[mike777]

Having played in only a tiny few open/top bracket rated Regional events, I think anyone who ever won one is a really good player. Much better than me.

Sure there may be a few clients involved but in general I think they are really good players.

I would have no problem letting a BBO expert mean you won an open regional or equivalent(your home country) event be the level for an expert player on BBO.

Perfect no, but seems good enough.

[awm]

Well it's tricky.

Winning a bracket one KO at Gatlinburg is really tough, probably not much easier than winning a national event. In most cases people who have done this qualify as experts (okay sometimes they were the one weak player on a winning six-person team, but in general it works).

But regionals in the US are very much not created equal nor are all regional events equal. For example, Elianna and I won an A/X regional pairs in the LA regional a few years back. Sounds like a big win, but you have to consider that it was a small regional overall and that some of the good players were involved in bracketed KOs at the time. I think the entire field was something like 16 tables for this event, and while there were definitely some decent pairs involved (and there was a separate B/C/D pairs going on simultaneously to remove the weakest players), I don't think winning this pairs was in any way comparable to winning a bracket one KO in Gatlinburg.

The fact is that not every regional draws the same strength of field, and not every "regional open event" is all that hard to win.

This is why I defined "expert" as someone who can consistently contend in regional events rather than someone who just managed to win a few somewhere, at some time.

[mike777]

awm, on Dec 13 2007, 09:23 PM, said:

Well it's tricky.

Winning a bracket one KO at Gatlinburg is really tough, probably not much easier than winning a national event. In most cases people who have done this qualify as experts (okay sometimes they were the one weak player on a winning six-person team, but in general it works).

But regionals in the US are very much not created equal nor are all regional events equal. For example, Elianna and I won an A/X regional pairs in the LA regional a few years back. Sounds like a big win, but you have to consider that it was a small regional overall and that some of the good players were involved in bracketed KOs at the time. I think the entire field was something like 16 tables for this event, and while there were definitely some decent pairs involved (and there was a separate B/C/D pairs going on simultaneously to remove the weakest players), I don't think winning this pairs was in any way comparable to winning a bracket one KO in Gatlinburg.

The fact is that not every regional draws the same strength of field, and not every "regional open event" is all that hard to wi

This is why I defined "expert" as someone who can consistently contend in regional events rather than someone who just managed to win a few somewhere, at some time.

Sure that may be better, but not by that much.

My point is if you won an open 16 table pair regional in LA, you are a really good player.


Maybe not as good as Barry Crane winning an open pair but you are very good and so is Elianna. Much better than most.

Keep in mind we are talking about BBO rated expert.

[awm]

Well thanks for the vote of confidence Mike.

My argument is just that anyone can play in a huge number of events and "get lucky" once or twice given enough tries. And one can also look for the easiest regional events to play in (if you want really ridiculous ones, try the morning side games at most regionals).

A real expert is someone who plays consistently well, not someone who happened to get lucky in one event out of a huge number.

[mike777]

awm, on Dec 13 2007, 09:30 PM, said:

Well thanks for the vote of confidence Mike.

My argument is just that anyone can play in a huge number of events and "get lucky" once or twice given enough tries. And one can also look for the easiest regional events to play in (if you want really ridiculous ones, try the morning side games at most regionals).

A real expert is someone who plays consistently well, not someone who happened to get lucky in one event out of a huge number.

Well, one you are a good player.
Two I am only talking about open reg rated events, not side games.

True I guess these open MP games are really tiny now, but you guys and gals seem to not understand how good you really are.

I am not worried about calling BBO experts, online experts, I am not discussing "real" experts.

Marshal Miles said 100 players in the world are expert the rest of us are Int.

[mycroft]

Are you denigrating my two Open Regional Wins? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! How dare you????

Just because they finish at 0230, I tend to be the soberest person there (although strangely enough, I wasn't either time we won. Maybe that says something about my MAD BRIDJ SKILLZ?), and that it's only 16 tables...

Please note, I don't rate myself an EEEEEEEXpert, 'cause I ain't one. There are experts who play with me, but that's a totally different story.

A lot of the problem is that an expert is someone that's better than the speaker is; and by poll, 90% of bridge players are better than their partners.

Michael (1st place, 2001 Buffalo Regional Midnight KO, 2007 Nashville NABC Midnight KO).

[ArtK78]

Sorry, Michael, I don't think those are the type of Regional wins that we are discussing here. Those are side games.

[mycroft]

While I knew this place might need </sarcasm> tags, I didn't expect it needed </SARCASM> tags.

I'm no more proud of those wins than anyone here would expect me to be.

IHBT, haven't I?

[ArtK78]

IHBT?

[finally17]

ArtK78, on Dec 14 2007, 02:51 PM, said:

IHBT?

Acronym Finder

There's a useful resource that's not well known.

It claims IHBT is "I have been trolled."

[pclayton]

Winning an open pairs is usually a good accomplishment, but you can eek in sometimes with some random luck and a few gifts. There's generally a few really good pairs in the field that you have to overcome.

Winning an A/X pairs is a different matter altogether. That takes some talent.

[barmar]

It would probably be best to look at longer term results, rather than individual events. One regional win can be a fluke, but if someone scratches in strat A on a regular basis (e.g. more than half the time), and wins a few of them, then that's a reasonable indicator of expertise.

[jdonn]

barmar, on Dec 14 2007, 04:45 PM, said:

It would probably be best to look at longer term results, rather than individual events. One regional win can be a fluke, but if someone scratches in strat A on a regular basis (e.g. more than half the time), and wins a few of them, then that's a reasonable indicator of expertise.

Whoa. Someone who doesn't scratch in A some amount of the time approaching half is an expert? I would think an expert playing with another expert should scratch in A virtually all the time, something over 95%. Maybe if they are always playing with clients I agree with you.

[han]

I really don't understand what this discussion and the discussion in the other thread is about. I have a pretty reasonable idea of how good jdonn is. He probably has some idea of how good I am (although of course I'm much better than that). We have never told eachother how many regionals we have won and I don't think we ever will.

If I ask Zia online and I ask him to play with me then he'll ignore me no matter what I write on my profile. So who cares?

[barmar]

If you know someone, either personally or by reputation, you don't need to know their rating. The point of any rating system is to help you gauge people you've never heard of before.

It's like the little introductions in "Challenge the Champs", where they say "So-and-so has won or placed in several world championships." If you weren't already familiar with the player, now you have a better appreciation of them.

Or think of it as a "bridge resumé".

[jdonn]

Hannie, on Dec 14 2007, 05:12 PM, said:

I have a pretty reasonable idea of how good jdonn is. He probably has some idea of how good I am (although of course I'm much better than that).

But Hannie I hold you in such high esteem! I'm sure you must have won hundreds of regionals by now.

[han]

Not far off if you include open national championships.

[mycroft]

Depending on what "scratch" means, I think that's my definition of expert. At a random flight A game, an expert should expect to be in the section awards every time (may not make it always, of course), and make the overalls often enough.

It's tough to *win* pretty much any two-session pairs event; but making the top 3, regularly, in decent+ regionals A/X games, is expert, to me.

An expert, however, is very likely to consider that barrier too low.