Team games are a popular feature on Bridge Base Online (BBO), whether you’re looking to practice your IMP skills, keep in touch with friends between tournaments, or enjoy some competitive bridge with friends.
Team match creation is included with BBO Premium membership. The host needs a Premium membership to create a team match. Players who are invited to reserved seats do not need a Premium membership. They play as the host’s guests, and the boards played in the team match do not count toward their daily free-hand allowance.
Official bridge organizations and leagues that need to create team matches for their events can contact us at [email protected]. BBO can provide suitable Premium accounts at no cost for official local or national league events.
To create a team match:
- Under Play or Watch Bridge, click Team Matches. This will take you to the list of Pending Team Matches.
- Click the purple Create Team Match button. This will open the Team Match creation menu, where you can choose your match settings.
- Enter a name for your match in the Title field. You can also enter the team names and add a description. The Description field can also be used for additional settings, such as +video+ for accounts with video chat enabled.
- In the Options tab, choose your scoring format and other settings, such as whether kibitzers and undos are allowed.
This is also where you choose the number of boards, from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 32.
Activating the Barometer option shows what has been played at the other table during the match. - Choose whether you want to play randomly generated hands or use boards prepared in advance.
- Important: On the Reserve Seats screen, enter the BBO usernames of the players who will participate in the match. Seat all four members of one team in the top half and all four members of the other team in the lower half.
All players must be online. Check that the correct partnerships have been entered before creating the match.
Players invited to reserved seats do not need a Premium membership to play. They play as the host’s guests, even if the match is longer than the daily free-hand allowance. - Once you have selected your options and entered the player names, click Create Team Match. Invitations will be sent to the players whose seats you reserved. Once the players accept, the team match will begin.
Note: A team match can be created with anywhere from zero to eight players. If you create a match with unreserved seats, it will appear on the Pending Team Matches screen, where other players can request to join by clicking an empty seat.
Players who join an unreserved seat this way are not playing as the host’s guests. For Basic members, the boards they play will count toward their daily free-hand allowance.
Additional Team Match Settings
You can add the following codes to the Description field when creating your team match:
+nokill+
Keeps your team match pending until all seats are filled.
+slow+
Prevents the match from automatically timing out if it takes longer to complete.
+silentspecs+
Blocks kibitzer chat with the players. Kibitzers can still chat privately with each other.
+private+
Prevents other players from requesting an empty seat. This is useful if you want to create the match with empty seats and invite players yourself.
+video+
Activates video chat for the players in your team match. Video chat is supported on the web and Android app. Players using Apple devices need to access BBO through Chrome or Safari to use video chat.
+noinvite+
Available to selected accounts, such as service accounts provided by BBO to local or national bridge organizations. This setting skips the invitation process and seats the players directly in the team match.
To use several codes, simply enter them one after another:
+private+ +noinvite+ +slow+
Using Pre-Dealt Hands (Saved Deals)
To use pre-dealt hands in your team match, first upload them to your Deal Archive (in the Account tab).
Once the hands have been uploaded:
- Select Use saved deals.
- The Select Folder button will become active. Click it.
- Select the folder containing the hands you want to use, then click Select.
