This week’s episode of the Setting Trick: Conversations with World-Class Bridge Players turns the tables and features professional player Greg Hinze interviewing host John McAllister. In this conversation, we cover John’s background, his favorite bridge books, his experiences at the national and world championships, his documentary movie about bridge, the reasons why he started the podcast, and more.   [01.29] John’s background – Starting the conversation, John discusses his Virginia roots, where he lives, where he went to college, and why he wants to stay there.  [08.40] Books – John and Greg talk about some of the best books about bridge.  [20.43] The summer nationals – We talk about John’s experience with mixed board-a-match teams in Providence at the summer nationals and the open BAM at the fall NABC.  [23.31] The movie – We talk about the movie called ‘Double Dummy’ produced by John, about bridge.  [32.10] The podcast – John shares the reasons behind starting his podcast and continuing until now.  [33:48] Meeting Migry – John remembers meeting partner Migry Zur Campanile and playing mixed teams at the world championships. [43.50] Bridge conventions – John chooses his desert island bridge convention.   Transcript [00:00:00] Greg Hinze: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Setting Trick. Uh, I'm your guest host, uh, Greg Hinsey. Uh, our normal host with the most will not be available today as a host. So without further ado, let me introduce our special guest star today. Creator of the Setting Trick Podcast, producer of the new movie, double Dummy and newly crowned N A B C Champion, my friend, John McAllister. [00:00:36] Hi John. Hey  [00:00:36] John McAllister: Greg . Thanks for having me. , should I think I cut you off there at the end, .  [00:00:43] Greg Hinze: So how you feel being on the other side of  [00:00:45] John McAllister: you? Nervous? I am, I'm definitely nervous. I didn't know what to expect and I, I definitely like, probably 20 minutes before I got home I was. And I was definitely like, okay, this is, uh, I get nervous before I host the show. [00:00:59] But, uh, to be this is a real honor to have you do this, uh, to have you do this for me. I feel a great honor for  [00:01:06] Greg Hinze: you having me, uh, do this. Uh, so, uh, I, I'm nervous too, so , so we just dive right in? Yeah, sure. Okay. Uh, yeah, just tell me a little bit about yourself. Cause I like, where are you from? Where'd you grow up? [00:01:19] And uh, okay.  [00:01:20] John McAllister: How, how'd you, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna go back. This is where you're now just a brief, so in Phoenix, the, the way this conversation came to pass is in Phoenix, after we won the Mitchell Board of Match, my first N A B C victory, you, Greg offered to, to flip the script here on the setting trick and to interview me. [00:01:39] And so that's how this conversation came to pass. And when I texted you about, You were like, I wasn't sure if you were totally committed to it, but you sent me a list of questions and you and you, you know, you had your intro planned, so I really appreciate that. I, um, it says a lot about you and just to go from there, I grew up, and I still live in Charlottesville, Virginia. [00:02:05] I went to college at the University of Virginia, which is here. My mom is originally from Charlottesville and. It's a great place to live. I've thought about living elsewhere, but haven't really found a compelling reason to, uh, to move just yet. I get a lot of travel playing bridge, so I, I get to vi see the world through bridge tournaments, which is, I think is a, as you probably would attest, a great way to, to see the world. [00:02:33] Greg Hinze: Yeah. I haven't seen much of the world myself. Uh, mainly just America. I've seen . But, uh, so what, you mentioned you gave 'em to college there, uh, as well. What, what did you study? Study  [00:02:43] John McAllister: when you, I like to jok