¶ Start a Team Match
A team match is arranged on one page. You fill in a short settings form, seat your own team, invite the other team, and press Start Match when both sides are ready. Creating a team and creating a match are both free.
📋 At a glance
What it is: A match between two teams of four, played in an open room and a closed room.
Who it is for: Anyone who wants to play teams, from a friendly to a club fixture.
You will need: Three team mates, or bots to stand in for them.
¶ Overview
Everything happens on the tournament page for the match. You do not need to build a team first: you can seat people straight into the match and save them as a team while you are there.
There is no clock on the arrangement. The match ends when its boards have been played, and nobody is replaced by a bot for thinking too long. A match that nobody starts disappears after about a day.
¶ How to arrange a match
¶ Step 1: Open Create Tournament
Click Tournaments in the left menu, then Create Tournament at the top right. Six choices appear. The one you want is TEAM MATCH, described as Arrange a match between two teams, built and seated right on the tournament page.
The tile next to it, TEAMS, is a different thing: that one is a tournament that several teams enter. Pick TEAM MATCH when you want one team against one other team.
¶ Step 2: Fill in the match settings
A short form appears. The title and description are written for you, so you can change them or leave them.
- Number of boards: eight to start with.
- Allow undo: lets players take a card or a bid back. Ticked.
- Enable screens: turns on virtual screens, so partners cannot see each other during the auction.
- Allow kibitzers: lets other people watch. Ticked. Untick it to keep the match private.
- Barometer: shows the score while play is going on. Ticked. Untick it and neither side sees the score until the match ends.
- Minibridge: plays the match as Minibridge, with no auction.
Click Create Match.
¶ Step 3: Meet the match page
The match now has its own page. Across the top you have Update to change the settings, Duplicate to make another match just like it, and Results. Underneath, a line of facts: the date, the time, the fee, the number of boards, whether the deals are random or preset, and the scoring.
Play Starts in counts down. If nobody starts the match in that time, the arrangement expires.
¶ Step 4: Fill the Home seats
Two panels, Home and Visitors, each with a table. Notice the labels under each seat: Home sits North and South in the Open Room and East and West in the Closed Room. The Visitors are the other way round. That is what makes it a teams match: the same boards are played in both rooms, with the two sides swapped.
If you already have a team, choose Select existing team and pick it. Otherwise click a seat. Three choices appear:
- SIT: take the seat yourself.
- INVITE: ask another player to take it.
- BOT: fill it with a robot.
¶ Step 5: Save the team, which sends the invitations
This is the step to get right. Seating people does not invite them yet. Until you save, every seat is only a draft, marked Not saved, and the page tells you so: Seats are a draft until the team is saved, saving sends each seated player their invitation.
So fill all four seats in one go, type a name in New team name, and click Save as Team. The invitations go out then, and your team is saved for next time.
If you leave the page before saving, the seats are lost and you start again.
¶ Step 6: Do the same for the Visitors, then start
The Visitors panel works exactly the same way. Once both teams are complete and registered, Start Match comes to life and the match begins when you press it.
¶ Watching, and running the match
Unless you unticked Allow kibitzers, other people can watch the match live, switch between the two tables, and see what the other room did with the same board.
A director who stays out of the seats keeps full powers over both tables. A director who sits down and plays gives up the view of the other table, which is only fair.
Team matches do not appear in the general All, Scheduled or Running lists. While one is running you will find it under Kibitz if watching is allowed, and your own matches are always under My.
¶ Related guides
- Teams: how teams work on Bridge Champ
- Check Team Match Results
- Patton Score
- Tournament Settings: every field explained
Stuck arranging a match? Write to us at info@bridgechamp.com.