T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s User Manual – uBid 3 · 3.2.3 u R an d om – C h al l e n ge s for p ar tn e r s h i p s Every week we will release 16 challenging hands which are

User Manual – uBid 3.0 Improve your bidding in

a fast and fun way,

Bid Random Hands,

Chat,

Exercise bidding themes,

Get hints during bidding,

Store your own conventions,

Compare your results with other players.

Table of Contents

1. Quick Start Guide 2

2. What’s new in uBid 3.0 2

3. Detailed User Manual 3

4. Installation & Registration 7

5. Jane bids her first game 10

6. Jane discovers My Partners functions 13

7. Miscellaneous functions 16

8. Help Center & Support 18 9. Reference Information 20

User Manual uBid 3.0 (c) NewInBridge 2018

1. Quick Start Guide

● Download the uBid Bridge App from Play Store or iTunes,

● Follow the instructions for setting up uBid,

● Read the welcome email,

● Read On Boarding Information and tips,

● Play a demo game with uBuddy ,

● Invite a partner via in-app menu MyPartners by email and select types of hands to bid,

● Ask questions to uBuddy via chat or submit tickets via in-app Help Center or send an email to [email protected],

● Read the Detailed Manual later, and discover even more exciting functionality.

Is that quick or not? Have fun with uBid 3.0!

2. What’s new in uBid 3.0 My Partners

● The way you invite partners, configure theme scope and start hands is fully overhauled and much more usable,

● Long awaited functions such as remove played hands are added,

● Annual subscribers can grant a new user 3 months uBid Premium for free Read more,

Bridge Content

● The uBasic and uStandard themes are now conveniently arranged,

● We added the uStandard Bidbook A Learn More function has been added to every finished hand Read More,

Challenges

● For partnerships: every week 16 Random are be made available, Compare your result with other partnerships,

● For individuals: every week you will be invited to bid three games with uBuddy as partner. uBuddy will bid according to the designation of a top player. Every month there are playing time prizes to win.


mailto:[email protected]

Many other improvements

● Turn Hints ON/OFF, reload single hand, show unread Chats.

3. Detailed User Manual

3.1 Basics

● You need a partner who has also installed the uBid app,

● uBid runs on iOS and Android phones and tablets,

● You and your partner are always East and West,

● uBid bids according to the uStandard Bid Book,

● Players can respond to a bid at a convenient time but should respond within 72 hours, otherwise the hand will expire,

● uBid can be customized to fit your needs which could be:

o Just bid random hands and chat with your partner,

o Exercise basic, standard and advanced conventions,

o Get explanations and hints,

o Store your own bidding methods,

● uBid allows you to

o Play with an unlimited number of partners,

o Bid an unlimited number of hands,


o Install uBid on multiple devices either on the Android or the iOS platform.

3.2 Bidding experiences

uBid supports four different bidding experiences:

● uThemes: Learn by bidding themes,

● uPreferred: Store your special partner agreements and test if you bid according to those,

● uRandom: Bid on random hands and compare your results with other partnerships,

● uMatch: Test your individual skills in a bridge contest with a top player as partner.

3.2.1 uThemes

uBid includes about 7000 different bid boards which are grouped by main theme and sub theme which we call uThemes. Each sub theme contains multiple dealsets which contain similar hands.

There are three different uTheme categories :

● uBasic: With hands specially designed for starters,

● uStandard: Hands for intermediate players and experts,

● uAdvanced: Hands that cover special conventions.

To get an idea how uThemes are structured we show the uBasic themes:

Main Theme Sub Themes Five Card Major Bidding with a direct fit

Bidding without a direct fit, Slam bidding Competitive bidding

Four Card Major Bidding without a direct fit, Bidding with a direct fit, Slam bidding Competitive bidding

Strong Opening bids 2♣ opening with single suit, 2♦/♥/♠ Semi Game Force openings, 2♣ opening balanced, 2♣ opening with two suits

NT Openings 1NT openings, 2NT openings, To strong for 1NT opening, To weak for a NT opening

Weak opening bids Pre emptive opening bid, 2♦/♥/♠ Weak openings

uThemes include editorial annotations; scores for contracts, hints and explanations and a suggested optimal auction.

A partnership can decide about the mix of hands they like to bid: for example just one main or sub theme or all themes except one. In the presented example one could select either Five Card Major or Four Card Major because these bidding methods are mutually exclusive.


You can read about Set Theme Scope here and a complete uTheme overview here.

3.2.2 uPreferred

Experts can use uBid to store their own preferred auctions.

Left, you see the Actual Auction Jane in the example does not play the 2 ♣ Drury convention which has been suggested by uStandard. This partnership

prefers a 2NT limit raise (with 4 hearts) instead. Via Actions on Hands this auction can be set as preferred. Right you how uBid shows this

3.2.3 uRandom – Challenges for partnerships

Every week we will release 16 challenging hands which are selected from a pool of randomly generated hands. Result statistics will be published every week.

3.2.4 uMatch – Challenges for individuals

Every week on Sunday you will be challenged to bid three hands with a top player who goes under the nickname uBuddy as partner. uBuddy will bid according the uStandard bid book

Your results will be released the next Sunday on ubid/newinbridge.com/uMatch which can be reached directly on the web or through the in-app menu.


Every month there will be additional subscription time as prize money to win for the three highest finished players.

3.3 The Finished hand

Figure 4 Finished hand 9190 with blue transparent

uBid is based on thematic dealsets with annotations which are composed by editors on a best effort basis. In real bridge taking the correct or variant path can lead to success or failure. uBid is not different so in rare cases the optimal contract may go down and the Suggested Auction may miss the optimal contract! And of course editorial mistakes and software bugs can not be prevented, so we are very interested in your feedback.

Read more about it here.


3.4 How does uBid evaluate your results?

You are awarded for the contract and auction.

Contract

For the contract your partnership can be awarded zero to three stars. You will be awarded three blue stars if you reach the Optimal Contract.

To decide optimal contract following aspects are taken into account:

● opponents bids,

● vulnerability,

● optimal side to make contract,

● scoring system.

Auction

If the auction, is according the editorial suggested auction or according preferred by your partnership, the My Hands item will be covered with a blue transparent.

3.5 Support

uBid has a support department that reacts fast and can be reached via in-app menu or via sending an email to [email protected]. uBid also provides an easy way to provide feedback to the editorial team Read more.

3.6 Terms & Conditions

The Terms & Conditions can be found here. In this section we sum up some important ones:

Subscribing

● Newly registered players get one month free playing time for uBid Premium,

● When the playing time expires a player can still review existing hands but cannot bid or be invited to bid,

● To continue using uBid one should subscribe via the Play store on Android or App store on iOS to one of the annual plans. Subscriptions are renewed automatically,

● You can cancel auto renewal directly after subscribing until 24 hours before expiration. Go look for iTunes here and for Android here to cancel. You will still have access to your package but the subscription will not auto renew.

● You can upgrade or downgrade a subscription during a running plan. The unused part of your current subscription will be added to your new plan.


http://ubid.newinbridge.com/terms-and-conditions/

https://goo.gl/xUxxzZ

https://goo.gl/pikZwQ

3.7 Plans

uBid comes in three packages Classic (*) Plus (**) and Premium (***) which differ in functionality. The main difference between packages is access to hints and explanations of hands with different complexity level. All users may encounter hands of any level but access to hints, explanation and Suggested Auction is dependent on the purchased plan.

Access to hints & explanations per plan Allowed to Bid

Plan / Type of hands

uBasic uStandard uAdvanced uRandom uMatch

uBid Classic ✓ ✓ ✓

uBid Plus ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

uBid Premium

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Complexity level of hands

★ ★★ ★★★ ★★★ ★★

● Subscribers to any plan can bid uRandom hand and join the uMatch contest,

● uBid Premium has as extra feature “store your own bidding methods per partner”.

As a bonus we allow subscribers with annual plans (which auto renew) to introduce a new player and grant them three months free access to uBid

Premium. We also offer Quarterly Plans without auto renewal.

4. Installation & Registration Follow these steps:

1. download

2. install

3. launch

4. register

5. onboarding

6. bid on a demo game

4.1 Download the app from Itunes or Play Market

If you have an iPhone and or an iPad go directly to https://itunes.apple.com/app/ubid-bridge/id980255984 OR search in the App Store for "uBid Bridge”. If you have an Android phone or tablet, go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newinbridge.ubid OR search in the Play Store for "uBid Bridge”.


https://itunes.apple.com/app/ubid-bridge/id980255984

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newinbridge.ubid

4.2 Install the app

Follow the instructions provided by Google and Apple.

4.3 Launch the app

After a while you will see the START screen:

4.4 Launch the app and Sign Up or Sign In You can sign up with your email address and a password or you can alternatively sign up via a social network account. Optionally the password

can be shown by tapping the icon We ask you to provide some profile information. As per our Terms and Agreements your personal data will not be shared with third parties. Go here to learn more about the profile data we store and why. If you already have a uBid account you should select Sign In.

4.5 On Boarding

After your first login you will be guided through some in-app introduction pages


5. Jane bids her first game In the next pages we will follow new uBid user Jane who will fist bid a demo game and will invite her partner Bill later.

After installation this very first screen is shown:

5.1 Jane opens hand from My turn section

In this section we describe the Hand details, how to get hints during bidding, how uBid monitors Jane’s bidding and how Jane submits her first bid.

In the following section we describe how a hand is finished and the information that is provided.


5.2 Jane finished her first hand

Jane and uBuddy continued their bidding. Below is shown what happens when the final contract has been reached: Both hands and the uTheme, Suggested Auction are shown and the contract is star-rated.

In the next section we describe how Jane can evaluate the result with her partner and can learn more about the theme and how to set an auction as preferred.

5.3 Jane chats about the auction and discovers Learn More

Background

It is important to understand

● that uBid is not prescribing uStandard or other methods

● that you can store you own methods


● the concept of a dealset. This is a set of identical boards which share same optimal contract, suggested auction and scores Read more

5.4 Jane reviews Drury

Though Jane has decided to set auction 1♥ -2NT -3 ♥ as preferred.she wants to how the less risky 2♥ could have been reached. Jane follows up the chat with uBuddy and tapped Learn More. The Drury theme description is shown.

The conventional bid of 2♣ is explained.

Jane likes Drury and decides to implement the Drury convention in her bidding system. She taps Actions again which reverts to bidding uStandard.

Background

When you finish a hand and you evaluate the contract and the auction with your partner you can consider these three cases:

Opinion about suggested auction Action

You both agree None

You both disagree and your actual auction is preferred

One of the partners can set the actual auction as preferred

Your both disagree but you actual auction is not the way to go

You can replay the hand and bid according preferred and then set the auction as preferred

5.5 Jane wants to bid without the help of Hints

After some time Jane wants to test if she can bid without the help of hints. She can Turn Hints OFF for all following new games in the in-app menu.


5.6 Hints can be also be turned ON and OFF in a game

Please Note: Hints in a specific game are either turned OFF or ON for both players.

6. Jane discovers My Partners functions The many options of the My Partners function will now be described.

6.1 Jane invites Bill as partner

Jane wants to invite Bill as partner and start a game with him. Jane Taps on Add+ as instructed in the tip

When Bill opens the app there will be two games started; one with uBuddy and one with Jane.


6.2 Jane wants to start a new hand with one tap. There are two ways to quickly start games

● Start new hand with last partner (from MyHands) When Billy and Mary have finished a hand, uBid remembers who your most recent partner was. In order to start a new hand with the last partner, Billy can click on (+) and a new hand will be started for him and Mary.

● Start new hand with selected partner(from My Partners)

● Go to the in-app menu My Partners

● Select a partner

● Tap on +

6.3 Set Theme Scope per partner

You and your partner can select which bidding themes you would like to practice. Select the themes that you want to exercise with your partner. Any combination is possible. You can select and exclude any themes. We show some examples:

6.3.1 Jane sets Theme Scope with Bill and Tommy

Jane wants to bid

● uBasic with 5 Card Major and then exclude 4 Card Major

● uRandom


Jane taps Update Theme Scope followed by a tap on the + and a hand is started with selected partner.

6.4 Remove Hands or Partner

Many users requested these function. It is easy after the update to uBid 3.0.

Tap Edit | Select the red icon | Remove Hands or Partner | Done

6.5 Grant a new user playing time

Jane has purchased an annual subscription and is now entitled to introduce a new user and grant 3 months playing time depending on the package.


7. Miscellaneous functions Searching for hands

Just enter a board number or partners nickname and you will be shown details of hands or partner.

7.1 Sorting of hands

You can sort on partner, board number, time, result and on (un-) read chats.

7.2 Set Theme Scope per partnership

You and your partner can select which bidding themes you would like to practice. Go to the in-app menu > set Themescope > select the Themes that you want to exercise with your partner. Any combination is possible; just select one or exclude some of the themes.

7.2.1 Actions on Hands- sharing hands

Sharing hands can serve many purposes. You can share any selection of hands. You can filter on status (ongoing or finished), specific partner or

showing good and bad results. uBid will store a screenshot of the hands in a PDF file which can then easily be shared using email and through social networks. First we show a practical example of sharing one hand:

7.2.2 Jane submits question about a hand to the uBid editor

Jane wonders why 1♥ in the demo hand with uBuddy is awarded 3 stars. She wants to show the specific hand to the editor. This is done in this way:

Jane opens the hand in question and taps Actions in the bottom toolbar.

This dialog will pop-up:

Jane taps on Share and uBid will ask by which communication channel the hand should be shared:


Jane selects mail as communication channel and uBid generates a draft email that should be completed:

7.2.3 Jane completes the mail which includes a link to the hand


7.2.4 Jane wants to share multiple hands at the same time

You can access these functions by tapping on the icon in the upper right corner of My Hands

7.2.5 Sharing multiple hands from MyHands View

It is also possible to share multiple hands at the same time You can do this from the My Hands by tapping the share icon

8. Help Center & support 8.1 uBid Support Department uBid support department can be reached by email [email protected]. uBid’s Help Center can be reached via in-app menu:

8.2 How get help There are multiple ways to get help:

● Chat with uBuddy. uBuddy is Jane’s first partner as will it be for any new user. New users can directly ask questions through chat. Please allow some time for uBuddy to respond because uBuddy plays many games at the same time.

● Tap on (?) to get help per page ● Submit a ticket by email to [email protected] ● Go in-app menu/help center Submit a request




8.3 Self Help functions

uBid operation depends on many components such as third party code, performance of the handheld, operating system version, proper Internet connection, wireless transmission, notification systems run by Google and Apple which are not under control of NewInBridge B.V. Of course uBid’s code includes bugs. Bug free software has still to be invented.

8.3.1. Frozen Hand

The rare “Frozen Hand” issue can be caused by a variety of environmental issues, such a low or cluttered memory, high latency of internet and more. Symptoms are:

● The keyboard is frozen while its your turn to bid. ● A hand does not move from My Turn to Partners Turn while Player did

the last bid. Try the following in presented order :

Action Event

Open the Frozen hand Tap Reload Hand

Only the frozen hand will be reloaded

In app menu Reload Hands All hands will be reloaded

In app menu Logout | Launch uBid uBid is restarted

Uninstall | Download | reinstall uBid Last updated version is installed

8.3.2. Order is not processed

uBid expiration time is not updated while expected after payment. This happens sometime due to a network issue. Easy to fix: Go In-app\My Profile \Player Profile\Restore Purchases


9. Reference Information

9.1 About your profile data and why we need it

After entering your profile you can view your profile:

9.2 uThemes overview

uBasic Themes Five Card Major Bidding with a direct fit

Bidding without a direct fit, Slam bidding Competitive bidding

Four Card Major Bidding without a direct fit, Bidding with a direct fit, Slam bidding Competitive bidding

Strong Opening bids 2♣ opening with single suit, 2♦/♥/♠ Semi Game Force openings, 2♣ opening balanced, 2♣ opening with two suits

NT Openings 1NT openings, 2NT openings, To strong for 1NT opening, To weak for a NT opening

Weak opening bids Preëmptieve opening bid, 2♦/♥/♠ Weak openings


uStandard Themes

Below an example (meny My Partners) of several uStandard themes and subthemes, for example Opponents open Weak 2 - Overcall (subtheme).

uAdvanced Themes

An example of uAdvanced theme Rodwell and subthemes in-app (menu My Partners):


9.3 How is the convention Drury implemented in uBid?

Below we show quite a complicated drawing indeed! Yes we are aware of it. But the story can be told in 4 bullet points:

● uBid bridge content is based on dealsets - including 7 to 16 similar hand distributions *) generated by the uBid Editorial Team. Each board could be bid identically,

● Every dealset has a Learn More section,

● uBid will select hands randomly out of a pool of hands you configured in Theme Scope,

● Below you see 3 of the in total 27 dealsets by which the Drury convention is covered in uBid.

*) Our editorial team tries to make the identical hands looking different. It is not always possible to create auction-identical hand distributions that are not too easy recognizable, therefore there are a variable number of identicals per dealset.


Documents

T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s User Manual – uBid 3 · 3.2.3 u R an d om – C h al l e n ge s for p ar tn e r s h i p s Every week we will release 16 challenging hands which are