As the bridge community continues to stay at home amid the Covid-19 orders, we are all slowly adjusting to the new Bridge Base Online world of ACBL club games. We are glad to hear NYC Bridge, formerly Honors / Aces / Cavendish, is now the largest online private club. You can check out their daily ACBL Support Your Club events to win Black points.
FunBridge
BBO is not the only game in town. I first heard about FunBridge because they participated in the Biggest Online Bridge Tournament last December. I’m still not sure what that was, but it was a collaboration between BBO and FunBridge. My wife and several unrelated friends of varying skill levels also told me they enjoy FunBridge. Time to explore!
Conventions Galore With Bots
The most immediate difference I noticed is the plethora of conventions and carding systems available. As readers know, I am an avid bot player with the BBO GIB bots and they are generally great for learning. The most frustrating part is the bots rarely respect your carding on defense. They certainly aren’t giving you any reasonable count or attitude signals, and forget about attempting suit preference. You are also forced to play 2/1, although kudos to BBO for making the robot 2/1 system extremely modern and sound.
What a pleasant surprise. FunBridge out of the box supports 2/1, SAYC, ACOL, Polish Club, Precision, among others (what is Forum D?). They also have a highly configurable set of carding conventions (UDCA, Lavinthal, Odd / Even).
Anyway, it’s still early. I was originally excited when BridgeBaron promised to support precision and advanced carding. However, I’m convinced the Bridge Baron carding was not correctly implemented. The robot partner never seemed to respect it at all.
Not Entirely Free
Ah hah, there is a catch. FunBridge has a free plan – you get 10 boards per week, and you start off with at least 100 when you register a new account (or download to your phone). If you want to play an unlimited amount, they charge about $12 a month. I don’t think you get any ACBL masterpoints through FunBridge at this time, but they seem to support a lot of other bridge federations.
Note that on Bridge Base, you can always play for free with groups of friends, or against the robot using “Challenge A Robot”.
Has anyone tried FunBridge extensively? What are your thuoghts?