RealBridge from the UK - see and hear your table mates while playing bridge!

While we have some Tuesday evenings free between PCC classes, let's get together for some relaxed bridge with a lesson following.

• Five Tuesday evenings 7:15 - 9:15, March 23 - April 20.
• 12 hands (about 90 minutes), followed by hand review and lesson by Mojo on Zoom
• $9 for a single session, or $40 for all five
• No director, no masterpoints, no pressure

Here's what you need to participate:

• A reliable broadband internet connection
• A Mac or Windows laptop or desktop with camera, speakers, and microphone
• Alternatively: RealBridge is known to work with an iPad using Safari

Before joining the game, test your camera and microphone here on the RealBridge web site.

Dragon helps with most bridge classes.

Enjoy eight Sunday afternoons studying and practicing declarer play! Learn the timeless techniques experienced players use to develop extra tricks in trump and notrump contracts.

Here are the weekly topics:

• Making a plan
• Developing tricks - promotion and length
• Developing tricks - the finesse
• Eliminating losers - ruffing and discarding
• Watching out for entries
• Watching out for the opponents
• Managing the trump suit
• Putting it all together

This is an online interactive course using Zoom for class discussions, and a virtual bridge table where you will play actual hands and experiment with card play. Required for this course:

When we first learn to play bridge, we learn to count our high card points, add in distribution points. If the total is 13 or more, then we should open the bidding — that is, make the first bid in the auction at the 1 level.

Later when we start playing in formal or informal groups, we discover players opening 12 point hands, or even weaker! What's the deal?

There are indeed subtleties to deciding whether to open and what the opening bid should be. This course addresses those subtleties with effective guidelines and great practice deals that touch on all aspects of bridge.

This is an online, live, interactive bridge course. We will meet online using Zoom, and you will practice playing at a virtual bridge table with other students.

How better to spend New Year's Eve than playing bridge online? I put out the call for a bridge game that would be just for fun -- no sanction, no director, no masterpoints. We would use RealBridge, the platform from the UK which integrates audio and video into the bridge table.

Many of us have been missing team games. It's my favorite format for duplicate bridge, and by far the best way to hold a game with an extreme range of bridge experience.

RealBridge does a beautiful job of team game support. They offer round-robin, swiss, and head-to-head (knockout) formats. Their one current failing is that an odd number of teams requires one team to sit out a round. Every round is played in a "barometer" style, with all teams playing the same boards at the same time -- which inherently limits the ability to support a three-team round-robin in a larger game.

 Now is the winter of our bridge defense!

Enjoy eight Sunday afternoons studying and practicing all of the best defense strategies used by expert players. Every hand is a new puzzle to solve with your partner. Here we study not just the common aphorisms of bridge defense ("second hand low, third hand high") but when it's right to break these rules based on the situation.

Here are the weekly topics:

• Opening leads against notrump contracts
• Opening leads against trump contracts
• Third-hand play
• Second-hand play
• Defensive signals
• Developing defensive tricks
• Interfering with declarer
• Making a plan

This is an online interactive course using Zoom for class discussions, and a virtual bridge table where you will play actual hands and experiment with card play. Required for this course:

Improving Your Judgment — Doubles

Join us for this special four-session class that's all doubles! The double is the most versatile call in a competitive auction. This class will let you practice making doubles and advances in all sorts of competitive bidding situations.

Bring your favorite partner for these four interactive online sessions. Participation requires a reliable broadband internet connection and a good Mac or Windows laptop or desktop computer. (An iPad alone is possible but not recommended.)

We'll meet for four sessions over two weeks, Monday and Wednesday at 3:00. Space is strictly limited to 16 students!

You've just discovered bridge, and can work your way through a hand! Now what?

All over the country, most of the face-to-face brick-and-mortar bridge clubs are closed right now, but that doesn't mean we're not holding games and tournaments! Bridge has moved online.

Right here we have a "virtual bridge club" that serves players in three local ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) units. It's the Pasadena Pomona Downey VBC. You might have noticed it elsewhere on this site.

Twice a week we have a bridge game for newcomers to bridge: Saturdays at 12:20 p.m., and Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m. We play 12 hands, and the game lasts about an hour and a half. The games are held on Bridge Base Online (BBO). Each game has "card fees" of $5, deducted from your BBO account.

Level up your game! Learn the bidding system played by most experienced players, and my personal favorite.

2 Over 1 Game Force (2/1GF) is based on Standard American 5-card Majors with one little tweak. Nearly every auction will be the same as with Standard. On the auctions that are different, you'll find yourself better able to find the right contract, as well as finding and bidding slam hands with more confidence.

The course uses the award-winning text 2 Over 1 Game Force by Audrey Grant and Eric Rodwell.

• Six Tuesday afternoons, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
• Sept. 22 through Oct. 27
• Course fee $120

The course is accompanied by the text book 2 Over 1 Game Force available from Mojo (for local delivery) for $15 or from Amazon.

Lesson plan: