[bid_em_up]

Ben/Uday, I'm curious.

Do you have any way of coming up with the numbers for each category that people have rated themselves?

[ArcLight]

The problem with rating other players is:

- whats to prevent me from making some BBO nics and rating my pal Expert and him reciprocating

- whats to prevent me from rating people I don't like 1-2 levels below what I perceive their skill to be. If I ask what a bid means and you don't answer (maybe you don't speak English) you must be Intermediate or lower.

- how do you know what an expert / world class player is unless you are very good? Suppose you balance 3♣ with 5 mediocre clubs and a balanced hand and it works? Are you Advanced because this one time you got lucky? You pard might think so. A few months back I was playing a pick up game and a nationally recognized player happened to sit as my pard Against 3NT I lead a suit and had pard won and returned it we would have set them. But the correct play was to duck, and he did, and they made the hand. He apologized, but later said it wasn't clear to have taken that trick. Would many players have rated him a Beginner?

What I would like out of a rating system is the ability to play in games at (or above) my level, and not be fooled into wasting my time (and becoming frustrated) with much weaker players. I don't need the system to be very accurate just accurate enough that the players I play with aren't too far below my level.

[keylime]

Adam,

I also like your ratings because there's some tightly defined criteria that helps provide definition to the rating system. It also gives benchmarks to achieve for those who are improving.

[uday]

Quote

Do you have any way of coming up with the numbers for each category

Sure. Using people who have logged in at least once since Nov 1, and using the self-rating from the profile

private      22%
Novice          4%
Beginner       6%
Intermediate 25%
Advanced      27%
Expert        15%
WorldClass     1%

This includes stars. Stars made up 0.65% of the total.

[keylime]

Uday,

That's an interesting spread of numbers. I'd be curious to see how the large populations (like US, Canada, Australia, etc et al) dispersed versus this baseline.

[uday]

messed up my 1st pass, will generate some other countries in a cpl hrs

[Fluffy]

Hannie, on Dec 13 2007, 06:52 PM, said:

A true rating should reflect how good players are.

It would reflect how much they cheat, how unpolitelly they reject undos, how eagerly they bore everyone to try to make impossible overtricks, and to a lesser extent how much concentration they have on bridge while they are watching a movie, or posting in some stupid forums.

Oh did I mention sudden disconects that ruind fun games?

[matmat]

you left out the mandatory count of the total numbers of '?' '!' and 'z' typed in. for example

LHO: ???????????????????????????????????????????????!

[finally17]

BUT ALL CAPS IS FINE, FEEL FREE TO TALK IN ALL CAPS.

[uday]

Breakdown for a couple of countries

USA

+-------+------------+
| level | percentage |
+-------+------------+
| priv | 10 |
| nov | 3 |
| beg | 6 |
| int | 36 |
| adv | 31 |
| exp | 13 |
| wc | 1 |



Italy

| level | percentage |
+-------+------------+
| priv | 19 |
| nov | 6 |
| beg | 6 |
| int | 23 |
| adv | 25 |
| exp | 20 |
| wc | 1 |
+-------+-----------+



Turkiye

+-------+------------+
| level | percentage |
+-------+------------+
| priv | 22 |
| nov | 5 |
| beg | 4 |
| int | 18 |
| adv | 29 |
| exp | 20 |
| wc | 1 |
+-------+------------+

[Al_U_Card]

What we really need is more expert "categories"....

wannabe

couldneverbe

mightsomedaybe

[Rossoneri]

Glad to know I am one of the 4% who selected novice =)

I think most of my friends gave up on the rating system and just selected novice.

[jikl]

Quote

Uday,

That's an interesting spread of numbers. I'd be curious to see how the large populations (like US, Canada, Australia, etc et al) dispersed versus this baseline.

Since when did Australia qualify as a large population?

Sean

[foo]

MFA, on Dec 13 2007, 07:50 AM, said:

Walddk, on Dec 13 2007, 07:09 AM, said:

MFA, on Dec 13 2007, 02:07 PM, said:

whereagles, on Dec 13 2007, 06:52 AM, said:

I would rate expertise by measuring the average nr. of errors per board. In 20 boards, for instance,

<1 error: master (worthy of national team)
1: expert
2-3: adv
4-6: int
7+: newbie

Hmm, how about me then ?

I make around 30 mistakes / 20 boards, what is my ranking ?

7+: newbie

Not sure why we select you to represent Denmark

Roland

Don't know why either, Roland.

But seriously, IMO is bridge a game of oodles of mistakes.

Part of the problem is that the definition of "mistake" is dependent on the expected caliber of player.

The novice forgets the meanings of bids, but sometimes so does the expert if it's a very rarely used convention. (But the expert will never forget an auction during the play.)

The novice doesn't signal correctly. Sometimes so does the expert, but the bad signal is far more subtle in the case of the expert's mistake.

The novice doesn't play a card combination correctly. The expert takes a line of play that turns out to be based on a logic mistake in assuming the layout of the board.

The novice doesn't play 2nd hand low or 3rd hand high. The expert makes a mistake and doesn't play 2nd high high or 3rd hand low when the situation called for it.

Etc. It isn't just how =many= mistake you make that determines your skill level, it's what =kind= of mistakes you make. I suspect most of the mistakes made by players representing their countries are subtle enough that the vast majority of players could not figure out they were mistakes it they were kibbing ATT ITRW (rather than Vugraph where everything is usually double dummy.)

Side note: A pet peeve of mine is "analysts" who think that because something is obvious double dummy on Vugraph it should be obvious single dummy ATT. Even worse are the "analysts" who Get It Wrong even though they are looking at it Double Dummy. *sigh*

[mikeh]

I posted a hand earlier today in the B/I section: the play in 4♠, after RHO opened 1♦.

North

K   A  Q  x
10 J  10  x
     9  9
     x  x
     x

South
A  10  -  A
J   x   -  K
9  x   -  x
8       -  x
7
6

After a low diamond, the 10 forces the K and you ruff. The best line, as posted by jdonn, is to cash one top club. cross to dummy, play a club to hand and then ruff a club with the trump K, then a diamond ruff and ruff the last club with the 10, thus guarding against RHO holding a stiff club (leading the 2nd club from dummy so he ruffs air if he ruffs) and also guarding against RHO holding 2 clubs and overruffing the 10 on the first round.

I neglected to lead the second club from dummy. So I made an error, but an error that few players would spot. In my defence, had RHO played a club honour on the 1st round, I am sure I would have woken up, and the odds of LHO not leading a club from QJ10xxx seems low.

But this goes to show why, in my view, experts tend to state that there are a lot of mistakes being made, while less-skilled players think that experts make almost no errors.

I think many players would not even see the need to ruff clubs in dummy, preferring to try to establish hearts, while those who do play for ruffs will often ruff with the 10 on the first ruff (altho this is almost certainly risk-free even if rho can overruff and return a trump... I leave the analysis to those interested)

[foo]

Thanks mikeh for illustrating my point so well.

Nice hand BTW!

[jdonn]

mikeh, on Dec 18 2007, 01:50 AM, said:

But this goes to show why, in my view, experts tend to state that there are a lot of mistakes being made, while less-skilled players think that experts make almost no errors.

The better I've gotten over time, the more errors I've thought I make. I used to think I made almost none, which looking back now game at a time that I was quite a lousy player

[blackshoe]

I suspect that the things that marks moving out of beginner status is the ability to recognize at least some of one's errors.

[dburn]

mikeh, on Dec 18 2007, 01:50 AM, said:

I posted a hand earlier today in the B/I section: the play in 4♠, after RHO opened 1♦.

North

K   A  Q  x
10 J  10  x
     9  9
     x  x
     x

South
A  10  -  A
J   x   -  K
9  x   -  x
8       -  x
7
6

After a low diamond, the 10 forces the K and you ruff. The best line, as posted by jdonn, is to cash one top club. cross to dummy, play a club to hand and then ruff a club with the trump K, then a diamond ruff and ruff the last club with the 10, thus guarding against RHO holding a stiff club (leading the 2nd club from dummy so he ruffs air if he ruffs) and also guarding against RHO holding 2 clubs and overruffing the 10 on the first round.

I neglected to lead the second club from dummy. So I made an error, but an error that few players would spot. In my defence, had RHO played a club honour on the 1st round, I am sure I would have woken up, and the odds of LHO not leading a club from QJ10xxx seems low.

But this goes to show why, in my view, experts tend to state that there are a lot of mistakes being made, while less-skilled players think that experts make almost no errors.

I think many players would not even see the need to ruff clubs in dummy, preferring to try to establish hearts, while those who do play for ruffs will often ruff with the 10 on the first ruff (altho this is almost certainly risk-free even if rho can overruff and return a trump... I leave the analysis to those interested)

Not sure about this crossing to dummy business. The only card you can do that with is the ace of hearts. If East has a singleton club (the only reason for crossing to dummy in the first place), then he may ruff the second club anyway and play three more hearts from an original 2=4=6=1 distribution, leaving you unable to make the contract if West began with three spades to the queen.

Of course, this implies that West did not lead his low singleton heart at trick one, which is unlikely. But so is a 6-1 club break. Moreover, if East began with ♥KQx and a singleton club, he may ruff the second club, cash two hearts, and exit with any diamond, leaving you to guess whether he began with 4=3=5=1 or 3=3=6=1.

It seems better on the whole to cash the second club at trick three - even if East ruffs, he is somewhat endplayed at that point, and your chances of making the contract are still very good.

Now, does crossing to the ace of hearts constitute an error? I think I had better leave that to the experts.

[jdeegan]

Just a note to put BBO self ratings in perspective - and I greatly favor BBO's decision to self rate - as opposed to OK Bridge's Lehman ratings which, imo, ruin their club.

I am more than happy to proudly rate myself an Advanced player. There is clearly a tier of players who are better than I am, but who fall short of being world class.

For whatever reason, one of the BBO workers analyzed six months of my hands on BBO. My play was almost entirely in indies with pick up partners. Evidently, my results were better than 70% of those who self-rated themselves as Experts and (I am assuming) played under similar conditions.

I don't mean to criticize these 70%. Many BBO players come from odd corners of the world where it is hard to make such evaluations based on local or even regional bridge events. If you have won the last four club tournaments in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (not a small place by any means), it is obvious you must be something, and Expert sounds about right.

One of the great things about Bridge and the internet is that we are creating a world community of like-minded individuals. In three to five years we will be texting away using real-time translation software. In five to ten we will be jabbering away at each other using translation voice. "Ping, you idiot, how could you bid 3♠ with that piece of s**t!"