The first BCL f2f Stafford Bridge Club session will take place on Monday 7th September.
• Room opens at 1.00pm BST (note on website times are GMT)
• You will have 15mins to be seated at the tables with your partner.
• You cannot join the session after 1.15pm.
• We are planning to play 24 hands of duplicate bridge.
• Have your SSD card prepared before the session. If playing with a regular partner you do not need a new SSD.
Howell movements will be used, how many hands per round will depend on the number of couples.
We need a minimum of 3 tables to run the session.
Stafford Bridge Club will charge members £0.50 per session table fee. This is to cover the EBU P2P fee, there is no profit to the club. It is expected that a system will be set up such that members will be invoiced every 2/3 months.
Steps to play in the f2f club session – in order of completion.
- You must be a member of BCL. Instructions for registering for BCL are on the home page of the SBC web site.
- You must be on the BCL Stafford Bridge Club membership list. To do this ; log on, hover over “members” and click on clubs and the on next screen select Stafford Bridge Club from the list on the right hand side then click that you do wish to register as a member of the club. You cannot enter the virtual club room unless you are on the SBC list.
- To play in a session, go to the home page of the BCL site - DO NOT PRESS “PLAY BRIDGE”.
- On the home page hover over “Members” then click on “Clubs”.
- This will take you to a new screen, click a blue arrow saying “enter your club page” which will take you to the new club page.
- The click on the “PLAY BRIDGE” Please note that the club suffix STAFRD is shown below the play bridge button.
- Then click on the “Enter your F2F Club Rooms”
- When you go in you will see at least three rooms. You arrive in the Lobby. There is a Social Room which you can ignore. There will also be one or more playing rooms, one of which will be prefixed “STAFRD some numbers & letters following it”. This is our tournament room.
You can go through this process now and you will see two rooms labelled XXXXXX 6-B-2 and YYYYYY 6-B-2. Our room is not open but if you click on one of these two you will see a BCL room with tables just like we are used to in the DIDO room.
Our room will open exactly 1pm and you have 15mins to be seated & agreed your SSD card.
It is recommended that you log on & get to this point a few minutes before 1pm. If you have not previously played together on BCL you can arrange to meet before 1pm in the a social room and agree your SSD at a table before moving to the STAFRD room when it opens at 1.00pm (BST)
- You will see a server message that says when the room is open. You click on the room to enter. Remember the BCL principle of refreshing to keep the screen up to date.
- Either you or your partner needs to click "Enter the Tournament” in the top left of the screen, and the other of you needs to sit opposite. DO NOT attempt to join another couple at a table( it is just like DIDO – starting a table is your entry to the tournament).The other partner might need to click “Refresh” first to see where partner starting the table is sitting (just like DIDO room). The player who starts the table will have their SSD card submitted to their partner (just like DIDO) they just need to click “submit” and partner needs to click “accept”. Please ensure step 3 has been completed. i.e. SSD cards are agreed before 1pm.
That’s it! The rest is all automated. Once the SSD is accepted, you will be joined up with another pair and when it gets to the starting time, the server will send a message to say “Press Ready” and start. When it gets to the end of a round, the server will send a message telling you about the next move and the server will move you. You may have to wait for the table to which you are moving to become available and you may have to wait for opponents, just like a Howell movement at the club. Do not panic! It may appear that you have been booted out the room. You haven’t. If you see on your screens the different rooms, just click “Tables” and you will see that you are still in the room!
- Important – it is tempting to go & spectate if waiting between rounds. Please DON’T. If you do manage to do so the server will not allow you to play any boards you have seen prior to playing them and that will mess up the whole afternoon as you and your opponents will be unable to play certain boards.
The tournament is 24 boards. There are no time limits per round but there is BCL slot time limit which is well in excess of three hours. We should finish in about three hours, or a little over as online bridge tends to be faster than club bridge.
Please note: BCL do not have half tables. It means that there are no sit-outs, but it also means that there is a 50-50 chance that the last pair to be ready before the start time won’t get to play. If you do miss out, there is still the option to play bridge in the DIDO tournament.
The other important thing is the need for commitment because once we start, we need to finish. If someone gets disconnected, then either we need to get them back reasonably quickly or else we need a substitute to come in. We would be able to try phoning a friend and get them to come and fill in.
Any problems: if anything happens Terry has the facility to talk to all of the tables & lurkers. Please turn off the chat from other rooms but leave on the chat from this current room.
Try and agree any disagreements.
David Drinkwater has agreed to act as an independent Director for the club session. However, this must be conducted after the session is finished.
Terry is available during the tournament, on his phone 01889801996, should you need him eg partner cannot regain connection but please remember he is also playing bridge – so serious problems only. If you need a ruling contact Terry first & he will refer to David Drinkwater if he does not know or players can refer to David Drinkwater if they disagree with Terry’s decision.
One more thing. Please don’t play too slowly. Keep an eye on the clock and hurry the last round if needed. Please tell the people on your table if you notice that the table is playing too slow; it is not impolite, they just might not have noticed. A friendly “we need to get going a bit faster” to the table chat is perfectly acceptable. If you are slow, you hold up your whole section of the Tourney and others will be waiting. Unlike F2F, there is no bell between rounds. The next round can be started as soon as two pairs and their table are ready! If you are new to Bridge Club Live, it is recommended that you play at least a couple of sessions first in the DIDO tournament in the main club to become familiar with playing online and in BCL.
Results will be available on the BCL club webpage. Scroll down from the “Play Bridge” button you used previously & you will see various options to view results. We will be working to get them onto the club website & EBU soon.
A lot of instructions but its new – remember the learning curve on playing TOF – now so easy!
Carol
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