Please give a warm welcome to Yohan, one of BBO’s new developers. Yohan Pannet is a brilliant programmer but this is not his only skill… When he is not coding, this man of many talents loves leather crafting or practices how to cook delicious meals together with his cute children.

When did you discover online bridge and BBO?

I didn’t know any online bridge applications (including BBO) before applying for the programmer job at BBO.

I’m a board-game and card-game player and it’s great to have the chance to work on such an application, and also to discover Bridge!

What do you find most difficult about learning bridge?

I’ve started playing Bridge 3 months ago. The hardest part for now is the bidding. Fortunately, when practicing on BBO the bids of robots are explained.

You’ve recently joined the BBO family. How do you like it so far?

The BBO team is very welcoming. That’s really nice especially since we are working remotely.

What else do you do in your spare time?

Taking care of my three kids most of the time. 🙂

I also play games with friends (my wife is not a player).

Finally I like to cook and do leather-craft. I like to manipulate real things too, not only lines of code!

Yummy! What is your specialty?

Actually, I don’t think you know what it is but my specialty is called “Carbonnade flamande”. It’s a local dish that can be found here in Northern France or Belgium. It’s a marinated beef with a beer and brown sugar sauce.

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You are French and work with an American team, any “culture shock”?

Not yet. The differences I’ve noticed so far are related to remote work (as opposed to office) and small teams. I’m sure the culture shock will manifest if we have the chance to eat together one day. 🙂

Any work anecdote to share with us?

Last month I found a bug in one of the “Bridge Master” problems: at some point I played such a stupid card that the robot got confused and made a revoke.

When I pointed it out, the team said that I played such a very “unexpected” card that it hadn’t been anticipated when creating the exercise. 🙂

And one from my earlier days, long before BBO.

I worked for 2 years at “Institut Pasteur” in Paris (a famous research institute).

I remember when I entered the Institute gate the first day feeling that I was living one of my childhood dreams: I wanted to become a scientist helping mankind to progress.

In real life I was actually a developer and not a scientist, and what I did there was a lot more modest than groundbreaking discoveries advancing mankind, but it still felt great!

If you could absolutely invite whoever you wanted, who would you invite for dinner?

The entire BBO team haha (see above!).

If you could choose a superpower, what power would you like to have?

I’d love to be able to read (and understand) people’s mind. For good, not for evil of course 😉

What is the best advice you ever received?

There is a motto I like in coding: “Perfection is not reached when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to remove”.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with BBOers?

I don’t feel ready yet, but when the time comes I will be more than happy to sit across you at a bridge table (on BBO or in real life).