[ges239]

How do I play rubber bridge on BBO?

[daveharty]

ges239, on 2012-November-14, 20:45, said:

How do I play rubber bridge on BBO?

1. Close your laptop and place it in the center of the table.
2. Shuffle and deal.

EDIT: I didn't mean for that to sound snarky, I just don't think there is a way to do it. The closest thing you can do is open a "Total Points" table.

[Zelandakh]

Rubber bridge is a scoring option on BBO, or at least used to be. When opening the table, select the table option for rubber bridge scoring (it will be in the same list as IMPs, MPs and Teaching). You need to do this at table creation.

[tytobyto]

ges239, on 2012-November-14, 20:45, said:

How do I play rubber bridge on BBO?

How do I learn to play rubber bridge better?
When we get together with a neighboring couple to play bridge it's going to be rubber bridge (I live in Chicago and I've never met anyone who plays "Chicago"). Just because we may talk more than play when we're together doesn't mean we don't care about how well we play. I've glanced through some bridge books. Off the top of my head I'd guess that perhaps 3 pages out of a thousand discuss bidding with a partial (and one of those 3 pages says the exact opposite of a page in another book).
I belong to organizations like "Seed Savers" (to preserve genetic diversity in domesticated plants) and "Nature Conservancy" (to preserve bioversity in general). Perhaps we need an organization to preserve Whist derivations, if not Contract Bridge itself.

[blackshoe]

tytobyto, on 2012-December-17, 18:53, said:

How do I learn to play rubber bridge better?

Same way you learn to play duplicate bridge better. Same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.

Study the hands you play. Talk about how you might have played, or defended, better. When you can play and defend well, work on your bidding. You don't need a fancy system with a lot of conventions. You need solid understandings with your partner. What's forcing? What's not forcing? What do we do when they interfere? What do we do when they open the ball? If you can play and defend well, and have solid understandings about what your bids mean in various situations, you'll do well, whatever the form of the game.

[P_Marlowe]

tytobyto, on 2012-December-17, 18:53, said:

How do I learn to play rubber bridge better?
When we get together with a neighboring couple to play bridge it's going to be rubber bridge (I live in Chicago and I've never met anyone who plays "Chicago"). Just because we may talk more than play when we're together doesn't mean we don't care about how well we play. I've glanced through some bridge books. Off the top of my head I'd guess that perhaps 3 pages out of a thousand discuss bidding with a partial (and one of those 3 pages says the exact opposite of a page in another book).
I belong to organizations like "Seed Savers" (to preserve genetic diversity in domesticated plants) and "Nature Conservancy" (to preserve bioversity in general). Perhaps we need an organization to preserve Whist derivations, if not Contract Bridge itself.

Rubber Bridge is a scoring method, so if you improve at other forms, you will improve playing Rubber,
but for a better understanding of the finer points of Rubber Bridge See also
http://www.bridgebas...-rubber-bridge/

My suggestion is to switch to Chicago (or use Russian Scoring) instead of Rubber Bridge, but if you
want to play Rubber, your best bet would be old Bridge Books.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Vampyr]

P_Marlowe, on 2012-December-18, 09:26, said:

My suggestion is to switch to Chicago (or use Russian Scoring)

If there are four people playing, I don't see the point of playing Chicago. The four-deal "rubber" is helpful in opening up the table so that others can cut in.

Have just looked up Russian Scoring. I guess it's OK if people are very keen to try to minimise the luck factor, but it produces non-bridge scores that seem unsatisfying; plus, of course, HCP are not always the, er, point of the hand. Better to keep it "real bridge" and play for stakes you can easily afford.

Quote

instead of Rubber Bridge, but if you
want to play Rubber, your best bet would be old Bridge Books.

Yes, start with SJ Simon's books, obviously.

In any case, much of what applies to IMPs and total points applies to rubber. When I have played rubber bridge, I have never seen anyone whose strategy involved staying at the 3-level instead of bidding a risky game so that we will have 90 on for the next hand. Just try to bid your games and then try to make them.

[mycroft]

Rubber is a very interesting game that I'd like to learn more about. I'm guessing my learned duplicate tendencies would lead to some interesting issues. But I don't gamble, and nobody seems to want to just play rubber bridge without it costing the losers. But it would have to be real rubber, not Chicago or anything else (Russian scoring, in particular, throws the luck the other way - you'd rather have 10 combined HCP than 30 as you're going to lose with 30 unless you find a shape-slam; and you don't need 30 for a shape-slam :-).

I've been known to play "losers buy the drinks"; I don't have a problem with that.

[Zelandakh]

The fact that Rubber bridge is based on gambling and it was the standard form of the game when I was young kept me out of bridge clubs for many years, since I refused to do it. The fact that it was against the Law for a child to gamble but the clubs were quite willing for me to play (but not willing for me to play without stakes) also bothered me somewhat.

As a student I played a version of Chicago where you took the hcp of each side and gave 20 points for each hcp difference to the side with fewer (eg 25-15 = +200 to the side with 15). This usually did not compensate fully but was better than nothing. I think 25 points per hcp difference would be better and this is simpler than going the full Russian route.