[aliyah]

I think their is a need to rate the bridge players at BBO. The self proclaimed World Class, Expert, Advance, Intermediate and so on rating should be awarded to a BBO player by the BBO itself. Through this forum I invite other members as well to furnish their views on the topic.

[hotShot]

The problem has been discussed several times here already (often under the topic "Suggestions for Software").

There are very strong arguments against a rating system, mainly because of the social impacts.
To answer the need for social and more serious games, there are 3 Bridge Clubs now. As you can see, most people seem to prefer the old structure with only a "Main Bridge Club", so the other clubs are hardly populated.

[mcphee]

Sorry to say that I do not agree with your views. The ranking of players from imps won or lost is not nearly as accurate as you might think it could be. Different parts of the world approach the game with completely different views on things as basic as a take out dble. Naturally this can lead to some odd results.

Attempting to get players egos out of the way in self assessment of playing level is surely next to impossible. There are numerous players who feel they are experts. Others place expert on their profile because they play better than Harry Shiboobie who they recently played with and he was an expert.

Rather than players being concerned about expert or world class, advanced etc ratings, would it not be more advantagous to concentrate and being pleasant to whoever you played with? Keep in mind you are not forced to play and are able to make use of player notes to help you rate the players yourself. Not a task that presents too much difficulty.

[inquiry]

aliyah, on Apr 16 2007, 06:41 AM, said:

I think their is a need to rate the bridge players at BBO. The self proclaimed World Class, Expert, Advance, Intermediate and so on rating should be awarded to a BBO player by the BBO itself. Through this forum I invite other members as well to furnish their views on the topic.

For the most part, it is best to totally ignore the self-ratings. They are more or less meaningless because people have no clue about how to follow the simple instructions on using them.

The BBO does award one type of rating, the "gold stars". For the most part these are all ver competent players and some are truely world class, and the vast, vast majority are experts or better.

The BBO has made a decision to not assign ratings to players. This is to avoid bad behavior related to ratings that has occurred on other sites. If you really, really want to have a rating, you could join one of the sites that do caluculate ratings.

BTW, going to myhands and lookng up peoples average imps/mp per board is not a great way to determine ability. Many of the gold stars, for instance, only play in team games against other gold stars. Clearly when evenly matched teams play each other, the average imps won or loss will approach ZERO. If the eight best players in the world played team matches against each other here, their average imp won lost would be almost surely essentially zero. Would that mean someone with an average of +1.4 imps/board would be a better player? No.

[ArcLight]

A while back I tried the 7 day free trial to OK Bridge.

1. it was hard to get partners becaus eno one wanted to "risk" their rating going down by partnering a new member.

2. when I managed to find a game, my pard pointed out that the opps had lots of conventions on their cards and I didnt. I pointed out that he was concerned about conventions and we had not even discussed leads (4th best, 3/5) or signaling (UDCA , Standard).

3. We played exactly 1 hand. I misplayed the hand, and could have received an extra over trick. I played in a way I thjought would ensure the same. Perhaps my play was not best. In any case pard immediately left.

I think with ratings you will not have people willing to take a chance with pick up pards, especially ones you percieve as weaker. On BBO , if I dislike my pick up pard, I leave after a few hands, no harm, no bad feelings.
With ratings, maybe some would be upset after 1 hand and leave.

I do agree that the self ratings are inaccurate. Many Advanced players are Intermediate or worse. A number of Experts are Intermediate plus. Its hard to get decent pick up games at times

[mike777]

aliyah, on Apr 16 2007, 06:41 AM, said:

I think their is a need to rate the bridge players at BBO. The self proclaimed World Class, Expert, Advance, Intermediate and so on rating should be awarded to a BBO player by the BBO itself. Through this forum I invite other members as well  to furnish their views on the topic.

I forgot a tfr convention on the last hand of a tourney last night and got a well deserved zero, not sure there is a lower possible level rating for that but I deserve it.

[kenberg]

Two comments about ratings:

1. Mostly they are a crock. The advantage of self-ratings is that it is completely obvious they are a crock.

2. Whatever the arguments for or against, Fred has made it clear he won't be doing this. I say hooray for Fred.

[pbleighton]

Quote

A number of Experts are Intermediate plus

And some are Beginner Minus.

Quote

Two comments about ratings:

1. Mostly they are a crock. The advantage of self-ratings is that it is completely obvious they are a crock.

2. Whatever the arguments for or against, Fred has made it clear he won't be doing this. I say hooray for Fred.

Ditto.

Peter

[Quantumcat]

I usually avoid playing with any pick up pards that call themselves Advanced or better (unless I know them in person that is) because they are more often than not either unfriendly or rude ... fellow Beginners/Intermediates are always more fun to play with! Plus, the last few times I played on BBO, every partner I played with made some really simple errors that even I knew were wrong, me being an absolute beginner, and them supposedly Experts ... self-ratings are meaningless. I do agree though that you can't have fun playing when your ratings are determined by your boards, everyone is too serious. I got to have a go on OKbridge (aptly named, it really is just ok!) for the inter-collegiate championships in feb and played some games with randoms and found exactly what Arclight said ... everyone is obsessed with their ratings and won't play with new people. If BBO became rated I don't think I would continue to play there...for me BBO is a place to practice for the real world not the real world of bridge itself, as OKbridge players seem to take OKbridge to be!

[mike777]

ok, last night I forgot a convention, tonight partner passed me in a cuebid. Maybe we need some kind of rating system.

[Free]

Aaaaaaaaaaarh not that pointless discussion again!

[zasanya]

Can bbo have a public or private bridge club where ratings software is available so that those who are obsessed with ratings can play there and leave us simple folks to enjoy bridge?

[pclayton]

zasanya, on Apr 17 2007, 08:04 AM, said:

Can bbo have a public or private bridge club where ratings software is available so that those who are obsessed with ratings can play there and leave us simple folks to enjoy bridge?

Ratings suck.

I don't even want a separate club where players can utilize ratings, lest the MBC becomes 'tainted' the same way OKB has non-rated play.

If you play on the site long enough, you'll discover enough players who are your peers and can have a fun and competitive game with.

[SoTired]

IMHO, of all the possible decisions Fred has made for BBO, "no ratings" is by the far the single best decision he has ever made. The ONLY disadvantage of self-ratings is that there are way-too-many naive people out there who believe them. ("Come look at this bidding. My World-Class partner told me to read a book, but s/he opened 1NT with a void. What should I have bid?")

Fred will never change it, so this discussion is pointless. Someone should pin this (or similar on the same topic) to save posters' time.

[helene_t]

Quantumcat: welcome to the forum! I hope you'll enjoy it here. I like your nickname

Some clubs maintain their own rankings. In doing so, they can choose to rank only partnerships, to rank individual players on the basis on their performance with different partners selected by themselves, or to rank individuals on the basis of individual results.

I suspect that rankings based solely on indy tourneys would be quite "accurate", while rankings based on performance with selected partners would be largely crap. Others may disagree, but that doesn't matter since most of us agree that we don't want any ranking.

It's not clear to me why anyone would want to know the ranking of themselves, or the ranking of potentiial partners. I chose partners who are on my friends list (for various reasons). Even if some reliable ranking was available I would not care about it.

I'd be happy to trade the "skill level" box for one extra line of freetext.

I left another site because of the ranking system and the day BBO introduces ranking I'd stop most of my BBO activities (would still use the partnership bidding table with my IRL partners).

Fortunately Fred is smart enough not to let that happen.