[Hotkey]

I wonder why BBO still keeps the possibility for each player to declarer his or her strength of playing.
Statistically there at least 20 to 50 times too many "experts". Maybe one out of fifty is a real expert.
Why doesn´t the BBO site associate with the people behind BBO skills? With there formulae you got a good picture of every players capacity.
I played 2 years at BBO now and the number of experts have had an explosive development.

[Bbradley62]

It looks to me like you've been a BBO member for 23 days. I very much doubt you've seen an explosion in expert self-ratings in that time.

I actually agree with OP that BBO should have some sort of rating system in which players would have to earn ratings (with that "earning" occuring both online and offline); but you shouldn't have to sign on and lie to us in order to make your argument.

[Bbradley62]

Hotkey, on 2012-October-14, 07:34, said:

Statistically there at least 20 to 50 times too many "experts". Maybe one out of fifty is a real expert.

So, one out of 50 is a real expert... and you say there are up to 50 times too many experts... that would mean that everyone you encounter has self-rated as expert. Sounds unlikely.

[Fluffy]

Han said:

I am so happy that someone finally brought this important subject into debate

I loved that one, but can't rememebr the exact words.

[CSGibson]

BBOSkill sucks. They measure how well you play against your competition, but they do not measure very well how good that competition is. That is a catastrophic failure.

[zasanya]

CSGibson, on 2012-October-14, 11:06, said:

BBOSkill sucks. They measure how well you play against your competition, but they do not measure very well how good that competition is. That is a catastrophic failure.

Is it not possible to consider the quality of opposition while assigning some score as is done when calculating elo ratings?

[Zelandakh]

Bboskill rated me as an Expert. That says pretty much everything you need to know about how useful it was as an accurate rating tool. Other bridge sites have tried rating systems and none of them have been successful and have often caused great difficulties in their online communities. Why would you wish these issues on the BBO management who have (probably wisely) avoided them up to now?

[zenko]

Any self-reporting tool does not work because of The Dunning–Kruger effect,a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

BBO probably can devolop some automated, result-based tool, but it has to be discrete and in the beackground, and used only to properly match up players who randomly look for a game, but its all much more trouble than its worth.

[MattieShoe]

zasanya, on 2012-October-15, 03:27, said:

Is it not possible to consider the quality of opposition while assigning some score as is done when calculating elo ratings?

It is absolutely possible. There are problems though.

* If you create a system, people will immediately look for ways to game the system. Lets say the default rating of new players is too high (common in many systems). People may seek out new players to play against to artificially boost their ratingand avoid new players as partners, for example.

* If people feel they are being measured, they're more likely to be hostile to poor performing partners. Having no rating system whatsoever avoids unpleasantness.

* If one starts measuring performance, some players who care overmuch about ratings will demand additional features like the ability to play unrated games.

* The mere existence of a rating system would increase the likelihood of folks creating multiple accounts for the purposes of rating manipulation, or calling their partner on the phone during games, etc.

* There are many aspects to bridge, and many players excel at one (lets say declarer play) while being deficient in others (lets say defense). How do you fairly rate these players? Okay, now what happens if said player joins only robot tourneys, where declarer play is much more common than defense (strongest hand is always rotated to south)? Or a player plays well with one partner but terribly with another?

I believe it would be possible to create a rating system very easily, but you could spend a ridiculous amount of time on these sorts of edge cases. Honestly, I don't care if BBO ever implements a rating system. But I do wish I magically had access to hand data for everybody so I could roll my own. I'm just the sort of geek that likes writing rating systems.