Alex Kolesnik: Bridge Dad +

Move over, Soccer Moms, there’s a new game in town. Alex Kolesnik and his wife, Sharon Beynon, are California-based professors who play bridge. Somehow, they got both of their children interested in playing bridge too. Now ages 25 and 19, Emma and Finn are top-ranked players.

Alex, a Platinum Life Master, describes his journey as a husband, professor, player and father, encouraging his kids in all their endeavors, maintaining balance and keeping perspective.

3:50 Kolesnik, who is a math professor, on trying to incorporate bridge and get students interested in playing.

8:15 Juggling work, family and bridge tournaments.

10:42 The irony of the fact that now, bridge tournaments bring the family together, whereas for some families, it means time apart.

14:50 The opportunity to travel and play bridge and the importance of doing things outside of bridge.

17:25 Alex taught his wife, Sharon, how to play and the two hit the tournament trail in Texas in their 20s.

23:19 How Sharon and Alex got the kids interested in bridge and avoided the negativity kids often associate with bridge.

26:38 How the Junior program and playing with other young people was a big motivator for Emma and Finn.

29:13 How much do they talk about bridge? The benefit of a community of players to discuss hands with.

32:07 When they realized these kids were good.

40:00 On being a good partner, other important parts of the game and the emotional attachments.

53:23 What it’s like to watch your kids compete at the highest level.

1:01:22 On how it's easier to celebrate your wins than to allow people to share in the difficult parts of your losses.

1:05:02 Alex talks about his partner Jim Munday, and coming in third in the Platinum Pairs.

1:12:02 Success isn’t the only important feature of a good partnership.

1:16 The great, multi-talented Bob Etter.

1:20:42 Making the semifinal of the U.S. trials and other tournament tales.

Episode 66 Transcript:

John McAllister: Hi. This is John McAllister and welcome back to The Setting Trick Podcast. Today is Thursday, December 7th, and I am just back from 10 days in Atlanta playing in the North American Bridge Championships. Heard from a few Setting Trick listeners there and have to say I really appreciate getting your positive feedback. And also, was fortunate enough to win the mixed Swiss at the end of the tournament for my second North American title. And today's guest, Alex Kolesnik, was also playing in that event and Alex was the first person to congratulate me in an incredibly special moment. So, I'm super fired up to share this conversation with Alex with you all.

It's my pleasure to welcome one of the friendliest people in the Bridge world. Somebody that I've gotten to know over the years, had the pleasure to play with recently in his hometown or his city of Ventura. One of the most challenging things about this show is coming up with the introductions, Alex. I have Alex Kolesnik. You're an accomplished player. But right now, I think your legacy might be your children.

Alex Kolesnik: Absolutely. And I think that's amazing. I'm very, very proud of my kids. I think from my perspective, they're two of the very best players in the game today and there's nobody that I'd rather sit across the table from than one of my kids. So obviously I'm very proud, but also, I feel like I have a good understanding of them.

John McAllister: And just as an example of how friendly you are, for those watching on video, you are recording in the guest room of your Hollywood LA apartment where I spent the night when I was in LA for a night at the end of my trip.

Alex Kolesnik: And we're happy to have you anytime. Yeah. We alternate between staying in Ventura and Hollywood and of course like to travel quite a bit, but we make our home open to everybody. We've done that with kids. So, Jacob Freeman has stayed here. Olivia Schireson has stayed here. Ish Del'Monte stayed here. Ai-Tai Lo. Anybody that needs a place to stay. During the Ventura Regional, we used to have a big house in Ventura, and we would have everybody staying with us. So, Roger Lee had stayed with us. Of course, my partner Bob Etter during those regionals had stayed with us. And we all had a great time. So, we really enjoy the company. We enjoy having Bridge players around, enjoy having kids around, so everybody's always welcome.

John McAllister: Yeah. You're a math professor at Ventura College. How much do you relate Bridge as part of what you're teaching?

Alex Kolesnik: I try to do it a lot. One of the things is I always keep hoping that I would get some students that are interested in playing, which very rarely happens, unfortunately. I show them pictures from my kids. I show my kids getting to play against Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. I show all the places we've traveled to. Of course, I understand the kids today really have a lot more going on. A lot of my students of course, vary. Some are studying to be scientists, engineers, and obviously they've got a good handle on math. But then I've got students in the other extreme that have always been afraid of math, don't really know how they're going to be able to use math in real life. So I think relating it to an activity that I enjoy can be helpful.

I do find that sometimes it's a little challenging still. You might get some students that are interested, but then others that aren't. Obviously one of the things I always enjoy particularly related to statistics is sports. And I know you're a big sports fan as well. So one semester I actually used a sports statistics textbook and all we did the whole semester is sports statistics. I had a lot of student athletes in my class and it was fun. I still think even if they're doing something that they enjoy, they still find it challenging and hard to understand at times. But anyway, so yeah, I do try to relate Bridge and discuss it as much as I can. And I'm hopeful. There's a lot of efforts being done and obviously you've helped out at the University of Virginia, your alma mater, in terms of getting students interested in Bridge. We've got a local player here, Mitch Dunitz, has really contributed a lot to getting college students picking up this great game. So I certainly hope that we continue in that direction.

John McAllister: Well, I've always been impressed and curious how you managed to be a teacher and play as much Bridge as you do because it seems like you're at all the nationals.

Alex Kolesnik: Yeah. Well, I think the teaching, especially these last three years, everything has gone to much more online. Zoom meetings, online classes. So I can do my work from anywhere. So that's simplified things. I'd say 20 years ago, probably a more challenging thing is in terms of having young kids. So I limited how much I played to probably two nationals a year and then maybe an occasional local regional, but that was about it. Then I'd say when Finn started to play, so that was like six years ago, he wanted to travel around and play. And I tried to take him around. At the same time, Emma was in college over at Scripps in Claremont, so we had a Bridge team there that I was coaching. And so we traveled around.

One of the nice things is you can play on the weekends. I have a pretty easy teaching schedule. I think that's one of the choices I made in life in terms of being a college professor. We don't have Friday classes. We get a lot of weeks off. Over the holidays, spring break, the entire summer. So certainly summer nationals was always very easy for me and any summer regionals, I'm off for three months, so I've got lots of opportunity then. In terms of spring nationals, occasionally it's over spring break, but if not, sometimes I'll take some personal days in order to be able to attend. Fall nationals, again, you've got Thanksgiving. And there'd be times when all I'd get to play is a weekend. Sometimes I'd actually go for both weekends of a national to get to play. So I love the game so as much as I get to play. And then I think almost immediately, once Finn was introduced to it, within a few months, he was a complete addict. He wanted to play all the time, so I was happy.

And then in terms of Emma, she was still very busy with college, but I drove in one or two nights a week. It's about a 45-minute drive from LA here which made it easy. So I coached them. So I would spend the evening there, they'd play hands, we'd discuss them. And then there was quite a few kids on the team that wanted to go play local sectionals, local regionals. So we had a minivan, we'd fill it up. And Finn was part of the team so we would go and set up the partnerships and play, and we had a great time. I think all the kids. Some of them aren't playing as much, so we had two brothers, Jake and Luke Williams that there were. And then they've been in the junior training program as well. So I knew them from that. So we played quite a bit.

So they were playing more at that particular time, but you get busy with school and life, and I understand that. But it was really nice and the team did very well in collegiates, so that was a nice little bonus for them. I do take the opportunity. Now, of course, going to a tournament is wonderful because that's how I get to see my kids. A lot of times people hate going to a tournament because that means leaving family, but for me, it's an opportunity to see my family and of course seeing all my friends. By this point, my community is the Bridge community. I know just about everybody, so we go sit down and get to talk, get to catch up so it's a wonderful opportunity.

John McAllister: We were just together in Atlanta for the fall nationals and for those who don't know the tournament scene as well, Emma is your daughter, who's your oldest, and then Finn's your son, who is I think two, three ... No, wait. Four years younger? Five years?

Alex Kolesnik: He's about five and a half years younger than Emma.

John McAllister: Five and half years younger.

Alex Kolesnik: So he's 19. She just turned 25 and he's 19 and a half. Yeah. And obviously I don't get a chance to play with Finn as often as I used to, but what's wonderful in Atlanta is I got to play in two events both weekends with Emma so that was ... Actually ended up being .... Since we didn't qualify in the Reisinger, it ended up being a third event that I played, a total of five days with her. It's very rewarding for me. And I think she enjoys it, so I hope she continues to enjoy it. Obviously she's got another great partner with Adam Grossack but he often has commitments with his clients, so it's nice for me that leaves Emma open for me to play with.

John McAllister: It's funny to me thinking about ... You're saying how Emma and Adam are dating. I met your children in Pasadena. We did a screening of Double Dummy there in September of 2018, and it hadn't really occurred to me that Adam ... He and his brother Zach really shined in the film, and maybe that was the first time that Emma had been introduced to Adam, who she's now dating. So I hadn't really thought about that.

Alex Kolesnik: I think she's known Adam and Zach for a while from obviously before then. She had interactions. Obviously that movie was incredible and really told a great story about the experiences of these great kids in terms of Bridge. And seeing them in a lot of very different scenarios I think is pretty cool. It was obviously several years later that Emma and Adam started dating. Certainly you get to see these kids in a very human light. And I've had opportunities to see them from before. And I tried to be some kind of an influence. I realized that I'm not their parent, but on the other hand, I do work a lot with juniors, so I try to make a positive impact on them. I certainly remember one of the interactions that you and I had were in Tromsø in 2015, and Emma was there for a week, and of course Zach and Adam were there.

So one of the things I had mentioned to them, it's like we're in a magical place here in Tromsø. A place that we may never visit again. And so the opportunity to be able to do things outside of Bridge, as of course you and I did, is incredible. But I think at that particular time, Zach and Adam were really fixated on Bridge 24 hours a day. And obviously that's great because having that commitment is really what makes you a great player. But there is a lot more to life than just Bridge. And I think they've come to appreciate that. They've certainly gotten older. And so now when they go to a tournament, there's a lot of outside activities that they do. And so they realize that it can't just be all about Bridge.

John McAllister: When you talk to people that are not Bridge players about your life, how much does Bridge seep into that?

Alex Kolesnik: Oh, quite a bit. I think everybody knows that Bridge is a big part of my life and has been. Obviously I have a great love for the game. I do have a lot of other hobbies and interests that usually people know about as well, but certainly I commit a lot of my time to Bridge. So I don't know that there's anybody that's a friend of mine that doesn't realize what a great role that Bridge plays in my life.

John McAllister: And your wife Sharon plays too. I don't see her as much. I saw you and Finn and Emma all in Atlanta. Was Sharon there?

Alex Kolesnik: No. She didn't go. We played a lot. I'd taken a couple of periods off of Bridge from when I started, but one of the reasons I came back into it was that Sharon wanted to learn. So this was a little over 30 years ago. And she had an aunt and an uncle that played Bridge and her grandmother that she loved quite a bit played Bridge on a social basis, not duplicate. But she'd always wanted to learn. And so it gave us an activity we could do together. We have a lot of things that we share. We have an incredible relationship. We could spend virtually all of our time together. But on the other hand, we do find moments of spending time apart. But early on we traveled to a lot of tournaments together. So local sectionals. There'd be a sectional within driving distance of Austin pretty much every weekend. And so once we got into it, we would drive, hit all the little towns. So it'd be like besides Austin, Temple and Waco and San Marcos, San Antonio, Kerrville, even Houston, Dallas, Victoria. So we'd drive. And they were all within two, three hours drive of us so it made it nice.

And at that particular time, they were really incredible local tournaments. A lot of great people, a lot of very interesting people that we really enjoy getting to know. They'd always have amazing hospitality. Of course, that time, the starting times were all one and seven, so you'd get done closer to midnight and then people just hung out, had snacks, drank, talked, had a really wonderful time. So it was really a great experience. Obviously we were pretty young back then. We were in our 20s and most of the people were at least in their 50s, 60s, or maybe even older. But a lot of very accomplished people. So we really had a great time playing and we played a lot.

She wasn't maybe quite as interested in becoming a national player like I was, but she loved the game. We both taught Bridge through both ... The University of Texas had what they called informal classes. So Sharon taught beginning and intermediate classes there almost every semester. I taught some Bridge classes over at Austin Community College where I taught. And so we really enjoyed all the interactions. All the people in the Bridge community became all of our friends. It's a little sad now because looking back from 30 years ago, the vast majority of that community is gone. They've passed away. Some people have gotten to the point where they stopped playing, but I'd say certainly maybe two thirds, three quarters of the people that we interacted with at that time are no longer with us. But they made a huge impact for us in our lives. And in 1998 when Emma was born, we had a great support system with our Bridge friends. They just loved Emma. Showered her with gifts. And so it made the transition a little bit easier.

And so obviously we had to curtail a lot of our Bridge activities, but we tried to, as I said, participate as much as possible. And obviously for Sharon, it was much more so, so she had to pretty much stop playing for quite a long time. Continued to be involved to some extent. So now coming back, she really wants to come back. She still teaches a lot of Bridge. She probably has usually on any given time, probably a dozen students. And she's a fantastic Bridge teacher. She really makes the students really enjoy the game. Most of them are fairly new and don't really want to get involved in duplicate. They find the concept of duplicate, very, very scary.

But she's had a few that have made the transition. She tries to encourage at least to play in maybe a 99er game or something, or online. So some of those students have made some of those transitions. And then we try to play. If she really put an effort to it, I think she really could be a great player. Not that she isn't already, but obviously not giving it your full time makes it a little difficult when you get to play, but we usually are very successful when we play. We played one day at a regional this year and won the regional pair game that day so that was nice. Usually in the last five, 10 years, the once or twice year we play, we win or come in second or third. So she does very well when she plays. I think she wants to play more as we start to move into the pre-retirement phase of our lives. I think that we'll definitely want to try to play more together.

John McAllister: How intentional were the two of you about Bridge with your children? I would imagine that if I had two kids, the outcome that you have right now with your kids would be more than I could have ever imagined. That seems like that would be the ultimate. I would want my children to learn Bridge, obviously.

Alex Kolesnik: Oh, absolutely. Well, I think part of it is I think that it seems like a lot of kids really get a lot of negativity from Bridge from their family just because the way that the family handles the whole thing. They just basically quite often just disappear. And so they come to resent Bridge because in some sense it harms their family. For us, it wasn't like that. For example, I'll take the Tromsø trip. So Emma and Sharon, they came over at the same time so they were there for the tournament, but outside of the tournament, we then spent another month traveling around all of Scandinavia. So we went to other parts of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia. So we made it a big family trip. And we never pushed the kids to learn to play. Emma was interested. We played a lot of games so that was one of the things we did in our house. And of course, I think a lot of Bridge players also just love games. I think you saw that in Atlanta where everybody just wanted to ... Whatever game it was, they wanted to play.

And so I think from a young age, as long as the kids did something that was going to make them happy, we just went all out. Both kids liked to play tennis, and so I just went and played tennis with them. They were on their school teams. When Finn wanted to bowl, we joined a bowling league. We did a parent child bowling league for a couple of years, and he just was all into it. So we went bowling two or three times a week. So we wanted to encourage them. Whatever they wanted to do we were very encouraging.

But we weren't going to push the kids. So when Emma wanted to learn, we taught her when she was very young, but then when she wasn't all that interested in doing it, we didn't push her. And then later on, of course, she got more into it. She was very busy in high school. She did journalism, debate. And debate was something I loved while in school so I was very happy. I was a parent volunteer for the debate team. So we went to tournaments together. She actually went to state her last year in school and we had a great time with that. So anything she did, we were thrilled. And same with Finn. But obviously it was a big bonus for us that the kids became interested in Bridge. And so I think probably took Emma ... She had so much other stuff that she was doing and with college, I think the collegiates kindled her interest a little bit and then having Finn doing it as well, that might've motivated her.

The junior program and going to world championships I think was a big motivator. And interactions with other kids. I think that's one of the things. I think we all enjoy ... Like I said, when we were in our 20s, we really enjoy the interactions with people. In our Bridge community, we had a Texas Supreme Court judge that we got to know and interact with. People that headed up businesses, people that were top educators. You really get to meet a lot of very smart, very interesting people that had done amazing things with their lives. And for us as young people, to have those kinds of role models and to interact with them on a regular basis was amazing. And I think Emma and Finn appreciate that as well. But there's also of course the social aspect of interacting with people their own age.

And I think that once they got that ... This was their friend group. They go to a tournament, they hang out with their friends. This is a chance to see all their friends and friends from all over the world. Finn has made great connections with some of these kids from the Netherlands, and they're great Bridge players, but they're also really cool, interesting people doing amazing things. And so they go out, they hang out, they have meals together, they rent together. On Thanksgiving, a bunch of them did the Turkey Trot in Atlanta. It's not just about playing the game. And of course, you know that as well as anybody. I think that you've made a lot of friends. You've got a lot of friends outside of Bridge as well, but I think that you really enjoy the experience and that social aspect really is huge about Bridge. And so you can't really separate the competitive game from the social aspect of it. So for me, it's wonderful because even if it means I only see Finn once or twice a day at these tournaments because he's busy with all his friends, I think it's great. I think that it's great that he has a great time and really enjoys interacting in that way.

John McAllister: How much when you talk to your children do you talk about technical Bridge stuff?

Alex Kolesnik: Well, I would say early on we would go over hands a lot. When we played together, we would go through ... Maybe not to the extent. There's some that ... Like maybe Amber Lin and Kevin Rosenberg, their board review sessions. And obviously when Emma was playing with Amber, they went over every hand, every trick. I don't know that I would do that. We would certainly have discussions, we would have disagreements about hands. And that's a big part of the learning process is those discussions. That's really what makes you better players. And of course we have a big community, so Emma can discuss hands with Adam, she can discuss hands with Finn, and of course they can discuss them with me as well. But we also try to avoid doing too much because I think a lot of times it could get to the point where it just dominates your whole life and we have so much other interests and so much other things to talk about.

So it's nice to have conversations about other things we enjoy. For me personally, as you know, I love movies and music. The other great thing for me, it's just been incredible how the kids have a lot of very similar interests. They both really love music and they both really love movies. So we can have a lot of discussions about a lot of things. And they have very similar outlooks on life, similar political outlooks. So we can talk about what's going on in the world politically, economically. We can discuss things related to their work, their travel. So we have a lot more than just Bridge to talk about. Like I said, my wife does love Bridge, but I think that if we sit down at dinner and all we talk about for two hours is Bridge, she's going to find that pretty annoying so we try to avoid that. But I think that's what makes us love Bridge so much is that it is an analytical game when you come down to it and being able to analyze a lot of the hands, discuss what could we have done, what should we have done on a particular hand. And I think that that's what makes us better players is having those discussions.

John McAllister: Can you remember a moment with either of them when it was like an aha moment when you're like, "Oh, wow. They're starting to get good."?

Alex Kolesnik: Well, I recognized with Emma very early on. I was actually shocked. When she was like seven, eight years old and playing. The bidding is really hard and I don't know that it's even easier today. Obviously we have a much greater understanding of it. So we'd often, when I would play with her, we would often be in the wrong contract, not knowing what's forcing. So we'd play a hand that we should be in six spades, we'd be in two spades. But what was amazing is that when we looked at the hand records afterwards, but the number of tricks she took on a hand was quite often the right number of tricks that should be taken. So she had a really great natural instinct. And of course we played other trick taking games, so that certainly helped. But both kids had a natural instinct to take tricks.

And so that part was a little bit ... You find it amazing because you see these other people. You and I play obviously against a lot of strong players, but we've certainly played our share against weaker players that you think this person's been playing for decades and still doesn't know that, hey, don't draw trumps, this is a crossruff hand, or you don't need to take this finesse because there's another way of making the contract that is safer. So a lot of these things that I think come naturally to us, I think I realized don't come naturally to a lot of people. And of course they've both worked very hard at the game to improve.

But I was amazed at strides for more advanced plays with Finn. From teaching, I know that I could explain the same concept to somebody a dozen times and barely make any headway in terms of understanding that concept. With Finn, an example would be, he just learned to play basically at the end of July 2017 and so in January we went to a regional in Monterey and we played on a team with a friend, Arjun Dhir, who we got to see in Atlanta. We hadn't seen him in a while, but he lives there and he was playing with a client. And Finn had really been playing, but I'd shown him a squeeze and there was a hand where I didn't know it was going to involve a squeeze when we bid it, but we bid up to six hearts and now Finn had to make it and he had to make it on a squeeze. That was the only way to make slam.

And he'd seen it, but maybe only seen it maybe once or twice. And then of course being able to practically apply it is really difficult, but he did it. And to me, I was just amazed. I couldn't believe that he could do this. And same obviously with Emma, but I think for her it was just a matter of developing that interest that yes, I want to do it. But for Finn, he got that bug very, very quickly and can do it. So I showed him other things, like I showed him a surround play at the table. I actually had an opportunity to make a surround play. Then I explained to him afterwards what I did and why I did it. And just a little over a month later, we were at a regional in Riverside and he was actually playing at the other table.

What was also great is how a bunch of my friends who were all also very, very good players, had very early on taken to playing regularly with Finn. And of course later on when Finn became a top player, they continued. An example would be John Ramos who lives here in LA and he later on, of course, in 2019, the fall nationals in San Francisco, he and Finn had amazing results. They had a third in the Blue Ribbon pairs and a second in the Life Master pairs. But he was one of the players that started playing with Finn when he was 13.

And so anyway, at this Riverside regional, he was at the other table and it was my right-hand opponent that had to make a surround play when they got in. Do you mind if I-

John McAllister: No, not at all. Please.

Alex Kolesnik: Explain the situation? No. Okay, so situation where the dummy has ten-third in a suit, so the 10 and two little cards, and as a declarer, I had the ace-queen third in my hand. And in order to make my contract, I couldn't lose any tricks in the suit. Now if I have to lead the suit myself ... There are some holdings, for example if my right-hand opponent has king-jack doubleton, I can play the ... But it's a very unusual hand where you could play those for zero losers. But it's a situation where you put your right-hand opponent in and force him to strip out the hand and force him to lead the suit.

And it turned out my right-hand opponent had the king and the jack in that suit. And so when they were in, they led a low one. And of course, since I needed three tricks, I had to let it go around to the 10. That won, I led to my queen and that held. And so now I lost no tricks in the suit. But as a defender, this is a surround play position and so instead of exiting a low one, you have to exit the jack. So now they win the queen, but now your king and nine surround the 10. That's why it's called a surround play. So the question was, I said, well, I know Finn has seen it. He saw it a little over a month ago, so he's seen it at the table. The question is, is he going to find that play? And sure enough, he found it. So the declarer at the other table went down and I made my contract.

So the person on my right, they were playing with a professional and they asked their partner, the professional, "Should I have known to do that?" And the pro said, "Well, how could you know to do that?" And I was thinking to myself, "Well, maybe he should have shown this player that." And of course, I don't know. Like I said, for Finn, he just sees it one time and he picks it up. So it might not be so easy, but certainly these are the beautiful things about Bridge. These are the beautiful plays. This is what I play the game for and what I live for. And I know a lot of other people, that's the beauty of the game. But I know a lot of these things are very difficult.

But I was always shocked at just like, hey, he saw it one time and now he's able to do it. And I mean there's a lot to Bridge. There's of course being able to be a good partner. That's an important aspect of the game. Being able to handle psychologically whatever results you have, whether it's a good result or a bad result. A lot of times people, they have a great result and on the very next hand, they're still thinking about what a great result they had in the last hand and then they mess up the next two or the other way around. They get a bad result on the board, and now they can't think straight on the next couple of boards. So that ability, the ability to concentrate and not get distracted. So there's a lot of things in Bridge. And then for kids in particular, it's being able to handle all the emotions and particularly emotionally, it's still difficult.

I think in Chicago, when I was playing with Emma, there was a difficult situation. We had a bad result. And then when you're playing with somebody that you love and care for so much, that emotional attachment translated to Bridge, it's very difficult. It's difficult to discuss things, it's difficult to be able to handle it from an emotional standpoint. So I think those things are difficult. And so that's where as they mature, get older, have had more experience with Bridge, you hope that they're able to overcome some of those things. And I think a lot of great players still have difficulty with a lot of those aspects of the game, even as they get older. And so being able to identify things. And I know you're very introspective and really focus in a lot on what I can do to improve myself from intellectual, psychological, all those things, not just for Bridge, just in life in general. And I think that's one of the aspects of Bridge, being able to really think about and analyze all those different things that make it a great experience as well.

John McAllister: Yeah, Bob Hamman has a reputation as that being his strongest skill. There's a-

Alex Kolesnik: Absolutely. Yeah. Obviously there's great plays were one of the things about him and is he recognizes that it's a game of mistakes. And a game of concentration, being able to focus and not make an unforced error as we call it. It's those players that can do that that really are tough to play against, and they're the ones that are going to win.

John McAllister: I'm going to talk about myself a little bit here, but one of the best things, we just played in the mixed teams together over the weekend, the last weekend in Atlanta and my team was lucky enough to win. And going into the last round I guess you had looked at the leaderboard and you knew that we were leading, and you were encouraging me and cheering me on, and then after that round, you were the first person to congratulate me. And I just wanted to say how much fun it was, what a thrill it was to have you there knowing what was going on.

Alex Kolesnik: Well, thanks. Yeah, I always root for my friends. There's certain people that it's like, well, I'm not so sure that I really want them to win. I think we all have people we really like and appreciate and others that either they win all the time anyway or they may not be the greatest individuals. So a couple of other teams were up there were not one of my favorites, let's say. So it made it really easy. It's a great story in terms of when I talked to you and Lilly when you didn't qualify, she just got on the plane, had to fly out that night and ready to play the very next morning. That's really hard to do that. But to not only handle that adversity and actually come out on top is unbelievable. And especially she's not been playing for a huge number of years, has not had a lot of top-level Bridge experience. I don't know how many national events she's played in, but I don't think it's that many.

And of course you always have teammates that are ... Including this time. Matt and Sophia are just not only great young players, but really nice people as well that are fun to interact with. And I think that that's one of the things you look for. I don't think you want to have teammates that aren't going to be fun to hang out with. Not people that when you come back to the comparison that it's going to be contentious or stressful. These are people you want to hang out with. And so I think that that's really incredible and it makes it very easy to root for a team like yours. And even you yourself, you've obviously now been playing top level Bridge for I don't know how many years and you enter in all the top events you can, which is amazing. But it's probably been what, 10 years?

John McAllister: Yeah, 11 years ago I played my first ... Memphis in 2012 was my first national event.

Alex Kolesnik: So for those of us that have been playing for 30 years or longer, and it's still a challenge each time, so it's pretty amazing for ... But I think that you certainly have developed a winner's instinct. You've shown over and over again that you have that. A lot of other people play on five and six man teams and really rely on other players to essentially win for you a lot of times. But you certainly don't do that. You want to play every hand and play every hand well and be the best player that you can be and I think that that's really amazing. So appreciate that about you. And so not only do I expect to see you among the leaders, but it's easy to root for you. And same back last couple of nationals when you played with Olivia and Michael. Obviously, they're friends of mine and I certainly want them to do well, and for you to include great kids like that on your teams is really wonderful.

John McAllister: That was the first time where I really actually thought I could win something, with that team with Michael and Olivia. And that was really exciting breakthrough for me. I didn't-

Alex Kolesnik: Yeah, they're wonderful kids. I've had the privilege of knowing them now for several years and really getting to know them, but really see their great love of Bridge as well. Olivia had also called me up a few years ago. She wanted to play in the Palm Springs Regional and I didn't have any games, so I said, "I'd love to." So I drove out there and we came very close to winning the pair game one day. I think last round or two we had a few little hiccups, but it was actually ... I think it might've been her first time that she came in first or second in a regional pair game. So it was a great experience and I could certainly tell that she was going to be a great player. And of course, same with Michael. I've had the opportunity to play with Michael, and of course he's one of Finn's regular partners, so I got to spend a lot of time with him in a lot of different situations.

We also played in one of these ... When they had the online NABCs, we played on a knockout team where we actually had a few upsets. We finished ninth through 16th in one of these events where Michael was playing with a friend of mine, Richard Zeckhauser, who actually I had the pleasure of having dinner with last week in Atlanta. And again, it's great because Zeckhauser is another person, has a great love for the game, but is a super interesting person, just his whole history. And so to get an opportunity to get to know someone like that through Bridge for Michael and have interactions with him and actually get to play Bridge with him, and Richard's been playing Bridge for ... I've been playing for 30 years. I think Richard's been playing for 60 years. So among certainly the great players in the game. And so I think those kinds of experiences are really amazing.

But then even when you're not playing with people like Michael and Olivia, you want to root for them. You want them to do well. And then when they don't, it is sad for me. You want to cheer them up if something bad happens. Because we've all been there. That's what I tell them all. In Bridge, you're not going to win every time. I know you're on a winning streak and you've had a lot of big wins and a lot of top finishes, but you're going to lose a lot more than you win in this game. There's a lot of great players in any event that you play in. So you have to face that. Which is also a great life lesson because in life, not everything is going to go your way every single time. You hope it does. And I feel like, like I said, with my kids and with everything else, I feel like I've been very privileged, very lucky, and I have certainly had my share of successes in a lot of things.

But you realize that wake up today, not everything may be perfect today. If I enter the Reisinger each time, I realize I'm not going to make the final every year. If I make it every other year, I'm thrilled. Because I've only made the final three times in 30 years of Bridge. Obviously I don't get to play every year. Not everybody wants to play in the top events, but I think you're like me where you relish the challenge and you want to play in the very top events you can with every hand and with the very best people that you can play with as long as they're people that you enjoy playing with. And so that means playing the Reisinger. And so I'm thrilled. Obviously you had a great team, but I love my team. I got to play with them again and on a team with Alex Perlin and Dana Berkowitz, and they're really great people and really fun to hang around, but also great Bridge players. And so that's a bonus when you get to do that.

John McAllister: Well, the reason I brought my own success up is because I wanted to ... Obviously it was exciting to have you involved, but also I wanted to say, what was it like when Emma won the women's trials and then Finn last year won the Soloway? What was that?

Alex Kolesnik: Oh, it was unbelievable. Yeah. Well, and then of course Finn won an online national KO as well a few years back when we didn't have the face-to-face nationals. So that was the first experience. And of course, whenever our kids are playing, you feel like I could die of a heart attack any time, but it's impossible not to watch. I think back in 2018, it was actually right after the last Atlanta nationals, the kids ... Not Finn, but all the other Juniors flew off to China for the world championships. And of course, the time difference between the US and China is huge. And so Finn and I, we had driven to ... Actually, all four of us drove to Atlanta and we all stayed together and then we actually got a big house and we had Jacob Freeman staying with us, and Daniel Sonner stayed with us in Atlanta last time. That's what we used to do is just have a big place and any kids wanted to stay, our own or any others, were more than welcome.

So Finn and I were driving back to California, but stopping along the way, and then every night I wanted to stay up till middle of the night watching Emma play. You have just such an emotional interest in the kids doing well. And so I was just glued to watching on vugraph and watching the results and rooting for Emma, and same for Finn. So then later on during that online KO, we were watching every board, every match. And my wife as well. We're all just really heavily emotionally involved. And of course when something bad happens or you're watching ... Finn, lead a heart. Lead a heart. Because you could see what they're supposed to do. And so you're really rooting for them. And of course if things don't go well, you suffer for it just like they do.

So during the trials when Emma won the trials, I was playing the next trials, the mixed trials, which were right after the women's, but I came in early and I was just a nervous wreck because I came in and I knew that they were playing the final for USA one against a very strong team. Lynn Baker always has an incredible team. I was actually helping Emma put together women's team. She expressed an interest. And so I had played with a lot of these players in women's Bridge. People like Pam Wittes, Shawn Quinn, and I made a lot of suggestions as to people that she might ask to play, and she got a lot of nos.

So then it wasn't clear that they were actually going to play, but then some things changed and then Shawn Quinn later did ask Emma and Amber to join their team. And so that was really amazing. And then when I came in, I knew that Emma and Amber were going to be playing for the win, and I was just a nervous wreck. And then things were looking good. The last segment, I was sitting there waiting for Emma and Amber to come out to compare, and the other table was done. And one of the nice things is that had some of the pressure off because the other team, Janice and Disa had said that basically it was almost a sure thing that Emma's team was going to win. So that took a lot of the pressure off. And of course, as you know, it's never over until it's over, but we're watching the results come in and saw that, hey, it looks good, it looks good. And then they come out and compare and win and everybody's just thrilled and giving each other hugs. It's just an incredible experience. And then I went to the celebratory dinner with them afterwards there in Schaumburg, and it was really incredible.

And then for Finn, with the Soloway, the same thing. So that was in Phoenix last fall, and we were watching and a couple of the matches, they were down quite a bit. It looked like they were out of it. But I said, no, you just never can give up. And I think knowing the state of the match, I think Finn really was doing a few things to try to generate some IMPs. And we were just watching. And I remember when they had the big comeback in the semifinal, I think they knew to the last segment, they knew that they were going to win even before the comparison. So they came out and Finn and Ish were just hugging each other, jumping up and down, and I went over and joined in the hug and jumped up and down with them. There's just no greater feeling in the world. I just feel such an emotional attachment. So Finn winning obviously was like me winning.

And so it was really an incredible experience. And then I think the final things were looking really hopeless towards the end. It came down to last board and it just looked like they had no chance to win. But I remained upbeat. I said, "Well, if this happens and this happens." And everybody was like, "Well, that's not going to happen." And then they came to be a moment where there was a guess for a queen, and I said, "He's going to go the other way." And they're like, "No. That's just impossible. It's never going to happen." And then the player cashed the king from the hand where he was going to be guessing it the wrong way.

And it wasn't just me. The whole audience were all rooting for Finn's team, and there was just a huge eruption of people just jumping up and down like, wow, they're going to win. And just that experience, it was just euphoria. And then came out, and again, we were all hugging and just sharing in the win. They're very generous in terms of allowing people to join with their victories. I think sometimes in Bridge it's easier of course to celebrate your wins than to allow people to share in the difficult parts in your losses. So for example, Finn obviously was disappointed he and Roger did not make the final of the Blue Ribbons. They didn't have a great finish in the Reisinger. And so there was certainly a couple of times during the week where Finn was a little bit dejected.

And of course as a parent, I want to do whatever I can to make him being able to stay positive and not get too down on the fact that things didn't go like you wanted them to go. Because we've all been there. Like I said, you're going to lose a lot at Bridge in this game and you're going to have experiences. I didn't have a great week. Finn had a great tournament obviously to win the Soloway, but I felt like I played pretty much all week with Emma last year. And we made the final of the Reisinger, which to me was a lifetime experience. That's just the most amazing thing. And to be able to do it on a team with my friends, and in particular my daughter was amazing.

We came in 20th in the Blue Ribbon pairs, which is certainly one of the top three day pair games in the world. We made the overalls in pairs. So we had a great week. And this week, Emma and I came in, I think 45th in LM pairs and I came in 50th in Blue Ribbon pairs with my friend Josh Sher. So I had a few minor successes, but obviously a disappointing week for me. But I loved it because I got to see my friends, I got to see my kids. And then I realized there're going to be weeks like that. And I'm sure that you were feeling the same way that I don't think you had any expectations necessarily that you're going to win the mixed Swiss.

John McAllister: Definitely not.

Alex Kolesnik: And maybe after Friday you might've been a little bit dejected.

John McAllister: Oh yeah, for sure. The second day of the Soloway was fantastic, but after that it was rough.

Alex Kolesnik: But you've got to stay upbeat. The great thing is that you got a next tournament coming up and so then the next one, and you just have a lot to look forward to. And when something doesn't go perfectly, you just move on. And I think it's the same way as Bob Hammond says it. You can't dwell on what's happened in the past. The past is the past and you just got to keep going.

John McAllister: I attempted to look up who you finished third in the platinum pairs with, and I could not find it.

Alex Kolesnik: That was Jim Munday, who I think is one of the great players in the game. Obviously Jim is taking a break right now. Jim is one of my absolute favorite partners. Jim is not only a great player, but just a wonderful, wonderful person. One of the truly most wonderful people I've had the privilege of knowing. And he's been very giving of his time. He's been very active in the Junior program. He took some time off, but he's now back. He's working as a mentor. He's willing to work with the youngest kids. So he actually, in China, he was the NPC for the under 16 team, which of course had Harrison and Michael Xu and a lot of these kids that we know very well. And Jim's had a very, very big positive impact on a lot of these kids.

And of course we had a lot of successes playing Bridge together. We actually, early on in our Bridge career, we got a chance to play with you and Peter Freden in a regional Swiss. I don't know if you remember that.

John McAllister: I don't remember.

Alex Kolesnik: It was probably close to 10 years ago. I don't remember what national it was at, but we'd both got knocked out of whatever national event we were in. And so I think you asked if we wanted to play and so I checked with Jim and he was happy to play with you and Peter. We didn't have a great day. We had a great day that I think we all liked each other and really enjoyed playing, but success wise we didn't have a great result. But yeah, Jim is just a really wonderful human being. So he and Sue, since Sue retired, they've moved to Albuquerque and I did get a chance to play with him in January of this year at the Albuquerque Regional. And so that was great that we got a chance to play again. And then we also saw each other. I saw him at the Dallas Regional in September, and I sure hope that he makes another comeback to the game.

When he moved with Sue for work out to the ACBL headquarters, he found a lot of local partners there to play with, and of course developed a storied partnership with Richard Pavlicek, who also was making a big comeback to the game after his wife Mabel passed away. And I certainly have a great deal of respect for Richard Pavlicek. Not only one of the very best players that's ever played the game, but when his wife was sick, he took care of her for many, many years and took time away from Bridge to do that, which of course is really something that you would think that all of us would do. But of course we see in the real world a lot of people that they don't meet the commitments that they make. But he came back and after of course having huge number of successes from 30, 40 years ago in Bridge, but being able to make a comeback.

And he and Jim had huge successes in Bridge and he's still one of the best players. I play against them online every week. They're my favorite opponents. So we play on Wednesday nights. I play with Ira Korush against Jim and Richard and they're great matches. They're a great pair to play against. There's nothing that's more fun for me. And it was great. Richard wasn't necessarily planning on coming to Atlanta, and then he did come and he played with Walter Lee and they had incredible results for not being a regular partnership and only decided the last minute. They did great in almost every event they played in. And then Richard played in the North American Swiss with his girlfriend, Cindy, and they did very well. So it's just a great experience. I had another third place finish. It was a really close one where even though we finished third, we were only 0.4 match points out of first.

That was in 2004 at the Reno Nationals in North American pairs. And I was playing with my good friend David Hadden, who passed away a couple of years after that. He had developed a brain tumor actually just a year later in 2005 and died a little over a year later. And another really great player who, again, I enjoyed spending time with. He lived in San Antonio. I would drive down there to play club games, sectionals, regionals with him, and I'd stay at his house. We would have a wonderful time. We'd play golf together. So to me, a Bridge relationship is more than just playing cards. It's somebody I want to spend time with at the table and away from the table. And if I'm not enjoying the experience of sitting at the table and away from the table with this individual, it's not a relationship that has a great interest for me.

So I think you feel the same way. I think we have a common friend now and a new friend Raj Shourie, and he has obviously great love for the game, a fairly new player. But we have a really nice time seeing each other away from the table as well, and spending time in common love of other activities. So I think those kinds of things are important to me. Other people, I see some of these Bridge partnerships where people more or less hate each other and it's like they can't wait to get away from the table so that they don't have to be around this person. I'm thinking, why in the world would you want to do that? If it's not somebody you want to spend time with, why are you doing it?

John McAllister: One thing I was going to say, you brought up Richard Zeckhauser earlier and how he played with, I think it was Michael Xu, and I was just thinking how Bridge is a great equalizer in that sense, where you come to the table in spite of someone being much older than somebody, much more accomplished possibly, but you come to Bridge table as equals and maybe even Michael is a stronger player and what a dynamic that is to level the playing field when you're meeting somebody and how great Bridge is for that.

Alex Kolesnik: Oh, absolutely. And these kinds of trans gender-relational partnerships when you have ... Or maybe like Zach Grossack playing with Michael Rosenberg. When you have these kinds of partnerships where they have a great deal of respect for each other. And then age is a non-defining characteristic. It's not how old you are, it's not how long you've been playing. It's that we can sit down and build a partnership, build a relationship, and interact as individuals with a shared identity, a shared love and a shared respect. I do want to say in terms of translating to other life experiences, I think it does, but of course I think a lot of other situations it's more about power. I've not ever worked in the corporate world and I know you've maybe had some experiences from other kinds of things, so I imagine it doesn't translate. I've been in the academic world and certainly it's not always shared respect that we're coming from or shared love, but I think in a lot of situations those kinds of Bridge relationships do translate to other things.

And so I think it is a learning experience and so I hope it'll contribute in some way to success outside of the Bridge world for a lot of these people. I hope that they build relationships. You look at all the couples, the Bridge couples that have met through Bridge. Obviously from my own family, Emma and Adam. And both kids have a lot of friends that they've developed in the Bridge community. I think you look at a lot of people that have met, a lot of couples that have met through Bridge, a lot of friends that have met through Bridge, and I'm sure you've had those same experiences. I think you'd probably count a lot of the people as your friends now. The people that you would do things outside of the Bridge game.

John McAllister: You got a Bob Etter story for us maybe, or a Rick Roeder story? One of your-

Alex Kolesnik: I got a lot of Etter stories. He was my regular partner for 30 years, so I have a ton of ... I think for those that don't know Bob Etter, he is undoubtedly one of the most incredible people. Incredibly smart, incredibly charismatic. Probably one of the best athletes of our time. So for those that don't know, he was a superstar athlete in high school and college. So since we're just back from Atlanta, he went to school at Georgia, which of course he's very sad now, at least temporarily. Georgia lost to Alabama this last weekend in football. But Bob won a national football championship with Georgia. He was the kicker. But he is in the Georgia Football Hall of Fame. He's responsible for one of the most famous plays in Georgia football history where he scored the game-winning touchdown on a botched field goal attempt against Florida.

So that's a great story. And then he was a two sport star. He was All-American in baseball and the senior year he actually led NCAA baseball in batting average going to last week of the season. He actually had been offered a pro contract to play baseball in addition to ... So he ended up deciding to play football for the Falcons. So he was a kicker for them and unfortunately a lot of times kickers, they're always looking for somebody better. I don't know if that's still the case today, but that was certainly the case then. But he played in the World Football League. He was actually playing for Memphis when the league folded. I think that was 1975. So he's still incredible golfer, great tennis player. Any sport you want to play, he's going to be great. He actually has a grandson whose name is also Finn, Finn Etter, who is a world champion Frisbee golfer.

So he has his own Finn. But Bob has a great love of fishing. So almost every tournament we go to, we find some opportunities to go fish. I had fond memories. We played one trials. It was held in Palm Beach, Florida. And we had a lot of fun. And one of the things we did between sessions, everybody else is going out to a big lunch. We'd hurry to get something quick to eat and then run over. They had the causeway. We'd go fishing in the causeway. And obviously we were traveling a long way, so we didn't have great fishing rods. Actually, Bob packed up very little, like a little bit of fishing stuff, but we actually bought these little kid fishing rods, these little toy fishing rods, and we just casted into the causeway and occasionally we'd pull out a little fish and it was just great.

Used to be at the Ventura Regional, every night after the game, we would go out to the beach, which was just steps away, and we'd grab our fishing rods and go out there and try to catch some .... It would usually be surf perches. That was our main catch. But sometimes we'd catch 30 of them in an evening. The next night was a big fish fry dinner and we'd get a bunch of Bridge players to come out with us. We had Val Kovachev went out fishing with us and Jerry Stamatov. It'd be a lot of fun. We'd have a great time. We'd have 10 other Bridge players out there on the beach at night getting wet, getting cold and fishing. And so yeah, we had a lot of great experiences. Probably the greatest success ... Well, we had two really great successes with Bob.

One year we made the semifinals of the US team trials, which was amazing. We had really a wonderful team. Josh Sher, my friend, was playing with Clem Jackson, another friend of ours from Albuquerque. And then we had Franco Baseggio playing with Jonathan Weinstein. And so we had a great team and to make the semis was really incredible experience. You're playing 120 board matches, so even beating one team is ... Even making it through the round-robin can be a challenge. But beating a top pro team in a 120 board match is really tough. And so we beat Rose Meltzer's team and she had a team that had won the world championship. We beat Roy Welland's team. And I think he was playing with Bjorn Fallenius who just passed away. But incredible experience.

One year, Bob and I, it was Philadelphia Nationals, we played in the Spingold with Jim Munday and Michael Schreiber and we beat Bob Hamman's team with Wooldridge and Hurd and Justin Lall. Some of the great kids that have grown up and are now ... Well of course Justin unfortunately has tragically passed away, but some of the kids that have grown up and become some of the top players of today. And then we beat Mahaffey's team that had Mochi and Madala on the team. And so we really had a great week and a great time. So we had a lot of great experiences beating top teams along the way and having a great time.

I'm sad Bob isn't traveling anymore to play and neither is Ira Korush. I do get a chance to play with them online, but those are the kind of people that you really enjoy talking to, you enjoy interacting with, you appreciate them for who they are and are able to not just talk about Bridge. Talk about the world, talk about things that really are meaningful to you. And I've been honored to have people like that, not only as Bridge partners and great Bridge partners, but also amazing individuals.

John McAllister: Well, tonight is Wednesday. Are you playing with those guys tonight?

Alex Kolesnik: Playing with Ira tonight. Yeah. Anybody wants to watch me and Ira take on Pavlicek and Munday. We used to do just a one table game, but it's been ... Realize the results on BBO for comparisons are not perfect. So a lot of times you bid a game that's just a normal game to bid, you win five IMPs on the board. So it's a lot of times who has the hands, but so we've been doing team matches and so it's a lot of fun and no matter what happens, win or lose, we have a great time. So I'm looking forward to tonight.

For those that don't know, Ira Korush, she's been a storied player for a long, long time. Incredible, incredible player, incredible partner. So it's a pleasure for me to get a chance to play with individuals that I've admired my whole life. So I've been very, very blessed by this game. The opportunity to play with the greats of the game, but also with great people like you, and obviously getting a chance to play with my kids and have my kids have a great love for this game like I do. So I've just been very, very lucky.

John McAllister: Well, it's been a pleasure to have you here on the show and I'm rooting for you also.

Alex Kolesnik: Oh, thank you. Well, we'll be rooting for each other.

John McAllister: This is John again, and thanks for listening. We want to hear from you. If you have any suggestions for the show, please reach out john@thesettingtrick.com. Also, we have an agreement with an editing company, so I'm going to strive to do four episodes a month. And so be on the lookout for new episodes, follow us on Instagram and tell your friends. Thanks for listening.