Bridge Federation of India (BFI) was established in 1952 as the governing body of the game of contract bridge in India. BFI is the apex body in India recognized by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports Govt. Of India in priority Category. BFI is responsible for development and conduct of the game in line with guidelines issued by World Bridge Federation (WBF), selection of national teams for various global events at the global, Asian and zonal level. It is part of the Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) created which conducts selection trials for global events to represent the zone. Apart from the above responsibilities, BFI interacts with the Government of India for various aspects relating to development of Bridge and is supported by Sports Authority of India.
BFI operates through a number of committees focussed on various activities. The apex committee is called the Executive committee which is headed by a President with a number of secretaries, treasurer and vice presidents focussed on various aspects of the game.
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Advisory and Finance Committee
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Advisory and Finance Committee
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Athletes Commission
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Ethics Commission
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Technical Development Committee
and More
BFI governs through its state associations and affiliates who are responsible for development and conduct of the game in their respective domains. Each state/affiliate is headed by a president and an organization structure to support the activities in their domain. State and affiliate units operate independently under the guidance of BFI.
"Organizations are not made, but grow" aptly describes the evolutionary process of the WBF Zone 4 and its ZC, the Bridge Federation of Asia & the Middle East (BFAME). It all started in 1977 when, having earmarked the geographical area West of the Bay of Bengal to the Mediterranean and designating it as Zone 4, the WBF Executive Council Jaime Ortiz Patino as the President assigned the task of uniting the NBOs of the aforesaid jurisdictional territory into a ZC by the then Co-Chairman of the WBF Zoning Committee, . Upon effective contacts with the NBO of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the genial and duty-conscious WBF Zoning Committee Co-Chairman provisionally commissioned Zone 4 and its ZC, later christened as the Bridge Federation of Asia & the Middle East, at a meeting held in November 1978 at Maurya Sheraton Hotel New Delhi, India. It was also at this meeting that the BFAME officers including P.C. Goenka of India and Mazhar Jafri of Pakistan were elected as President and Secretary respectively.
In 1993, pursuant to a resolution of BFAME Council, and upon approval of WBF Executive Council, the geographical jurisdiction of Zone 4 was extended to the continent of Africa and name of its Zonal Conference was modified from Bridge Federation of Asia and the Middle East (BFAME) to Bridge Federation of Africa Asia and the Middle East (BFAAME) with 22 member NBOs.
However, subsequently in 2000, with the formation and commissioning of a new/separate zone for the continent of Africa in accordance with the aspiration of the African NBOs – Zone 8 and its ZC named as African Bridge Federation, BFAME reverted back to its original name and jurisdictional area having 11 NBOs as its members.
The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the international governing body of contract bridge. The WBF is responsible for world championship competitions, most of which are conducted at a few multi-event meets on a four-year cycle. The most prestigious championships are those for national teams in Open, Women, Seniors and Mixed categories: the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup, Senior Bowl and Wuhan Cup (jointly the biennial “World Teams Championships”), and the quadrennial World Team Olympiads, incorporated in the World Mind Sports Games beginning 2008.
The World Bridge Federation was founded August 1958 by delegates from Europe, North America, and South America (now Zones 1 to 3). It is incorporated under the laws of Switzerland as a ‘non-profit’ organization. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was made the first honorary member of the WBF for his work developing the game. The current president Jan Kamras, elected in 2022.
WBF membership now comprises 103 National Contract Bridge Organizations (NBOs) with about 700,000 affiliated members, most of whom participate in bridge competitions locally and many of whom compete nationally and internationally. The NBOs belong to the “zonal organization” in one of eight geographic zones. Each National Contract Bridge Organization agrees to fulfil certain requirements, such as opening its ranks to all its citizens and residents and upholding a standard of ethics acceptable to the WBF.
Bridge Base Online
Bridge Base Online offers free and premium bridge services to bridge players of all levels.
Our home page lets you play bridge using your browser. Windows, Macs and Linux are all welcome.
We offer duplicate matchpoints, duplicate IMPs, rubber bridge, duplicate tournaments and team matches.
Our frequent "Vugraph" broadcasts present live matches from around the world and are enhanced by expert commentary. A full list of features is available here.
Our member community is large (over 250,000) and active (often over 10,000 people online).
The discussion boards are busy. Our friendly volunteers are usually online to help with questions and problems.
BBO is a business and offers ACBL-sanctioned club games as well as the occasional advertisement.
Nevertheless, BBO is primarily a labor of love. Our goal is to use BBO as a platform to promote the game of bridge throughout the world.
