Ep. 111: Alessandro Calmanovici Built Bridge Tricks to Make Bridge as Popular as Chess
The Setting Trick: Conversations with World Class Bridge PlayersShow Notes
In this episode of The Setting Trick, I sit down with Alessandro Calmanovici, the founder of Bridge Tricks, a site that became a big part of my own bridge learning. His name rang a bell the first time I found it. He appears in Double Dummy, the film I made at the 2012 World Junior Championships, winning imps on each of the last four boards to scrape into the knockout. We dig into suit combinations and how a solver changes the way you think, the Survivor streaks that have players like Giovanni Donati obsessed, and the Bidding Architect that turns your own system into flashcards. Alessandro built all of it around a full time job and a new baby. We also get into why he thinks the game needs a better public image. __________________________________________________ Key Highlights
🎬 Finding Himself in Double Dummy: Alessandro watched the film years later, recognised the event, and realised the player on screen was him. 🧠 Fifty Suit Combinations in a Row: Giovanni Donati ran a Survivor streak of fifty and spent an hour on the last one. 📐 Commit to the Plan Before They Play: 54% against 51.7% on a disputed combination, and why the plan you settle on first wins. 🤖 Built With AI, Starting From Nothing: His wife mentioned a tool at work. Turned down for help, he wrote the solver himself a year later. ♣️ As Popular as Chess: Juniors are close to extinct in Italy and the Swiss scene is thinner still. He wants to change the game's image. __________________________________________________ Resources & Next Steps
🃏 Bridge Tricks, Alessandro's platform 📝 Bridge Tricks on BridgeWinners 📘 Peak, on deliberate practice 🎯 Cuebids, the bidding practice app 🎧 Subscribe to The Setting Trick on Apple Podcasts __________________________________________________ Chapter Timestamps03:00 Bridge With Ballers and athletes 04:30 Hooking beginners with BridgeMaster 06:00 Pisa, a classmate's first ten hands 07:30 Taicang, the last four boards 12:00 Suit combinations, the feedback loop 13:30 Survivor streaks, fifty in a row 16:30 Reading par in seconds 19:30 Launching the site, built with AI 21:00 Bridge Lab and Bidding Architect 22:30 Daily users, Fred Gitelman's message 24:00 Why a solver beats an encyclopaedia 25:30 Leonardo Cima says it is wrong 27:19 A possible Cuebids collaboration 31:49 Learning bridge at twelve, Cagliari 34:49 Why the Italian scene shrinks 37:49 Bridge as popular as chess 39:19 Building the solver after a refusal 43:49 Simon de Wijs, its best advocate 46:49 Flashcards for your bidding system 49:49 Being copied, and AI for small builders 52:49 A bridge class in Zurich 54:19 The dinners, not the squeezes 57:19 How Double Dummy got made 61:49 The cup and the daily combination 66:19 Survivor, Rush, where to start 69:19 Paying students, chasing Chess.com
More from The Setting Trick: Conversations with World Class Bridge Players
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