Hi, I'm David Smith, the player behind BBO username: leftfoot.
I started playing duplicate bridge when I was 14 because my parents played (I am 74 now). We moved to the Bay Area from Oregon when I was in High School and I was fortunate to be mentored by world class players including Hugh Ross, Peter Pender, and Mike Lawrence. However, I quit bridge cold turkey when I was in my late 20’s to start a career in banking and raise a son.
After I retired from banking I had the opportunity to invest in BBO along with Sharon Osberg and Bill Gates. During the 10 years I was involved I got to see first hand the brilliance of Fred, Uday and Sheri (the founders). My main contribution was to push for expansion of robot games which was a very minor piece of the business when I joined.
I am glad to see that BBO still seems to be in good hands.
I play table tennis at local clubs and my wife and I take biking and hiking trips each year around the world (while we still can). This year we hiked the Grand Canyon and biked in Sweden and Denmark.
I like active travel in general. Antarctica is my favorite place. I have been there 5 times.
Regarding my playing style when playing in a robot game, I am very aggressive in the bidding (particularly bidding NT). I think the robots bid reasonably well but you can sometimes take advantage of defensive mistakes. My scores are generally lower when I am defending vs. playing the hand.
However, I love playing the robots. They never complain and I don’t have to worry about revoking.
Some people get up in the morning and do the NY Times crossword puzzle. I usually start the morning playing a BBO robot tournament.