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Bridge Base Online

Westwood/Puritan/Cape Online runs six open “Virtual Club Games” and a 499er game on BBO every week. Click here for our usual weekly schedule.

These games are for players who played at WestwoodPuritanMidcape, or Dennis-Yarmouth at least once in 2019 or 2020 and guests and visitors (see the ACBL Virtual Club Games Visitor Policy). They are 18 boards and take about two hours. Masterpoint awards (black) are 50% higher than regular club games. Our Monday morning open games receive credit for the tables in our concurrent 499er game.

— Tim Hill (Westwood), Chris Gorton (Puritan), Joe Brouillard (Midcape), and Rita Baudo (Dennis-Yarmouth)

 
 
  New BBO Users

If you’re brand new to BBO, this tutorial may help. Jim Negro wrote it for his winter club in Albuquerque (thank you, Jim!), so substitute “Westwood/Puritan/Cape” for “Duke City.”

When you’re ready to dive in, first register on BBO:

  • Go to bridgebase.com
  • click Login / Register
  • click Become a member (free!)
  • be sure to enter your ACBL number*

Play is quite intuitive, but you might benefit from some other tutorials and/or some “Solitaire” or “Casual” play to learn the ropes.

If you’d like more help getting started, please contact Tim Hill by phone (781-929-7673) or email (thill75@wesleyan.edu).

*(If you don’t have an ACBL member, you can click here to get one for free.)

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  Registering for a Virtual Club Game

Registration opens two hours before game time. Best to register early, especially the first time. Both partners must be logged into BBO. One registers, inviting the other. The other accepts the invitation.

  • On the BBO Home page, click Virtual Clubs and then ACBL—North America. (Alternatively, click Competitive and then ACBL Virtual Clubs.) It should show you just the games you’re eligible to play in.*
  • Click Westwood/Puritan/Cape. Type your partner’s BBO user name. Optionally tick “I will pay for both myself and partner.” Click Invite.
  • You should see “Invitation in progress. Please wait…” Your partner should see “… Do you accept?” and should click Accept. The game title should turn yellow.*
    • (The invitation will go away if it isn’t accepted in about 30 seconds. Try again.)
  • Be sure you’re back logged into BBO a few minutes before game time.
    • The game won’t start on time if anybody is offline. If we can’t find an offline player within a couple minutes of the scheduled start, we have to unregister offline players so the game can start promptly for everybody else.

*If you don’t see our game, or you get an error message indicating you or your partner isn’t eligible, see below.

Warning: Buy BB$ via a browser, not an app (unless you like paying outrageous surcharges to Apple or Google).

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  Eligibility

If you or your partner aren’t on our “include” list, please contact our director, preferably 30 to 15 minutes before game time. The director will be happy to make you eligible for our game right away.

To contact our director, send a BBO “Chat” to the BBO name used by our directors: vacb119172. Our directors check for messages starting about 30 minutes before each game. Be sure to tell the director your partner’s BBO name.

(If you go to Virtual ClubsACBL, within two hours of our game and don’t see our game listed, you’re probably not on our “include” list. You can still find the game by going Back to Virtual Clubs, and clicking All Clubs at the bottom of the list. Then you can click on the host name, vacb119172 to send a message.)

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  Partnership Desk

Need a partner? Go to the registration page for our game (see above) and click Partnership Desk (at the right end of the line above the registration form). If you don’t hook up with someone immediately, then put your name on the list, stay logged into BBO, and watch for an invitation or a message.

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  Online Alert Procedure

The online alert procedure works very well if you know how to use it efficiently, but it’s radically different from the face-to-face procedure. The basic idea is that you alert and explain your own bids. Never alert or explain your partner’s bids—that’s her job. Your alerts and explanations are shown only to your opponents, never to your partner. With self-alerts, you can fully inform your opponents about your agreements (as required by Law and “Active Ethics”) without making unauthorized information available to your partner. Here are the details:

  • Alert by clicking Alert in your bidding box before clicking your bid. Type a concise explanation in the space provided. (As in face-to-face play, it’s better to say what a bid means, not name a convention.)
  • “Alert” anything that requires an alert or an announcement in face-to-face play (including the range of a 1NT opening, a Jacoby or Texas transfer, and a forcing 1NT response). Feel free to “over-alert.”
  • If you forgot to alert, then, as soon as you remember, click on your bid (in the bidding diagram) and type a brief explanation.
  • To request further information about an opponent’s bid (alerted or not), click on the bid.
  • If asked about your bid, please answer promptly.
  • If you need to explain something with a message, chat →Opponents, not →Table.

 

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