygen tank is failing and no one does anything right no one even looks to see if there's a problem everyone's just like small club please and you know it inevitably like the guys like oh it's embarrassing it goes and fiddles with a knob on it and the alarm stops and it's fine and everyone just carries on. Bridge is serious business.

John McAllister (01:37:21.242)

Do you ever hold over, like for example, Robert Todd, your, you know, got you into bridge, you ever hold over the fact that Robert hasn't won a national event over, like you ever give him or anybody?

Greg Humphreys (01:37:32.750)

Oh, that's, that would be petty even for me. No, no, no, no, no.

John McAllister (01:37:37.762)

He never gave anybody like, like, like I played with Walt Schafer. You know, Walt Schafer, he has a game on BBO, the Schafer game, which was like a staple of COVID and I played with him one time he's been on the podcast and he, we played, he wanted to play count in trumps. And I said, I was, I said, I didn't, I didn't even know that that was that anybody played that. And he said ask Rick Roeder, count in trumps has won three more national events than Roeder has.

Greg Humphreys (01:38:17.850)

That's funny. No, no, I'm not, I wouldn’t hold anything over Robert Todd. I mean, Robert, no, Robert, I don't have a problem with Robert. He, I owe, I mean, I owe Robert a great debt. You know what I mean? He gave me these opportunities to play like a hundred plus days of bridge a year for free in really cool places with people I like while I was holding down a full time job. There's no way I would be able to sit down in the Platinum Pairs. I mean, I wouldn't have met Adam Parrish, like I don't know these people, but like I wouldn't be able to function in any sort of high-level bridge environment without my exposure to that, either from just from the raw experience or the people I met, or you know all the hands I discussed with Adam Kaplan. There's no way.

John McAllister (01:39:13.782)

I mean, part of the reason I'm asking this is like winning a national event. Like I unexpectedly, I wasn't expecting to win the event that I won, but like, it's pretty sweet, you know, like, you know, like it's it's.

Greg Humphreys (01:39:24.452)

Yeah, it's...

Greg Humphreys (01:39:28.651)

You should try winning two more. It's still, it's pretty good. It's good. Um, especially like I had come close a number of times. Like I think I was.

John McAllister (01:39:37.862)

Like Adam Kaplan hasn't won a national event, for example, and you've won three.

Greg Humphreys (01:39:41.170)

That's true, yeah. He, I would never hold that over him, but he pointed that out a number of times in New Orleans. I think not because he's like, it's not like a jealousy thing or like, I'm such a better bridge player, blah, blah, blah, because he doesn't play the mixed pairs, right? Like if he's playing national stuff, like he's playing the Vanderbilt or something. But it's not that, I think it's that he's worried that he’s going to hit 10,000 masterpoints and become a platinum life master, which I think someone like Adam views as sort of a booby prize. Right? Like, he's going to be like those 49ers that drop out of the ACBL so they can stop tracking his points. He's going to get like 9,998 points and he's just going to like cancel his membership or something.

John McAllister (01:40:13.828)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John McAllister (01:40:20.548)

Totally.

John McAllister (01:40:36.204)

I mean, I thought that I was going to be running up against that. I mean, not that I have that many. I mean, I have 4,100, but like I was like, when am I ever going to win one of these, you know, these events? But I did!

Greg Humphreys (01:40:48.250)

Yeah, well done.

John McAllister (01:40:52.470)

How many master points do you have?

Greg Humphreys (01:40:54.510)

Uh, 48, just shy of 5,000.

John McAllister (01:41:01.302)

So we're pretty close.

Greg Humphreys (01:41:01.670)

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure, but I know that the New Orleans didn't put me over 5000. I just don't I don't play that much bridge anymore. Like when I was when I was playing with Robert's crew, you know, we would accumulate 100 points a week pretty regularly. And so it was it was easy to win several hundred points a year just grinding them out from regional to regional, or we would go to sectional sometimes and win like 30 silver points at the you know, community center in East Jesus Nowhere, Colorado. But, you know, really, I play in the spring nationals and, you know, my friends and I try to get to the New Year's regional when we can. That's been regular. There was a time when Max and I, Max Aschbacher and I were going to the Honolulu regional every year, which was really fun. But that tournament is teeny tiny.

But yeah, I just, I don't know, I don't get to play that much anymore. If I, if I won the lottery and retired, I would play more. Life continues to get in the way.

John McAllister (01:42:16.702)

How old is your oldest? She was the one that kind of got into it, Isabelle, right? She kind of got into it, didn't she?

Greg Humphreys (01:42:21.790)

Yeah, Isabelle is 18 now. Yeah, she's about to graduate from high school.

John McAllister (01:42:28.322)

I actually mentioned you to a friend. I ran into a friend at the grocery store the other day and I don't know how it came up, but I mentioned you to her and she knew you through school, through St. Anne's, I think. She knew of you, yeah.

Greg Humphreys (01:42:43.250)

Oh, oh. But not, I've played with the mother of a St. Anne’s student in like the Charlottesville club Pro-Am recently.

John McAllister (01:42:55.644)

No, she wouldn't have been that woman. I forget how it came up and how I came to you, but...

Greg Humphreys (01:43:02.294)

I'm a local celebrity. But yeah, it's true. I did try to teach Isabelle bridge when she was really little. And, uh. I was amazed at the time at how, not only how well she picked it up, but how easily she invented concepts on her own. And at the time, you know, I was a proud dad. I was just like, oh, my kid's a genius. But and she is. But I reflected on it more over time. And I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that when you try to teach someone who is a beginner at bridge, not a novice, right? Not someone who's never played, but someone who's a beginner. They come in with sometimes years of baggage, stuff they think they know, and it's very, very, very, very tough to even figure out what that is, much less get them to unlearn it. Whereas when I had Isabelle, Isabelle never played bridge before, and so we were able to discuss bidding, especially since it was just the two of us, we only talked about bidding, we were able to talk about bidding in a very theoretical way. And so she approached bidding problems as just like, okay, you know, how many points do I have? What level are we getting to? Do we have a major suit fit? Yes, no, maybe that sort of thing. And with just that framework, and not much else, and, you know, Stayman transfers and like, knowing that one notrump is 15 to 17. She independently invented lebensohl over reverses, just all on her own.

And you know, because we had a hand where I reversed and you know, I would always ask her every time I bid, like, you know, what's my point? We called it a box. I think the bridge world had this idea of the box where you have a top and a bottom for your thing and it should shrink every time you bid and you add yours to the other thing. And she's like, I don't know, like 16 to 21. And then it occurred to her that like you can't, there are some hands that she could have where you want to bid three of a minor to play and there are some hands where you could have like a slam in a minor and like there's no room. Right? There's no room for both of those things. You can't bid three clubs to play and three clubs as a slam try. This just doesn't make sense. And so she's like, this is broken. She's like, we maybe we need to use, you know, to know two notrump to like say that I have the other one or something like that. Just occurred. She was like six years old. And I was like, holy sh...

John McAllister (01:45:36.022)

Oh, you thought you were taking her to the... Ha ha ha!

Greg Humphreys (01:45:44.750)

Right. I was like, oh my god, like you know, you’re the best bridge player ever. You know, I mean, she's a very, very smart kid. And, but not to take anything away from, from, from any of that. But I think that she, she just wasn't encumbered by any of this nonsense. Like, you know, we've all seen, um, I think there's some, I remember some hand where I watched students, this was when I was working with Robert. I think I watched students bid like two notrump, three no trump. Okay. And the three notrump bidder puts down like a 4=2=3=4 six count.

And we asked, like, why didn't you bid Stayman? She says, we need eight points to bid Stayman. Right? And you can see, like, it's funny, but it's easy to see where that confusion comes from. And it's made me think a lot about how we teach bridge. We teach it, especially in books and stuff, and a lot of educational materials is like this grab bag of detailed knowledge. And nowhere, there's no framework around it where you understand what the goal of the auction is, what you're trying to accomplish, because nobody, you know, no expert is bidding two no three no with these hands. Why is that? It's because they understand like, oh I have my points to the thing, I'm bidding a game, which game? We could still have a major suit for it. It's simple, it's completely automatic, but so many beginners you see that their partner will open a diamond and they'll pick up their hand and be like, okay, what do I do with this hand? Is this a one heart response? What does that show? Oh yeah, okay. No, I don't have that. Okay, is this one spade response? What is that shit? Oh no, I don't have that. This is a one-o-tr- You know, and they're just like going through the bids one at a time. And if at any point during that process they get mixed up, they end up doing something insane. Right? Like, something that's just from outer space, and you're like, well, you know, how did this happen? You try to, like, what was the thought process so that I can repair the thought process? But that's not the problem is really that there wasn't a thought process.

The problem is that they're just like trying to figure, I've likened it to like if you know your buddy's phone number and you want his address and all you have is a phone book. And so you just start like looking through the phone book one entry at a time. That's really what they're doing. And it's very inefficient and very frustrating and very error prone. I mean, how often have you seen a beginner like their partner opens a heart and they don't respond a notrump because their hand doesn’t look balanced. You know, I have seven clubs. I can't bid notrump. Right? And they don't like, you know, they're just like, you can see where, you kind of see what the idea is, but I, you know, you have to, you have to, it's like you have to deprogram them. Like they were in a cult.

You gotta get them back to a blank slate and just fill their head with good ideas again. And it's very difficult. I don't know that I ever had much success with it.

John McAllister (01:48:53.682)

I saw this phone number analogy in your well and I didn't understand what you were saying with it. So it's very funny when I actually realize what you're talking about.

Greg Humphreys (01:49:04.290)

Yeah, I really do think that's how they approach it. And also, it's tough because beginners, like if you're trying to teach a beginner, they have all these these years, they don't want to start over, right? They don't want to go back to basics. They're like, hey, can you give a lecture on new minor forcing? Because I always mess that up, right? And like, they're right, they probably do frequently mess up new minor forcing, and they think like, if someone will just please for once teach me new minor forcing properly, I'll understand it and get it right. And you can't, they don't want to hear, because you know, they're usually paying money for a bridge teacher, they don't want to hear, yeah, that's not what you need. What you need is to unlearn everything you've learned for the last 10 years. And we're going to start with like, what's a trick? Right? They don't want to hear that. They want to like tweak this, they're like, oh, I don't understand garbage Stayman.

I believe that you don’t understand garbage Stayman but I don't think that me explaining garbage Stayman is going to repair your bridge game. And I feel there's a lot of tension there. Like as a teacher, you wanna give your students what they are asking, sorry, as a business person, you wanna give them what they're asking for. Because that's your livelihood. But then also you realize like these people genuinely wanna get good at bridge. And it's very frustrating to not know what's going on. And even if you think that you know what they need, they don’t want to hear that. So I'm not really sure what can be done.

I do wish that there were better educational materials for absolute novices. Like the way that I taught Isabelle, I've never seen written down anywhere. This like just first principles, like what's the level, what's the strain, don't worry about any conventions. And in many ways, the convention, the need for the conventions reveals itself. If you understand how many high card points do we need? Do we have a major suit fit, the need for Stayman will present itself. And you say, oh, we need a way to find this. And then you can introduce, and we have a gadget for this, but you've already grasped the need for such a gadget. It's not some weird artificial, oh God, I have to memorize what now? Okay, I'll write this down, like how everybody felt in math class in high school. Okay, I'll write down this formula and just like pray I understand it later. That's how almost everyone approaches math, if they're not already a math nerd.

I was very much the opposite of that. I was really into, I'm sure this will shock you, but I was really into math in school. And, but I, I always really wanted to understand what was actually going on underneath everything. And so I didn't worry, I never worried about memorizing things. And I remember once preparing, I was sitting outside getting ready to take whatever the AP calculus test. And one of my peers came over to me and said, in panic, I can’t remember the formula for whatever this integral, this thing, this volume of, I don't know. What is it? And I said, I don't know. He said, what do you mean you don't know? You're good at this. I was like, I don't know. Like, this is not how I think about it. If I need that, I will derive it from scratch because I know how it works. Like, these things aren't mysteries to me to be memorized. I understood the underlying principle. So if I have to solve the problem, I will solve the problem. And I felt like smoke was coming out of his ears.

John McAllister (01:52:30.065)

Right.

Greg Humphreys (01:52:43.150)

He couldn't understand because he'd been approaching calculus as this thing you just have why I sort of memorize oh my god I've never memorized so much stuff in my life. Bridges the same way I think for many players which is too bad because as you know it's a really beautiful rich complex universe that you can explore and I feel like so many people are kind of like tapping on the glass from the outside, they don’t have the right thought process to penetrate into this universe and really see why it's so pretty.

John McAllister (01:53:25.482)

It makes me like listen to you talk about the math makes me realize how you could have written this book that that you got the academy I don't think it's technically an academy award isn't isn't there a different nomenclature for it?

Greg Humphreys (01:53:39.950)

It is, yeah, you're right there is a distinction, but you've gotten it backwards. It is an Academy Award. It's not an Oscar. The Oscar is the statue. So when people are like, I won an Oscar, what they mean is like they have a stat, the physical statue. The Academy Award is the actual accolade. The Oscar is just the physical thing. And they don't give the Oscars to the people who win the science, the technical Academy Awards. I don't know why. I feel like, you know.

John McAllister (01:53:49.790)

Ah, ah, okay.

Greg Humphreys (01:54:09.770)

We would like them just as much as, you know, Kate Winslet or whoever. But, um, I toy, I, I toy with the idea sometimes of like buying an old one, because you can find them on eBay, right? Like some dude won best sound design in 1954 and he needs the 500 bucks or whatever. But I never have. It seems a little self-indulgent.

John McAllister (01:54:22.088)

Yeah, for sure. I'm sure.

John McAllister (01:54:32.402)

All right, let's finish it off with this. Will you tell the story of finding out how you got nominated for this? Jenni suggested that, yeah.

Greg Humphreys (01:54:41.050)

For the Academy Award? Oh yeah, so in grad school I wrote this book with a co-author and I wrote this book that was originally intended just as a support mechanism for a class that our mutual advisor was teaching. He was frustrated that people had to spend so much time building the under like this big computer system just to experiment with some simple things that they never really got to do anything cool. And so he said, what if we gave them that at the beginning and just said build on top of this and we'll give them a big computer system that they can extend for their own research and we will describe all of the details of how the code is written and all the math behind it in the same document. It's this technique where you combine code and writing into a single document and can publish it as a book called, for those, for anyone listening who knows, it's called literate programming. So we did this to support the class and we said, you know, this, we could publish this, this would be cool, so we got a publisher that was interested and we, we spent years working on it, eventually turned it into a book. Because the thing that you need to support a class doesn't need to be fully fleshed out, but a book needs to be, you know, a book, needs to be good. So we did this and what happened was, and we didn't know that this was happening, but what happened was this book that described all of the mathematics and computer science details of how to make really photorealistic pictures with computers, how to really like simulate all the physics of light transport in a scene so that the pictures that come out of computers look good, you know. It all kind of existed in various fragmented pieces across the research space, but never quite in one place altogether.

So when we published this book, the special effects industry sort of took it in and said, oh, we should do this. Like now we get it, like it's all in one place. And at the same time, all of the students across the country who were now being educated with this resource were coming out of school with a much deeper understanding of how this is working. So then they start to enter the film special effects industry and they would demand to do it the way that we had done it.

But we didn't know any of this was going on. I mean, the film industry is notoriously tight-lipped about how they do stuff. So the scientific and technical academy awards are weird. People nominate themselves, and then the academy says, okay, we hear that you did a cool thing. We will create a category around that, and we will seek out other nominees in this category. And so in 2013 someone came around and nominated themselves for some photo realistic rendering something, something. The Academy said, okay, let's talk to a bunch of people. And they went and talked to a bunch of people and said, what do you guys do? And they said, oh, we just do what Greg and Matt said in their book. Okay, what do you guys do? Well, we do what Greg and Matt. And so the head of the committee, who was the chief technical officer of a company called Weta Digital, if you know anything about this, they did all the special effects for like Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. He's like, well, why aren't we talking to those guys? Like, why aren't they nominated? And so they called us up and they said, hey, you know, we want you to be considered as part of this category. Like, what? Like, we don't work in films. And they said, yeah, but everyone who works in films just uses your thing now. I said, really? That's cool. Like, because we just made a textbook for like graduate students in computer graphics who wanted to understand stuff better. And so, we said, okay, that's wild. And then a couple months later, they said, yeah, we threw you into this category and decided that everyone in this category is just doing what you said, so we're just gonna give the award to you. Okay. And so, yeah, so everyone who goes, it's not like the Oscars where you go if you're nominated and then there's this big reveal. It's like they decide who wins ahead of time and they just invite the winners at this big dinner banquet.

John McAllister (01:59:01.142)

Yeah, right.

Greg Humphreys (01:59:10.890)

So yeah. That’s what happened. We just got informed that this book we had written for students had had a huge impact on the film special effects industry. And now it's just that's what everyone does. So that was, that was a big deal. And it made the book do really well. And we actually just published a fourth edition of the book, like a week ago. It's been many, many years in the making, the new edition. But yeah, just came out. Makes a great gift.

John McAllister (01:59:39.942)

What's the name of the book?

Greg Humphreys (01:59:41.612)

It is called Physically Based Rendering, and it is available where fine books are sold.

John McAllister (01:59:48.022)

Have you made money off of that?

Greg Humphreys (01:59:50.950)

It depends what you mean by money. Like, people buy the book for money. And some of that money goes back to the authors. But the market for a graduate level textbook on computer graphics is pretty small. Also, you know, like at some point we made, you know, after the book had been out for a year or so, or two, we made the full text of the book available online.

John McAllister (01:59:58.583)

Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Humphreys (02:00:21.230)

But like the third edition of the book has been available on the web for free for a while, as is the source code. Because you know, our goal was never to make money, our goal was to advance the state of the art and help people learn. So yeah, it's like some money has changed hands, but this is not a good retirement plan. Like I'm not John Grisham. I'm not the Michael, that's right, the Michael Crichton of our times.

John McAllister (02:00:42.646)

Uh, fellow Charlottesvillians.

John McAllister (02:00:49.842)

This might be the longest recorded episode in Setting Trick history. Bart Bramley had the previous record. I don't know how long his was, but you have been fantastic.

Greg Humphreys (02:00:53.510)

Oh my gosh it's six o'clock.

Greg Humphreys (02:01:06.410)

Thank you. Yeah, this has been really fun. You know, you know, I like talking about myself. One of my favorite hobbies. Ask anyone, they'll tell you.

John McAllister

I know, I like talking about myself too.

Alright well, thank you very much. We will publish this sooner or later.

Greg Humphreys

Those are the two options.