[Kemistry]

How many hands are played per year on BBO? How is this changing over time? How many hands were played in clubs and tournaments for the same years?

It seems like I often see 6000 or 10,000 people logged into BBO, and I imagine there are many more than that sitting at tables in clubs or tournaments. But is 1% of all bridge being played online now? 10%?

Is anyone tracking statistics of both online and face-to-face? It seems like relevant information for long term promotion of bridge.

Thanks, Rick

[TylerE]

If we only count sanctioned club games and tournements, my guess is that the answer is OVER 50%. Let's run some numbers... pulling these from you-know-where, but let's just roll with it, ok?


Average of 8k players online throughout the day, of who half are actually playing, which makes for 1000 active tables.

Let's say on average each table plays a hand every 5 minutes.

That's 12 hands per hour, for a total of 12k hands per hour.
That's 288k hands per day
, 105 *million* hands per year.

Lets say the ACBL has 1000 active clubs, each of which averages 5 sessions per week, with 10 tables per section.

That's 5 * 10 * 26 hands per week, 1300 hands, 67000 per year, over roughly 65 million per year for all clubs.

Tournaments are probably have that, which ends up being very close to the BBO figure.

[Kemistry]

Those are the types of guesses I had been making as well, but remember that BBO is international, and ACBL is just one country. I also wonder what the ACBL portion is of hands played worldwide.

[Siegmund]

The acbl claims, on its website (http://www.acbl.org/...ganization.html) to sanction "3 million tables of bridge in play annually in clubs and tournaments" which presumably translates into something around 70 million hands. TylerE's rough ballpark estimate came out remarkably close.

[Mbodell]

Siegmund, on Jul 26 2010, 04:28 PM, said:

The acbl claims, on its website (http://www.acbl.org/...ganization.html) to sanction "3 million tables of bridge in play annually in clubs and tournaments" which presumably translates into something around 70 million hands. TylerE's rough ballpark estimate came out remarkably close.

Don't forget that online ACBL BBO games are double counted there.

[cloa513]

Kemistry, on Jul 26 2010, 03:48 PM, said:

Those are the types of guesses I had been making as well, but remember that BBO is international, and ACBL is just one country. I also wonder what the ACBL portion is of hands played worldwide.

ACBL covers four countries at least: USA, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

[tgoodwinsr]

Puerto Rico is (still) part of USA.

[Siegmund]

Quote

Don't forget that online ACBL BBO games are double counted there.

The actual wording is "3 million tables of bridge in play annually in clubs and tournaments and an additional 300,000 tables online", so I was of the opinion that BBO games were not being double-counted, but I can't swear to how the ACBL counts.