u/CuriousDave1234

What is “Social” duplicate Bridge? It is almost the same as sanctioned duplicate Bridge games (sanctioned by The ACBL, which awards master points) and which are are hosted by your local Bridge club and there are sectional regional and national tournaments also.

However, a “social” duplicate game doesn’t award master points, and there are far fewer procedural rules. The emphasis here is on having fun, playing good Bridge, making friends and the level of competition is strictly up to you.

Who would be interested in this type of duplicate Bridge? A person who has been playing casual Bridge and wants to test their skills in a game where success doesn’t depend on whether you get good cards or not.

The other category of people would be “been there done that”, played sanctioned duplicate Bridge and loved it, but now they’re older and less competitive or didn’t love it because their fellow competitors tended to be more focused on making sure that you follow the procedural rules than on having fun.

We have been running a duplicate game here in Palm Desert, California for the last several years. At the height of the season, we get 11 tables and everyone goes home with a smile on their face. We use duplicate boards, duplicate, bidding boxes, and a software app called Dupscore that allows us to input our scores at the table after each hand. It also tallies up the results and keeps running year long total points earned by each player, as well as several different analyses of each game.

If you are interested in more information on this, please feel free to make comments.

I have used BBO for years, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated. My friend and I like to play in their speed ball games, but we no longer think it’s worth the money. Can anybody suggest a site where we can play together as partners against real people in a tournament?

When you are bidding you are telling your partner what your hand looks like and she is telling you what her hand looks like. When you find a fit, that determines the Trump suit. If you don’t find a fit, maybe NT will be the answer, but be careful, this could backfire if you don’t have stoppers in every suit

If the values in your hand plus the values your partner has told you about her hand add up to 25/26. You should bid until you reach game, either 3N or 4H or 4S. If at any point, either of you determines that you’re combined hands are not strong enough to reach game then you should stop bidding. If you have found a fit in a minor suit you need 28+ to make a game - 5C or 5D.

To do this, both you and your partner should be working from the same bidding cheat sheet. You can find a good one in The Best Basic Beginners Bridge Book which also has Flowcharts to help you think your way through the bidding process.

Enjoy the journey, you will never stop learning.

We are on a time of use plan with Southern, California Edison and the electricity during their prime time between 4 and 9 PM cost twice as much as the rest of the day. It has been suggested that it would make sense to lower the temperature sometime during the day, perhaps noon, to get the house cooled down so that the AC wouldn’t have to come on as soon after 4 PM as it would normally.

However, I have been experimenting with this, and it seems that there is no advantage. Has anyone figured out a formula that would take into consideration the difference in temperature between prime time and the rest of the time, plus the outside temperature, plus whatever other variables there are?