Great Subscription Gift Ideas for Card Players
by Alex J. Coyne © Great Bridge Links
The holiday season is here, and it’s time to break out the holiday music – or not, depending on how you feel about Boney M’s selection of Christmas hits around this time of year. It’s also time to finish up your purchase list for the card lovers in your life – yes, even when that card lover might be yourself.
It can be hard to buy gifts for people who seem like they either have everything or want nothing. A subscription to something you know someone will love is always a great idea around their birthday, year-end or just because it’s time for a cool gift to say thanks. Experience is one of the best gifts you can give and environmentally friendly as well!
Here are some of the coolest bridge and card-related subscriptions you can get.
NCBOs
There’s a national bridge organization in almost every country in the world. http://www.worldbridge.org divides the bridge world into 8 zones. You can find the list on our Bridge Atlas. Some of the zones have membership based organizations and if the person on your list lives in a zone like Zone 2 (American Contract Bridge League) a gift membership could be the perfect thing.
The ACBL (Canada, USA, Mexico) offers a holiday gift membership here. And note, a membership comes with a monthly bridge magazine, The ACBL Bulletin, subscription.
Blackjack
Our Finnish readers might enjoy a look at Blackjack netissä which offers the opportunity to learn about history, description and blackjack game rules. Learn about blackjack online, practice and play free and fine online casinos where you can play for real money. In Finnish
Card Sites
Sky Bridge Club is a live online bridge club offering an interactive forum, bridge lessons for beginner and advanced players and live bridge games and tournaments. It’s one of the top bridge clubs out there with thousands of participating members, many of them bridge experts, and a subscription costs only $10 per month.
https://www.bridgeclublive.com
Bridge Club Live is another live online bridge club that’s become immensely popular with subscribers. If you’d like to buy a subscription to Bridge Club Live, full membership costs £160 – and yes, while the price is in GBP, you can still join even if you’re not from the UK.
Funbridge is a vast platform for bridge players, and it’s another excellent bridge club that can compare with the rest – which subscription you pick is honestly just down to individual player preferences. One of the great things about Funbridge is that you can try out the service for free as a trial first, and then choose the subscription service – $13.99 per month for Funbridge Premium that offers you an unlimited amount of play.
You can also subscribe to one of their slightly cheaper https://www.bridgeclublive.com.
No Fear Bridge is one of the best learning platforms for bridge players, and it allows you to learn at your own pace by working your way through their lesson program. If you’d like to order a subscription to No Fear Bridge, it’s going to cost you £48 pounds for a year – or £15 for a 3 month subscription.
Bridge Baron should be your choice if you want to purchase some old-fashioned software instead of a subscription – and this software has won multiple awards as one of the best bridge programs out there. Purchasing the Windows CD for Bridge Baron 28 for only $64.95, or you can purchase Tournament CD’s are also available, showing you some of the plays of the great bridge tournaments.
Bridge Pro offers another great software alternative if you’d like to purchase once-off software instead of a subscription. It’ll cost you $69.99, or you can purchase it with the companion bridge-hand software Card Stuffer for $89.95.
Magazines
Card Player Magazine features everything a card aficionado would want to see in a magazine, from the newest in tournament news through to columns from the world’s best players. There are 26 issues every year, and several different subscription options.
You can subscribe to Card Player Magazine for one year for $39.95 (United States), $59.95 (Canada) and $75.95 for international subscriptions.
You can also pick a two year subscription at $59.95 (United States), $99.95 (Canada) and $125.95 for international users.
Better Bridge Magazine is run by bridge teacher and celebrity bridge player Audrey Grant – and it’s filled with advice, columns, lessons and everything else bridge. There are 6 issues per year, and you can subscribe to it for just $29.
Bridge World Magazine is one of the oldest bridge publications in existence, and they offer a special section of their website for gift subscriptions to the magazine – 12 issues per year.
For users in Australia (or frequent travellers!), there’s a subscription to the Australian Bridge Magazine – and they’ve got it packed full with columns, lessons and more. A yearly subscription costs $112 for international subscribers.