PLAYING DUPLICATE ONLINE
Today, mid 2020
during a medical pandemic, classic duplicate clubs are not open.
We play online, mainly on Bridge Base Online at
www.BridgeBase.com.
However the
documents on BobBridgeClub.com were written when all bridge was played
in person in physical bridge clubs in Senior Centers and other places where 20 –
50 tables
could be set up every day or several times per week.
So all the physical things mentioned in BobsBrigeClub documents are no longer in
place:
no shuffling, no dealing, etc. and the internet BBO computers won’t let you lead
out of turn
or renege, of course.
Hand records of all the pre-dealt BBO boards and results
are available
on the Club Sites for you to print out at home, and they remain online for
months back in time.
In the Coachella
Valley, we have lots of Canadians and northerner Americans visit us in the
winter time – it is/was a major economic thing in the Valley.
They have all gone home now,
|but we still play with them online as the Virtual clubs can accept players from
anywhere
there is Internet access, obviously.
Not all former
bridge clubs are online. Here in the Coachella Valley in the California desert,
there are only 2 such clubs online whereas we had 7 or 8 physical bridge clubs
before the
pandemic arrived.
ACBL, the American Contract Bridge League, is the licenser for all commercial
duplicate
bridge clubs in Canada, the USA and Mexico.
Similar organizations are in place all over the
world. ACBL
has become highly integrated into BBO and vice versa. As this is typed, the ACBL
is sponsoring a triple silver masterpoint giveaway this week for all BBO
Virtual Duplicate Clubs.
The ACBL, at ACBL.Org, has a huge amount of information for duplicate players
and teachers.
No one knows when we will return to “normal” or if we will.
But Duplicate
players are truly fortunate to be able to play more bridge than we did and have
lots of time to do so as we’re all at home the vast majority of the time.
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