The Setting Trick

Episode 61: Sartaj Hans Keeps Getting Better

This week's guest is many-time Australian national champion Sartaj Hans. Originally from India, Sartaj has several high finishes in NABC events, including making the semifinal of the recent Spingold Knockout Teams in Chicago, where he played four-handed with partner Andy Hung and teammates Nabil Edgtton and Michael Whibley.

John had his first big knockout match win in the 2014 Spingold teaming with Sartaj to beat the then 7th-seeded Cayne team.

Sartaj’s book, Battling the Best, won the 2017 IBPA Book of the Year award. He also won the declarer play of the year in 2019. On top of all that, he has a successful career and is married to fellow tournament bridge player Sophie Ashton; they have two young daughters.

Sartaj discusses the psychology of bridge and how belief can make you a better player.

The need for developing a way to categorize bridge mistakes because bridge problems have so much variance.

Why postmortems are “rubbish.”

Sartaj hits upon a hot-button issue: playing top-level events on computers.

A couple of book recommendations from Sartaj.

Sartaj’s belief that focusing too much on system in a casual partnership is not effective.

In bridge, everyone has a chance to win.

Working on improving and how even experts have coaches and mentors.

Finally, Sartaj philosophizes on enjoying the process.

Read Sartaj’s post on Bridge Winners about playing on tablets:

https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/the-case-for-tablets/

Sartaj Hans’ book, Battling the Best:

https://www.baronbarclay.com/battling-the-best/

Sartaj Hans wins Declarer Play of the Year:

https://www.abf.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2020_IBPA_Declarer_Play_of_the_Year.pdf

TRANSCRIPT:

John McAllister: Today, I have a very good friend of mine, Sartaj Hans. A couple of days ago, we were in touch about setting up this conversation and he texted me and said, "Do you want to go through some questions beforehand, and like discuss over email?" And that's not exactly how I do it, so I was a little concerned. But obviously the guest, he's the star. So, I thought, "Okay, absolutely, let's do it." And Sartaj sends me this killer list of topics, and I am just so fired up for this conversation, because this man is really thinking deeply, he's prepared, he's gone out to the store and gotten himself a proper headset that he immediately got rid of during sound check. And here he is, this guy, one of my favorite bridge players, Sartaj Hans.

Sartaj Hans: Hey, John, thanks for having me.

John McAllister: It is absolutely my pleasure. And particularly, we actually talked about, I had reached out to you about having this conversation prior to the Summer NABC, and I think maybe you said something about you had a premonition about – you guys got to the semifinals of the Spingold, which is quite an accomplishment. And so, it's really cool that we waited. And anyway, congratulations on that, I was rooting for you all.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, thanks. Look, it was a pretty good run, it was quite good. We've been playing as not exactly the same group, but a very similar group of players over the last year and a half or so. And this was probably, all of us together, our best run as a team, and sometimes things just come together, and it was quite nice. Yeah, even now I feel like I usually come back from these U.S. Nationals with all the travel, and all the waiting for flights, and waiting to get ready, you usually feel exhausted, and it takes you a couple of weeks to get back into so-called normal life. But this time around, I've come back and I'm like, "Oh, man! I'm missing my bridge already!"

There was no sense of exhaustion, or there was just a sense of enjoyment from the whole process. And yeah, I really have good memories of it, and hopefully we can do more of that, because it's a bit like a tiger, as they say, has a kill. Tigers are afraid of humans; it's not very well known. It's when they have their first kill, suddenly they get a taste. And we've done damage before ...

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: But a result like this certainly gives me, personally, a lot more belief about how much more deeper we can go and how we belong in there and can hope to do well.

John McAllister: And just in case the listeners don't know, Sartaj, he lives in Australia. Originally from India, but he lives in Australia, so it's not just a two-hour flight from Richmond to Chicago like it was for me. I did have to drive an hour each way.

Sartaj Hans: Oh, yes, an hour. Great, John. I have to drive two and a half hours before I get on a plane. And that's before the 30-hour [flight]. Look, anyways, it's all fun. The U.S. Nationals, it's just fantastic how they're open to everyone and the quality of competition is so high. Typically, before I started going to these Nationals, you'd have to qualify for the Australian team, and if you did, you would get to go to one, or sometimes two, tournaments in the year. That's the World Championship and the Zonal Championships. And sometimes when you don't make the team, then you just sit at home all year round, whereas with the Nationals, there's three of them a year, anyone can go, and everyone is there, is also the point. Anyone who is anyone, amongst the elite players, is there, and the level of competition is great. So yeah, I love it. I love going there.

John McAllister: And we've played on teams before, actually, going back eight years ago, I think it was, in Las Vegas. I had my first big win in one of these knockouts in the Spingold. We beat the Cayne team.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, I was trying to remember that the other day. There was Lauria Versace, and who was the other professional player? Was it Bessis?

John McAllister: Lorenzini and Bessis.

Sartaj Hans: Right, right. So, this is the foursome that just won the last Spingold, right? No, sorry, it was Versace and Sementa, more or less. All Italians seem the same, sound the same.

John McAllister: Oh, wow. I didn't realize that.

Sartaj Hans: And yeah, John, you and Sam Lev, and me and Peter, and we upset the Jimmy Cayne team. That was a great result, wasn't it? It was such a thrill. It was such a thrill.

John McAllister: Such a thrill. Such a thrill.

Sartaj Hans: And then we played Alex and Joseph, who were later confirmed as being a cheating pair, and that ended our run.

John McAllister: Yeah. That was ...

Sartaj Hans: I have good memories of that event.

John McAllister: So, that event was in Las Vegas, and we played in a four-way in the first round, and we were up by 50 in the first half against the Chinese team, and they came back and beat us.

Sartaj Hans: Really?

John McAllister: Yeah, 16 board match, came back and beat us. And I remember going back to my room, and you called me and you said the higher seeded team also lost and to prepare. I remember Huub Bertens was on the team, but you're like, "Get ready, you need to be ready to play." And I think that was helpful. I think one of the things that you emphasize here, is the role of belief in bridge in your email. And I think I liked that, that you were thinking about just being mentally prepared. And we beat them. We beat them, I think, pretty comfortably. And then we won the next match.

I don't remember who it was, but the funny thing about beating Thomas, is for a long time, whenever I saw Thomas, I would talk about ... I would bring it up. I would bring it up. I see him now and I just laugh to myself, because there was a time when I would've been like, "Wow, we beat you."

Sartaj Hans: Knowing Thomas, he'll probably be a pretty good sport about it.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: He's always got a smile on his face. No, right, I didn't recall that, but to your point, yeah, the belief element, I think it's important. I did some sessions with a sports psychologist about a year and a half ago, and he was more a golf guy...

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: But pretty much, a lot of the things he said were relevant to bridge as well. And he was the one who even introduced this concept to me, the concept of belief. What it means, and how a lot of the top competitors channel it, how they nurture it, you have to work on it. And I learned that from him. One of the points he made, which may be of interest to your listeners, is that he said, "It's no good just saying to yourself, 'I'm great.' Because things like that, that sort of stuff can easily, under pressure, or something goes wrong, it can be punctured. It's like a balloon, it can be punctured. You go down in some baby three no-trump, where you forgot that the guy discarded a heart and suddenly you feel like. We all have those feelings, "I'm such an idiot, I can't believe I've been playing this game for 25 years." Things like that, they're just totally normal.

And he introduced us to this concept of the four pillars of belief, that you've got to have four discrete elements, which constitutes your belief, so that whenever it gets shaky, you can remind yourself the 1, 2, 3, 4. For example, one of them could be, "Remember the time we beat the Jimmy Cayne team up in Las Vegas with John and Sam Lev." It's like a memory. Another thing could be a specific thought about how you've done all the work, you've done all your training, you've done this, you've done that; all of that has made you who you are. Things like that. Everyone has their own. And he had a session with our team, and he introduced us to this concept, and we all came up with our four.

In fact, one of our pillars at the time, one of our teammates mentioned, the question was, "What's the pillar of belief for the Australian team to do well?" And one of the players said, "Well, just look at New Zealand, they're our next-door neighbors, look at how well they're doing." And it makes some sense. "If those guys can, then why can't we?"

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: They are not that dissimilar in individual ability. New Zealand, as a team, have done fantastically well, especially a few years ago, even this year, they almost won our Zonal Championship, but they came second. But neither of our countries has won for a long time. So yeah, just things like that. I found that some things I picked up from Mat Howe, who was my sports psychologist for a while, to be quite useful.

John McAllister: So, how does it work then? How does it work when you go down in a baby three no-trump?

Sartaj Hans: Well. You feel horrible. There's a whole swamp of emotion. Well, it's a baby one. There's a new thing I've been trying to come up with, it's a framework, which is how to categorize bridge mistakes. And I think the terminology we use is very poor, because there's so much luck, and also the quality of the problem varies. So, the recent thing, I've been trying to talk to myself in terms of, there's three kinds of things. First of all is the blunders. Blunders are just clear categorical.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: There's just no doubt.

John McAllister: Right.

Sartaj Hans: And then are errors. And errors are where your instinct is to, your partner does anything wrong, and you just want to call it a blunder, but it's not always a blunder. Often it's an error, it's a close call, you were onto something, you didn't totally pooch the hand, but it was an error nonetheless. In objective hindsight, you just realize that it was a clear error.

And then are what I call mistakes with a question mark, which is, everyone tells you it's wrong and you probably feel it's wrong, but you're often biased by the result. It's very hard to be objective in bridge. Like almost every postmortem is just rubbish. People just make up stuff just to bring certainty. There's this guy whose blog I read, and he talks about life and financial markets and things like that. And he says, "People crave certainty." And in this sense of having the certainty of, let's say, bidding three hearts is the correct bid.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: We often forget that the situation is ambiguous, it's not really clear. Three hearts happened to work on this hand. The four hearts, the bid that you did make, that did get doubled and it did go for 800, isn't totally nuts. It had some upside. So, the three categories. Blunders is clear mistakes, I suppose. Errors, which are not totally clear, but in hindsight, if you're objective, they are. And then mistakes with a question mark. Mistakes are often 60/40 kind of calls. I don't know how we started talking about this. That's a terminology I've been trying to adopt, but it's been hard, because no one else is interested in talking like this, so you're just talking to yourself. Yeah.

John McAllister: Well, this is the part where I like to show off the research that I did.

Sartaj Hans: Right.

John McAllister: And I looked at your matches in the Spingold, and I saw that you came back in the fourth quarter to beat the Spector team.

Sartaj Hans: All right. Oh, did we come back? Was it close though, right? It was single digits from ...

John McAllister: I think. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do know for sure that you had some good boards early on in the last segment ...

Sartaj Hans: Right. Yep.

John McAllister: Of 15 boards. And then, on the last hand of the match, Andy played three no when the other table played four spades, which was a much easier contract to make.

Sartaj Hans: Well, well, well... No, no, no...

John McAllister: Am I wrong about that?

Sartaj Hans: No. So, they could have defeated four spades, our teammates.

John McAllister: Oh, could they?

Sartaj Hans: And Andy had a chance to make three no-trumps. It was very tricky, but he had a chance, and both things went wrong for us. So, we lost 10 IMPs on the hand, whereas we had an opportunity to win 10. 3NT was clearly better, but we didn't manage it.

John McAllister: Oh.

Sartaj Hans: Our teammates got a bit active in defense. Look, that's my memory, and again, I'm not totally sure if that's fully, objectively true, but Nabil and Michael Wibley on the Spector match day, they had a very good day. I had a few ropey hands. It's just, you think and you think and you think, and then you do something and it's bad and you just feel like even bigger idiot. If you do something quickly and you do it bad, at least you go, "Oh, well, I should have thought some more." But if you took about 10 minutes to think on defense and I got it wrong, then you feel like even bigger idiot.

But Nabil and Michael Wibley had a great day that day. Well, when I told them at the end of the day, "Hey, guys, you were great today," they started laughing. I was like, "What the hell?" This was their words: "We know how much we left at the table." Yeah.

John McAllister: But okay, just going back to this. The last board of the match, it's a close match.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah.

John McAllister: And Andy goes down in three no, did you think that, that might be the difference?

Sartaj Hans: No, I've actually become relatively good at not paying too much attention when I'm dummy. Sometimes you can't help it, especially with tablets. I don't even recall if I saw how the play went. We all know it's good not to pay attention when you're dummy, but we all can't help ourselves. Whereas with tablets, it's a lot easier, you just get up, you go for a walk, get a glass of water, go to the toilet, do anything. So, I didn't even know that he could have made the three no-trump. But I had a sense the match was close. It felt close. Our opponents had missed a slam that Nabil and Michael bid, and then there was a close, vulnerable game. And all of us, we love bidding disgusting games. Everyone likes bidding close games, but we are all especially bad at this, don't like missing them.

So, I had hopes of those sort of boards, but to be honest, I just was looking forward to the score up and might've even seen the score. Oh, actually, now that I think about it, I think I came outside. I walked outside and I asked someone what the score was, and someone told me we were leading by 20. And I said, "How many boards to go?" They said, "One board to go." And I thought, "Well, three no-trump down one, we can't be losing 20 here."

John McAllister: Right.

Sartaj Hans: [inaudible] would have to go for 2,000 or something. So, I guess I knew that everything...

John McAllister: Because it's not the same with tablets, because your partner's not there and you're not turning the cards as dummy. I don't know where your partner was, in this case.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, I think you just go, "Dummy does whatever they like." And speaking of tablets, I really enjoyed the experience. Here he goes, John. So, to our listeners, maybe we should educate them why are you laughing. It's because I said to John, "Just try to bring up the subject of tablets. I feel very passionate about this. Just try to."

John McAllister: That was his first bullet point. And also, I'll point out for you all that, today's Wednesday, August 9th, and he said, "I've written up a Bridge Winners article, which they hadn't published yet." Well, they've published it since.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah.

John McAllister: So, that is up and absolutely hope people will continue to weigh in based on what you have to say. It's your platform, sir.

Sartaj Hans: Right. Well, I feel that bridge is a game of cards and should remain a game of cards for the vast majority of players; social bridge, even tournament bridge. But when it comes to the very elite levels, the last round of 32 onwards in the knockout tournaments, or maybe even the World Championship play, the Bermuda Bowl, things like that, when it's really elite competition, having played on tablets the first time, I just saw how amazing that playing environment was. Not from the point of view of your own comfort, because it takes a bit of getting used to and I think we all did a few things that maybe we wouldn't have done with cards, or at least it's a nice new excuse.

But I feel like, at the top levels, there's a lot of unauthorized information that goes around in bridge. And the stronger the player you are, the more sensitive you are to it. You just know little things happen and you just know what's going on. Now, in theory, so-called ethical players do not use any unauthorized information that comes from partner, and only unethical players use it, and they are the naughty ones. And I think that model is very simplistic and it's unreal. There's a whole spectrum of possibilities, and opportunities, and situations that come up, and maybe some people won't like me saying this, but I think we are all on the spectrum somewhere.

The spectrum being from the egregious, "Let's take advantage of every situation we can. Let's help partner out by bidding a bit slowly, or leading a bit slowly, or let's make a deliberate, conscious effort to generate UI so partner is helped. And let's make a deliberate, conscious effort to take advantage of this UI to the extent that it's almost systematic." That's the one end of the spectrum.

And to the other end of the spectrum, the other end isn't some great, ethical player who's just super clean and totally oblivious to UI, because I feel like it's there, it's everywhere, it comes through to you and if you say you never get impacted by it, you're kidding yourself. It comes to you. But, perhaps, on the other side of the spectrum, it's someone who tries not to generate UI in any tempo sensitive situation, tries their level best not to. Doesn't always manage it, but tries their best. When partner presents UI, they're aware of it and they try their active best not to use it.

And whereas the reality is, all the bridge players are somewhere in the middle, some are more towards the acute end and some ones are more towards the soft end. And it is especially relevant at the top levels, where small things, one lead or one slam auction, could be the difference between victory and loss. And so, the obligation on the community, is that we should be reducing the likelihood of these situations. Sorry, by UI I mean unauthorized information, sorry. We had one of the situations come up. You make a slam try, partner makes a cue bid, and then you go instant sign off four spades. So, that tells partner you had a very marginal slam try and you need the absolute perfect hand in their hand to make a slam.

And the very top players are very sensitive to this. Whereas these sort of events need to be stopped in some way. And in theory, with the bidding screens and trays that are used at the elite level, can be used to bring in some controls, but it doesn't really work. To me, it doesn't work. I have seen plenty around me. The first time I became aware of it, to be honest, was in 2011, we were playing the World Championships. It was the World Transnationals. We didn't qualify in the Bermuda Bowl, and then we got to the final of the World Transnationals, and we played the great Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz, who were, again, another pair subsequently discovered to have been cheating. And we were playing with screens, so in theory, if, let's say, someone makes a fast bid, their screen mate can hold the tray on their side of the screen ...

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: And so the other side would not know who was taking the time. Or the other side doesn't realize that, that bid was a fast bid, the other side might think that the bid was made in regular tempo. But what they were doing is, they would grab the bidding cards when they were bidding like three no-trump, make a very soft noise, bump it there, and it was totally obvious to the other side what was going on. There was one hand I remember in particular, some guy had a 20-count with King, Queen, Jack, to five spades. And the bidding went something like two hearts on his right, he doubled, three hearts on his left, pass, pass, he doubled, pass. His partner bid three spades. It was an insta three spades bank, and the guy just passed it.

John McAllister: Wow.

Sartaj Hans: You just can't do that. It's very helpful when partners goes instant three spades and you know they got absolutely nothing over there. And maybe they also had some other message they were sending at the same time that I wasn't privy to, but that was the first time I became aware of some of these trickeries that go on behind screens. And over the years, I have seen a lot, and some of it may be just unconscious, you just get used to it, or some of them it's conscious, I don't know. But in any case, coming back to our point with tablets, such things are: A, they're reduced, and B, when they occur, it's clear to measure them.

It's just like in chess when, back in the day, you played a 40-move game, they used to record the time. I took 12 minutes for this move, I took 30 seconds for this move. All that information was available publicly. People had no interest in it, so it just died out as a trend. But with bridge, I think all this information is recordable, it should be recorded. How quickly did XY pair lead all of their singletons, and how slowly did they lead the doubletons, for example? That information should be in the public domain. And when you have hundreds of hands, you can make your own conclusions. So yeah, I'm converted on the tablets, and I hope they become the norm in high-level play, and high-level play only. Yeah. Did you play on tablets at the Spingold?

John McAllister: No, we lost in the round of 64, but I have played in the U.S. Trials on them in two different occasions. It's slightly different setup, because you're in a hotel room just with your screen mate. Which is very nice, but it's not the same as it looked like you guys were using tables and you were sitting with your opponent, but it wasn't clear. I just saw a photo.

Sartaj Hans: How did you find the whole tablet experience when you played in the Trials?

John McAllister: Well, I thought it was really helpful, actually. I thought it gave me an advantage, because there was a pair that we were going to play against, where I was intimidated that I was not up to their level.

Sartaj Hans: Right.

John McAllister: And I felt like just playing with one of them in a room helped level the playing field for me.

Sartaj Hans: Right. I think I can even guess who that pair might be, because you had a pretty good run against the Fleisher team, right?

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah.

Sartaj Hans: It was really close match last year, and then at the very end, they pulled away.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Another point I will make that I didn't write in the article is that I am what you might call a bridge tragic. When a tournament is over, I go through every match, just see what happened. At least look at the big boards where the swings occurred.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: I wonder if someone can objectively do this analysis, but if you look at the quality of defense in the round of 16 and the round of eight, in terms of games mis-defended, or those defenses that just got lucky, that could have easily been a mis-defense. I feel like the quality was much worse in the matches on tablets compared to at the table play. And again, I'm not necessarily saying it's cheating, but it's just a certain vibe. Often you can just get a vibe. And the longer you play with someone, the more and more you know them.

Sometimes I am at home, and something is being discussed and I have reservations about an issue, but I'm quiet. And my wife, Sophie, she just knows straight away, she's like, "I saw what you did." I'm like, "I did nothing! I just sat here!" But she's known me for so long, she just knows things when I haven't even said anything. She said, "I saw your temple throb and I could just tell." And I was like, "Oh." And if that's what happens in a domestic relationship, a bridge partnership is a relationship. You get used to your partner, their everything, and there's information that leaks out, perhaps inadvertently.

And there was a hand, I recently read Zia's book, I recommend it highly, it's called Bridge, A Love Story. And one of the anecdotes in there involves Bob Hamman. So, Hamman is on lead to a game and leads a doubleton. Then he gets on play, and he continues the doubleton. Then declarer takes a finesse to partner's King of trumps. So, they've taken two tricks already and Bobby Wolff is thinking about his play. And if Wolff gives Hamman his ruff, that's the third trick, and Hamman has an ace to cash, so he knows game is down if Wolff gives him his ruff.

And Wolff is thinking, and Wolff is thinking, and obviously, one of the things I know that Hamman and Wolff, they used to lead high even from three low sometimes. So, Wolff is not 100% sure that Hamman has a doubleton. So, while he's thinking, Hamman says, at this stage, most players would have the mindset of, "Come on, give me a ruff, what the hell are you thinking about? Just give me a ruff, that's 1, 2, 3, what else have I leading from? What is this all about? How is there a right to play a club?"

For most of us, those thoughts go on in our heads. And I feel like when those thoughts go on in your head, some of that emanates out of your body as well. It doesn't have to be an obvious sense of impatience, but whatever it is, it could be just a sense of tension at the table ...

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: And that can come across to partner. So, to finish Hamman's story, the point of him telling the anecdote was that he pointed out that if Wolff did not give him a ruff, played something else, declarer next played a club. Hamman, who had the ace, had to fly the ace, dummy had the king jack. Ducking a club was no good. He had to fly the ace and do something and the hand was still down. And he said, "The professional competitor is thinking not that 'give me a ruff, give me a ruff, give me...' Okay, what if you don't give me a ruff? Okay, say you play a trump and then declarer plays ... I have to rise ace of clubs to play this and this, and still beat the hand."

And that is ultimate mental toughness. It's a great little story to me. I found it very touching. That is what toughness is in bridge. And Hamman is Mr. Tough, he's my hero, he's dominated the world of bridge for so long, because of these sort of qualities. Zia's book, it's definitely worth reading.

John McAllister: You talked about Bob. You bought a copy at the tournament in Chicago?

Sartaj Hans: I bought like five copies. Zia writes the books, it doesn't happen very often. It's nice hardbound, I got him to autograph it. I gave a few copies to my friends. And yeah, they've all enjoyed it. At least a couple of them who've read a bit and given me the feedback that they're enjoying it. Yeah.

John McAllister: Did Zia put anything special in the copy for you?

Sartaj Hans: I think he said something like, "To my Australian brother." He's quite charismatic.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Zia is like this, he's just Mr. Cool in a way, right? He's in his 70s now, so it's hard to see him as Mr. Cool, but he just seems to always have a good presence, and he's been nice to me. So, yeah.

John McAllister: Tell me more about your relationship with Bob.

Sartaj Hans: My relationship with Bob?

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: The tragedy is, I asked him to play one bridge tournament with me and he said no. But I'm so sad. Look, I think it started when I read his book, At the Table, by Hamman. And that book had a very serious influence on me, because of his emphasis on being present at the table. His emphasis on not letting these postmodern type thoughts impact you, and just generally being mentally tough and strong.

And I guess I went through a period where I was mentally very tough. I was much weaker as a bridge player, but I was mentally a lot tougher than I am now. I went through a period where I just didn't get phased by anything that I ever did wrong, like zero. We all get phased a little bit, but I went through, and to a large extent it was inspired by Hamman's book and some of the things he talked about. He said, there's a phrase that I can't forget, it was something like, he said, "Once something goes wrong," he says, "no amount of recrimination, self-flagellation, or excuse-making will change what's happened."

It's just a beautiful phrase, all three components of recrimination, blame, it was, "Why did he play a club?" Self-flagellation, "Oh, I'm such an idiot. Why the hell this, that, and the other." And excuse-making, "Oh, I thought he was 6-3-3-1, and that's why." Half of these postmortems people make up are lies. You do something, and then you later on try to work out some rational basis so you don't feel like as much of an idiot. You just try to convince everybody else, and sometimes even yourself, of a lie of the reason for why you did what you did.

I am more self-aware now and I try to do less of it, but I did enough of it in my time and I saw enough of it around me to know, this is the norm. And those Hamman's three points, to me, it's a beautiful phrase, and if only we could be as tough as him. There's another anecdote in Zia's book, actually, that's involving Hamman as well that's also very inspiring. My relationship with Hamman? One day I got a phone call from Bob Hamman, this was about 10 years ago. And I was thrilled about that for like six weeks. "I got a call from Bob Hamman!" That's an aspect. Yeah. Even this year, he made the U.S. Seniors team.

John McAllister: Oh, yeah.

Sartaj Hans: And like I said, being a bridge tragic, I go through all the hands, I look at who's playing well, and Bob Hamman, I tell you, at the age of 84, is playing very well.

John McAllister: I think he's 86, isn't he?

Sartaj Hans: Is he? Oh, okay. Well, whatever he is, he is doing...

John McAllister: I think he just had a birthday.

Sartaj Hans: And I understand that, even the team had a sick pair, so they played a lot. Him and Peter Weichsel played a lot together. And yeah, no, his level of play is really high, still. He wrote in his book, he said, "As I get a bit older," and this was when he was much younger than today, he said, "I don't crunch the numbers as quickly as I used to, but I have a lot more experience and that counts for a lot." Just those little things. Yeah.

John McAllister: He revoked against me in...

Sartaj Hans: Oh, did he?

John McAllister: In a Spingold match in 2017, which allowed me, I think, to make a contract, a game that I couldn't have made otherwise.

Sartaj Hans: Right.

John McAllister: Yeah. He was playing with David Berkowitz, and the dummy had three diamonds and I had two, and Bob ruffed the third round of diamonds. I was declarer, so he was on my left...

Sartaj Hans: Right.

John McAllister: And the revoke was established. Yeah, so that was in 2017 and I thought.

Sartaj Hans: Well, okay, things happen. Things happen.

John McAllister: They won the match. I'm disappointed. Yeah, I have played with Bob. I played with Bob in a Schafer game online, not in person. But yeah, I think we won. I remember we went in quite some detail on some Flannery or something, and I was like, "Man, I really hope this doesn't come up, because I don't think I've got everything." What was the event that you asked him to play in?

Sartaj Hans: It was just a pair game, I think last year. There was a pair game for one of the Nationals where I was free. Yeah. Look, I'm surprised that he got you to play all that system, because I would expect him to know that, if you are playing in a casual partnership system is the last thing you should be focusing on. Especially Bob. The other thing I just remembered, his book dedication was something like, "To all those five-card major-ites and all the systems that they invented. Great systems, but they still couldn't beat me with them." That was his view, playing strong club, four-card majors and dominating the world for a significant period of time. Yeah.

John McAllister: You don't play four card majors in your strong club.

Sartaj Hans: No, no. I think that is not very common anymore. I think it can be played, it's not as bad as people make it out to be, especially in a strong club context, four-card majors can be very dangerous. But it's gone out of fashion. Even Hamman plays five-card majors and standard these days, so I guess things have changed a bit, yeah.

John McAllister: So, I'm going to go back down memory lane a little bit. So, I remember you and Peter Gill, when we played together, you were playing with Peter Gill, and you guys took me out to dinner at one of the Nationals, and I like to use fraternity analogies sometimes, because I was in a fraternity here in my formative college years. And you guys were rushing me up. Rushing me up to be...

Sartaj Hans: Feeling you up?

John McAllister: To hire you guys...

Sartaj Hans: Oh, I see. Yeah.

John McAllister: As my teammates, and you complimented me. You said you think I had promise and potential, which I appreciated, and then it was great. We had that big win, and we had some other good results. But one of the things I remember you said about Peter, I think was in that match when we beat the Cayne team, was that, if Peter's in a tough three no, he's going to get it right.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah. If someone's going to get it right, it's going to be Peter. He is very good at soaking up a lot of information. He soaks up everything, he watches everything, knows everything. His level of technique is obviously very high, and he can somehow keep it together as well. In a way, sometimes, I find I get a bit lost in all the, "Shall I do this, or shall I do that?" Now, Peter is especially good at bringing home those close three no-trumps, more so than anyone around that I know much of. Yeah.

John McAllister: So, you were playing with Peter last summer in the Spingold when you beat the Nickell team. I think that was in the round of 32, which was a pretty good scalp. And I'm wondering, you and Peter, this is the first National you guys hadn't played together. You're playing with the new partner, Andy. Was Peter rooting you on from back in Australia, or did you hear from him?

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, look, I'm sure he was. Peter's a great guy. He's a bit, I guess, eccentric in his own way, for people who know Peter. But Peter and I go way back. When I first came to Australia, he was quite nice to me, with no selfish agenda or anything. With a lot of youth bridge players, what Peter used to do, I remember there was a period of about five or six years, where any upcoming youth bridge player who was coming up, Peter would just pick him up and they would play a National. They would go run really deep. Imagine you're some upcoming player, and suddenly you were playing a table, one table to one tournament, gives you a lot of belief, you learn a lot of things.

He's very generous with his time towards the youth bridge community, and even the bridge community more than the youth bridge community. I remember Peter picking me up from the airport, for example. It's the sort of thing he would do; there's not too many people, in the modern life, who'd do any of that. So yeah, Andy and I've decided that we are going to start playing together at the U.S. Nationals and try and play for Australia, but I'm sure Peter wished us well. I bought him one of Zia's books, actually. Yeah, he's going to be our rival in the upcoming Trials to select the Australian team in a few months.

Which will be a new experience, because for the last 10 years or so, I've either played with Peter, or played on a team with Peter where he's played with somebody else. I don't think I've played against him for a long time. Yeah, it was one of the reasons I always wanted Peter on the team, because you don't have to play against him. So, that will change, and hopefully we'll get an opportunity to bring him back on the team for us to all play together with Peter on the team in the future. Yeah.

John McAllister: That reminds me, there's a great snippet. You wrote a book that won the International Bridge Press Book of the Year, called Battling the Best, and there's a great thing about Peter, when you came down to Australia and you moved there, and you thought you were a hotshot. And then Peter played with you, but he didn't want to play with you. He played with you; he gave you the taster.

Sartaj Hans: He did, he did, he did. Yeah. Well, yeah. I guess we'll let the audience read the book to find the full details. Let's get the shameless plug in there, shall we, John?

John McAllister: Yeah. No, no sweat. And you also won another award by the IBPA as the Best Declared Hand in 2019.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I was proud of that. To be honest, when I got an email to say, "You won the Best Played Hand of the Year Award," it happened to be the year I had this other hand that I had played that year that I thought was ... I suppose I should look up the details of it and send it to you and maybe you can tag it in your ... There was this other hand I had played, which I thought was awesome, something that hadn't happened for years. Things like this happen once every few years, and I thought I'd won it for the other hand. But no, even this, it was quite a special [inaudible].

John McAllister: That's funny.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah. I'll send you a link and see if you can post it.

John McAllister: Okay.

Sartaj Hans: Tie it to the podcast, yeah.

John McAllister: All right. So, that was another one of the things that you wanted to talk about, was how you guys lost in the Trials. So, the Bermuda Bowl starts in a week or 10 days or something, and you're not playing this year.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, it's the first time, for a while, that I'm not playing. And in fact, my wife, Sophie, is playing on the Australian mixed team, so my job is to stay at home and change the nappies. How life turns, life turns.

John McAllister: Wow.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, we lost the Trials. We were heavily favored as the team to win, and sometimes that comes up, maybe that's why I mentioned it as a subject we could bring about, I'm not sure what context it was. Sometimes it's a burden, the burden of victory, and when things don't go your way and you are the favorite, it's a heavier burden then. In the very first set, Peter and I had a disaster, went one no-trump, pass, two clubs Stayman, the next guy doubled showing clubs. I went pass, pass, and Peter redoubled.

Now, I thought that was an offer to play. He thought that was a rescue thing, and we both had some basis for our belief based on other similar auctions where we have a clear definition. Even here, I thought the definition was clear, but he thought it was clear the other way. In any case, that was minus 1000, and that was just in the first set of this match, and it just led to a negative momentum and poor mindset mostly. We both played horribly. And so did some of our teammates.

I think, in our team, only one pair played really well, that would be Andy and Shane. I felt like they played really well, but everybody else, we played way below our average standard, and sometimes you are meant to lose to just learn a lesson. For me, it was hopefully a lesson well learned, because we'll come back this year and reclaim what's ours. Well, time will tell.

John McAllister: Was this in the finals of the ...?

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, yeah, it was in the final. We had a relatively easy run going into the final, but in the final, we lost to this team who are representing Australia now. It includes my very good friend and ex-partner, Tony Nunn. He's on the team, so I'm really pleased for him.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: And then, some other players who have also represented Australia in the past, like Rob Fruewirth, Paul Gosney. And then some new players who haven't played for Australia previously, and I wish them well. It's going to be hard for them, but I wish them well. Yeah. I always enjoy the U.S. Trials though. The American Trials, they're almost a trailblazer for the whole world about how bridge should work. For many years, they had the format of the long matches, the simple, clear knockout format, none of this round-robin, Swiss nonsense that just leads to all kinds of random outcomes.

And they've inspired even the format for our Trials now; we have the same, we have eight teams that are invited, and you play three knockout matches, 120 boards each. I really like it, it's a great test of skill. If you lose in 120 boards, you probably lost because the other team was the better team. Whereas in 60 boards, or 64, or even 96, luck plays such a big role in bridge.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Luck plays such a big role. How did you find playing the Trials? Because you play every year as well.

John McAllister: I've yet to win a match in the Trials. So, I've played in it maybe five times, and I think three times there was a round-robin, so you had to get the field down to 16.

Sartaj Hans: Okay, yep. Yep.

John McAllister: And so, one time I got out of the round-robin, we were in the bottom three, the last two matches. So, you don't compare after the second to last match to try in a round-robin, to try and keep it not have dumping or what have you, but I've never won a match. And like you said, we were close against Fleisher two years ago. We were kind of close in our match this year, but got blitzed. Not blitzed, but beaten pretty badly the last two sessions.

Sartaj Hans: Sets. Yeah, I think I have a recollection of this as well. Yeah, this was with Debbie and Max, is that right?

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah. I was following you, John. My friend John.

John McAllister: But in the event two years ago, that was a real big confidence booster for me, and I went on to have my best year at bridge, because giving that team, the Fleisher team with Moss and Grue, and Fleisher-Martel, and Woolsey and Bramley, everything we had was a real lift. And I got compliments from several of the players after the match, Brad Moss said I was a beast, I've probably said that on here before. But that was really cool, and I definitely had my best year of bridge...

Sartaj Hans: Just from the confidence.

John McAllister: In the wake of that.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, I feel like bridge is this unique game, where the very top players are not really very good. That includes me. I'm a good player, and I know how bad I am. We are all just hopeless. It's a big pit of hopelessness, and just the less hopeless person wins. For example, you took a parallel to squash, for example. Perhaps the top players are good, but the matches are not long enough. You could make that argument. But in squash, you have all these tournaments, and I can tell you that, eight tournaments out of 10, the top four seeds make the semifinals. It's one versus four, two versus three in the semifinal. It's just clear how much better the top four are from number five to eight.

Maybe one guy will sneak through, or at least three of the top four will be in the semifinal every time. They just rarely raise the bar. And similarly in chess, it's usually the same, maybe it's not four, maybe it's five or six players who are just in the hunt. Whereas in bridge, everyone has a chance, because everyone has off days, and that should be part of one's belief set, that people have off days, and when they have an off day, that's your chance to pounce.

John McAllister: I also think that there's probably some bias in what you're saying, because you play bridge and you're intimate with it, whereas you're maybe speaking about squash from a further place, so it's not necessarily ...

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, it's possible that squash players would say, "Oh God, we are all hopeless. I can't believe I put that ball in the 10." Well, yeah.

John McAllister: I don't think squash players think other squash players are hopeless.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah.

John McAllister: Because you and I play squash, we played against each other a couple of times, you managed to beat me more times than, really, is fathomable.

Sartaj Hans: It's good that you remember that, John, and don't forget it.

John McAllister: Well, you better remember, because it ain't happening again. It ain't happening again, my man. But really good squash is amazing to watch, as an outsider.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, I love watching. I watch every tournament, especially the people I follow, and even women's squash is really good, because women's squash, you can half relate to it as a player at the top levels. You can dream that maybe one day you'll play like this. Of course, you or I are never going to play like that ever, but at least you understand what's going on. But the men at the very top are just something else, they're from a different planet. And it takes a lot of knowledge about squash. It's only when I got better at playing that I realized how good these very top guys are. And perhaps, I guess, there are parallels with bridge as well, it's only when you get very strong that you can realize some of the plays and bids that...

There was a bid I saw recently, when Australia was playing, I really liked it. It may not be obvious to the audience, but I saw what he did. It was made by Ben Thompson, who's an Australian player. I don't remember the exact hand, but he had some hand, let's just say he had four key cards. Ace, ace, ace, king, so that's 15, and the king of diamonds, so that's 18.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: He had some hand like that. He showed his hand type, which was, let's say, 18, 19 balanced. And at some point, partner made a slam try.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Now, the theme was that, you have this monster hand, you've got four key cards and an outside king, and most of us would just, at this stage, bid key card, take charge, and bid the slam. But instead of bidding key card, he took a cue bid. And initially, my thought was, "That's a bit of a silly bid. What is the point of taking a cue bid when you're always bidding a slam?" But then I recognized that, his goal was that he was always bidding a slam, but the reason he took a cue bid, is that he wanted partner to bid key card.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Because when partner bids key card, you show your four key cards, partner asks for kings, you show the king of diamonds, and partner knows your whole hand.

John McAllister: Right, yeah.

Sartaj Hans: And as it was, Renee then went on to bid a grand slam and they had a great score. But that sort of subtlety could easily get missed unless you are strong enough to recognize what has happened. So, that's a hand that comes to mind where, yeah, it was a high-quality action.

John McAllister: Okay, so I got a question for you.

Sartaj Hans: All right.

John McAllister: The Australian team, they've never made it into the ... So, the Bermuda Bowl starts soon. I think it's 24 national teams that qualify in their respective zones. Australia basically always gets a team, just because of geography.

Sartaj Hans: We are part of zone seven, we have 50,000 members, so that gives us two spots. We have a lot of paying members, and yeah, it gives us two spots, and usually the other teams don't contest. So, Australia and New Zealand get through, yeah.

John McAllister: So, that wasn't the point to disparage ...

Sartaj Hans: No, I know it wasn't, but I couldn't help plug the fact that 50,000 Australian and New Zealand members pay their membership dues, which people from other zones may not.

John McAllister: That is interesting and I'm glad you said that. So, as far as I know, Australia has never made it out of the round-robin in the Bermuda Bowl, is that correct?

Sartaj Hans: No, no, Australian teams have done that. In 2008, in 2000, in 1988, they made the semifinal and things like that. So, every eight or 10 years, we get in there.

John McAllister: Well, excuse me, I apologize. Now I've got 50,000 paying bridge members who I owe an apology to.

Sartaj Hans: No, no. Anyways, where were you leading to?

John McAllister: Well, I was going to ask, this Australian team, if they make it out of the round-robin, are you going to be really rooting for them, or are you going to be a little bit annoyed that it's not you?

Sartaj Hans: I think a few years ago, I would've been not even rooting for them. I'm a bit older now, I think they're going to find it very hard. I don't rate the chances very highly, I think this team is going to struggle. But if they did well, I'd be happy. Of course, I would wish it was me. Of course, I would wish it was me. It has been my goal to play the knockouts of a World Championship for a long time, and it hasn't happened so far. And I'm sure we will one day get there. So, of course I would wish it was rather me than them, but if they got there, I would say well done, and I would want them to do well. I can't see it happening though. Yeah.

I will still wish them well. I'm just being frank, rather than politically correct. One of my favorite people is Vladimir Kramnik, who is the ex-World Chess Champion. And he's Russian and he's used to just ... He talks clearly and straightforward, he says, "Chess is my life, and if I was to lie about chess, that would be being untruthful to myself. I've got to say what I think." I don't want to be politically correct when it comes to something that I've given decades of my life to. I love Vladdy Kramnik, he's the man.

John McAllister: Speaking on that, I've seen you working with Michael Rosenberg on Bridge Base, seen you working with Joyjit on Bridge Base. Let's talk more about your own improvement cycle and how you're approaching that.

Sartaj Hans: Well, about a year and a half ago, I decided to make a conscious effort to fix some of my bridge weaknesses. I've known what they are for a while, so I did a number of sessions with Michael Rosenberg that I found very useful. He was quite complimentary, actually. I emailed him and I said, "Michael, I'm looking for some training, and would you be up for it?" And he said to me, "I have trained people in the past, but never a world-class player like you." That was quite flattering, but someone like Michael would say something like that. But then he saw my bridge and then ...

John McAllister: He must've needed business when he wrote that email. Did he sell you like a 20-session package?

Sartaj Hans: No, Michael's a "he means what he says" kind of guy.

John McAllister: No, I know, I know.

Sartaj Hans: Simple, straight guy.

John McAllister: I know, I know.

Sartaj Hans: One of the things I learned from working with him, they have these problem hands. You're sitting there and you're thinking, "Shall I do this? Shall I do that?" You have so many different options, and you try and calculate this. You can't calculate all the way, so you go to something else, you try that, you can't calculate all the way, and then at some point you just do something. That's one of my problem areas. And this "do something" sometimes probably not even the best approach from within what I've calculated.

In any case, I used to have this problem, and in my mind, I had this vision that the very top players or declarers, people like Michael who've seen it all, done it all in declarer play. To them, things come a lot more clearly, they think a lot more crisply, and it all...

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: So, one of the learnings from my work with Michael was that, he's as lost as I am, man. His mind sort of goes there, goes here, comes somewhere. And it was quite confidence boosting, that even he has to go through all the hoops. And at the end of it, maybe he manages to stitch it all together a bit better. But it was really heartening to know that, to see firsthand how his thought process wasn't this super sharp, clear thinking that I just imagined in my mind. But that's just what bridge is: those sort of situations. This is not to diminish his ability. I learned quite a few things of Michael. And these days I'm doing a bit of training with this guy called Joyjit, who's from India. What he does, he's less of a coach. I think Michael was more of a coach. Michael would tell me, "In this sort of situation, this ..." He actually gave me nuggets of information that have become part of my game that weren't. But Joyjit is more like a trainer.

So, what I do with Joyjit, is that he digs up through all the vugraph archives. All hands where, at one table, a game made, at the other table, game went down. And then, he creates that hand on a teaching table, and he defends for the opponents. So, these are basically difficult, high-quality hands, not always with a clear solution, they're very practical. I found that very useful. For me, I've just been focusing solely on this element. He does other things too, and he's good at promoting himself, suggesting all the other things, all the other services he offers, which is fair enough, he does a high-quality job of it. But for me, it's been only declarer play and these high impact hands.

Say you and I, say we play a session of bridge, we play 16 hands, it takes us two hours. I probably play four hands, you probably play four hands. Of those four hands, probably two are just absolute routine, the third one had maybe a little bit something, and even the fourth one, you'd be lucky if there was something rarely meaningful. Whereas if you got 16 custom hands over a two-hour session like I do...

John McAllister: Right.

Sartaj Hans: You're getting tested at the edge of your comfort zone, which is what they say is where improvement comes from. And I have found my work with Joyjit also to be beneficial. Back in the day, Eric Kokish used to be our coach, he recently passed away as well. So yeah, lots of different avenues for improvement, and it's a subject that really is close to my heart, because I've done some teaching of good players, not beginners, and I've had some success with some of the people who I have mentored and it gives me a lot of pleasure.

One of my favorite memories is, because someone asked me, "What are your favorite three bridge memories?" And one of them is playing this tournament with Helena, who was someone I was mentoring, and we just absolutely crushed this Australian National. Crushed it. And it's just one of my all-time favorites. It gives me a lot of pleasure when I play a role in somebody else's progress and growth. And to some extent, I've played some sort of a role with Sophie, who's my wife, who's going to be playing the next two weeks, so we'll have to see how she goes. Yeah, we'll have to see how she goes.

John McAllister: When is she heading over there?

Sartaj Hans: She's going this weekend. I've been doing some training with her as well. We do about an hour practically every day, just focusing on process. To me, in general, most bridge teaching is misdirected. I'm talking like expert level, I'm talking the teaching is pretty good to bring players from beginner, intermediate, advanced. And when they get to expert, or near expert, this is where I feel that the quality of input is good, but it's misdirected. The right kind of things are not being sent through, so I guess I should give an example. Okay, I'll give you a hand like this. Say there's a hand like king-jack fourth, singleton, ace-jack-10, nine-fifth and three low. Would you mind if I gave it to you as a problem?

John McAllister: No.

Sartaj Hans: So, king-jack-fourth, singleton, ace-jack-10, nine-fifth, three low. It goes a diamond on your left, a spade by partner, double on your right, and let's say everyone's white.

John McAllister: Okay. So, I'm four...

Sartaj Hans: Oh sorry, I mean a club on your left, you're three low. A club on your left, a spade by partner, double on your right. And you have king-jack-fourth, singleton, ace-jack-10, nine-fifth, three small.

John McAllister: Okay. Am I able to make a fit jump?

Sartaj Hans: Let's say you don't have a fit jump, so you could do a mixed raise, you could do a limit raise, or you could do something else.

John McAllister: And everybody's white. I think I'm just going to bid a game. Yeah, I think I'm going to bid a game.

Sartaj Hans: I think that's the right bid. I think the correct bid is four spades. It has so many ways of winning. You have a stiff heart, it could be a sacrifice over the four heart bid. It might push them to the five level when you were going down and they're going down. There are so many gains, and you have shape, which gives you some sort of a buffer against being penalized if maybe everything goes wrong. Let's just say they don't make four hearts, you don't make four spades, and they double you. The shape gives you a buffer that your damages are at most minus 300.

So, there's all this upside in bidding four spades, and there's a lot of value in bidding this way on these kind of hands. But yet, the kind of conversations that I see on such subjects is, "Should you make a limit raise? Should you make a mixed raise? Should you do this? Should you do that?" Okay, a fit showing jump, of course, has an additional upside that it might help solve a five level problem, might help partner with five spades over their five hearts. So, there is some merit in that approach.

But to me, this is an example of the kind of learning that isn't always passed on through to people who are at the expert level, or near expert level, who are itching to take the next stage. Without being too arrogant, let's just say to the next stage, which is, let's say, my level. It sounds a big thing, but to move from one of the contenders to a higher chance at being one of the contenders, is things like this are in the defense and declare play, certain structures that can work really well. I just haven't seen anyone write these down. I started doing some coaching for a while, but eventually I gave that up. It's quite draining teaching someone as well. It's not easy. One on one, it's hard.

John McAllister: How do you do it with Sophie? You said you do an hour a day.

Sartaj Hans: Well, in the lead up to an event, I just try to not give her anything new, I try to instill good culture. So, typically, we'll play on a teaching table and I'll play for the other three people. And while the play is going on, let's say she's defending, I'll just stop her and say, "So, what is declarer’s shape at this stage?" I'll just test her.

John McAllister: Right.

Sartaj Hans: Or she gets on play and she'll play a club, "Why did you play a club? What is the shape? What are the high cards? What are the tricks? How are you beating this contract? What is your plan?" I think with bridge, we all are very good at playing on autopilot mode, and when you're strong enough like Sophie is, you're also capable of backing it up with concrete numbers. And to become a top-level player, you need to have those numbers backing up your feel, because your feel is going to be right 95% of the time, but that one hand in 20, it's going to let you down. And man, is that a downer when it lets you down.

And the feel and the numbers, they actually, when you're playing very well, it all happens automatically in your head, you don't need to physically make an effort. But to get yourself into that approach, into that mindset, you have to make bit of an effort, so I try to bring up that mindset and so I try to create, we'll do six or eight hands and that mindset will emerge. And I can see, even over the course of the last few days, her process is getting better. And sometimes I learn things myself and I'm asking her these questions, and then I realize, "Oh yeah, that was a clue that I would normally not have seen." So yeah, that's how we do it, and hopefully they will go. Well, Sophie and Dave went well the last event they played, so hopefully they keep doing it.

John McAllister: Do you see it showing up, this work you're doing with Michael, with Joyjit, in the Spingold?

Sartaj Hans: Oh, definitely. And Mat Howe as well, who was my sport psychologist.

John McAllister: Right.

Sartaj Hans: It's just little things. I feel I've tightened up a few problem areas. I'm still bad. We are all bad. Still make mistakes in my problem areas, but in some extent, I have improved, and it's making some sort of a difference. One of my ex-teammates and friends, Paul Gosney, once made a point. We were talking about going to a bridge tournament and people going for a run in the morning. That's what my friend and teammate, Nabil, is a big fan of. And I am not, I like to have a sleep in, and a big breakfast, and show up and play.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: But Paul Gosney made the point, he said, "It's not what are you doing, it's just the fact that you're doing it. It leads to a good feeling in yourself about the bridge." Just the fact that you're doing something, whether it's showing some sort of discipline in your eating or your exercise.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: Just the fact that you're doing something, anything, it helps you feel prepared and feel good about what you're doing. And you know as well as me, your own personal mindset, the self-talk that's going on in your own head, it's such a relevant factor in our performance. And just doing something, just having those lessons. I guess to give you a more concrete example of what I picked up, I think I learned from both Michael and Joyjit that, when you have these tricky game type contracts, start in a general direction rather than try to solve the whole hand outright.

I was expending way too much energy. The classic bridge teaching is, take your time metric one, make a plan, think about this, think about that. And that's already good, but I was already quite strong, but I was perhaps overthinking trying to solve. My problem is, I haven't played as much bridge as my colleagues at the top levels. I had a job and they were all professionals. I did most of my learning from reading books and World Championship books, so I'm very good at solving a concrete problem. If you gave me a problem or some position, I'm probably more likely to solve it than a colleague of mine. But by the same token, I haven't had as much at the table experience compared to someone else who's also played 20 years International Bridge, because I haven't played as many hands at the table.

So, I'm good at solving problems, but real life is not really genuine problems, they are more a mix of a general approach and a problem point has often to be delayed. So, that's the one thing I have changed in my declarer play the last couple of years. Play on general rounds, because I have good intuition based on all the years I have played bridge, use the intuition to take the play along general grounds. Michael has this thing called Drive out the Ace. He says, if you're in three no-trumps, drive out the Ace. You have some suit like queen, jack, 10, nine, opposite three small. Play this suit, because you got to drive out the king of diamonds and the ace of diamonds. Make plays that drive out the Ace.

That's an example of something I've picked from him, and that's something I've changed in the way I play as a declarer over the last couple of years. And there's been an upside to it. There's definitely been an upside to it.

John McAllister: You got a laugh out of me, I was going to ask you about Nabil. Give me a good Nabil story.

Sartaj Hans: A good Nabil story.

John McAllister: I like the one about how much they left on the table against Spector. Give me another recent Nabil ...

Sartaj Hans: So, I'm not sure how much of a good story this is. Well, look, Nabil is a pretty good sport. So, before the Chicago Nationals, as a team, the four of us, we decided to go to a place called Carbondale, it's a few hours away from Chicago, and spend some time together as a team. Do a little hike, hang out in this nature lodge, that sort of thing.

John McAllister: Yeah.

Sartaj Hans: So, it was a five-hour drive.

John McAllister: Okay.

Sartaj Hans: And what happens, the dynamic amongst the four of us, which is Nabil and his partner, Michael Wibley, and me and my partner, Andy. Andy is relatively quiet, doesn't say very much. Once in a while he'll throw a sharp little punchline, that's kind of his thing. And Wibley is the ultimate teaser. He just loves creating jokes out of nothing. You'll just say, "Hello, Michael," and he'll just turn that into some sort of a joke. "Hello, Michael!" So, this whole drive, Wibley's just making jokes and we are just picking on Nabil. It just happens to be his turn.

John McAllister: Who's driving?

Sartaj Hans: Anyways, Nabil's driving.

John McAllister: Okay. Dad.

Sartaj Hans: And Nabil's a pretty good sport, he goes along with it and we all have a good laugh. And then the whole drive's over, and I say to Nabil, "Hey, Nabil. That was such a long drive, thank you so much for driving us." Because I don't like driving, and it's really nice that he did it. And Nabil says to me, "Stop trying to be a nice guy, Sartaj. For five hours, in this car, you had the loudest laughs of anyone, and now, stop trying to put on this fake Mr. Nice Guy 'thanks for driving me.'" So, that was a funny moment. Yeah.

John McAllister: I'm glad you brought it up too, because we played squash in the previous National, which was in ... I don't remember where?

Sartaj Hans: New Orleans.

John McAllister: Oh right, yeah, New Orleans. And so, I called you, because I was packing and I was getting ready to come the next day. And I called you and you guys were on the drive back from this place.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, right. Yeah.

John McAllister: And you answered the phone, and you were very coy about your whereabouts.

Sartaj Hans: Oh.

John McAllister: But the team building trip paid off big time.

Sartaj Hans: No, I think we have a very good vibe between us. It's very nice. It's so much fun going out, eating out together. As long as the team knockouts are going on, we always eat out together. We talk a lot of shit. It's a bit like being young boys and just sitting there. I really enjoy the banter with Nabil, and Wibley, and Andy.

John McAllister: Yeah. I gave Nabil a little... I said, "If we could get to the quarterfinals, for sure you knew you could do it."

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, that's right. After your run in the Vanderbilt. Well, we did it. We did it. All right, John, shall we wrap up?

John McAllister: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quick question.

Sartaj Hans: Okay, sorry.

John McAllister: Okay, nevermind. Nevermind.

Sartaj Hans: No, no. I have 10 minutes. I have this meeting in about 12 minutes, so I just want to make sure that ... Yeah.

John McAllister: I would've said, before the Vanderbilt, getting to the quarterfinals, that I think I'd rather win the Bermuda Bowl, but I don't know. I think it might be like Spingold or Vanderbilt now, what about you?

Sartaj Hans: Which one I'd rather win. I think it's more likely to win a Spingold or a Vanderbilt, because a team of six Australian players that's going to win a World Championship is a remote proposition. Which one would I like to win? I'd probably like to win a World Championship. When I am this 80-year-old grandfather, "One day in 2041, I won a World Championship." And my grandkids will go, "Yes, Grandpa, now can we have some TV?" It will be more of a thing to remember in that sense. So yeah, probably a World Championship, but I recognize that's remote. Making the cut, making quarterfinals, would be the first start, and then you can have a day.

John McAllister: I think World Championship probably travels better too for non-bridge players.

Sartaj Hans: Right.

John McAllister: You can tell them you won a major like Spingold or Vanderbilt, but World Championship, people know what that is.

Sartaj Hans: Yeah, and let's say I just stopped and start to think about the good things I've done in my bridge representative career, and the World Championship performances are the first one that come to mind. We've done well as a partnership, me and Tony twice, and me and Peter once, but that's the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, what should come to mind is us beating Cayne, and beating Nickell, and the run in the Spingold and things like that. But somehow, I guess that's how the brains are hardwired. The World Championship is the one that comes to mind. So yeah, I think that would be great if it happens one day. Enjoy the process until then, is what I tell myself. That's what they tell us, yeah.

John McAllister: Please tell Sophie, your wife, that I'll be rooting for her in Marrakesh.

Sartaj Hans: I will.

John McAllister: Give her my best.

Sartaj Hans: Right, right.

John McAllister: That's it. I'm waiting for you to say something wise.

Sartaj Hans: Something grand. No, I have nothing wise. Nothing wise to say, John, just improve your squash, because you're going to get wasted in a couple of months.

John McAllister: All right, well thanks so much for doing this. It's great to be with you. I always enjoy spending time with you, and thanks for doing it.

Sartaj Hans: Thanks, John. I enjoyed our banter as well. It was good fun. Okay, buddy.

John McAllister: All right.

Sartaj Hans: Bye.