ACBL is experimenting with Newcomer games. You’re welcome to hold your Newcomer games as 0-50 games, rather than 0-20 games. This means that you can mentor the 0-50 players for now, as well. Try to keep their mentoring to a minimum for the higher limit, but it will be legal to create a board set to demonstrate a lesson topic and to answer questions (minimally) at the table for the 0-50 players. If this experiment brings more students to the tables, ACBL may consider raising the Newcomer Class 2 limit officially. We are excited for you and your players, and we’re anxious to hear stories of how this goes for you! Please keep us in the loop!

Clubs are allowed to hold 2 concurrent limited games alongside an open.

• If attendance supports it, clubs may hold an open and 2 concurrent limited games both in their Virtual Club and their Face-to-Face club during the same session.
• You may also hold standalone limited games, 2 concurrently, without having an open game.

Any club will be allowed to hold 2 “mini-sessions” within one ACBL “Formal Session.” For example, if you hold a game with some number of boards, and you expect to finish in plenty of time to hold another one just like it before the next “Formal Session” starts, you may do this. “Formal Sessions” for purposes of this discussion:

• Games beginning prior to 12:00pm will be considered in the Morning session
• Games beginning between 12:00pm and 5:30pm will be considered in the Afternoon session
• All games that begin after 5:30 pm will be considered in the Evening session

• Effective January 1, 2023, the sanction fees will increase from $1.00/table to $1.10/table. Your invoices on Live for Clubs will automatically reflect this small increase.
• Before this “n/18” provision, for a 10-table game, the winners got 1 masterpoint® — and it didn’t matter how many boards you played. Now, the more boards you play, the more masterpoints are awarded! (There is a cap on the multiplier, but until you hit that, every board more than 18 boards played in a game will increase the award.)Now, for that 10-table game playing 18 boards, it still awards 1.0. However, the awards rise incrementally after that, a little bit for each board over 18 that the game plays. For example, using “n/18,” if that game plays 24 boards, the awards will be multiplied by 1.3; and if it plays 27 boards, the multiplier will rise to 1.5! (The cap is there, at 27 boards, and no higher amount of boards played will increase the 1.5 multiplier.)

  Remember, this is about the number of boards you PLAY, not the number of boards IN PLAY. A 10-table game playing 8 rounds, at 3 boards/round will count as (8 x 3 = 24) boards played, even though there are 30 boards on the tables.

  Clubs don’t have to register; this will happen automatically. Just upload your games to your Live for Clubs results page, and watch the magic happen!

  Fine print: The “n/18” is presently only in place for “regular club masterpoint” games, but it will expand to all face-to-face games, no matter the rating, in the near future. This will be in place through June 30, 2025 (unless it’s renewed before that).

• The ACBL has approved awarding you more free special games for 2023. You may hold another round of 8 free weeks of Club Championships, and 2 free weeks of Upgraded Club Championships. As in the past, we ask that you offer these as full weeks, rather than one here and one there. And yes, if you have unused games in either of these categories from 2022, you may “roll them over.” As a reminder, you can go to your club’s results page, click the tiny little arrow to the right of the word “Rating,” and you will be able to view your games by which masterpoint® rating you assigned. This is an easy way for you to be able to count the games that you have already held, so you will know if you need to finish those up before diving into the new batch.
• ACBL is reinstating some special events for in-person clubs only, for 2023! Check this list, and then be sure to register your club for the ones you want to offer to your players. You may reacquaint yourself with the game formats using the “Club Manager Information” link, and then you can click “Register Your Club” right from the top of that page. It’s so terrific to see the return of all these fun events! Take advantage of the “Player Information” link at the top and email the .PDF out to your players to ratchet up their excitement, too!
• In person special events Club reference (with costs)
• Remember that face-to-face clubs may offer one Club Championship game per sanctioned session per calendar quarter, on top of the extra 8 weeks each club has been allotted for 2022.

Clubs are allowed to hold 2 concurrent limited games alongside an open.

• If attendance supports it, clubs may hold an open and 2 concurrent limited games both in their Virtual Club and their Face-to-Face club during the same session.
• You may also hold standalone limited games, 2 concurrently, without having an open game.

During Virtual Club Special Events, ACBL will allow clubs to hold an open and 3 concurrent limited games (instead of 2). This will maximize attendance, allowing players access to the Special Event masterpoints when they are available to play.

Any club will be allowed to hold 2 “mini-sessions” within one ACBL “Formal Session.” For example, if you hold a game with some number of boards, and you expect to finish in plenty of time to hold another one just like it before the next “Formal Session” starts, you may do this. “Formal Sessions” for purposes of this discussion:

• Games beginning prior to 12:00pm will be considered in the Morning session
• Games beginning between 12:00pm and 5:30pm will be considered in the Afternoon session
• All games that begin after 5:30 pm will be considered in the Evening session

Effective January 1, 2023, the sanction fees will increase from $1.00/table to $1.10/table. Your invoices on Live for Clubs will automatically reflect this small increase.

Also see https://acbl.org/club-corner/#virtual

Virtual Club Rebate Program

Effective on January 1, there will be a new fee structure in place for all Virtual Club games. Every Virtual Club game will be assessed an extra $4/table.

• All Unit Virtual Clubs will be exempt from these assessments. In order to be exempt, the Unit game must be run under the Unit’s ACBL-assigned club number (which, for all Units, begins with a “9”).

Rebates of the extra $4/table will be awarded on a sliding scale, as follows:

• All Virtual Clubs will receive a Primary Rebate for the first 50 virtual tables they hold each month. This rebate will be for the full $4/table assessment, up to and including the 50th virtual table for each club, every month.
• Any in-person club that also operates a VACB will receive a Volume Rebate, over and above the Primary Rebate above. This Volume Rebate will return the $4/virtual table for up to 3 times the number of the club’s own face-to-face total tables that month. Below is an example of how this will work.

If a Primary pool wishes, it may ask 1 or 2 of its secondary clubs to allow the Primary to count their face-to-face tables also, for the purpose of the rebate program only. The total of all the face-to-face tables, (which is calculated as Primary F2F+ Club1 F2F + Club2 F2F = Total F2F), will be used as the basis for the pool’s total Volume Rebate. Monthly, this rebate will return $4/table for up to 3 times the Total F2F tables. We will call this the Pooling Rebate. Restrictions:

• The 1 or 2 secondary face-to-face clubs invited to participate in this must be in the same District as the Primary club.
• Neither of these 2 clubs may receive a Volume Rebate in their own club.
• Any disposition of the Pooling Rebate monies would be negotiated between the Primary and its secondary clubs.
• The 1 or 2 secondary face-to-face clubs participating in this Pooling Rebate may change no more than once per year.
• Each club may belong to just one Primary club for purposes of this rebate.

NABC Virtual Fundraisers

ACBL has approved NABC Fundraiser games to be held virtually, not just face-to-face. This may not involve your club, as it only pertains to Districts who are slated to host upcoming NABCs. Each District is allowed to choose one week of virtual NABC Fundraiser games in each of the three years that precede their hosting an NABC.

We are sending emails to the Districts that are hosting NABCs in the next three years, and as they choose the weeks that suit them, we will send out instructional emails to every club in the District. These virtual games will carry an additional $4/table charge, which will be passed through to the District to assist in their hosting the NABC. These virtual games will award double regular club-rated points, 100% black.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can only run these games during the specified NABC Fundraiser weeks chosen by your District.

Special Events Schedule

All special events scheduled for Virtual Clubs in 2023 are here: https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/Clubs/OnlineCM2023.pdf – please bookmark this if you have not done so. Note: this bookmark will only be good for the 2023 schedule and will need to be updated next year. Whatever new events are approved will appear on this document, even if they’re added later in 2023. That link is for Club Managers, because it contains any extra charges you will incur if you choose to run these events. This next link is for you to distribute to your players, as it is without cost information: https://acbl.org/portfolio/onlineevents/

Virtual Clubs Visitor Policy

The Virtual Clubs Visitor Policy is no longer being applied to any club that holds fewer than 50 tables in a week. As an aside, we also do not apply the Policy to Newcomer games (0-20). Thank you for your hard work in growing the passion for this great game in those players!

All About Robots

• To seat a robot, simply click on the seat and choose Substitute. On the line, type the word robot.
• You may seat a “tempbot” at the beginning of the game, allowing yourself time to get a sub. It will “stand up and wait” when the first board is over, and you can then seat your sub. (On the sub-select screen, type tempbot instead of typing robot.)
• +hd+ Use this game hack and you will force the human partner of a robot to declare. The system will move the human to the robot seat if robot wins the contract, and will return the human to their own seat after the hand is completed. (This mimics the way that the BBO robot tournaments work.) This will also apply to any robots that you seat once the game begins, so long as the robot is seated before the auction ends. NOTE: this will also work with Tempbots.
• You may seat a sub to replace a robot AT ANY TIME, even in the middle of a hand, and even if the robot is declaring. (Not sure why we’d wish to put a new human in a seat in the middle of hand, when they can’t see what has thus far been played, but it is possible.)
• if the robot you are trying to replace is one that the player paid for at registration, you will be unable to sub this robot at all.
• if you pay for a robot partner, it’s a “smart robot.” If you seat a robot in place of a sit-out, that robot is a “basic robot.”
• Forum discussion about basic vs advanced robots: (Thanks, TDDon)
  https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/79182-basic-robots-vs-advanced/
• Robot 2/1 systems are described here.

About Saved Deals

• How to create and save hands directly on BBO for use later
• You already have your own hands, and you wish to upload them to BBO (must be in .lin format)
• How to add a set of saved deals to your games