For a very good guide to BBO from NZ Bridge (thanks to Karen Martiletti) click here Note, these notes give instructions for an iPad. On a laptop got to https://www.bridgebase.com/ and then follow the same instructions.
You can play bridge on BBO https://www.bridgebase.com/ without registering - just scroll to below the red “Play bridge now” for lots of options. The challenges on “Bridge Master” are fun to try.
But it is easy to register for BBO – at https://www.bridgebase.com/ just click on the red “Login/Register” at the top right. Put in your real name followed by your computer bridge number, and make sure that you put in New Zealand as your country at the bottom right.
Some notes for newbies: click here
Notes on self-alerting click here
Some notes by Giles Hancock:
BBO Scoring click here
Chatting on BBO: click here
Casual game of 4 people:
Then you can make up a table by inviting three friends (who have registered also) to a table and play bridge online and chat. Give it a go. Click on Casual, then click on Start a Table, I suggest you don't allow kibitzers, do require permission to play, then reserve each seat using their BBO login name, and lastly Start Relaxed game. When your friends logon they will be added to your table. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get it right first time – we all have lots of free time and this is a good opportunity to gain a new skill of playing online.
This link may be useful.
https://blog.bridgebase.com/2020/03/09/new-to-bridge-base-online/
You can also play bridge online on your phone – go to the Play Store and download “Bridge Base Online”
You can join the Auckland club tournament each day at 1.30pm, and each night at 7.30pm, currently they are have 18 board games. People from all round NZ play. Login in, and have your partner login. Go to Competitive, Free tournaments, then look for a tournament with "Kiwi" in the name. Click on the tournament and you can register your partner's BBO name and enter. Notice that if the tournament already has 40 entries you cannot enter, you need to go the "Overflow" tournament that doesn't yet have 40 entries.
This link below may be useful.
Tips for playing:
If you click on someone's name you can see their real name, and message them privately.
Click on Profile to add full name, and just under there in Other type in your basic system.
Go to Account at the right hand side, click Settings near top just underneath Account, find “Autoplay singletons” and turn that on, if you want to.
If you click on History you can see your past tournament results. Click on the blue “Results”. Now scroll down to your name (or someone else’s name), click on your % to see each of the hands you played. Click on Movie to see exactly how the hand was played, or Traveller to see what everyone else did.
If you are having a casual game of four and don’t want someone taking your place, before you reserve the seats for your four, turn “Permission required to play” on.
Watching bridge: Instead of playing on BBO you can watch (kibitz). If you want to watch the Kiwi tournament, after the tournament has started find the tournament (you will need to click on Running near the top, instead of the default Pending) click its name and you will see all the tables. Click on Join to watch at table. Every table is playing the same 3 three boards per round, 24 minutes per round. To go to another table click on blue “Back” (to the left of Home) and find another table to join. It can be fun watching the same hand played at different tables. At the end of the round click Back and choose your table. The higher up tables have the people who are doing better, and will probably have more kibitzers. A wonderful opportunity to watch New Zealand’s top players in action.
To find you friends more easily, when you login click on People at the right (under Messages and above History). Search for their BBO username, click on their name and follow them or make them a friend. Later when you go through a list of the tables in a tournament your friends’ names are highlighted so they are easier to find. When you are watching a table if you click on the username it will tell you’re their real name.
Team Matches:
On the tournament page below the listed tournaments there is a blue line for ‘Other Competitive Games’. Just below that you select ‘Teams Matches'.
This file might help How_to_Create_a_Team_Match_on_BBO.pdf , click on the link.
On the next page you select the blue button ‘Create Teams Match’
The next page has 3 options across the top of the page:
Identification Options Reserve Seats
On the Identification page you can call the match whatever you like and describe it as whatever you like, but don’t forget to put in a name for each team
On the Options page it should automatically suggest IMPs and using Random Deals. Those don’t need to be changed, but change the number of deals to 16. There are 4 other boxes which are all ticked. Click on the top box. That will automatically disable both allowing kibitzers and allowing kibitzers to chat. Also take the tick out of the third box so that you do not allow UNDOs. The final option for barometer scoring is left ticked. Seeing the results come through from the other table can be a bit distracting, but this is intended to be a fun competition and most players seem to like it.
On the Reserve Seats page you enter all the players from both teams (use their BBO names) . All of the pairs in your team are placed in one box and all of their team are placed in the other box. It is essential that the logons of each player are spelled exactly right. For the purpose of this competition the players will be placed so that the captain’s partnership of both teams will be North/South.