[MShechSon]

Hello! Go easy on me please, I’m new. I joined the ACBL as a guest in September. I added my ACBL member info into BBO the same day. Since then I’ve been playing a lot of the ACBL world robot tournaments for free. I am fairly terrible so being able to rapidly learn by playing tons of free tournaments has been awesome and I’ve been slowly accumulating microscopic amounts of BB points on the rare occasion when I don’t finish at the bottom.

Today I clicked to start the daylong 18 hand tournament and didn’t realize that today, all the daily October 2 tournaments that were free as of yesterday (ie the Oct 1 was free when I did it yesterday) are now costing BB$. I just tapped to continue not realizing it would charge me ~$4. I am not asking for a refund (I think the site deserves my $ after all my grinding this past month) but I’m trying to understand what happened…?

Is it normal that they cost $ and I was essentially given a free month because my ACBL points hadn’t been reported yet?

[smerriman]

Yes, it's normal they cost - I believe they're only free if you have less than 5 masterpoints.

[diana_eva]

MShechSon, on 2024-October-02, 08:36, said:

Hello! Go easy on me please, I'm new. I joined the ACBL as a guest in September. I added my ACBL member info into BBO the same day. Since then I've been playing a lot of the ACBL world robot tournaments for free. I am fairly terrible so being able to rapidly learn by playing tons of free tournaments has been awesome and I've been slowly accumulating microscopic amounts of BB points on the rare occasion when I don't finish at the bottom.

Today I clicked to start the daylong 18 hand tournament and didn't realize that today, all the daily October 2 tournaments that were free as of yesterday (ie the Oct 1 was free when I did it yesterday) are now costing BB$. I just tapped to continue not realizing it would charge me ~$4. I am not asking for a refund (I think the site deserves my $ after all my grinding this past month) but I'm trying to understand what happened…?

Is it normal that they cost $ and I was essentially given a free month because my ACBL points hadn't been reported yet?

ACBL games are not free, but BBO offers them for free to players with less than 5 masterpoints, as an easy way to help them win their first points without stress and without committing to spend money before they are comfortable with the mechanics of online play.

At the beginning of the month, BBO reported your ACBL masterpoints won in September to the ACBL, who processed them and added them to your account. So now, you have more than 5 masterpoints (congrats, by the way!) and you are seeing the normal entry fee for these games.

If you'd like to continue to play for free, we also have a daily free game in the ACBL Clubhouse, which is free up to 20 ACBL Masterpoints. This one is "in real time", with other players, so you would have to login and be online when it starts to play it, and sit and play your 12 boards in one go, keeping a reasonable tempo (it's 8 minutes per board, which is usually plenty). To play that one, instead of clicking ACBL World, click the "ACBL Clubhouse" button, and you'll see a free one there -- it starts at 2pm New York time every day and it';s 12 boards long.

[MShechSon]

Thanks, all. It seems that I didn’t know what I had until I lost it, as is the way of things. Perfectly fitting as the son of an accomplished bridge player who only was convinced to take up the game upon her death.

[Aceotto]

good luck all new players I remember how exciting this game was when I joined a Bo in 1985