Keeping your bridge club alive in difficult times

As I write, most bridge clubs in England are not meeting. Our official advice is here. It may seem as if there is nothing we can do until we can return to playing at the table, but this is not the case. It is important that we look after our members and find ways to keep the club going even if it is not possible to meet.

The first thing is to keep in touch. There are several ways:

– Email.

– web site notices.

– phone.

– social media, for clubs that are active on Facebook, Twitter or similar.

Visiting is obviously possible but against government advice, since we are being asked to maintain social distancing and that is not possible with face-to-face bridge.

But what is there to say? Here are some suggestions.

Online bridge

First, what about playing online? There are a number of options and I will list some of the main ones below.

Bridge Club Live. This is an EBU affiliated club. You can play for free in guest rooms, or sign up as a member to get full access. You play with real people and it is UK based so plenty of Acol/weak No Trump (though all are welcome). Your club can register, in which case club members who play in the drop-in-drop-out (DIDO) tournament (which runs almost all the time) can compare their results with those of other club members.

What is the DIDO tournament? Described here, it is an all-day tournament scored with pairs scoring (MPs). You commit to playing at least 4 boards at a time, and if you play 16 boards during the day (which can be at different times, in rounds of 4 boards), then you appear in the daily leader board and receive EBU master points.

There is a special offer for EBU members joining the club here. If you use this link, new BCL members get 50 days free. The full price is £72.00 per year. There is a little wrinkle you should be aware of. If you have a discounted subscription like the special offer, you will also pay an EBU UMS (Universal Membership) charge. If you pay the full price it is included. How much? £0.67 per month (a bargain!).

Note that there is, or will be, a cost for clubs to register. It is free until 1st July 2020 but will be £24.00 per year for the club, and club members also need to join as individuals.

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Bridge Base Online is the largest online bridge platform for real-time bridge – by which I mean, you play with real people and wait while they are thinking and so on, just like in a club. There is an option for robots, but mainly for practising. It began in the USA and is truly international, which means the majority of players use a strong No Trump, but there are plenty of Acol players too.

The EBU has made arrangements with Bridge Base to run EBU sessions every day. Joining in one of these sessions costs one “BB$” which you purchase at the rate of one BB$ per US $. It is just a way of keeping some credit with Bridge Base to avoid paying a small sum each time you play. Master points are awarded. They are 12-board games and there are currently four every day, at 2pm, 3.30pm, 7.30pm and 9.00pm.

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We have a guide to registering for Bridge Base Online here.

Funbridge is the largest online platform for computer bridge – but with a difference. Every game you play on Funbridge had its results compared with other people, so it is a kind of computer duplicate. The standard is high; the computer opponent is better than most human players even if sometimes it does strange things (just like us). In 2019, an average of over 1 million deals were played on Funbridge every day.

Funbridge has a nice user interface and some great features, like the ability to replay hands as many times as you like (only your first score counts unfortunately!). Because you play against the computer, there is no waiting around, and you can play as slowly as you like without annoying anyone. You can’t let down your partner therefore, but equally you won’t be congratulated for your great play, except by the reward of a nice score.

You get 100 free boards when you sign up, and can play 10 boards for free every week. Beyond that buy packs of boards or pay a subscription for unlimited games.

The EBU runs a Funbridge session every day, and master points are awarded. There is a small extra charge for playing in the EBU sessions, currently €2 (though like Bridge Base, Funbridge has a virtual currency called Diamonds). Full details of the EBU sessions are here.

There are several ways you can do things as a club on Funbridge. You could have a team in the Funbridge Team Championship (6 members in each team), and you can create Funbridge tournaments for your club. It is not ideal though, since players always play solo, and you have to accept that non-club members might play in your tournament. These other games do not cost any Funbridge Diamonds though, and you do not get master points.

We have said a bit more about these and other online bridge options here.

Encouraging and supporting online bridge

Do you have members who would like to play online but may struggle to get started? You can offer to help them either by talking them through it on the phone. We can also help with advice. A great idea though is for one or two members of your club who are comfortable with playing online to make themselves available to encourage others.

Please also advise them that if you are playing online with other people you need to apply the same high standard of behaviour as you would at a real table. For example, imagine you over-bid and see the contract is hopeless as soon as dummy goes down. Do not think about abandoning the board, as that is inconsiderate. Grit your teeth and play; the next board may be a triumph.

Continuing bridge learning

Another idea is to encourage club members to use the opportunity of more time at home to improve their game. There are plenty of sites out there, from no fear bridge aimed at novices, to the highly educational Bridge Master which you can find (completely free) on Bridge Base Online. Bridge Master has several levels; you have to find a line of play that succeeds for a variety of hands. At the high levels it is very challenging, and you can learn different types of squeezes.

If you are running bridge classes, you might consider running some classes via web conferencing. Many systems let you share your screen so you can show hands and other presentations.

Let’s not forget books as well. There are many superb books on bridge at every level, so this is a good time to remind members of them and make some recommendations.

Have you got ideas about keeping your club together during a time of not meeting? Please let us know in the comments or contact me by email as we would love to share them.

9 thoughts on “Keeping your bridge club alive in difficult times”

  1. Hello
    I play weekly with 3/4 friends and we are going to miss our regular game and catch up during this necessary crack down. Is there any way we can continue to just play with each other either on a computer or on phones? You have a lot of links on your website but not sure they cover quite what we are after. Many thanks in advance.

    1. If four of you arrange in advance you could play together quite easily on Bridge Club Live or Bridge Base Online.

      A club session with several tables is more difficult currently, though you can arrange a teams session on Bridge Base Online.

      Tim

    2. Hi Gillian,

      You can play socially for free on Bridge Base Online (BBO). Each of you would need to register with BBO and create an account and you could then logon and create a table where you could play together.

      Instructions on getting started with BBO can be found here:
      http://www.ebu.co.uk/ebuscore-wiki/bboinstructions

      Please reach out to me via email or phone if I can be of further assistance. My contact details are here:
      https://www.ebu.co.uk/staff-list

      Regards,

      Jonathan Lillycrop
      EBU Club Liaison Officer

  2. We should not forget those who have to self isolate or who are in the vulnerable group of folks who must stay at home. Our club has identified club members who may fall into the latter category and put in a system to ring them routinely to check they are coping and if necessary do simple shopping tasks. Many will not have internet so on line bridge isn’t an option for them. We have also set up a contact mechanism so we can identify anyone in the first category.

  3. Sheffield Bridge Club have set up a discussion forum to help members keep in touch, arrange games and talk about anything – bridge or otherwise. We have a fair number of people who have created accounts but most have been reticent so far to contribute content. Any suggestions as to how to encourage people out of their shells would be greatly appreciated.

    [Contributions aren’t limited to Sheffield members. Anyone else who wants to contribute can feel free to register and pile on.]

  4. You mention Social Media but then I don’t see any more information.
    We are trying Facebook – to give updates and Bridge ‘titbits’ and news. Even though we have quite an elderly membership we are aware we have a lot of ‘Grand-Parent’ accounts – and so it may be a good way to communicate.
    It’ll be helpful to understand any resource or thoughts on this. We are finding a reasonable amount of content so far (not pay-walled), but as we get going I think things may get limited.
    We also hope by doing this to try and get new and younger members and build our bridge community.
    We are Hartford Bridge Club in Cheshire – we’re got 12 members in our first week of a Club (not person) page. The campaign will begin.

    https://www.facebook.com/Hartford-Bridge-Club-100731868247548/

  5. I am an experienced bridge player and quite computer literate but I find playing on BBO or Bridge Club Live rather sterile and tiring. Typing the odd comment isn’t a substitute for genuine social interaction. You can, of course, run a separate audio link with your partner but that isn’t fair on your opponents. What I have taken to doing is playing online with 3 friends and sharing a group chat via What’sApp. In this manner, everyone hears everything and a genuine social atmosphere is created. (There are a variety of options for group chat including Skype or Zoom with or without video depending upon your internet connection and people’s equipment and level of computer literacy.)

    If I play with an improver then I save the hands where they need instruction and go through them later with the improver using the BBO bidding or teaching table facilities. (Though an audio link is offered in this case I haven’t found it to be very good and prefer to use Skype or What’sApp.)

    My regular partner and I both have a bridge playing program called Jack and can play joint games over the internet. Jack is an exceptionally good player and proves a worthy opponent. We can play in Tournaments using a library of predealt hands and results from a number of events or we can play in simulated League events with time to discuss results and hone our system.

  6. Two months ago I set up three clubs on bbo. A lot of work went into it. I contacted all the members of the three clubs involved and talked each one through the different stages of becoming a member of bbo. Then I organized all players of each of the clubs to come to the club at our usual time eg Tuesday 7 30 pm where tables were reserved. It is running beautifully. They had all to learn how to chat etc. I don’t play so I am if you like a tournament director and anyone can phone me if there is a problem.I also can see myself if anything goes wrong or members can send me a chat message. Emily

  7. Don’t forget Twitch. It has been more popularly known as a video game streaming place, but there is a Bridge Category! Anyone can stream their online bridge games and there is a chat for people to watch/hang out and socialize with each other or the person streaming while this is going on. I started streaming there, just some random BBO tournaments, and its fun to meet new bridge players from around the world. I also see a lot of people streaming themselves playing their club tournaments there. My channel is http://www.twitch.tv/wyleia and I stream every weekday at 11:30 AM Central USA time. You can also check out the main Bridge category and watch past stream videos that are archived, or see if anyone is currently live here: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Bridge

    Its not a perfect substitute for being in person at a bridge game, but it makes playing bridge more fun if you are streaming, and watching bridge is always fun when you can talk to everyone.

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