[bobcandoit]

I enjoy the individual BBO tournament games, but I perceive that results are heavily influenced by the randomness of your assigned partner and opponents. I have an idea for modifying the scoring. I assume it would be possible to have each hand go through one of the hand analysis programs in real time. How about adjusting the score of the field for a particular game by artificially increasing the number of players and assuming they played the hand to perfection. That way when you add in your score you will be compared to a higher quality field.

I think this would have the benefit of promoting better bridge - I see an increasing number of players opening sub standard hands in the 1st or 2nd seat. Also many pay no attention to basic defensive discards. In a game where "half the field" is playing at a high level, you're not going to steal many boards with such playing.

I also recall seeing a study once that suggested the "randomness" of your result in a club game was about +/- 6%. So if you got a 50% result you really were playing somewhere in the range of 44 to 56%. My guess on the individual tournament games "randomness" is much higher. i'm sure there are statisticians among us who can suggest how the results of games can analyzed. My point is that I suspect online is not as good as many club and most tournament games.

[barmar]

The idea of duplicate bridge is to compare your results against other players. Comparing against par might be an interesting variation on instant tournaments, but it doesn't seem appropriate for a duplicate pairs game.