Hi all -- the Tuesday evening bridge game series has ended, and I'll be spending the next five Tuesday evenings conducting the Competitive Bidding class for PCC. (Don't ask! Sold out with a waiting list.) You've had a taste of duplicate bridge now, and there's lots more available online and even in person. Jane and I have a long road trip planned for 5-6 weeks starting about Memorial day. When we come back, I'm not sure what I'll plan, but there will be bridge. Classes will cycle through again in September. Meanwhile, consider these options: BBO online newcomer games The official online bridge service of the American Contract Bridge League is Bridge Base Online (https://www.bridgebase.com). I manage a virtual bridge club there, the Pasadena Pomona Downey VBC <https://bridgemojo.com/ppdvbc>, and we have two weekly newcomer games: * Saturday afternoon at 12:20 * Wednesday evening at 7:15 Each game is 12 boards, and lasts about 90 minutes. Both games play the same hands as an "Open Pairs" game that runs at the same time, so they provide a fascinating opportunity to see how experienced bridge players bid and play hands. On Wednesday I also convene an after party (a.k.a. "postmortem") to answer questions about hands. This is the way to get a taste of official ACBL bridge, playing with other new players. If you do well in the games, you even get to win masterpoints™. They get awarded in hundredths of a point. :) (I'm not sure about the status of these games after May 30, so ...) Other online newcomer games on BBO There are games similar to my newcomer games at the All-Western 99er NiteClub <http://www.d21acbl.com/news/2020/99er_Western_Flyer.pdf> on BBO. The games are at 6:30 every Monday through Thursday. They've been working on establishing games for 0-20 players as well, and need new bridge players to join up. They also have a post-game board review with a teacher on most evenings. Drop me a note and I can get you on the list for these games. In person ACBL games Every Saturday at 10:30 at the Arcadia Bridge Center <http://www.arcadiabridgecenter.com/> they hold a "rookie game" for newer players. That's you! My house Jane and I are planning to host bridge games for vaccinated new bridge players on Saturday afternoons in May. We'll gather at our house in Monrovia at about 4:00. I have room for three tables. Here's your best way to transfer your game from online to in-person! These will be purely social duplicate bridge games for fun, and learning to play bridge with physical cards. We're thinking of playing at 4:00, break for pizza, maybe play some more after. No charge, just social bridge. *To join the online games, you need to do a couple of things:* * Create an account on BBO https://www.bridgebase.com if you haven't already * Add a few dollars to your BB$ account (each of my newcomer games is $5). * Get a player number from the American Contract Bridge League (free guest membership) o Here's my write-up about ACBL guest memberships <https://bridgemojo.com/acbl-guest-memberships>, and how to do it. * Attach your ACBL player number to your BBO account. For the online games, I'll be happy to help you get everything arranged and find the games. Several of our Tuesday evening players are already playing in the Newcomer games on BBO. You already know many of these people! Online bridge on BBO is a bit more spartan than RealBridge -- there's no audio or video, and they have message windows where you can type messages to the table. Nevertheless, BBO is where the action is for serious (and non-serious) duplicate bridge these days. This is where the in-person bridge clubs retreated for the pandemic. *To join my home game:* * Get your vaccination :) * Drop me a note! * We'll try to do the first one on May 1, 4:00 p.m. I want to give you all the opportunities I can to get out there (or stay in) and play some bridge. Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com> Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org> Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>