Pictured above: Regina playing bridge on BBO while sheltering in place.
To all you newbies out there: if I can reach Club Master status, you can too!
After I retired, I started to play bridge weekly at our local senior center and really enjoyed the mental and social interaction. About a year ago, I decided to try Bridge Base Online to get more practice playing hands.
I was intrigued by the thought of duplicate and finally entered a NABC “robot” duplicate tournament. Much to my surprise, I earned a fraction of a masterpoint! However, I was still too scared to play duplicate with real people. One day last summer, I was asked to fill in as a partner for a friend who played both social and duplicate bridge. He taught me a couple of conventions and I was hooked!
I started to play weekly at our local club, but that still wasn’t enough, so I decided to play with real people on BBO. I like the “speedball” tournaments because they start on the hour and are finished within an hour. I also prefer to play “independent” rather than pairs. It can be a bit challenging to play with random people, but I feel that it is also more fair. And, it pushes me to be a better player since those games are not handicapped.
My bridge journey started at 10 years old when mother taught me how to play bridge, so I could fill in if she needed a fourth. About 20 years ago, mom retired and lived nearby, and I tried to play social bridge with her at least once a month. After mom died, I found out she had earned 0.88 masterpoints and I was impressed that ACBL kept track of those points through the years!
I continue to play online ACBL tournaments during COVID-19. I have also introduced several local duplicate players to BBO and some of them have also started playing ACBL tournaments online.
