We have also hired a sound engineer to optimize this audio. I took Dave Caprera’s advice and have edited some of the clips from this episode to minimize my interruptions. If you gave up because an episode was “unlistenable” in the words of one friend, please give us another chance. If you have suggestions, please pass them along! He stressed to me the importance of having an idea what I want to learn from the guest beforehand, sticking to it and making each guest the star.

My practice of how I am approaching interviews has been greatly influenced by listener Leonard Epstein whom I have never met. It made my day when one of the attendees told me he had listened to my conversation with Migry and enjoyed it. I can remember being in Scotland for a Double Dummy screening at Stirling University and going out for a drink afterwards. It has been a pleasure to be coached and encouraged by so many of our listeners. Playing with Zia is the subject of both Zach Grossack and Anam Tebha’s segments and he is mentioned by former partner’s Michael Rosenberg and Bob Hamman as well. I chose not to include Zia’s discussion of a bidding problem to make this episode more accessible for less advanced and non-players alike. My goal was to include audio from each one of our guests. Michael read through every transcript and made a list of suggestions for what content should make our highlight reel. We started this process with our intern Michael Xu having transcripts created for each episode. A portion of the audio from every conversation, save legendary Zia Mahmood’s discussion of a bidding problem, can be found in this Best of.

Since we had our initial conversation with Bridgewinners co-founder Gavin Wolpert over two years ago, we are grateful to have spoken with 20 individuals over the course of 18 episodes. As the host and founder, it is my pleasure to share highlights from Seasons One and Two in our first ever Best of The Setting Trick. The Setting Trick podcast is the forum where I share conversations with world class bridge players and fellow lovers of the game. I love hearing stories about how people got started, a great play or how they approach a hand.

Zia let's play playing spooky games