When Duke City Bridge Club shut down March 13, I don’t think any of us realized that we would be closed for as long as it now seems we will be. As cities and states plan to reopen, gatherings will be limited and social distancing demanded. At clubs such as ours, social distancing is impossible and a limit of 10 persons is not conducive to a great game!
I feel that online play is here for a while and I was very excited when I was invited to join Virtual ACBL. As one of the larger clubs in the country, we held our first game on March 30. To prepare, I went through one of the steepest learning curves I have ever experienced. I must give a shout out to ACBL National Director, Rick Beye, whose expertise quickly brought me on board and introduced me to the language of online bridge.
I have a slightly different approach than many of the larger clubs as I am happy to keep my games relatively small and mainly confined to members of our club. That way almost everybody knows each other and has a chance to chat with their opponents. Some of the larger clubs have pooled with many other clubs some of which are geographically distant. Wide-ranging pooling increases club revenue, but can eliminate a “clubby” atmosphere. The only pooling arrangement we have is with the members of Los Alamos DBC.
