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:

Have you ever wished you could go back and review those first few bridge lessons? Here's your chance!

We're going to focus on the basic framework of Standard American 5-card Majors. All "constructive" bidding, without interference from the opponents. Brush up on opening bids, responses, and rebids with your favorite partner. No conventions! Just standard bidding.

• Four 90-minute sessions
• Sunday afternoons 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
• Sept. 20 through Oct. 11
• Course fee $75

Lesson plan:

1. Opening notrump bids and responses
2. Opening major suit bids and responses
3. Opening minor suit bids and responses
4. Practice hands using all the tools

Optional accompanying text book: Bridge Basics 1 - An Introduction Audrey Grant.

Learn to play bridge online from Mojo!

PCC Extension is offering three bridge classes from Audrey Grant's acclaimed Better Bridge curriculum this fall.

All classes are offered on Tuesday evenings at 7:15, from the comfort of your own home.

Playing and learning bridge this way, online, opens up new techniques and insight that aren't available with cards at a bridge table. Take advantage of this opportunity while you can!

To participate you will need at least one computer which you can use for a Zoom meeting session along with a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari). You need to have the ability to switch between the browser and Zoom when called for. A microphone is required, but video is optional.

A good alternative setup is to use a tablet, such as an iPad, for the Zoom portion of the class, and a computer for the web browser portion.

Join me every Saturday at 9:30 a.m. (Pacific Time) just before our regularly scheduled 10:00 a.m. 0-500 game for a bridge mini lesson.

In my experience, nearly every mini-lesson teacher in a bridge club teaches exclusively bidding conventions or topics related to bidding.

Online presentations provide a unique opportunity to present declarer and defender play topics. Seeing the hands presented online makes it much easier to visualize card combinations and possible layouts.

So my offerings on Saturdays will focus primarily on defender and declarer play. I may diverge into topics related to playing duplicate bridge such as scoring and other mechanics, and maybe even a little bidding when it seems appropriate.

Everyone is invited to attend, from any experience level, anywhere in the world.

Add the class to your calendar! Saturday mornings at 9:30 - 9:45.

Once you discover the magic of Jacoby Transfer Bids, it's hard to give them up!

By default, Jacoby Transfers are OFF when the opponents interfere with any bid other than 2♣. The Stayman convention has long specified that after an interfering 2♣ bid a double (X) is used to ask partner for a 4-card major suit.

Why not do the same for all of the other intervening bids as well? 1NT - 2♦ - X as a transfer to hearts, 1NT - 2♥ - X as a transfer to spades, 1NT - 2♠ - X as a relay to the minors.

The "stolen bid double" caught on like wildfire, especially among intermediate players. As I began playing with more experienced partners, I discovered that none of them used the stolen bid double!

Chat on BBO (Bridge Base Online) can be annoying and distracting, or it can be essential and important. During a tournament, important messages might come from the tournament director, your opponents, even your partner between rounds.

There's a common problem with the chat window not appearing on the screen. It's a little more difficult to address the problem on a tablet, but I'll show you how to make sure your chat window is in view in a computer browser (such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari).

This is the normal layout of a BBO table, using the default settings (with Split Screen turned on):