Just when we thought it would be impossible to get lots of gold points online, ACBL comes through with the upcoming “Stay At Home, Play At Home” tournament. I also completely missed the ACBL Club Championship that happened this past week. It goes to show that even a few days off the grid means missing important updates!
Gold Points In the Past
Previously, the only way to get gold points was from playing in two-session or longer NABC and regional events. Then ACBL invented the REACH tournaments – which stood for something. Perhaps Regional At Club House? Anyway, that only gave meager amounts that hardly anyone ever won.
Online Gold Points?
For online bridge, the three ACBL Online Individual NABC events gave gold and red to overall winners. Those are very fun events, but they are a little pricey at $50 ($40 early bird, and $34 for returning competitors). Also, they require playing 72 robot boards, and some people prefer not to play any robot boards!
Stay At Home, Play At Home!
The cost is $15 per player per session. In practice, you will want to play two sessions unless you are doing the 299er. Single session play means you won’t get overall awards
It looks like there are stratified events for all. There are two-session gold rush pairs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Even single-session 299er Pairs on Friday May 1st (those only offer red points). All four days offer open pairs, stratified at 0-1500, 1500-3500, and 3500+.
That’s a slightly odd set of masterpoint buckets. I’m surprised they don’t try a full-fledged “mid-flight” pairs event for 0-3000, followed by an open pairs. Does anyone doubt they will have enough tables? I suspect they might fill quickly!
So far, no team events. Hopefully they have bracketed teams or knockouts soon – but I don’t think the software is setup for that yet. Still, I’m impressed at the pace of BBO and ACBL innovation in the past 6 weeks. We can try all sorts of new formats that were never practical in the past: Swiss BAM pairs? Bracketed Round Robins with very short rounds and many teams? We can even do zip KOs and all sorts of handicapped games. I’m eager to see what they come up with next (yes we know, online silver points).
Glad to see gold etc. masterpoints available from home for the people who can not take trips or leave their homes for whatever reason.
I agree! ACBL and BBO have really stepped up with fast-paced innovation to adjust to the times. Many brick and mortar bridge clubs seem to have successfully migrated to the online virtual private clubs as well.
It’s only a matter of time before the masses call for online silver points.