My guest is Simon de Wijs from the Netherlands. Simon has a great bridge resume. He has won the Bermuda Bowl, the Olympiad, the mixed World Championship, and multiple European championships. He is a mainstay on the Dutch national team, always one of the favorites in open competition.

At the recent Louisville NABC, Simon showed up with his twin 19-year-old daughters, who are budding experts. Find out how his relationship with them has changed since they got the bridge bug (by the way they made the Dutch mixed team for the upcoming European championships).

Recently at the NABCs, Simon has been playing on the Goodman team. They are one of the hottest teams in the world, having made it to the semifinals of the last two Vanderbilts and the last Soloway.

[3:24] Simon’s twin daughters’ experience in the US at the NABC and joining him in other international competitions.

[5:12] The “house rule” at the de Wijs’ dinner table.

[9:13] What song did Simon sing at karaoke? Also, he highly recommends quitting social media.

[12:40] Playing on Andy Goodman’s NABC team.

[15:00] Winning the main event, the Bermuda Bowl.

[16:37] One of Simon’s best plays here.

[19:50] Having a tough last name.

[22:58] Tell Simon all your secrets!

[25:00] On considering a move to the US.

[27:23] Differences in sponsorships between the US and European countries.

[29:55] Transitioning from IT to full-time bridge.

[33:18] How the best can tell when someone is better.

[36:10] That time Sophia Baldysz tried driving a car.

[39:31] The difference between American and European negotiations.

[42:29] The hierarchy of NABC events.

[45:03] Personality differences between Simon and his partner, Bauke.

[49:30] Bridge defense, false carding and the prospect of a psych-free bridge world.

[58:31] A different goal.

[1:00:50] Favorite city to visit for a national.

[1:10:29] No free ride for the de Wijs twins; Simon’s hefty finder’s fee.

Transcript

John McAllister: I'm here with my friend Simon de Wijs, and we were last together in March at the Louisville, North American Bridge Championships. And the combination of you being there with your twin daughters for the first time, who I got to play against, and the fact that you told me ... So you won the Jacoby Swiss at the Louisville NABC, and that was your first North American title. Which was very surprising to me, because going through your resume on the World Bridge Federation website, it's full of wins, prestigious wins like the Bermuda Bowl, the Olympiad, multiple European transnational championships. I was surprised, but you were really excited. This was your first time winning an event in North America, and so ever since then I've been wanting to interview you. And I finally reached out and here we are. Thanks, Simon, welcome and thanks for being with me here.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, great to be here, and everything you say is true. I was very happy with my first win. And the fact that it was the first, that maybe a little bit surprising since I'm playing for 20 years already in North America, and I'm having some success elsewhere, but somehow it never got together in the nationals. So yeah, I was really happy. And even though people pointed out to me that winning a two-day Swiss was probably the lowest national you could ever win, it didn't feel low to me. So I celebrated, I have to say, yeah.

John McAllister: I even drank a beer in honor of your win, which is a rarity for me. So I know that I was happy for you. You're a very likable person.

Simon de Wijs: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. So you're saying you're not a big beer drinker?

John McAllister: I'm not a big beer drinker, no. In my youth, I would drink a lot of beers, but as an adult, a middle-aged firmly and middle age, it doesn't-

Simon de Wijs: You and me both.

John McAllister: It doesn't feel good. It doesn't make me feel very good. So I've gone away from the beer drinking.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I have to say that last night at Nationals, I still drank my beer, but otherwise I've gone down of my alcohol consumption as well.

John McAllister: Did I mention that it was a karaoke, people get together for karaoke?

Simon de Wijs: I don't know if you mentioned it, but yeah, it was a karaoke thing, and that's the thing we typically do at the last night of Nationals. So I was also excited to bring my daughters and I registered them to sing a song, but somehow time ran out, so they never had to really get up there and sing.

John McAllister: What did your girls think about coming to the US to play for the-

Simon de Wijs: They're very excited. They're doing a gap year, and so they finished high school last year, and they're going to do university next year, and in that gap year, they try to travel and play Bridge. And well, a trip like this was a perfect combination of the two objectives. And they really caught the bug, as you can say, they have been playing Bridge since they were like 12, but that was off and on. And then two and a half, three years ago, they really accelerated their Bridge play. So now that I've actually had some success and they play internationally in junior teams. They're going to play internationally in the mixed team, and I'm going to travel to Denmark in a month, and then we play the European Championships and they'll be playing there simultaneously in the mixed events. So that is also very weird to have them join me for those kind of events. I'm not used to that.

John McAllister: So they're playing on the open mixed team?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, yeah, the open mixed team. They qualified in the Netherlands by winning the trials.

John McAllister: Wow.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, so that's amazing, was a surprise. Although I'm not allowed to say that it was a big surprise, because they feel I'm underestimating them all the time. But between you and me, just between you and me, it was a huge surprise. They beat some teams who I thought would be better, but from that point onward, I've started also training them a lot. So we do a lot of bidding practice and we talk about Bridge a lot. But we have a house rule, once we're at the dinner table, there's a maximum of one Bridge related question, because otherwise my wife and my son, they go crazy. So after one question they say, "Okay, that's it."

John McAllister: Is there any parameters on what qualifies as a question in terms of, can it be as technical as they want it to be or?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, some questions you can hardly deny them being bridge questions. Like, what would you bid with Q–J–fourth and so on.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Simon de Wijs: But other questions, then we obviously debate the parameters. We were talking about a bridge trip, we're not talking about Bridge, we're talking about the plane trip, we're talking about the hotel. It's not Bridge. But yeah, it's a big thing between the three of us now, so that's great also.

John McAllister: I was having dinner at the recent team trials in the US with Gavin Wolpert and Aaron Silverstein, and Chris Willenken was with us too, but he doesn't have any children. And Aaron's daughter, Avery, has really gotten the bug recently too.

Simon de Wijs: That's great.

John McAllister: And so I was talking to Aaron about something about Avery, how she's really gotten into it, and Gavin said, "Yeah, that's the dream." Speaking about having one of his children get into it like that.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I can tell you from firsthand experience, it's amazing when one of your children shares a passion with you. I don't think Bridge is special in that sense. I mean it can be any other passion as well, but for me, Bridge is my passion and for let's say the first 15 to 18 years of their life, they've known about Bridge, but they never thought it was that interesting. And now they've entered the Bridge scene and suddenly they're also very surprised that a lot of people want to talk to me and want to discuss [inaudible 00:07:29] all these people. Because back at home, I have zero respect, obviously.

This whole Bridge scene creates some newfound respect for their father, so that's a big benefit. No, but it's great to be able to talk about things you like doing, and to see them having fun. And I've tried in the past to encourage them to play Bridge, but when they don't really want to and you kind of semi force it upon them, then you know it's not going to work. So I quit doing that, and now it's all them. I'm not pushing them at all. So they're just maniacs at certain points in time, using one of those bidding apps like Cue Bids, or Bid 72 and firing hands at me.

John McAllister: You mentioned you've also got a wife and a son, and they don't like it when you talk about Bridge at the table?

Simon de Wijs: No, no, no. My wife, I met her through Bridge, but that was a long time ago and she never really played competitively. So socially she plays. And my son took one look at the game and decided that this was not for him. So he's into other things like acting and singing, and stuff like that. So it's totally different. I don't know where he gets that from. It's not from me, let's say. You’ve seen me sing, it's not my talent.

John McAllister: Wait, I don't know if I have seen you sing. What is your-

Simon de Wijs: I don't know. I did sing a song at the karaoke thing. It's-

John McAllister: What song?

Simon de Wijs: Time of My Life, with Christina. But it's better to forget those things.

John McAllister: I might've left, I didn't stay that long.

Simon de Wijs: Yes, halfway through the song you left. Is that what you're telling me?

John McAllister: I definitely remember seeing Christina-

Simon de Wijs: I don't blame you man. I don't blame you.

John McAllister: So we're talking about Christina Lund Madsen, who's the karaoke at night, is her personal showcase. She gave me your email address, that's how I was able to get in touch with you, because you're not on social media, as we were talking about before, before we started recording.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, no, no, I quit the socials and I'm not regretting it. It's not that I live a very secluded life. I still use WhatsApp, so maybe that's a social network in its own. Sometimes you're communicating with 30 people at the same time also. But now just looking at pictures of dogs and stuff, I mean objectively everybody knows can easily not do it, but it's very tough to actually, you erase those apps, so I can highly recommend it to some people who are thinking about it.

John McAllister: So are your girls coming to the Summer Nationals then?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, we're all going to Toronto, and they are together with me, we're coming for the whole tournament. And then afterwards we're doing a family trip. So my wife and my son, they also fly to Canada and then we do a two-week tour of Canada.

John McAllister: Wow.

Simon de Wijs: As a family holiday. Maybe the last true family holiday, since, they'll be starting university next year in September. It's likely that they're going to move out at some point in that year, so they might make different choices in the future as to what kind of holidays they want to go. So yeah, we decided to go out with a bang.

John McAllister: Olivia Schireson, who's been a guest on the podcast before, also did a gap year this past year, and she's going to university in the fall also.

Simon de Wijs: Did you ever make the conscious choice to do a gap year or not?

John McAllister: No. No.

Simon de Wijs: Me neither. It just was not a thing when I was that age. Nobody did it.

John McAllister: I went to all male boarding schools, so I was going to university at the University of Virginia, which, it was just the coolest place to be as far ... So I was ready to get there as soon as possible.

Simon de Wijs: Right. I envy you. If you really want to go somewhere, then going there is great. Right?

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still live in Charlottesville.

Simon de Wijs: Okay. So you're still living your dream.

John McAllister: Well, I'd like to get a little more resume like you for Bridge.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, okay. Well, there's still time. If it were any other sport like soccer or something, your time would've been up a long time ago. So lucky for you it's Bridge, and we have world champions well into their sixties, so it's still possible.

John McAllister: I was going to say, your Goodman team, so this mix that you won the Jacoby Swiss and you were playing on a team sponsored by Andy Goodman.

Simon de Wijs: Right. Yeah.

John McAllister: And you guys have been coming close. I think you lost in the semifinals of the Soloway Knockout, lost in the semifinals of the Spingold and the Vanderbilt. Does that sound right?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I think the last five tournaments or maybe last six, we got three semifinal exits. Yeah. So yeah, we did very well. And I thought we would do well, but I didn't think we would do this well. So it's also been a very pleasant surprise. I play with Andy Goodman and Mike Passell, and two Italians, Donati – Percario. And yeah, the team gels together really well. So somehow we have the fortunate coincidence that when one pair is doing poorly, the other pair is doing better. It's maybe partly good team atmosphere, and partly it's just a good coincidence. But happy to make or runs very deep so far. So yeah, happy about that.

John McAllister: But that's not easy. Those are the toughest events. I mean in the Nationals you joke about, you won a two-day Swiss. I got to the quarterfinals of Vanderbilt one time. We would've played you if we'd won. You guys lost to Wolfson who won it. That's the real thing. I'm a golfer and I love golf, so I compare those to the majors. Those are the big deal ones. But at the same time, you've won the Bermuda Bowl, which is kind of like the crown jewel of Bridge, I think. You would probably know better than me, because I've really not played in any of ... I've never played in the Bermuda Bowl, I've never been close to in the Bermuda Bowl. You won it in the Netherlands in 2011. That was your first world title, I think.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I think most people still consider Bermuda Bowl to be the main prize. There are some other world championships. There's this open world championship where the average playing strength of the field is lower, but there are so many more teams, that arguably it's tougher to win, percentage wise. But apart from that, still people consider the Bermuda Bowl to be the most prestigious one. And that's how I was raised, in a sense. When you play Bridge, you typically play teams or matchpoints. Well, teams is way more important. The matchpoints, that's how I was raised, and Bermuda Bowl is the one and only thing you should aim to win. So when we got that win in 2011 on home soil, that was obviously an amazing feeling, and we've come close to twice after that. We did second twice, the most painful one being like three years ago in Italy losing to 3 IMPs to my former teammates Bas Drijver –Sjoert Brink. So that was very painful, I have to admit. But yeah, Bermuda Bowls have been very good to us.

John McAllister: I didn't realize you lost that one by 3 IMPs.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah. There's nothing more I can say about it. It's worth 3 IMPs. 3 IMPs.

John McAllister: There was a hand from 2011 that I came across, where the opponents were in four hearts and you had A–Q–x of diamonds, I think. You played the queen?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, it's still one of my best hands. It all came together. Had A–Q–small, and the third in hand, I played the Queen, which is not a spectacularly good play, especially since I didn't even envision the exact way. It was just more a matter of principle just to keep flexibility in the defense, and it turned about to be crucial, and it wasn't found at the other table. So that made for a very nice board. So yeah, thanks for reminding me. That's better than reminding me of the 3 IMP loss in Italy.

John McAllister: Who was sitting in your chair at the other table?

Simon de Wijs: The defender, I think it's just John Hurd.

John McAllister: Sorry, John.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, sorry John.

John McAllister: I don't know if he listens. I don't know if he listens to this.

Simon de Wijs: He'll probably deny listening after this for sure.

John McAllister: We'll put a link to that in the show notes to the hand. There's a nice article about it.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, and I might be wrong also, maybe it was his partner, but-

John McAllister: No, it didn't say, believe me, I went looking for it. I tried to look up some of these things, because I was curious. Because the team that won in Veldhoven, from my standpoint, all three pairs were very strong. So I was curious how you guys divided up, but I couldn't find who played the last quarter or whatever. I guess that one wasn't so close though.

Simon de Wijs: No.

John McAllister: You beat them fairly, by a decent margin.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, we won by, I think we were leading by 75 going into the last set. It was six sets. So even though it was still very tense for me personally, but to be fair, the match was won before the final set. Yeah, it's true. But I agree with your analysis. That was the one time where we had three pairs that were all ... Well, they were not equal in strength, but they were very comparable. And there was definitely in the tournament where our weakest pair was the strongest, if you know what I mean. And normally you go to a tournament with pair number one, pair number two, pair number three, and in that order. And pair number three, the quality of pair number three, that's always important for the whole team, right? Because if that's very low, then that puts lots of pressure on pair number one and two who have to play more than their fair share. So yeah, in this case, not saying who was pair number three, maybe, we were pair number three, but at least we were very close in strength.

John McAllister: Your name by the way is not so easy to look up in the Vugraph archive.

Simon de Wijs: No?

John McAllister: Yeah, I typed in de Wijs, and I had to look up under Bauke.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, that's what I do also, because the fact that my last name is split out in two words, it has been a pain in the ass for all my life. At customs it's [inaudible 00:20:19] stuff. It's always ... The hotels they try, "I cannot find your name." "Maybe try it under D or W." I can highly not recommend giving your kids my last name.

John McAllister: But you gave it to Lata and Sarah.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I did. True. Yeah, maybe my ego was too big to not give it to them.

John McAllister: So you were recently on the Sorry Partner podcast. Did they listen to that?

Simon de Wijs: They listened to ... Yes, they listened to 15 minutes, because they couldn't be bothered by listening to the full hour. So I said, "Okay, just listen to this 15 minutes." Whenever I recommend stuff for them to read or listen to it, I get these looks, "What are you trying to do to me?" That's the looks I get. So I don't know, no, they like to decide for themselves what to ... So far it hasn't been Bridge Podcasts, but I'll introduce them to yours. Maybe you're the game changer for them.

John McAllister: We're talking about them a fair amount on here.

Simon de Wijs: Right, right, right.

John McAllister: I would like that if I were them.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, if that's a criterion, then they should definitely listen to this one. I agree. And also we are also being decently positive about them. They should feel happy after listening to this one.

John McAllister: I spoke to ... So Sophie Baldysz lives in Charlottesville, and-

Simon de Wijs: I knew she was in the US, but I didn't know Charlottesville. Go ahead.

John McAllister: Yeah. She showed up at the local Bridge club a year ago with her mom, and I knew them from Wroclaw, where you won your mixed world championship. Literally they showed up at the local Bridge club in Charlottesville. And I had played against both of them and her mom was my screen mate. And so I went up to them, I was like, "What are you all doing here?"

Simon de Wijs: That's crazy, right?

John McAllister: Yes, yes. Two Polish women at the local Bridge club. So the reason I bring this up, is because they play on a team in the Polish League with you. And I was going to say that Sophie said, and also Bas Drijver said, that your nickname is The Vault.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, The Vault. That's exactly true.

John McAllister: Is that like a facetious nickname?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I'm afraid so. Yeah. I've been known to not keep certain things a secret. But once people know this is my nickname, people tell me way less, so it's okay now. No, this team in Poland is actually, it's centered around the common friends of Sophia and also myself, like Rob Heller. And he's a Dutch guy who moved to England, who moved to Poland, and raised a team there. So we always have lots of fun. We are competing pretty nicely this time. We just failed to win the quarterfinals. But yeah, we're doing okay, I have to say. And yeah, Sophia usually plays there with her mom, but this year she went to US, I know. I don't know, is she still in the US now?

John McAllister: Yeah.

Simon de Wijs: Do you know when she's due to go back or-

John McAllister: I think she's staying ... So she originally came for one year as part of her PhD, and I think she signed up to stay for another year.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, that's how it all starts. People who say they'll leave after one year and then you never get rid of them.

John McAllister: Have you ever considered ... Obviously it sounds like your family's got to be on board for this, but have you thought about moving to the US for more professional Bridge opportunities?

Simon de Wijs: Well, at a certain point we considered it, but not super seriously. It was like 10, 15 years ago when our kids were very small, because that's a time when you can do it without too much trouble for everybody. So we considered doing that and not only for Bridge reasons but also for climate reasons because the Netherlands, it rains a lot and it's cold in the winter. I would like to live somewhere where it's a little bit warmer on average. But yeah, we decided not to do it and no, I really like the Netherlands as a country, so I'm not about to leave. And I know that if you live in the US, it's easier to get some Bridge jobs. That's true. But I'm getting by this way and so there's no need for me to do any more.

John McAllister: I don't think you have a Wikipedia page. Well actually I think you do, but it's just in Dutch.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, it's in Dutch. Yeah.

John McAllister: It doesn't really list the titles. So you've won a couple under the Onstein, or something like that?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, Onstein is the name of the club in the Netherlands I'm playing for, it's actually the name of a castle, but the club owner lives in that castle, and he named the Bridge Club. He gave the same name as his castle. So Onstein is name of a castle somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands. And under that name we won lots of Dutch championships. And when you are a Dutch champion or a champion of any other top country in Europe, you get to participate in this European championships thing, where the best 10 teams of Europe are participating in. And yeah, we've won that twice, I think. So that explains why you can see the name of Onstein in my resume a lot.

John McAllister: So does he play? Like in the US, the sponsor typically plays on the team.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, he's an Angel sponsor, the one who doesn't play. He recently passed away actually, half a year ago. So Hans [inaudible] who was the sponsor, but I've been playing for Onstein for almost I think 18 to 20 years already. So it has been a big part of my professional career. Part of my income is through that channel, and the other part is for playing in the US or in other countries. But he has been very instrumental, especially in the beginnings when we were not playing in the US, but as a first step to going professional, it was very good to have .a base income and that's what he typically provided. So yeah.

John McAllister: What was your first opportunity to play in the US?

Simon de Wijs: I played my first US National in a team with Sylvia Moss. She passed away two years ago, I think. And she played with Judy Radin and our teammates were Madala with Dave Bakhshi. So it was a strange mixture of people, but Madala and Bakhshi are still also playing in all the nationals. They never play together anymore, and always in different things. But yeah, they were also just starting to get on the circuit. Obviously Madala is somewhat younger than I am, and somewhat better at his age, so he got to play the circuit a little earlier, so that's why our entries coincided that we played on the same team. But it was a fun experience. We lost by 3 IMPs again to the Nickel team.

John McAllister: Oh wow.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah.

John McAllister: In what round?

Simon de Wijs: I'm going to say the round of 16. So it was not very deep, but still, to have been able to win that one would've been amazing.

John McAllister: At one point I saw, there's something on Bridge Winners, where like in 2011 it said you played professionally but you also did software, I think.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I've been a part-time professional for a long time. So I started out as being a full-time IT software developer, and I was self-employed, and so therefore I was more flexible to go to Bridge tournaments and stuff. I had to arrange stuff with the places where I worked, but I didn't have vacation days, I had to work my way through. So that was a good way to start playing Bridge. And then once the Bridge parts grew, I decided to work less and less, starting from five days a week, I got all the way from five to four, to three, to two, to one. I even worked one day a week for some period. And then I decided this is crazy, let's just focus on one thing, and I quit. But I still like to code actually. Sometimes I code something just for pure fun. So I like doing it. Once a nerd, always a nerd. Right?

John McAllister: Do you think you've gotten better at Bridge since you've been able to focus on it more or ...

Simon de Wijs: Yes, definitely. Your consistency goes up a lot when you are just in that zone of playing Bridge all time. Obviously your mental peak, it's guessed to be in your low 40s, right? The combination of your mental peak is actually somewhat younger, but with Bridge it's not only that, you also have experience to deal with. So I think nowadays they think your peak is somewhere in your early 40s. I don't know if you have an opinion on that, but the slope starting from the mid-forties going down, luckily it's not very steep, so I can hold my own there for a few more years in the Bridge world.

John McAllister: I know you were joking about it when you said Madala is better than you, but you really think he is, and how can you tell?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, well that's the funny thing about the Bridge world. If you compare it to the normal non Bridge world where every one of us is the smart guy or smart girl, and you're all used to doing well in school and stuff, most of us anyway. And then you play Bridge and then somehow you stumble across some geniuses who are still two times as good as you are. And that's what happens to me. There are a couple of people who I can honestly say they are a lot better at let's say declaring play than I am. And Madala has been one for a long time already. Klukowkski is a name you can mention, but also … You can mention like 10 names who are [inaudible 00:33:16].

John McAllister: How do you know Madala's better than you though? How did you know or how did you decide?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, when you play enough boards against him and you're defending four hearts, and you think, "Okay, this looks promising, he must be going down." And then he reads you for the four card trumps and then he throws you in. It's just those kind of things. You get the feeling, "Okay, he knows better what the layout of a hand is that I do normally." But that's the beauty of Bridge. You can easily have a good set against him. Of course the national we won, we won, I think 47-0 match against their team. And we played Bilde–Madala, two of the players who are in the category, I would say are better than I. But we still got to beat them 47 to zero, because it's not all about your individual qualities. As declarer play, it's also about putting pressure with bidding. It's about the difference in systems, and sometimes your stuff works out and sometimes their stuff doesn't. There's a lot of factors in place, so that makes it very possible to win, even though maybe in the long, long, long, long run you are a little bit worse.

John McAllister: I remember playing against Madala, and I think it was the qualifying of the Reisinger in 2016, and there was some hand he was declaring. And he had to endplay me. And he just played it. There was no thought. He just played it, it was just so natural and automatic. And I was just like, "Wow."

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, scary.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah. I don't dislike playing against him. It's a challenge, and some players are more challenging to beat than others, but it's always interesting to play a match against him as he plays on the Lebowitz team. Or maybe he's going to play on a different team. Oh no, no. I think they're going to stay at the Lebowitz team. But we've played them three or four times, and we've won I think two and we lost three, something like that. So we can beat them, but it's always tough, very tough matches.

John McAllister: Yeah. I want to talk more about this Rob Polish league team because I think Eddie ... I don't know Eddie's last name, but I think Eddie's a very funny man.

Simon de Wijs: Hoogenkamp, it's a very Dutch name, so it's tough to pronounce, I guess.

John McAllister: So I'll tell you a story about Sophia. So I have a Tesla. And Sophia had never driven a car before, and so she wanted to try driving, and so I let her drive my car. And I made a video of it, and she shared it with Eddie and her mom. And Eddie's comment was, "It looks like you've got all the high cards, but you're playing two diamonds."

Simon de Wijs: Did you follow that?

John McAllister: Yeah. I think you're saying she very slowly drove your car.

Yeah, yeah. You've got all the high cards, but you're playing two diamonds.

Simon de Wijs: Maybe that's a beautiful analog. Yeah. He sees humor in everything. He's a very funny guy. I cannot say otherwise. Yeah.

John McAllister: And I think they're coming to Toronto actually.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, they're playing in a team with Bas Drijver, actually, my roommate for most nationals. Bas Drijver and Ricco van Prooijen and Jack Zhao and Jerry Stamatov. I think that's their team. And he's starting to play in the Nationals, and that'll be their team. So yeah, that'll be fun. Always fun to have more friends in this tournament, right?

John McAllister: Who put together the Goodman team? How did you, did Passell reach out to you?

Simon de Wijs: Yes, Passell and Mark Lair, they were playing on the Goodman team a couple of years ago, and I think we talked to both of them about the fact that Andy Goodman was interested in getting a team for the Nationals, since he was already ... He had been playing in the Nationals some 30 years ago. He retired (from) Bridge, and then he made some money, and now he went back to Bridge, and he started playing the Nationals again. But now he was interested in playing with a full team. And we talked about it. Actually, I had my first real negotiation about stuff and stuff. It was interesting. And we had a dinner at a Thai place and then the deal was made.

John McAllister: Where was this that you had the dinner in the Thai place?

Simon de Wijs: I think it was in Reno, one of the Nationals during Covid. Not during Covid, but right after, post-COVID, when it was just restarted. You had Austin and you had Reno. Yeah, and there we met in person over a Thai dinner, which is always a good strategy.

John McAllister: So you had never really negotiated your deal before?

Simon de Wijs: Not so much, since we mostly had other people putting together the team and making a deal on behalf of us and stuff like that. I've been told that for Americans, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. For Americans it's way more normal to talk about money and to ask for money and to say, "No, it's too expensive." And in the Netherlands, and I think most of Europe was similar to the Netherlands in this aspect. You stay away from the money subject most of the time. So I remember family holiday like 40 years ago with my parents, when we went to the United States. And we were getting gas at the local gas station, and the guy who put in gas in my father's car was asking, "What do you do?" "I'm a civil servant." "Oh, how much money do you make?" That was the second question. For us that's, no, no, no. From that point onward, I considered that to be typical American. I don't mind talking about money, but I was definitely not used to it in the Netherlands. We somehow trying to evade that subject a little bit. Yeah.

John McAllister: So did you both come off your original numbers, or did you accept it?

Simon de Wijs: Let's say we came together. I cannot-

John McAllister: Got it.

Simon de Wijs: I cannot go into any more details with you. We came together, and I think we're both happy that we did because of the success we've been having now.

John McAllister: Yeah, you guys are doing great. I just wonder, you've won a bunch of major stuff. For me, getting to the semi-finals of the Soloway or even the quarterfinals of the Vanderbilt, huge. And even in the last tournament playing Rosenthal close for three quarters in the Vanderbilt, but what's the mindset of the team about these three semi-finals?

Simon de Wijs: You mean how we perceive the success?

John McAllister: Yeah, sure. Is it still exciting or is it like everybody's like, "Man, we want to ..." Obviously you won the Jacoby, but-

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, but as far as nationals go, there's a hierarchy there, right? The top three nationals are still the Vanderbilt, the Spingold and the Reisinger, although slash Soloway. I think that one, that's a tricky one. But so to win a two-day Swiss tournament, I'm super happy, but I'm still waiting for my first giant knockout win. And so getting to the semi-final that the first time, for me personally, it was a big feeling. But I think Mike Passell has done it a million times before, I think. So he might feel differently. And before our run of three semi-final results, I was just taking it one tournament at a time, and trying to end up as high as possible. But now that we've had three semi-final results now, now I'm really thinking about, yeah, maybe next time we should aim to get to the final. And obviously you're always aiming to get to the final, but the first semi-final result always tastes better than the third, I have to say.

John McAllister: So what was your seeding at the Vanderbilt in 2023 with the ... I guess it wasn't the same team. Did you have the Italians on the team at that time?

Simon de Wijs: Yes, with the Italians we had three semi-finals. I'm not sure when we started with them. I think we started with-

John McAllister: So it was in New Orleans. Well, you definitely had them in New Orleans. And so what was your seeding in 2023, versus 2024 Vanderbilt. Do you remember?

Simon de Wijs: Just from memory, I think we went from 24 to 17 or something seeding-wise. We didn't hit the top 10 seeding I think. No, I'm pretty sure we didn't hit a top 10 seeding yet. There were so many years that I've played these nationals and never had any results. So didn't really get into the specifics of how the seedings work, but maybe now I should start looking since we finally have some points.

John McAllister: You and your partner Bauke, seem very different just in terms of you're pretty outgoing, gregarious. Bauke, I don't know if we've ever even really exchanged many words. You guys have been playing together for 20 plus years. What's would you have to say about it?

Simon de Wijs: In some aspects we're very different. That's true. But when it comes to, let's say the technical Bridge aspect, we are pretty similar. The way you form your agreements, we are very similar. We like to have strict rules and not too many floating agreements, if you know what I mean. Like the ones where you on a case by case basis, you have to decide based on your feeling what applies where. And we both don't like it at all. And we are both, I think, above average in trying to remember system stuff. So that's why we can handle a complex system, like a strong club relay system, and lots of agreements about intervention and stuff. It takes a lot of effort to get it right. And I think we don't mind the work. So in that aspect we are pretty similar.

But as to our strengths, our Bridge strengths, they're somewhat different. Bauke has always been a very good declarer, but he really excels at defending. And there he has really helped me become a better defender, that's for sure. I now have a feeling that with Bauke, I'm one of the best pairs on defense, but that's mainly because our agreements and the way Bauke approaches stuff and, what I've become to adopt the way that works. Bidding wise, we are a little bit different. He has a different approach and I somewhat ... I take a little bit more risk in competitive bidding, depending on how the wind blows, as they say in the Netherlands, the results are also different.

John McAllister: You said he's helped you become a better defender. How has that come to pass?

Simon de Wijs: Well, because when hands go wrong, we talk about it and we fine-tune our defensive agreements. So it's not only that you know what you play in every situation, but also that you play the right thing in every situation. There are some simple examples of that. Everybody has an agreement that to play, some preference when the W is short or whatever. But it's just a very, very simple example. But you can also make lots more examples where you play different stuff in different situations. So by talking about all those different situations, we have developed our defensive agreement system a lot better.

And just by his personal approach to defense, very often he thinks and then he sees a chance, whereas most people would've given up on the contract and played the most natural looking card already. So that's what he has inspired me to do also, on more occasions to get into the hand, to form a picture of the hand, and to play the right card. Defense is particularly tough since you cannot rely on your own brilliance there. You have to really get on the same page as your partner, and there's no right or wrong, it's just you have to combine your two truths to one story.

John McAllister: False carding for example, there's a couple of hands that I can think back to Louisville where I false carded on two occasions. Once, because I knew ... I was like, I wanted the declarer to get the wrong picture of the hand. And that was in the knockout. And then in a matchpoints playing with same partner, I played a true card, which I thought should be obvious that I wouldn't false card in my partner's suit, and we ended up mis-defending on that. That seems kind of deep, because it seems like it would be hard to explain to the opponents how you have an agreement about when you false card or not.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, there's that aspect about false carding. There's also the trust aspect, that if you false card your partner the next time around, he's not so sure anymore. So I think the optimal false card frequency is higher than what Bauke and I use, most definitely. We are making life a little bit too easy for the opponents. Obviously our rationale is that you also make life for yourself easier, which saves energy and saving energy so you can do complicated stuff. You have energy left over for doing other complicated stuff. And yeah, what you mentioned, there's also this ethical thing, right? If you are a partnership where you false card very often, then your partner really has more information than the opponents.

It's very tough to combat. It's same with psychs, psychic opening bits or any psychic bids. It's a good idea in theory. I like the creativity. I like the fact that you can totally fool people. But for me the downside of psychs, namely that your partner is bound to know more than the opponents, is just too much. So if you ask me, I wouldn't mind a psych-free Bridge world, but I know that you take a little bit away of the creativity. So it's not a popular stance. But yeah, if it came down to a vote, I wouldn't mind taking out psychs at all. And false carding is like a half psych, maybe it's a similar thing. I don't know.

John McAllister: I guess the difference was that I don't think my partner was ever going to be on play on the hand where I false carded, so it didn't really matter. But on the hand where I gave him the true card, he was going to be getting in.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, that's obviously a big factor in whether you should false card, is whether you think who has the most to do, the declarer or your partner? And sometimes you get it wrong, you false card, partner gets the lead in an unexpected way and starts thinking. And then you think, "Oh, what have I done?" Because now you know partner is trying to figure things out with the wrong information. And with Bauke, normally that doesn't end well, because he finds a layout that is consistent with your carding. Almost inevitably he does a different thing than he would've done with the correct information. So I almost never get away with a false card if I judge wrongly that Bauke is the one having to make a decision. We've all been in that situation where you are lazily throwing some cards, not even intentionally, but you're really giving the wrong information to partner. And now partner starts thinking and then you think, "Oh, why didn't I do that?" And then the longer you have to wait for his decision, the more your heart rate rises.

John McAllister: What's his relationship like with your girls?

Simon de Wijs: Bauke's relationship with my girls? I think he talks to them a little bit, but no, they haven't had much contact, I have to say. He's not like a godfather to them if that's what you're going for.

John McAllister: Okay.

Simon de Wijs: No, not yet. No. But they really liked the Bridge scene overall, so they met lots of good players also. And the first round of the ... What did we play, the Spingold? No, we played the Vanderbilt, right? Yeah. The first round of Vanderbilt, they played against Bilde–Madala and Rosenberg–Grossack [inaudible 00:55:17] team, and they won the first set by 15 IMPs, which was amazing.

John McAllister: Wow.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, that was ... Okay, the story ends there because they lost the match by 150, or something like that, which was normal. But to win the first set by 15 and then to come out and say to me, "I really liked the opponents and the sponsor was a little slow and stuff." And then to find out that they had mis guessed who was the sponsor, that was amazing feeling.

John McAllister: Michael Rosenberg. They thought Michael was the sponsor?

Simon de Wijs: I will not actively-

John McAllister: Oh my god, I'm going to have to go ... Actually, it's probably not on Vugraph. Think if there's a way to see-

Simon de Wijs: No, I'm not actively confirm this. maybe we can use a deep throat method.

John McAllister: Okay The Vault.

Simon de Wijs: No, we had some fun about that. Obviously they're pretty clueless as to most of the people in the Bridge world still, yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah. I think I told you and Bob about this at the karaoke, about how I wasn't really squeezed against them. I played against them in one of those one day Swisses when you're ... The Swiss Miss, and yeah, anyway, I mis defended on a hand.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah. I don't remember it that well. I told a better version of the story to you once already. So sorry to the listeners.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, people come up to me and they say, "I played against your daughters. And they inevitably say, "They were very cute." And stuff like that. So I got more compliments that way than by winning the two-day Swiss, I can assure you.

John McAllister: What does your wife say about your daughters taking it up?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, she's pretty supportive in the sense that she wants them to do well. Also, she's one of those fanatic supporters, one of those when they come home. "What did you do? How did you do?" She wants them to do well, and obviously she wants them to have fun, but she's more into winning than that. So their competitive genes they've got from both of their parents. Yeah.

John McAllister: One other thing, Bas said something about you running a marathon, you have a goal of running a marathon. Is that [inaudible 00:58:33]?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, it started a year ago when I went on holiday to Israel actually, something you cannot imagine nowadays, to go on holiday. But a year ago that was still a thing to do. We went on the holiday, I went on a walk. And then back home I looked at the holiday pictures we took. And then I thought, this is going in the wrong direction, so I decided to go on a crash diet and started running. So in March last year I started, and then I climbed my way up to a 10K, and then I did a 15K in November. And then I did a half-marathon in March. So like a year I did a half-marathon, but it was not a pleasant experience, the half-marathon. For those who haven't done one, it's long, it's far. It takes a long time and it's pretty exhausting.

So I'm not quite ready to run a marathon just yet, but I'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get into it some more. There's a group of people running in the early mornings in the Nationals. Did you know about that? Krankyak and Bakhshi and some more people, they get up every morning at 7:00, and they run for an hour just prior to-

John McAllister: Oh, wow.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I think that's very tough to do. But yeah, they've all been running marathons, so I'm not quite up to their level yet.

John McAllister: Have you done it?

Simon de Wijs: I have done it with them on separate occasions, yes. But not during the nationals. Somehow it doesn't ... Yeah, the fact that we start play at 10:00, means that I feel cramped time-wise already. I just want to sleep as long as possible and then I don't want to feel rushed. So no, I don't want to do that.

John McAllister: What's your favorite city for the nationals in the US or Canada even, and least favorite?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah.

John McAllister: I have one for least favorite, I think.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah? Maybe you can inspire me, because-

John McAllister: Reno.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I was going to say Reno or Las Vegas. But Las Vegas is great the first couple of times you go there, or maybe even the first two days every time you go there, but you go for 10 days. So then one of those cities, Reno or Las Vegas, I don't know. I know they're not the same, but there are some things that are the same, and after two days, yeah, that's enough.

John McAllister: I'm probably going to regret saying Reno, that's going to come back to bite me, I think. Anyway, go ahead.

Simon de Wijs: Well, you can always-

John McAllister: I know people that live there.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, you can edit it. You can edit this. It's no worries.

John McAllister: I can make a subscription for people that want to hear what my least favorite city was. Okay.

Simon de Wijs: San Francisco is always one of the favorites, but I think I most liked the San Diego one, because it's the West Coast I like, and San Diego is a little more relaxed than San Francisco, the city and atmosphere. So yeah, I'm going to say San Diego actually. Yeah, why not? And I really liked the one in Canada, so I think the last one in Canada was Toronto also. Right?

John McAllister: Yeah.

Simon de Wijs: So I'm looking forward to this one. So least favorite, maybe I'll join you with the Reno one, and favorite I'm doing San Diego or Toronto, if you consider it one of the US cities.

John McAllister: When you first got hired to come to the US, how big of a deal was that for you?

Simon de Wijs: Money-wise it was not a big deal. You don't start with big numbers obviously. But the fact that people were willing to spend serious money on me, that's obviously very flattering. And it also had a promise. It held a promise of more, because you know that people who are playing professional, that everybody starts at some point, and then they slowly get into scene, the circuit, I have to say. So that was mainly the excitement, that maybe this is my first step into life as a Bridge player. And it was when I started playing professionally that, it was my goal then to have that take over the other part of my life. But it took a while. Finally, it did happen.

John McAllister: Who's on the Dutch team for the ... How do you distinguish the ... There's the Europeans teams and then there's the transnationals, when you speak, how do you distinguish, differentiate between them when you talk about them?

Simon de Wijs: We have the closed Europeans.

John McAllister: Yeah-

Simon de Wijs: And that's the Europeans where every country gets to send one team.

John McAllister: Right.

Simon de Wijs: And the open Europeans is where every country gets to send multiple teams. And even the team members don't need necessarily to be from the same country. They don't even necessarily need to be from Europe. So open European Championship basically is just a tournament, but they give it this nice sounding title to give it more buzz. But in Denmark, we're going to play the closed European, and that's obviously the more prestigious one, the less the number of teams, the more prestigious it is. And we're going to play that with Verbeek–Molenaar and a new pair. Well, they're not new as a pair, but they are new on the team. Guy Mendes de León and Thibo Sprinkhuizen. And their names are pretty tough, I guess for an American, but their big success was, they came in second in Wroclaw, losing in the final to the Nickell team. So that was The Rosenblum, I think, final, which was an amazing accomplishment since they played that tournament four handed. Of course, one of their players had to go home to take care of a sick relative, and they played every board. Maybe they played five-handed, but at least Dutch guys-

John McAllister: They played every board.

Simon de Wijs: Right. They played every board. So there must've been a very draining tournament, but they kept their level. And obviously it was just not enough to win the title, but they made a pretty big impact. And it has played a role in getting them selected for the Dutch team. And also we have this group at a team, an L group, where consists out of five to seven pairs typically, now there are seven. And we had some changes there, some partnerships that broke off and started new partnerships.

And that helped them, because the new partnerships, for good reasons, had to wait a little before getting selected to the teams. So now they took their opportunity and became the third pair, or yeah, maybe the second pair. I don't know in which order we were selected for the team. So yeah, I'm excited to see how we will be doing. I think the Netherlands will always be one of the top contenders for the first eight spots. And we've done very well the last couple of times, except for the World Championships, the Bermuda Bowl round, where we ended up ninth, just missing out on the playoffs. So we have something to avenge, let's say.

John McAllister: Yeah, I'm thinking about, my partner for the last three Nationals, Matt Brown, what a big win it was for them to beat you guys in, where was it, Lyon?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, in France. Yeah. With New Zealand, they beat us in the quarter-final.

John McAllister: Right.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah. For us, that was a match we expected to win beforehand. So that hurt. We didn't deserve to win. It was a close match, but we didn't play well enough. So I'm not saying that they were lucky or anything, but it was definitely a mess that when we started it, we very much expected to be favorite. And I think they would expect also for us to be favorites. But yeah, we just didn't play well enough and we lost, which was bad obviously, but yeah, stuff happens.

John McAllister: Yeah, the Netherlands is like the team to beat a lot of the time.

Simon de Wijs: Most of the time. And this was the first time actually that Brink–Drijver didn't play for the Netherlands anymore, so this was the first tournament they skipped. So that weakened our team, but it didn't show as much, since in the preliminary round robin, we ended up second. So yeah, you cannot say that we were hurt very much by their exit. But still, the quarterfinal was too much apparently.

John McAllister: I reached out to Sjoert asking him if he had any suggestions on questions for you, and he did not respond.

Simon de Wijs: He did not respond?

John McAllister: No.

Simon de Wijs: There's a friend for you. Maybe he did me a solid by not giving you any dirt.

John McAllister: No, he's a fun-loving guy.

Simon de Wijs: I don't know why he didn't respond. Normally he would. I think maybe you used a Swiss address where he is. The old ones [inaudible 01:09:43].

John McAllister: I don't know. I got no juice, man.

Simon de Wijs: No. But I think you reached out to Bob, right, Bob Driver?

John McAllister: Yeah. Yeah, Bob.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, Bob. We played on the Dutch team together obviously lots of times, but this time he's not selected, because the reasons I mentioned, he's in a newish partnership with Ricco van Prooijen. But yeah, we've been roommates at the last whatever, 40 tournaments in the US or something like that.

John McAllister: I didn't know about that.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, it's an ongoing thing, let's put it like that.

John McAllister: I was going to ask actually if you shared a room with your daughters, but-

Simon de Wijs: No, no, no, no. They paid their own way, man. So yeah, they were in the Econo Lodge. They were roughing it. They were roughing it in the Econo Lodge.

John McAllister: Oh my God. Wow.

Simon de Wijs: I helped them a little financially throughout the year. But the deal for this one was that they paid their own flight and hotel, and I would take care of the rest, sort of. So lucky for me, the entrance fee for juniors were zero, so.

John McAllister: It was zero?

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, I didn't even know. So they didn't have to pay any entry fee.

John McAllister: Wow.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, and that's a big difference, because the entry fees, they add up.

John McAllister: That's great.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah, that's great. And they are 19, so they can enjoy this for another six, seven years I think, whatever.

John McAllister: I might have a professional opportunity for a daughter, but I don't know if that would work, because they probably want to play together and they probably want to play the toughest event.

Simon de Wijs: Yeah. I don't know. I mean if you-

John McAllister: Not playing with me, it's somebody else.

Simon de Wijs: Obviously half the money goes to me. That goes without saying. So whichever number you mention, I'll tell them half. I don't know what they want to do. I said to them, "Just come to Nationals." And the last time they came with teammates, but this time they come without any teammates. I said, "Try to find teammates there, and you never know what happens." So that's what they're doing. So I'm guessing they'll be very open to your suggestion, but it's easy to reach them. Just replace the last digit of my email address, and then you have one of them.

John McAllister: Okay.