People starting out playing bridge may not know the places to play online or the best ones. Even experienced players may not have thought hard to realize the best place to play for their skill level and enthusiasm. This article is meant to make clear the differences and benefits of each place to play online. Mostly though, to learn and get better at bridge almost requires you to play often online, unless you play often with friends. Even then, abilites improve greatly by playing against many different people. (Update 2022: The original article talked about Yahoo! Games Bridge and Pogo Bridge, which sadly don’t exist anymore. Now Bridge Base Online is the only real free bridge game online.)
Bridge Base Online is about the only free service, but is dedicated to bridge alone. This means advanced and serious players frequent the site often – many of them, and from around the world, not just local to the US. More advanced controls and display is featured, and a very large discussion forum as well.
OKBridge is for bridge players looking for a premium experience. It is $99/yr or $10/mo and has a 14-day trial. For the price, you get an quality interface superior to the others, bridge articles, and dedicated moderators. I tried it recently (2022 update) and while it provides the best value for the money, $0.70/day for multiple ACBL-sanctioned online tourneys a day, most people on the site are advanced players and focused on the the tournaments, and even play on Bridge Base Online as well, for more casual games, I suppose.
Swan Games is a service I don’t know much about, I tried to sign up but they required me to add an ACBL membership number to start. You can get a guest ACBL membership if you want to try that and this out, however.
Fun Bridge seems more interested in having a smartphone interface and play on the go style. It has a limited amount of plays for free and after that you have to pay to keep playing.
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