[wank]

This is an essentially pointless whine:

I'm tired of the tournament list being full of these private tournaments which I can't play in. Joining isn't attractive either as most of their tournaments end up being tiny compared to the open ones. I don't see what the players or the organisers get out of restricting the entry - it's not like it's hard to join, so cheats or whatever could still play.

[Free]

I agree completely, this is indeed pointless whine.

[helene_t]

Just to avoid confusion:

A "private club", in BBO terminology, is a part of the playing area, containing tables and team matches, restricted to members.

Tournaments may be restricted to members of such a club but more often they are restricted to a custom list or to the friends of the host. Such a custom list may be referred to as a "club" but technically it is a different thing, although I suppose it doesn't really matter.

Restricting access is good for the behavior of the players as they will be aware that they can lose their access to the tourneys of the same host if they yell at p, disconnect after a bad result etc.

[babalu1997]

true that there is an abundance of private games at bbo

but that is a good thing

that people can assemble privately with restrictions

occasiannly you will see me playing with a turkish flag, and in fact the language setting in my machine must be set to turkish

the td host is my friend and occasional partner-- i do not know the first word in turkish

truth of the matter is that it is burdensome for him to make announcement in both english and turkish

but he can still add folks who will play in a toiurney where they cannot read the instructions

so i have no problem with that, if the tourney is set to french or dutch or norwegian

let the players enjoy themselves in their native language if they wish

that way that ill feeling you get when poeple type in other languages during a game will be no more

[Bbradley62]

1. Many of the "private" tournaments are free, which is attractive to some players.
2. Since these clubs have smaller membership than the site as a whole, you can get to learn the, um, idiosyncrasies of some of the players.
3. BBOFans (and maybe others) has a restricted game that you have to qualify for by doing well in their main games, which some may find desirable.
4. BBOFans' 11am (Eastern Time) individual games generally have about 75 tables, and the pairs games generally have about 50 tables. Is that tiny compared to the open ones? (That wasn't meant to be sarcastic, I honestly don't know how big "the open ones" are.)

[vuroth]

For every complaint about private games/clubs on these forums, there are 20 complaints about open games/tournaments. That alone should answer your question.

[gnasher]

Maybe some clubs like to be able to exclude anyone whose username might offend their members?

If you're short of opportunities to play, try asking BBO to award you a star. You'll find yourself deluged with invitations from "world class" players of whom you've never heard.

[calabres]

I am 100% fan of Private Clubes on BBO.
The main reasons are:

- A group of players have the right to chose the persons to play with.
- We see many tournaments made by TDs who have no idea of what they are doing. They dont know the basic bridge rules, so they have no skill to avalize situations at tables. What they make during tournaments is to send to tournament chat music links from youTube.
- We often see posted tournaments saying "TD playing, no Adjustments". Any player looking for a good game will want to be in? Surely no.
- Any Host, who wants to make a good job and a good service, must have the right to exclude from tournaments rude players, rushers, poker biders who disrupt normal scores, and most of all those that clearly and scary use non authorized methods.
- A good Host or TD must make the home work, and after tournament finished must make a review of the movies.

If you follow this, you will have a credible tournament where good and fair players will want to be members.
If you dont, you will have just a one more tournament on BOO, but surely not a good one.

Best regards