Here is the september newsletter :

Hello everyone,

Here is the hot news: the 10 years Funbridge teeshirt and sweatshirt are available, and the next elimination tournament.

In order to start the summer right, FunBridge offers you some free Premium months for any subscription taken out before the 30st of June, 2011.

Indeed, you only have to choose the Premium subscription which fits the best your needs to benefit from these current offers:

• For 1 month in tacite renewal, 1 additional month offered : 9,90 €
• 3 months of Premium subscription, 1 additional month offered : 29,00 €
• 6 months of Premium subscription, 2 additional months offered : 49,00 €
• 1 year of Premium subscription, 3 additional months offered : 79,00 €

These newly subscribed months will of course be added to the Premium days you still dispose of.
If you want to learn more about this offer: click here.

Reminder : By becoming a premium funbridge member, you can benefit of :

• 100 series tournaments per period of 15 days
• 2 daily tournaments of 20 deals
• Training Tournaments in unlimited quantity
• The possibility to create and play Open Tournaments
• Compare yourself to the best players by challenging the Elite series members
• The possibility to challenge any other player

Good tournaments, good bridge, best regards.

This version is a test version; this means that:

• You will be among the first to try it, and the first to let us know what you think about it.
• You will find in it all the Funbridge2 current features and some new features.
• Your opinion will enable us to fine tune this version before officially releasing it.
• Once this version installed on your computer, you will have two Funbridge software installed, with two distinctive shortcut icons. If the new release is not convenient to you, you will always have the option to use the current one.

What is new with this version?

• A redesigned game table, with larger cards and bidding cards.
• Choice between two interfaces: orange as the current one and a “steel blue” that is clearer, more readable.
• New option at the table: take back a played card (undo) and requested suit pre selection (no more click error).
• Option to disable the Open Tournaments alerts.
• And the possibility for anyone to create Open Tournaments without mandatory pre-registration and not counting for the ELO ranking.

How to benefit first from this new version and give us your opinion?

• To test it, click this link, upload and install this version.
• To let us know what you think, you comment it on the forum here

If you are experiencing problems or would like to leave us comments, don’t be shy, send us a message from : http://www.funbridge.com/uk/hotline.asp.

The Funbridge Series existed for several years and have not been modified since their creation.

Originally planned as the French Bridge Federation series, the up growing number of players on Funbridge result in the fact that we got away of the model, mainly when it came to the players distribution in the series. In fact the number of players in the series 1 and 2 is too important today in regard of other series.

This is why we will proceed to an upgrade in the series computation that will be in effect on June 1st, 2011.

What will be the changes?

• The number of players in the Elite series will remain the same: 50 players in the series.
• The 1 Spade series will now be limited to 150 players.
• The breakdown in the other series will be done with the following percentages:

As a reminder, here is how the breakdown is done actually:

How will we proceed?

• For the May 16 to 31 period, the displayed forecast will be calculated using new the method.
• On June 1st we will apply the new breakdown.
• For practical reason, there will not be game reports emails and awards for the May 16 to 31 period.

What are the consequences for the players?
Most players in series 1 and 2 are likely to move down by one, two or even three series. Only the Elites, the best players in 1 Spade and the players in the lower series will not be affected.

Emails of game report, what is it?
There is currently 2 kind of game report on Funbridge:
The intermediate reports: you receive this email each 10 series tournaments played. It shows your current ranking in the period and your scores on the last 10 tournaments.
The end of period reports: this email is sent the 1st and the 16th of each month. It shows your final ranking in your serie in the period and your evolution in series.

We are proud to present you in preview the new game reports emails. Prettier, more clear, you will find now relevant information more easily: your evolution in the series and the podium of this one.

And because a picture is better a thousand words, here is what they look like now:

Tomorrow in your inbox! (If you find there any problem, please let us know!)

We are also working on an email for the dailyy tournament game report.. It will be sent the aftermath of those days when you played one of these tournaments.

We remind you that you can choose to stop receiving these emails from your account from the Funbridge website, in your Account, Game Report here: http://www.funbridge.com/web2/index.asp?page=compte-rendu

A new version of the FunBridge Game Engine is now available.

As of monday, april 11, 2011, this new version of the Game Engine will be active over some practice and open tournaments. It will be available over the daily tournament as of tuesday, 12 and over the tournaments called “Playing in your serie” as of april 16th which correponds to the begin on a new period on FunBridge.

The upgrading of this new game engine version will occur automatically from the software Funbridge. If this automatic update does not occur, please download and install the last version of FunBridge (which includes this new game engine as of monday) directly from the website www.funbridge.com.

Details about this new bridge engine:
- Correction of intempestive pass : over BW, cue-bid, 4th suit, BW answers.
- Included : all developpements after 1S 4th suit

Ahead first, find below the Funbridge T-shirt special 10 years!

Funbridge 10 years T-shirt will soon be available on our website.

Meanwhile and for the faithful readers of this blog, we offer 10 t-shirt (1 / person) to the first 10 that we will demand!

How to participate? It’s simple, just send us an email to teeshirt@funbridge.com with your name, postal address and shirt size (S, M, L, XL, XXL).

We will post a comment here when the 10 shirt have been won!

Have fun!

The Diip studio is working on a camera system able to read cards played in live!

The aim is to easily broadcast live or with a slight delay a bridge tournament.

This is working with small cameras filming the cards and positioned on the folding panel:

Two cameras are connected to a computer with software that can recognize the cards.

Watch the demo just below:

Learn more on their website: www.studiodiip.com

Greetings to you readers of the new Funbridge blog.

The idea behind this blog is to have a way to share and exchange ideas with the Funbridge players on Funbridge as it is now and how it should be in the future. So we will use this blog to let you know before releasing them, the features we are planning to set up in the future.

This blog will also enable us to poll the readers if necessary. You will be able to participate in those polls and let us know what you think.

But let’s not wait any longer; let’s get to it right now: please look at the following topic…