[Feegle]

I (vaguely) recall a study by Newcastle University (UK) done many years ago where members of the public were invited to produce a piece of work (maybe a short essay) on a subject that all of them could take a decent stab at e.g. describe and contrast the four seasons.

Having finished, they were then asked to assess the quality of their own work. I don't remember how, but lets imagine they could claim it to be an 'advanced' piece or maybe even of 'expert' quality. Those less pleased with their accomplishments would have lower designations to select from.

I am sure the study produced a lengthy report but one of its core findings was that those people who were clearly intellegent/knowledgeable and produced really good work tended to underrate their efforts, perhaps placing their work as being in the average-above average range. Those who were clearly less proficient tended to overrate their work, clearly blissfully unaware that there are large segments of the population with greater ability. Some of the worst pieces of work were rated quite highly by their owners.

I offer this as an explaination of what I find on BBO. 'Beginners' who are really quite competent at the game with some well applied advanced knowledge, but too modest to promote themselves (or maybe lacking the confidence to). On the other hand I have kibbed 'expert' games and seen some inexplicable errors not excused due to lack of concentration. These errors are mercilessly exposed usually by the partner and the 'exchange of views' can be quite entertaining.
The BBO site offers clear guidelines as to how you should rate yourself, but clearly this is a very difficult area of self assessment. However, I sometimes wonder whether people put themselves forward as 'expert' just for the fun of it, since I see some tables ask for 'real experts'.

[gwnn]

I know many people who are adv+++ and just put in Beginner as a joke, because they consider self-ratings as a joke. In my humble experience the average skill of BBO members are sorted something like:

Novice
Beginner
Intermediate
Expert
Advanced
World Class

But obviously this is only because of a large portion of experts are not worthy of their self assessment.

I disagree with your hypothesis that many beginners don't change their skill level because of fear or modesty. I think it's mostly indifference or sense of humor.

[dburn]

There is a story that Sami Kehela and Eric Murray had to fill out a form indicating how many master points they had. Kehela wrote "Not many", but Murray wrote "Plenty".

[helene_t]

Those who are convinced of their own infallibility are unable to learn from their own mistakes. This may account for some negative correlation between skills and self-assessment.

[fred]

dburn, on Dec 12 2007, 03:33 PM, said:

There is a story that Sami Kehela and Eric Murray had to fill out a form indicating how many master points they had. Kehela wrote "Not many", but Murray wrote "Plenty".

Sorry about the off topic post, but I just read a newish book about Murray and Kehela ("Canada's Bridge Warriors" published by Masterpoint Press).

For me this was the best bridge book I have read in many years (though perhaps I am biased given that I idolized Murray and Kehela when I was young, became friends with them years later, and because I am also friends with the author Roy Hughes).

Anyways, I thought it was a great read and suspect most Forums regulars would also enjoy it.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[dburn]

At the risk of continuing off-topic, I completely agree with Fred's assessment of Roy Hughes's book. It and Sabine Auken's "I Love This Game" are the two best new bridge books to appear for quite some time.

[keylime]

I agree with Fred - I got that book as a surprise gift and it was a gripping read.

On topic, I think that there is some correlation in terms of "bridge intelligence" from the study to BBO's ratings. I've never rated myself as expert, because I knew early on that the ceiling was quite high, and thusly, the law of averages of sorts would sort out the group. I think many who rank themselves as expert are either unaware of this proverbial glass ceiling or are themselves trying to improve by rating inflation.

I find on average that most intermediates are much closer to their expected "par" than experts, and that advanced players have the largest variance of skill, for they encompass a large group from intermediates trying to improve to truly advanced players that are close to expert status. Experts it seems for me, are either really bad, or really good, and there isn't a lot in between.

[vuroth]

gwnn, on Dec 12 2007, 09:51 AM, said:

I disagree with your hypothesis that many beginners don't change their skill level because of fear or modesty. I think it's mostly indifference or sense of humor.

fwiw, it took several people making the point to me for me to change my rating from beginner to intermediate. I was definitely concerned with being "caught out" by someone.

[Trysalot]

I am an ACBL Silver Life Master which I became when I achieved the level of 1,000 masterpoints. Right now I have 1,300+ masterpoints. I am ranked as 252 out of 2,144 members in our ACBL Unit. On BBO I rank myself as "Advanced".

What has amazed me several times is to be partnered with an "Expert" as a pickup from the partnership desk and wonder why I am seeing various basic bridge errors in bidding the conventions being played, defending, and/or declaring and, worst of all, the partner ignoring the agreements on the card we selected to play such as deliberately modifying or compromising them without any discussion until I respond based on the conventional responses and go down in the unmakeable contract only to be criticized by the partner for bidding what I did when the partner instead of having, for example, the two 5 card suits called for by the convention, has 4 of one and 5 of the other and less than the hcp points necessary to bid over 1NT when we are vul against non-vul. LOL

Several times the expert's profile showed a real name and, in those instances, I went to the ACBL web site and checked the masterpoint holding. If I didn't get several matches for that name or, if I did but the person's profile indicated a city or state and that gave me a single match, I had to assume I had the right person. Each time I felt the record I was seeing was the person with whom I had played,
I found the person had many less masterpoints than I did. One had less than the 300 masterpoints required for the Life Master title. Yet they all self-evaluated as experts which I would not then nor would I now dare to call myself.

[mike777]

"Several times the expert's profile showed a real name and, in those instances, I went to the ACBL web site and checked the masterpoint holding. If I didn't get several "



I did not know that this was public information beyond the top 100 players or so?

[awm]

mike777, on Dec 12 2007, 09:04 PM, said:

"Several times the expert's profile showed a real name and, in those instances, I went to the ACBL web site and checked the masterpoint holding. If I didn't get several "



I did not know that this was public information beyond the top 100 players or so?

Any club director needs to be able to verify current masterpoint holdings for all players in their game, in order to do seeding and stratification. So even though this info is not posted anywhere, it's pretty easy to get...

[matmat]

self rating has more to do with ego and culture than with skill assessment.

i'd love to see a breakdown of level by country of origin.

[jmc]

Mike, if you just run a search of someone's first and last name on the ACBL website it will find you results form regionals, sectionals, and other games they have played in. This will easily let you determine if they are A,B, or C. Finding their exact masterpoint holding would be more difficult, but if you have access to any acbl club databases it could be found probably.

i do this sometimes to see if someone is a regular tournament player or not. You can also see their holdings for this year if they are in the top 100 or so for their district or unit's minimckinney or ace of clubs.

Happy sleuthing.

jmc

[Mbodell]

matmat, on Dec 12 2007, 09:31 PM, said:

self rating has more to do with ego and culture than with skill assessment.

i'd love to see a breakdown of level by country of origin.

If I remember correctly the vast majority of American's over inflate their skills and the vast majority of Japanese under estimate their skills, so i think by country could be interesting. The study I'm thinking of asked people to rate their driving ability and something like 80% of Americans said they had "above average" skills while 2/3 of Japanese self rated as "below average".

[finally17]

Mbodell, on Dec 13 2007, 01:23 AM, said:

If I remember correctly the vast majority of American's over inflate their skills and the vast majority of Japanese under estimate their skills, so i think by country could be interesting. The study I'm thinking of asked people to rate their driving ability and something like 80% of Americans said they had "above average" skills while 2/3 of Japanese self rated as "below average".

While I'll trust your memory for the sake of argument, I would be surprised if it applied universally across fields, which is what you're trying to do.

I'm sure there's a lot of cultural variation, but driving != bridge playing, and I wouldn't assume that I'd get the same kinds of results. Certainly you can't compare the basically universal (in the US) activity of driving with the extremely self-selective recreation of bridge.

As to the original topic, I for one am still holding out for the day that BBO goes to some kind of real rating system. I'm sure it's been addressed on these forums before, but I don't get why they haven't. Even if my rating was only viewable by me, still I'd like one.

[Walddk]

I don't know what "real experts" are, but I know how I would describe "experts":

Players who make fewer mistakes than novices, beginners, intermediates, advanced ... and more than World Class players. I watch quite a few self-rated expert players on BBO, and they make roughly five errors per board.

That has obviously nothing to do with expertise, or being an expert. Apart from the fact that every individual decides what she/he is, it doesn't cost to rate yourself as an expert even if you are not, because most of those "experts" are anonymous.

I don't blame them.

Roland

[sceptic]

I have a solution to this long standing problem

try these rankings for size

Beginner or novice, which ever you feel comfortable with, this is someone that is starting out and does not have a teacher or anything we all know to some extent what a beginner is


Intermedate, has leant more than the basics, but finds it hard to play with a complete novice as it spoils thier fun and it not really going to advance themselves if they stay playing at this level


good intermediate, someone that has a reasonable grasp of the main conventions within thier own geographical area (this may need wording differently as some people learn ion the net and so they dont really undersatnd the local system well), has a reasonable grasp of thier own carding system

good intermediate +_ can play 2 or 3 systems and various carding systems knows some more advanced topics and can remeber them at the table with out a cheat sheet but does not find it easy all the time

Advanced player, is a certified teacher (though I think this may not be a good rule as some of the teachers think they are good and are crap) also someone that can mentor a pupil properly and someone that when they play with an expert, keeps them at the table for more than a few hands before they leave in disgust

Expert (interesting way to define people) would be to do a poll of all the posters in the forums and set a standard as to what an expert would be) i.e. who you all consider an expert and why

World Class this should be voted on by the experts on BBO Swan bridge OK etc and group together and limited to the top 500 players in the world and Fred should be able to put a fix in that only genuine people can get a worldclass rating on their profile

I am sure someone like Ben or Roland would like to keep tabs on this list and add people as it seems fit

I think ranking by peers is better than what we have here for the world class and expert status

And then the best rank of all


Social player, I do not care how you rate yourself as long as you are polite and can play a reasonable fun game

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on Dec 13 2007, 11:57 AM, said:

I don't know what "real experts" are, but I know how I would describe "experts":

I just had a look at the BBO definitions and I realised they aren't as clear as I thought they were. Here is what I remembered and believed they meant:

Expert: Someone who has won national competitions
World Class: Someone who has been selected to represent their country in a world championship

and here is what they actually say

Expert: Someone who as enjoyed success in major national tournaments
World Class: Someone who has represented their country in World Championships

And here is the difference:
Expert
Under my definition, it's quite easy: you are an expert if you have won a national competition. Now, depending on your country you will be more or less good (it's a bit easy to win national competitions in, say, Rwanda than it is in the US). It's also easier to win women's competitions than open ones (at least, it is if you are female), but the definition is clear.

But what is 'enjoying success' supposed to mean? I was pleased with my success the first time I finished above average in a national pairs event. Does it mean 'finishes in the prizes', 'qualifies for the final', 'doesn't finish last' or what?

World Class
Again, under my definition you are world class only if you have played for your country in the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup or World Juniors. Not much margin for error there. I'd probably admit people who have played in the Olympiad as well (even though this will include some pretty weak players globally speaking).

But now we have 'Open' world championships, where all it takes to represent your country is having your membership up to date. I have 'played for England' in a 'World Championship' under this definition: I emailed the EBU, told them I wanted to play, turned up in Verona and paid the entry fee.

When I'm bored, I sometimes log on to BBO and restrict the players to those claiming to be English or British experts or World Class and see how many of them fit my definitions (given that I reckon I know everyone who has won a national event). My hit rate is about 10%.

I've spotted a number of 'stars' who claim to be World Class who certainly don't fit my definition, although they are generally (IMO) pretty good players.

[helene_t]

Most people don't read the definitions, some of those who read them may deliberately mislabel themselves, and many don't care about the levels of peers. This is bound to happen no matter what definitions apply. So I don't think this discussion is that important.

[whereagles]

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