[mike777]

Any help in describing the different types of online ACBL tournament games appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Time to dip my toes back into the game.

You forum posters are wonderful, knowledgeable and so kind in taking the time to share in improving my game.

[mikeh]

I’ve been bored between playing a lot of ‘real’ online Bridge….on vacation in Hawaii but the weather has been dreadful. So been playing some acbl bbo ‘tournaments’

These are with robot partners and opps….your ‘real’ opps are all the humans holding your hands. You are guaranteed to have the most hcp…or tied. No robot gets more than you, but may have a better playing hand.

It’s not Bridge as you know it. While the openings are sort of 5 card majors, weak twos and strong 1N, the robot is incredibly bad at competitive decisions. It’s rarely good to balance…it plays you for a good hand. It’s almost always a disaster to make a strong jumpshift after opening. And so on

Plus there’s no point signalling suit preference on defence. It ignores you.

But as for what each event is, as best as I can tell there are a number of acbl sanctioned events.

Instant tournaments…..either imps or mps, 12 boards. Some are with, I think, 20 players. Some, labelled with the number 100, have one hundred players.

I think the smaller game pays .90 mp for 1st…not sure how low the payout goes. I think the 100 pays about 1.5 for first.

Other tournaments, in ACBL World, are either 12 or 18 boards…choose the length you want. The 18 board ones are much more expensive on a per board basis. In terms of, say, the 12 board ones, there are, I think, 6 mp tournaments per day. #1 routinely gets 1300+ players….the number rises over the course of 24 hours and your results may change, especially if you played very early when only a few people have played.

The other numbers appear to get diminishing participation….fewer play 2 than 1, fewer play 3 than 2 etc. payout is, I think, about 1.5 for winning

I haven’t played the 18 board ones…

You can also play imp pairs, same basic idea


Cost for the instant tournaments and the 12 board ACBL ones is either 2.09 or 2.19 US.


Personally, I think they are terrible for one’s game. But they’re kind of addictive, lol.


A good player can rack up 5-6 mps a day in maybe an hour or at most two. At the same cost as a club game that pays maybe half as many mps, if you win, and takes over 3 hours not counting travel time. But they seem popular and I’m sure the ACBL is laughing all the way to the bank


Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’ll improve your real life game😀

[mike777]

There seem to be individual games. These are robot only? You never play with rotating humans as partners?

Some are an hour and end? Others are 24 hours, not really sure.

Then there seems to be human only tournaments? When I glance in I see known world class players or platinum life masters and everyone else seems to be expert rated?

Thanks for the responses.

[mikeh]

mike777, on 2025-February-02, 19:13, said:

There seem to be individual games. These are robot only? You never play with rotating humans as partners?

Some are an hour and end? Others are 24 hours, not really sure.

Then there seems to be human only tournaments? When I glance in I see known world class players or platinum life masters and everyone else seems to be expert rated?

Thanks for the responses.

I tried an individual game once. I thought robots were bad…until I played with some (not all) of the humans. As for rating. The odds of a self-rated WC bbo player being expert, at least back a few years ago when I actually played in the Main Bridge Club appeared to be approximately the odds of being hit by lightning twice in one day.

As for self-rated experts, I don’t think I ever encountered one worthy of advanced status. BBO did try a little, with the Star system….disclosure, I was given star status….and I’d say maybe 50% of the star players play fairly well….much higher percentage if they’re from a recognized bridge power, such as US, Italy, Poland, France etc.

I’d look for ‘private’. I think that correlates more accurately with bridge skill.


The whole thing is silly. I’m entitled to call myself WC because I’ve represented my country in WC events. I’ve played a couple of teams in World Seniors championships who would have a tough time breaking average in one of our sectional Swiss. They come from tiny Zones with very few players and even fewer willing to spend the time and money averaging 1.5 VPs a match, yet they are, by BBO standards, entitled to call themselves WC.

Platinum Life Masters will have, usually, reasonable skill levels, but why are they not Grand Life Masters?