Bridge Base Online (BBO) is the largest international online bridge provider. Signing up and playing in many of the games is free, though they also have tournaments that are paid for. This is the platform on which our EBU 12 board tournaments are run. Some of our clubs run games on BBO and clubs that are interested in this can find more information online.
Our EBU games run every day at 11am (Relaxed 9-high game), 12 noon (fast game) and at 2pm, 3:30pm, 7:30pm, 7:30pm (Relaxed 9-high game) and 9pm. They are all 12 boards long and cost $2.30. Players can choose to play with a Robot partner in the 12 noon, 7:30pm (non relaxed game) and 9pm games but not in other games.
We also run Daylong 12-board Games on BBO, where you play with and against BBO robots at any time in the 24-hour period, pausing and re-starting as you wish. There are two of these games, one playing a 5 card major system and one playing Acol. All of these games offer EBU master points.
EBU members do not need to register your EBU number anywhere with BBO. When you register for an EBU tournament it should prompt for your EBU number only if we do not already have it stored on BBO. If you have played in an EBU tournament and it has not appeared on your record in My EBU then please contact us via jonathan@ebu.co.uk and we will sort it out.
Since BBO is an American company payment is in dollars and the most common bidding systems are Standard American type (sayc or 2/1), although it does have an Acol Bridge Club, which can be found under Play or Watch Bridge -> Casual -> All Private and Public Clubs.
Members who need to buy BB$ to play in paid games should buy them through the BBO website and not through the app, which will add on a significant surcharge.
Our advice to players who are interested in playing in paid games is first to sign up for a free login to BBO and play in some free games to familiarise themselves with how the game works, so that they can take part as soon as they are ready. Help with doing this is available in this document.
NB In tournaments, BBO records all table history including chat between individual players at a table. This can be accessed by our EBU TDs but will only be used for the purposes of disciplinary and ethics cases or resolving disputes about timing or disclosure.
March 31, 2023