ACBL Table Data

A C B L TOURNAMENT AND CLUB TABLE TABLES

The following table data is unofficial only in that is not directly issued by the ACBL for this website. The figures displayed and charts created are compiled from data publicly available on ACBLLive and LIVE4Clubs, as well as the BridgeFinesse site, so it's as official as one can get without actually being issued by the ACBL Mothership. (Hopefully you will find this useful, or at least somewhat interesting, as the webmaster's not infrequent insomnia should be someone's gain.)

For regional and sectional tournaments, as well as club games, year-over-year table count comparisons are from 2026 to 2025, and are for face-to-face tables only (there are no online tables counted, except where noted); data presented here stretches back to the most recent pre-COVID events in most cases; and while ACBL's Brass "[may not] be interested in numbers", we are here for that party.

(Feel free to use any of this information should you find it helpful, but please provide a link to this page or attribute a credit to "MinnesotaBridge-dot-com".)

ABOVE: Year-to-date (through 6/30) total tables for Open regionals, Open sectionals, I/N regionals, I/N sectionals, and club F2F games.

SPRING NABC TABLES
Daily and total tables, + by each event

SUMMER NABC TABLES
Daily and total tables, + by each event

FALL NABC TABLES
Daily and total tables, + by each event

2026 OPEN REGIONAL TABLES N=58 [8/9]

2026 Y-O-Y SAME EVENT REGL TABLES N=51 [8/9]

The "Soloway Slump". Many regionals across the country are expanding their team game contests to include more Soloway KO events - and not just for the pros that show up. Some ACBL regionals are changing their bracketed teams (or bracketed teams for lower-masterpoint groups) to all-Soloways. Not every day; but some days. How is that working out?

There are always exceptions to the rule, but in general, team game tables are down when Soloways are introduced or expanded. Players may not want to commit to a two-day event; less experienced players may not like the Soloway format; players may not be familiar enough with the format yet to play in Soloway KOs (nobody likes change, least of all bridge players); there are several possible reasons why this is happening. Here are some recent examples of tournaments and their organizing committees that found this out the hard way:

		The PITTSBURGH PA REGIONAL. In 2024, Pittsburgh held bracketed teams play each day of their tournament. With a year off, they're returning in 2026, but they've moved to Soloway KOs only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This tournament did not run on a Monday in 2024, so we will be looking at Wednesday and Friday's team participation rates for comparison. Will they be the exception to the rule? We'll know at the end of September.
		The HOUSTON TX REGIONAL. In 2025, the Houston TX Lone Star Regional held bracketed teams only (and no Soloway KOs). The schedule was posted for 2026 to change three days of the week (M-W-F) to Soloway KOs for everybody - and no bracketed teams those days. The graph to your left shows the result. Monday, the total team tables at the Lone Star Regional in 2026 fell by -34.4% from 122 tables one year earlier to just 80 tables in 2026. It got worse as the week went on. Wednesday's team tables fell by more than half in 2026, and for these three days, the overall drop in team participation was -216 team tables or -40.3%. Keep in mind, this was the 3rd biggest regional in the country in 2025.
		The PALM SPRINGS CA REGIONAL. In 2024, the Rancho Mirage CA tournament had days with team play that were scheduled as Soloway KOs for the top-tier teams - and then bracketed teams for everyone else. The decision was then made to change this to all-Soloways for Tuesday and Thursday of their 2025 holiday tournament in SoCal. "Soloways for everyone!" This experiment lasted all of one year, as the total team tables on Tuesday and Thursday at this tournament fell by more than ⅓ when lesser masterpoint players were forced with the Soloway as the team option. The schedule for 2026 in Palm Springs will go back to top-tier Soloways only.
		The SAN DIEGO CA REGIONAL. Getting rid of the Soloway KO for everyone and going back to Bracketed Teams has the opposite effect, showing the same results. Another D22 regional, the San Diego Pacific Southwest organizers required all players who wanted to play teams to play teams in the Soloway KO format on Tuesdays and Thursdays in 2025. No bracketed teams were held those days. In 2026, however, bracketed teams were re-introduced to this tournament, with Soloway KOs only for the "top-tier" players. The result: on both days in 2026, team tables were up a full +50.0% compared to the same day at the tournament one year earlier.
		The MINNESOTA GOPHER REGIONAL. Gopher Regional organizers went to a blend of Soloway and Bracketed Teams in 2023, moving to Soloways for all in 2024. It didn't work out too well. Getting rid of the Soloway KO for everyone and going back to Bracketed Teams in 2025 saw their team tables double (from 28 team tables to 56 on the prior Soloway-only Tuesday) and total team tables for the 2-days with and without the Soloway saw an increase in team table participation of +25.5%. They've opted out of the two-day Soloways now for the forseeable future. Not all tournaments will necessarily see a huge jump in team tables by getting rid of the Soloway KOs at the Open Regional level - but this shows it is possible to re-engage players into the teams format with this simple schedule change.

Does size matter? In the larger scheme of things, probably not; some of the most fun at these ACBL events happens at small regionals. Still, some tournaments like to brag about how close they are to Gatlinburg TN's big regional, and so here are the Top 20 Regionals (in terms of table counts) each year of the post-pandemic era. Each year has their respective table count along with their movement on the chart from the last year their tournament was held.

2026 OPEN SECTIONAL TABLES N=293 [7/31]

2026 OPEN SECTIONAL TABLES PER TOURNAMENT N=293 [7/31]

The year-over-year change in average tables per tournament each month of 2025, compared to the same month in 2024. NOTE that while the vast majority of open sectionals are repeat events, the data in this chart is for every open sectional (whether it was held the previous year or not). Still, this gives a good idea whether open sectionals are getting larger or smaller overall.

The year-over-year change in total available tables for open sectionals, by month, compared to the same month one year earlier. Once "the hardest pigmented points to get", the ACBL has made getting silver points super easy without heading to your local sectional tournament. ("Silver Linings Weeks", for starters, which are YUUUGE money makers for the ACBL on BBO. . .even if at the cost of your local sectional tournament).

Total number of open sectional tables in play by month in 2025.

Open sectionals can be led by ACBL staff or by a "local" director, generally to save the sponsor some money, and some are run concurrently with limited masterpoint regionals. Here's a chart of the type of open sectional run each month in 2025.

2026 TOTAL I/N TOURNEY TABLES vs 2025 N=78 [7/30]

2026 I/N REGIONAL TABLES vs 2025 N=25 [7/31]

2026 I/N SECTIONAL TABLES vs 2025 N=53 [7/31]

Intermediate/Newcomer Sectionals this year. For better or worse, this is where the future of bridge will come from. The chart to your left is a look at the year-over-year changes in number of tournaments, number of tournament tables, and number of tables per tournament for both I/N Regionals and I/N Sectionals.

SINCE JANUARY 1st N=32 wks [8/9]

ROLLING 52-WEEK CLUB TABLES N=52 wks [8/9]

ROLLING 52-WEEK TABLES AVERAGE PER WEEK N=52 wks [8/9]

		Here's a look at the 12-week rolling average of weekly face-to-face ACBL club tables, since the post-COVID re-opening. Even five years into the post-COVID introduction re-opening, club tables are thriving. It won't last forever - but presently 2026 starting out well.
		Weekly face-to-face ACBL club tables, since the post-COVID re-opening.
		A look at the tables per game (on an annual basis) for F2F clubs across the ACBL. There's no tournament or online tables here, and the fact that 2026 is starting out as having larger games overall than the pre-COVID area doesn't mean more people are entering the bridge world. Consolidation of games is a consideration.
		The quarterly year-over-year change in ACBL club table counts. As clubs have opened and things gotten back to normal, the rate of increased tables each quarter has slowed somewhat as you'd expect, but was still been positive through 1Q 2026. For the first time in the post-COVID world, club table counts contracted compared to the same period one year earlier in 2Q 2026; it may be the first crack in the dam, or could be a result of the boffo +10.5% number 12 months earlier that was impossible to improve upon.
		Total F2F tables in ACBL clubs, by quarter, since reopening.

MASTERPOINT INFLATION IS REAL, AND IT IS SPECTACULAR

The ACBL's Masterpoint Committee made their presentation at the Minneapolis NABC as to the change in how masterpoints will get awarded at tournaments. Among the changes:

*This is something really new. Previously, if you had 12 tables in the Open crowd, and a concurrent 7 table NLM game, the Open crowd would get credit for the 7 table limited masterpoint game and be scored as if there were 19 tables. (When you see the results for a regional tournament now, you'll see something like "12 tables/based on 19 tables".) The proposal that was made now would eliminate any concurrent tables in the new formula.

The new formula is below. (This is how they're going to figure out 1st place overall in an event, and then the additional awards get figured from that.) If you'd like examples of how this would impact masterpoint awards, all those details can be found by clicking here. All of these new formulas and masterpoint award rules will take effect on January 1, 2027, so you'll see these in action at tournaments starting in 2027. Masterpoint awards at tournaments will not be going down in any cases - and in the majority of them, they'll be increased quite a bit under this new math. Masterpoint inflation is real, and it is spectacular.

EDGAR RUNS ITS COURSE

EDGAR has run its course, assisting in snaring cheating online players across the ACBL online. The ACBL has now wrapped up their first run of all 80,521 online ACBL players during the four-and-a-half year period of 2020 to 2024. 2,097 players were found to have cheated online (1,183 from either requested player memos that were filed or from players EDGAR caught independently, and 914 that were partners of those players).

The overall rate of cheating players across the ACBL's online community came out to 2.60% during this run; details are on the chart to your left. While EDGAR has gone through everyone that played online during that 2020-2024 period, the program is not being put out to pasture. The ACBL plans to use EDGAR for the following:

EDGAR has helped clean up the game, but there is one kind of cheating that EDGAR may not be able to stop. Online players who take a photo of a hand and enter it into some AI program can easily find out the best way to bid or play the hand. It's another reason face-to-face bridge is the best bridge (and should be used whenever possible, including district NAP and GNT finals, but that's another blog post).

THE BIGGER THEY ARE, ETC., ETC.

The trend of late is away from the bigger tournaments and towards smaller ones.  Left (top) chart shows the share of all ACBL regional tables for the year that were held by the Top 5 ACBL regionals for each year since 2022.  The regionals of Gatlinburg TN, Houston TX, Hilton Head Island SC, Penticton BC, and Rancho Mirage CA were 17.9% of all ACBL regional tables in 2022.  Last year, they made up only 14.7% of all ACBL regional tables.  (NOTE: These are annual tables for Open Regionals and have nothing to do with I/N Regional table counts.)

As 2026 has gotten going, this trend doesn't appear to have changed.  The first three of the "big five" have been held in 2026, and their table counts are off from 2025 - and by quite a bit.  "America's Favorite Regional" as they have called it for years now, and rightfully so being the #1 tournament in attendance over the years, has really taken a plunge in attendance.

In just two years, the Gatlinburg TN Regional has seen a drop in table count of -37.1%.  That's more tables than most ACBL regionals have in attendance in any given year.  The Gatlinburg drop of -12.1% this year compared to 2025 is considerably larger than the average drop in same-location annual regionals, which sits at -7.0% as of this blog post.  In fact, the top three ACBL tournaments from 2025 are all way off on tables this year - Houston TX was down by -26.1%, and Hilton Head Island SC was down by -23.3%.  With some regional table counts are up (and many down), this shows that even the largest and most popular regionals are not immune to the general downtrend in participation.

One other note: the Houston TX Regional this year was cut one day short due to winter weather (yes, we know), but even a six day apples-to-apples comparison of Monday through Saturday to 2025, their tables were still off by -21.5%.

ABOUT THE ACBL'S 5-5-5 PROGRAM

It sure appears to be something of a bust.  Designed to put the onus on individual ACBL bridge units to encourage the recruiting of new players (and the recalling of old players), this program to reward local bridge units for doing a good job (and punish those who don't) looked really good on paper.  There's no question it has spurred local bridge units to increase their efforts in developing new players (and getting reacquainted with those who have left the game and are still around).  But the 5-5-5 program has been in effect for two full years now, and the result is that there has been $321,215.39 transferred from the ACBL's 282 bridge units right to the ACBL mothership.  That's the amount that the 282 local bridge units would have gotten under the old subsidy program, but have been denied under the 5-5-5 program.  $321,215.39 certainly seems like a great deal of money local ACBL bridge units could use to better the bridge playing experience for card players old and new.

To your below left is a look at how each unit within the ACBL has fared over the two years that this program has been in effect.  More than 90% (90.4%) of the ACBL's units have lost money as a result of the 5-5-5 program.  Below (right) is a chart that shows how each ACBL District has done (cumulatively) over the two years.  This program doesn't really have anything to do with Districts themselves (just the Units within them), but the chart below shows that the red ink is universal across the ACBL.

Could the $321,215.39 be better used by the ACBL's local units to promote bridge (and encourage new players)?  That's a question for the ACBL brass, but we're not positive someone in a position to do so will be able to ask it.  For now, no significant changes to the program are in the works.

Changes in the average number of tables per type of tournament for 2025 through September 2.

NOTE The "Gatlinburg Effect" which saw the largest dropoff in comparable regionals so far this year (-28.2%), is also the largest table count of any regional and thus a huge part of Y-O-Y numbers; without the 2025 Gatlinburg result, the average change in open regional tables per tournament is actually off -2.6%, not -4.4%.

F2F TOURNAMENT-ASSOCIATED ONLINE TABLES

This website is all about face-to-face ACBL tables (and the social aspect of the game of bridge).  But here are two online play charts that may be of some interest.

As of April 2023, the ACBL allowed an online event during your Regional (limited to the district host's players).  But just as online tables in the E-clubs have crumbled in the past two years, online tables in these events have fallen sharply just in the past 12 months - and across all tournaments.  A look at BBO online tables that are associated with face-to-face Regional tournaments, some tournaments are now struggling to get to the "break even" point financially with an online option (13 online tables or more).  That could accelerate this online option's decline even faster.  The chart to your left includes the online tables for regional tournaments held in both 2024 and 2025.  UPDATE:  The ACBL moved to eliminate online play associated with F2F Regionals at the 2025 Summer NABC.  They claimed that tournament organizers in general "were not aware of the costs involved" and "more often than not lost money" on the event (which, looking at the chart to your left, you can understand why).

And regarding the "Silver Linings Weeks" that the ACBL runs to shovel out silver points during the year; you'll note that their weekly BBO E-Club table totals are quite literally "off the chart" during those weeks.  Up to 7 standard deviations above their mean weekly tables.  This prompted the ACBL to add a third "Silver Linings Week" to their online schedule in 2024, even if very likely contributing to the decline in face-to-face sectional attendance.  Masterpoint inflation is real, and it is spectacular.