[denicemcg]

Does anyone know how to set up a private club of friends?
Thanks

[1eyedjack]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

"Private" clubs are a legacy from the early days of BBO. With hindsight it turned out that they were a bit of a mistake. The upshot is that the private clubs which were created way back when are allowed to continue, but BBO resists the creation of new ones.

There are some private clubs that thrive, such as the BIL club. But they are an exception.

The only way to create a new private club on bbo would be by petitioning the management. An email to support would be the first step. Be prepared for some resistance, and line up your arguments in advance.

For most purposes a private club on bbo is thought unnecessary. But there are a lot of clubs that organise themselves elsewhere on the internet and meet on bbo to play tourneys that have restricted memberships.

[Oof Arted]

denicemcg, on 2014-June-15, 15:58, said:

Does anyone know how to set up a private club of friends?
Thanks

As 1 eyed jack says

The easy way is to set up a Club (public)

Then set up a Members list and then prohibit anyone not on your Members list from Playing you can even bar Kibbers

[661_Pete]

This matter has become much more urgent because of current events.

My local bridge club has just suspended meetings until the coronavirus crisis is over. Who knows how long that will be? At present the only place I can play bridge is on BBO and similar sites - with casual partners - which is OK but not the same thing really!

I believe our club's committee are contacting BBO with the view to setting up a private club, so that some of us at least can continue playing online. I hope the BBO admin will favourably view such requests at the present time.

[paulg]

I suspect BBO is not enamoured with the prospect of 14,000 private clubs, 13,500 of which are empty and the remaining ones having one table running and another table with two people waiting to play. In practice I doubt that club committees will be pleased with this environment either.

It sounds really attractive but run set games in the relaxed room and encourage people to make friends. There is no need for people to isolate themselves online.

[barmar]

We're hoping to design a solution for lots of clubs, but we don't have it in place now. We're still trying to deal with the general system capacity issues.

[jandrew]

paulg, on 2020-March-16, 04:24, said:

I suspect BBO is not enamoured with the prospect of 14,000 private clubs, 13,500 of which are empty and the remaining ones having one table running and another table with two people waiting to play. In practice I doubt that club committees will be pleased with this environment either.

It sounds really attractive but run set games in the relaxed room and encourage people to make friends. There is no need for people to isolate themselves online.

I agree with paulg. Run games in the relaxed room and make new friends.

But if you really want to emulate the simultaneous pairs events which you run at your f2f club - then a "club" on BBO may be the way to go.
My latest information is that BBO considers "private clubs", in hindsight, to be a mistake, and are unlikely to consider creating any more.
But I suspect that they are amenable to create the odd new "public club".
This is not a perfect answer because you :
1. CANNOT create an exclusive list of members. Anybody can sit and play - just like in most f2f clubs;
2. CANNOT create an exclusion list to ban undesirables or enemies. Although they may soon stop visiting your club if they find that they can not find partners;

However you can run tournaments under the banner of your "public club" for which you can create a list of members who will be the only players able to join the tournament.
Your f2f club manager (or team of managers) could arrange and TD your tournaments and keep the members' list up to date. Your members would have to remember the time when your tournament starts, find their own partner and be ready on time - late entries are not possible.

BUT, hang on a moment, you can arrange these restricted tournaments at any time in the BBO free tournaments lobby. You don't need to create a public club. Just let your members know in advance when your tournaments are - presumably at the same times and days that you held them in your f2f club and you have just what you asked for.

You will have to type in the login names of all your members - but you would have to do that for "private club". You would only have to do it once - then add new names or delete old ones as you go.

[pescetom]

As barmar rightly reminds us, BBO is a business and it has very much the upper hand in this sad situation. I'm not sure (understatement) that thousands or tens of thousands of clubs each creating and manually directing their own tournament (free or not) or private club is the right way to go, even if BBO can scale up quickly to support it. The national RAs are banging on the door too, but I suspect most have no real idea what is possible or what to ask for.

My feeling is that if BBO could come up with (and actuate) a system of daily simultaneous MP pairs tournaments where people primarily encounter others from their own club, gain national points and can see a classification at club/national/continental level then everybody would be happy (for now), including the GOTO games board.

[661_Pete]

jandrew, on 2020-March-16, 09:39, said:

BUT, hang on a moment, you can arrange these restricted tournaments at any time in the BBO free tournaments lobby. You don't need to create a public club. Just let your members know in advance when your tournaments are - presumably at the same times and days that you held them in your f2f club and you have just what you asked for.

I think this sounds like a workable solution - provided BBO can cope.

I ought to add that, if such a system ever gets set up for our club, I'm offering to continue paying table money for each session I play online. Even though I'd miss out on the free tea/coffee and biscuits! I expect others to do likewise. Of course I'd expect most of this money to go to our club - not to BBO! But I accept that BBO will want a cut.

[wayne_fd]

Can anyone arrange a free tournament in the BBO tournaments lobby, or do you need special priviledges?

[barmar]

wayne_fd, on 2020-May-28, 11:36, said:

Can anyone arrange a free tournament in the BBO tournaments lobby, or do you need special priviledges?

You need TD privileges. And we haven't been giving them out lately.