Our ACBL club on BridgeBase is arguably the largest in the world and there's no question that we have the most ACBL games available in a 24-hour period, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
There are two ways to access our ACBL games on BridgeBase. First, under the heading Play or Watch Bridge click on List all tournaments, then click on the line ACBL Masterpoint Tournaments. A list of all the ACBL tournaments starting soon will appear.
The second way to see the ACBL games soon to start is to click on ACBL World which you will find under the Featured areas section, and then ACBL Masterpoint Tournaments starting soon.
Now you will see the normal listing of tournaments and all the information available as at any of our tournament listings. Entry fees for ACBL tournaments are $1 and you can choose from our popular Speedball games, our regular Open Pairs games or our Individuals - all directed games. We also offer Individual ACBL duplicate robot tournaments where you play against other humans sitting in the south seat. In these games there is no director, they start and end automatically after the 55 minute time limit is reached. Each human player has the best hand at the table, they play with exactly the same (robot) partner and they all have exactly the same (robot) opponents. You are therefore competing against all other "humans" sitting in your seat, not competing against robots.
As with all our tournaments, the ACBL directed pairs games have a partnership desk open before each game which you can find by clicking on the Join button at the end of the line describing that game. You can either choose a partner from those who have signed up on the Partnership Desk, or add your name to the list. ACBL rules apply in these games which are restricted to the ACBL General Convention Chart. Mid-chart or higher conventions are not allowed.
All ACBL pairs games on BridgeBase over 16 tables are stratified into three stratas, A, B and C. The stratas are determined by the number of BridgeBase and ACBL points held by players in each game. This means the stratas are fluid and can change from game to game. The points held by the players in the given game are gathered and divided into the three stratas, with Strata A being those players holding the most BridgeBase and ACBL points, Strata B the next third highest and Strata C the players with the fewest points of the group.
The three groups of players in each Strata are now distributed among the sections as close to equal as we can manage and the game begins. This stratification allows us to award points to the players in each Strata for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., and for Overall awards. Of course a player placing in the overalls and in his section will be awarded the highest award for overall or section placement, not both.
For your planning purposes, the ACBL schedule begins at 8am with Speedball games every hour thereafter until the last one at 2am the following morning. Our open pairs games begin at 11am and continue every two hours until the last one at Midnight. Our Individual games begin at 9am and continue every two hours until the last one at Midnight. All times are Eastern (Standard or Daylight, depending on the time of year).
We report ACBL points won in our games to the ACBL once a month on the 2nd day of the month following the month in which they were won. Points won in June, for instance, are reported on July 2nd, points won in July, are reported on August 2nd. We can only report points for players who have given us an ACBL number. You can check to be sure we have your ACBL number, and that it is correct, by clicking on ACBL World and at the next menu, clicking on Update your ACBL number.