Dear Club Managers,
We know your club has been affected by current “shelter-in-place” orders, and, in partnership with Bridge Base Online, the ACBL has been working hard to find new ways to make sanctioned games accessible to our clubs and homebound members.
In March, we launched the
Support Your Club pairs game
(10 a.m., 5:10 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern), which has been selling out every session.
We’re happy to announce another opportunity, the
ACBL Virtual Club Game
. It’s a private, online club allowing you to host games just for players who have played in your club over the last 12 months.
Please note the following when considering whether to host an ACBL Virtual Club Game:
- If you are not confident that you will be able to get at least six tables for each of the games you plan to run online, it is best that you wait to introduce this game.
- Creating and running these online games requires some computer knowledge and skill, and you must be comfortable navigating within BBO. If you would like some additional help, tutorials may be found here.
If either of these things is an issue for you, continue to direct your players to the
Support Your Club
pairs games on BBO where the majority of the entry fees will still be given to your club.
To manage the volume that BBO’s platform can support, we’re staggering the introduction of the ACBL Virtual Club Games. If you are interested in setting up a game, please complete the form found
here
. We will review the submissions and schedule clubs to be brought online as BBO can accommodate them. Due to their current technical capabilities, larger bridge clubs will likely be the first to set up the ACBL Virtual Club Games. However, as we continue to bring clubs online in stages, we ask that you please be patient as we bring all interested clubs online.
BBO is working on a simpler interface to start your games, as well as developing an option for smaller clubs to jointly run games. As a result, if any of the above was an issue, you may be able to partner with another club to hold ACBL Virtual Club Games in the coming weeks.
If you are interested in running
ACBL Virtual Club Games
, then follow these steps:
- Fill out this form to confirm that you’re still interested.
- Once we are able to accommodate you, we will schedule you for an onboarding session – we will connect you with an ACBL Tournament Director who will work with you to set your club up on BBO and show you how a game is scheduled on BBO.
- You may watch an over-the-shoulder session – we are getting help from clubs who have already started running online games. We will schedule you into a session that will last approximately two hours where you can watch another club run their game on BBO. There you will learn how to take director calls, how to substitute for players who lose their internet connection, how to adjust a score and more.
Once you get going with your
ACBL Virtual Club Games
, you may need more help, and we are here to provide support. The Tournament Director who runs your onboarding session will be there to assist as you get more comfortable with the system. Also, we will have Tournament Directors available online on BBO to give you “live” help. We will send you a list of BBO ID’s to add to your friends list. That way, if you’re having a problem, you will be able send them a message and they can come help.
If you have other concerns, a list of Frequently Asked Questions is available
here
. If you have other questions that we have not answered, please contact
club@acbl.org
, and we will answer you directly and add your question to the FAQs.
Club and Membership Department
April 2, 2020
