Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bridge Coach?

Bridge Coach helps you learn from the bridge you actually play.

Using the results from your club, Bridge Coach will analyse your play and compare your results with the field to understand your strengths and weaknesses and give you personalised coaching.

Over time, Bridge Coach looks for recurring patterns so you can see where to focus on improving to get the best results.

Who is Bridge Coach for?

Bridge Coach is designed mainly for club players who already know the basics of bridge and want to improve.

You do not need to be an expert. In fact, it is particularly useful for intermediate players who want practical advice based on real hands rather than abstract textbook examples.

Do I need to upload every hand manually?

No.

Using the files your club downloads from their scoring software, you (or anyone from your club) can upload the results file for the whole session.

Bridge Coach can then import the boards, results, travellers and hand records contained in that file.

Which file formats does Bridge Coach support?

Bridge Coach is designed to support common bridge-results formats, including EBUScore USEBIO XML and PBN hand files.

Support for additional formats will be added over time.

If a results file contains the scores but not the hand records, Bridge Coach may ask you to upload the matching PBN or deal file as well.

Why are the hands sometimes missing after I upload a results file?

Some scoring files contain results and travellers but do not include the actual cards.

This often happens when the deal file was not imported into the scoring software before the results file was created.

If that happens, Bridge Coach can usually complete the session if you also upload the matching PBN hand file.

Can anyone upload a club session?

Yes.

Any registered Bridge Coach member can upload a results file and associate it with a club.

If the club does not already exist, you can add it during the upload process.

You do not need to be a club administrator.

What if my club is not listed?

You can add it.

When uploading a session, search for your club first. If it is not there, choose the option to create a new club and add the basic details.

Bridge Coach will try to spot obvious duplicates, but you can still create a new club if the suggested match is not correct.

Does Bridge Coach know which player I am?

Yes, once you have linked your profile to your player identity.

This allows Bridge Coach to recognise which boards you played and which seat you occupied.

It can then tailor the coaching to your decisions rather than giving generic analysis of the whole table.

Can I have different partners?

Absolutely.

Bridge is a partnership game, and many players play with more than one partner.

Bridge Coach lets you create different partnerships and record the methods you play with each one.

Can I tell Bridge Coach which bidding system we use?

Yes.

You can record partnership agreements such as:

• Acol

• Benji Acol

• SAYC

• 2-over-1

• 1NT range

• weak twos

• Stayman

• transfers

• Blackwood or RKCB

• opening leads

• signals

• discards

This helps Bridge Coach avoid criticising you for not using a convention you do not actually play.

Is the coaching based only on the final result?

No, and this is important.

A bad score does not automatically mean you made a mistake, and a top does not necessarily mean you played perfectly.

Bridge Coach looks at the information available, the contract, the traveller, the cards, the auction where available, the opening lead, partnership agreements and other evidence.

The aim is to assess the decision, not merely the outcome.

Does Bridge Coach use double-dummy analysis?

It may use double-dummy analysis as one source of evidence.

Double dummy is useful for showing what is theoretically possible if all four hands are known.

But real players do not see all four hands, so Bridge Coach should not automatically label every departure from double-dummy play as an error.

The coaching is intended to distinguish between theoretically perfect play and reasonable play at the table.

Can Bridge Coach get things wrong?

Yes.

Bridge is complicated, and AI-generated coaching will not always be correct.

The quality of an analysis also depends on the information available. If the auction, conventions or full card play are missing, there may be more uncertainty.

That is why Bridge Coach shows confidence where appropriate and allows you to give feedback on coaching.

What does “Was this coaching useful?” do?

It helps improve the coaching.

For each coaching insight you can answer:

• Yes

• Partially

• No

If you say the advice was not useful, you can optionally explain why.

For example, the advice might be too generic, based on the wrong partnership agreement, or simply wrong.

This feedback helps Bridge Coach understand where the coaching needs to improve.

What is the Coaching Dashboard?

The Coaching Dashboard brings together insights from many different sessions.

Instead of looking at one board at a time, it helps answer bigger questions such as:

• What am I doing well?

• What mistakes keep recurring?

• What should I focus on next?

• Am I improving?

It can also link recurring themes back to the actual boards that created them.

How quickly will Bridge Coach start identifying trends?

It needs enough evidence.

One unusual board is not a trend.

Bridge Coach should become more confident as it analyses more sessions and more relevant decisions.

With only a handful of boards, it may simply say that there is not yet enough data to draw a conclusion.

Can I replay a hand?

Yes.

Where full hand records are available, you can replay selected boards from the original contract.

This allows you to try a different line and see how the hand develops.

Can I undo a card when replaying a hand?

Yes.

If you select a card by mistake, you can undo your last decision and try again.

You can continue undoing previous decisions until you reach the starting point of the replay.

Can I see the cards as actual playing cards?

Yes.

Replay supports a full-card mode designed to feel more like sitting at a bridge table.

You can also use a more compact hand display if you prefer.

Does Bridge Coach show opponents’ cards during replay?

Not in normal play mode.

You see your own hand and dummy when it becomes visible, just as you would at the table.

An analysis mode may allow all four hands to be shown when you want to study the position.

Does Bridge Coach record the full auction?

Only if that information is available.

Standard scoring files often contain the final contract, declarer, lead and result, but not every bid.

Bridge Coach is being developed to support additional ways of capturing auctions, including manual entry.

Does Bridge Coach replace my club’s scoring software?

Not currently.

Bridge Coach works alongside existing scoring systems.

The aim is to take the results your club already produces and turn them into something much more useful for players.

Does Bridge Coach replace BridgeWebs?

Not necessarily.

Bridge Coach is primarily focused on player development, analysis and coaching.

Over time, it may add more club functionality, but the immediate aim is to help players learn from their sessions.

Is Bridge Coach only for EBU clubs?

No.

The first integrations are particularly relevant to English club bridge and EBUScore, but the product is intended for bridge players internationally.

The club model is being designed so that other national bridge organisations and scoring systems can be supported too.

Do I have to play Acol?

No.

Bridge Coach should work with different bidding systems.

The important thing is to tell it what you and your partner play.

Is Bridge Coach suitable for beginners?

It can be useful for newer players, but the current coaching is mainly aimed at players who already understand the basics of bidding and card play.

The Bridge Tips section can also be useful for learning common club-level concepts.

What are Bridge Tips?

Bridge Tips are short, practical articles covering useful bridge topics such as:

• weak twos

• declarer planning

• competitive bidding

• opening leads

• finesses

• trump management

• takeout doubles

• slam bidding

They are designed to give you one useful idea you can take to the table.

Is my bridge data private?

Bridge Coach stores the information needed to provide the service, including account details, bridge sessions, partnerships and coaching data.

Uploaded results may also contain the names of other players who took part in the event.

More detail is available in the Privacy Policy.

Will you sell my personal information?

No.

Bridge Coach is not designed around selling user data.

Can I delete my account?

Yes.

You can request deletion of your Bridge Coach account.

Historical bridge results may still retain a player's name as part of the event record, in the same way that club results normally do, but the account association can be removed where appropriate.

How much does Bridge Coach cost?

Bridge Coach is still evolving, so pricing and subscription options may change as the service develops.

Any paid features will be clearly explained before you are charged.

I think a coaching suggestion is wrong. What should I do?

Tell us.

Use the feedback control beneath the coaching insight and select No.

If possible, tell us why. For example:

• your partnership agreement is different

• the bidding analysis is wrong

• the play analysis is wrong

• important information is missing

That feedback is particularly valuable because it helps improve both your future coaching and the service more generally.

I have found a problem or have an idea. How can I tell you?

We would like to hear it.

Bridge Coach is being built around the needs of real club players, so suggestions, corrections and examples of things that do not work well are extremely useful.

Use bridgecoachadmin@icloud.com to get in touch.

What is Bridge Coach ultimately trying to do?

Something quite simple:

Help you enjoy the bridge you already play, understand it a little better, and arrive at the next session with one or two things you can do better than last time.