BCL The Basics
Bridge Club Live can be tried for free with:
for EBU members (this offer likely to be much faster too than the normal route, according to message Carol received from BCL on Saturday 11.04.20)! All members of the real world Stafford club are EBU members so this offer is open to all club members. BCL has "Support" screens, Comment Board, Knowledgebase, FAQ etc and click here for Carol's notes (27/04/20) with helpful tips.
So far, 10:30, Thursday 21st May, 40 SBC members have joined the Stafford BCL on line group, some more incognito than others! Some others may have joined but not yet indicated they are Stafford members (to indicate Stafford roll over members tab-> select clubs from the drop down list -> find Stafford Bridge Club UK and click on it: on the right hand side you will see the members and near the bottom on the left an invitation to join the club that you can click). Once joined to the club group "sticky notes", "friends", "chat" and pictures look useful features for getting in touch to say "I'm at the table now" type of thing or seeing if "club members" or "friends" are already at a table/in the lobby.
New BCL members, please note these requests from BCL 29.03.20 (see also Carol's notes (27/04/20) with helpful tips to get you started)
- Please start in the Social Room and Spectate or Kibitz while you get familiar with the software.
- Do not enter a competition room yet, until you feel confident.
First have a go in the social room under no great pressure, get plenty of practice playing with a real world partner or a total stranger. Playing is relatively simple if you follow the messages and prompts on the screen. Investigate the drop down menus to learn more. Fun abbriviations, glp (good luck partner), wpp (well played partner), wpo (well played opponents), blp (bad luck partner) etc. turn up on the right as do advertisements for players to come to a table Very important, when you leave the table click the "leave table" button otherwise you leave the three others at the table in limbo. People tend to "drop in and drop out" in the social room, you can play the number of boards that you feel you have the time for, to appear on the leader board you will need to play at least 12 boards.
Once you have grasped the basics click here for some very useful help from an experienced BCL player.
To play with a partner of your choosing you can "reserve a seat" see https://bridgeclublive.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002817739-Reserve-a-Seat- which involves clicking on their "alias" and then selecting "Set as partner" option before sitting at a table, the seat will still be reserved for one minute after both opponents arrive. To get an entire table of SBC players needs a little pre-planning, one from each pair will have to nominate their partner. One of the 4 takes their seat at an empty table, possibly using the "chat" facility to tell oppo and partner which table so all 4 arrive quickly. If a stranger arrives at the table before the pre-planned players it appears ok to very politely request the stranger to leave the table as you were expecting your "friends", your webmaster has been asked to leave a table a couple of times! Webmaster has used browser search facility (Ctrl F) to get to the right seat in the room but there could well be better ways.
To enter competition rooms, including Daily MPS, you will need to agree a system card (Simple System Disclosure,SSD, to be filled in by North or East and confirmed by South or West) with your partner. The card comes with drop down options:
- Basic Bidding System
- Opening 1NT (the point range)
- Opening Major Suit Bid (5 card majors for example)
- Discard System
Club Results: (Warning - link for SBC DIDO Tourney may not work if you are not a BCL member, you will need to select date yourself and the option just to show club)
- Go to: Results >> Archived Results on BCL web site
- Press DIDO Tourney
- View a Leader Board
- Press View For " Your Club "
- You can also view other club members when logged into the playing area
- At present you can see this for Daily DIDO
Drop in Drop Out (DIDO) Tourney (Warning - link may not work if you are not a BCL member)
The DIDO Tourney is a 'Drop in Drop out' MPS tournament that runs on a daily basis in the BCL Daily MPS room for nearly 24 hours from 7.01 am GMT till 6.49 am GMT, but at a time to suit you and partner and NOT at a fixed time. The Dido Tourney allows all members, to take part in a pseudo movement tourney which more realistically approaches a real life tournament at any time convenient to them. One may not drop out mid 4 board round and at least 16 boards must be played to be included in the leader board listing for the day.
If anyone is having any problems with BCL Ann will "lurk" in the BCL "lobby" (now only by arrangement beforehand since 19.04.20) between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. most mornings to help anyone who has joined BCL get off the ground with it. Others will help too of course, contact Carol.
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