Type duplicate bridge online into a search bar and you get a wall of platform names with almost no explanation of what you'd actually be signing up for. That's a shame. "Online duplicate" covers at least three very different experiences, and they share one idea (everyone plays the same boards, and you're scored against the field) and not much else.
If the format itself is new to you, start with what duplicate bridge is. The short version: the cards are fixed, so the luck of the deal washes out, and your score depends on how you did compared with every other pair who held the same hands.
The three kinds of online duplicate
Virtual club games. A lot of clubs moved their regular sessions online in 2020, and some never fully moved back. You register with a partner, log in at a set time, and play something like 18 to 24 boards against other human pairs, usually on Bridge Base Online. In ACBL territory these games can award masterpoints, which matters enormously to some people and not at all to others. It's the closest thing to a real club session. Same names on the results page every week, same director, same pair that somehow always beats you on the last round.
Robot duplicate. Most people stumble into this one first. You play with a robot partner against robot opponents, whenever you like, and your result is compared with everyone else (humans, each with their own robot partner) who played the same deals. BBO runs these as daylong tournaments; Funbridge built its entire app around the idea. No partner to organize. No start time. You can play a board at 2 a.m. in your pajamas and nobody will judge you, except the matchpoints.
Video rooms. Platforms like RealBridge add cameras and microphones, so you see and hear the other three players while the cards move on screen. Plenty of clubs use it, and some national federations have run events on it too. It gets closer to sitting across from someone than anything else online, though it still needs a steady connection and four people who can find the mute button.
How scoring works when nobody is holding a traveller
This is where online duplicate genuinely shines. Once the last pair finishes a board, the software has every result. It sorts them, applies matchpoints (or IMPs, depending on the event), and posts your percentage before you've finished sulking about the previous hand. No director squinting at a matchpoint chart at 10:40 on a Tuesday night.
Better still, you can open any board afterward and see every table's contract, opening lead, and result. Four pairs in 4♠ making ten tricks, one pair in 3NT going down, you in 4♠ making eleven. That tells you something a single table never will: whether your overtrick was clever or just a gift from a defender having a bad moment.
The comparison is the point. It always was.
Robot tournaments add a twist people don't talk about enough. Because every robot partner bids and plays by the same rules, the field is unusually uniform, and tiny differences get magnified. One extra trick on a flat board can move you from 40% to 75%. Some players find that addictive. Others find it maddening, and quit after a week.
What you give up
Quite a lot, depending on why you play.
The robots explain their bids, which is nice, but they don't adapt to you, and every so often they do something no human partner would ever be forgiven for. Virtual club games fix that but bring back the scheduling problem: you need a partner and a fixed slot on the calendar. Video rooms help with the loneliness, yet an hour on camera is tiring in a way three hours at a card table somehow isn't.
And all three quietly remove the part many of us came for in the first place. No coffee between rounds. No moment where someone fans their hand face up and says "you had the queen the whole time?" We've looked at what online bridge captures and what it misses before, and duplicate makes that trade sharper. You get the comparison. You lose the room.
Getting the comparison without leaving the table
This part bugs me. Plenty of home players would love to know how their result stacked up against other tables, and the only obvious route is to leave the friends sitting across from them and log on somewhere else. It shouldn't have to be either/or. Pre-dealt boards plus scoring that knows what other players did with the same cards gets you most of the way there. That's the thinking behind Bridge@Home: a live game of four in your own home, with each board scored against others who held the same hands. Same room, same people, and a results sheet nobody had to add up by hand.
So which one should you try?
If you want masterpoints and already have a regular partner, a virtual club game is the obvious pick. If you want to practice declarer play at odd hours and see exactly where a board slipped away, robot duplicate is hard to beat. Video rooms suit settled partnerships that miss seeing each other's faces.
Just don't expect any of them to replace your home game. They're answering a different question. Online duplicate tells you how you did against strangers, which is useful. What keeps a group coming back week after week is finding out how you did against the three people who watched you misplay board seven, and then seeing whether anyone else in the world did better.