[mamo2500]

This month it is 2 years since I first played on BBO. I seem to remember something about max a 100 persons logged in or maybe that was later on.
I was wondering when it all started?

Marianne

[fred]

mamo2500, on Feb 12 2004, 01:55 PM, said:

This month it is 2 years since I first played on BBO. I seem to remember something about max a 100 persons logged in or maybe that was later on.
I was wondering when it all started?

Marianne

The first version of BBO was released to the
general public in late April of 2001.

During the first few months having even 20 at
once seemed like a lot. Nice to note that several
of our yellow members were among the very
first dedicated BBO members (Booze, Gerardo,
Deanrover6, Nafiz, 7me, and Vincenzo for certain
and I think Rain, Wojela, and Libido were also
BBO members from close to the beginning - sorry
if I left anyone out).

One day I will write about how BBO came to be in
the first place. This is an interesting story in my view
and it is not really known to the world.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Rado]

Hi Marianne and Fred,

I think I know some of the facts about the arising of BBO idea, but I will need Fred's authorisation to reveal the secrets:-)))))).

Btw it may sounds funny but I really cannot remember when I registrated for the first time at BBO but I remember very well the enthusiasm of all the pioneers.

I hope Fred will tell us the full story after his team wins this year Vanderbilt.

Best regards
Rado

[mpefritz]

Is there a way to find out which "member number" you are?
Or can there be a "Member Since" portion to someone's profile?

fritz

[fred]

Rado, on Mar 6 2004, 08:58 AM, said:

Hi Marianne and Fred,

I think I know some of the facts about the arising of BBO idea, but I will need Fred's authorisation to reveal the secrets:-)))))).

Btw it may sounds funny but I really cannot remember when I registrated for the first time at BBO but I remember very well the enthusiasm of all the pioneers.

I hope Fred will tell us the full story after his team wins this year Vanderbilt.

Best regards
Rado

Feel free to post whatever you want on this
subject, Rado. I will let people know if any of
the facts you present are incorrect.

Thanks for asking, but it really wasn't necessary

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

mpefritz, on Mar 6 2004, 12:56 PM, said:

Is there a way to find out which "member number" you are?
Or can there be a "Member Since" portion to someone's profile?

fritz

Currently there is no way to do this. I am not sure
if the information is available or not and, if it is, how
hard it would be to extract.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[vanilla]

member number and when member joined bbo...where do I find that information ?

[Chamaco]

BBO started in April 2001 and I started to learn bridge on my own by studying the "Learn to play bridge" tutorial in may/june 2001.
Someone on the rec.bridge.games had suggested me to get started playng vs humans rather than software, and he pointed be to BBO.

I got there in July (after some more study ), and there were regularly logged between 8-20 persons.
I started playing, very badly but I was playing bridge!!
There were some good players, (maybe not expert, maybe yes, I could not tell then) who were very nice to give suggestions, also sometimes frustration transpired from their words when playing with clearly beginners.
A few of them were also nice enough to offer short session of bidding practice oin specific topics (eg. 2C auctions or 1NT sequences) in the Partnership bidding room.

After a few months, Shep's mentoring classes started and that was extremely useful to players like me.

Now I won't make the chronicle of the rest of the 3 years that followed but the point is that many players, like me, started actually to play and learn bridge on BBO, not at a real club.

At first, ignoring the atmosphere of many bridge clubs, I did not realize how lucky I was: I found bridge partners from any country, and stronger than me, ready to be friendly but as well giving suggestions for my improvement !
At a real bridge club, even an intermediate player often encounters problems in finding partners who are both patient and at a level that may contribute to your bridge improvement: this is probably natural, since a good player is more inclined to play single hands online with an unknown partner, because he can leave whenever he wants if he is not on the same wavelength; the same cannot be done at a real club, in MP tourneys or rubbers.

The bottomline is that Fred's initiative worked - with me, and several other players - in the goal of helping the development of new advocates to the game of bridge.
His site helped developing a friendly atmosphere and gave me opportunities to play more often and with any kind of players.
And his software products (I got Bridgemaster, Counting, Defense, Private lessons 1-2 by Lawrence) were also great.

So, THANKS FRED !