[Lobowolf]

SoTired, on Sep 3 2008, 07:14 PM, said:

i have a different ranking system for others. It runs 1 to 6.

1 - too poor for me. i cannot tolerate to partner
2 - poor player, but tolerable if i am in a good mood
3 - not as good as me, but a tolerable partner
4 - about equal to me
5 - better than me, but still willing to play with me
6 - much better than me and will not play with me

I think this is a more useful ranking system.

the interesting thing is that players that i might rank a 1, also have players that are too poor for them to tolerate.

Most players will fall in categories 2-3. Surveys reveal that 95% of all bridge players are better than their partners.

[matmat]

Lobowolf, on Sep 3 2008, 07:17 PM, said:

Most players will fall in categories 2-3. Surveys reveal that 95% of all bridge players are better than their partners.

it's higher than that.

[dburn]

SoTired, on Sep 3 2008, 07:14 PM, said:

the interesting thing is that players that i might rank a 1, also have players that are too poor for them to tolerate.

The words of the great Ogden Nash, America's finest (perhaps only) poet spring irrepressibly to mind. He was writing about golf, not bridge, but he might as well not have been.

I never beheld you, O pawky Scot,
And I only guess your name,
Who first propounded the popular rot
That golf is a humbling game.
You putted perhaps with a mutton bone,
And hammered a gutty ball,
But I think that you sat in the bar alone
And never played at all.

Ye ha'e spoken a braw bricht mouthfu’, Jamie,
Ye didna ken ye erred.
Ye’re richt that golf is a something gamie,
But humble is not the word.
Try arrogant, insolent, supercilious,
And if invention fades,
Add uppity, hoity-toity, bilious,
And double them all in spades.

Oh, pride of rank is a fearsome thing,
And pride of riches a bore,
But they both of them bow on lea and ling
To the Prussian pride of score.
Better the beggar with fleas to scratch
Than the unassuming dub
Trying to pick up a Saturday match
In the locker room of the club.

The Hollywood snob will look you through
And stalk back into his clique,
For he knows that he is better than you
By so many grand a week.
And the high-caste Hindu's fangs are bared
If the low-caste Hindu blinks -
But they're just like one of the boys, compared
With the nabobs of the links.

Ah, where this side of the river Styx
Will you find an equal mate
For the scorn of a man with a seventy six
For a man with a seventy eight?
I will tell you a scorn that matches it fine
As the welkin matches the sun -
The scorn of a man with a ninety nine
For a man with a hundred and one.

And that is why I wander alone
From tee to green to tee,
For every golfer I've ever known
Is too good, or too bad, for me.
Indeed, I sometimes wonder, Jamie,
Slicing into the heather,
In such an unhumble, contemptfu' gamie,
How anyone plays together.

[vuroth]

smiffy, on Sep 3 2008, 05:02 PM, said:

- Intermediate: Uses Stayman, transfers and a random assortment of other stuff routinely, opens with 11/12 hcp, usually counts at least the trump suit, most of the times correctly

- Advanced: Is able to recognize and execute a simple squeeze, has a thorough understanding of many bidding systems and a great many conventions, often opens with ~10 hcp, usually tries successfully to count all (important) suits

Wow, so to progress I need to amass conventions and squeezes? I must be working on all the wrong things.

(Though I suppose that as my counting improves I may be occasionally able to pull off a pseudo-squeeze).

V

[ArtK78]

CSGibson, on Sep 3 2008, 07:04 PM, said:

Alvin Roth, for example, espoused a very conservative style, and he would be considered at least an expert, and maybe world class in skill level.

My, how soon they forget.

Alvin Roth was one of the greats of the game. Calling him "World Class" might be an understatement.

[Lobowolf]

ArtK78, on Sep 4 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

CSGibson, on Sep 3 2008, 07:04 PM, said:

Alvin Roth, for example, espoused a very conservative style, and he would be considered at least an expert, and maybe world class in skill level.

My, how soon they forget.

Alvin Roth was one of the greats of the game. Calling him "World Class" might be an understatement.

Per BBO, isn't "World Class" = "Represented your country in international competition"?

Coming in second place in multiple Bermuda Bowls probably safely qualifies Roth, yeah. Never mind the 29 National wins.

[smiffy]

Wasn't Alvin Roth, together with his partner, Tobias Stone also the inventor of the so called Roth-Stone convention, aka Sputnik, aka the negative double?
Just for this i think he deserves the label world class even if he hadn't achieved anything in competition...

Anyway, it seems to me that this whole rating thing is taken way too seriously. As far as i've seen it the vast majority of BBO members have a profile listing their conventions. I consider it quite easy to judge a players strength according to the information they provide. This might be a different thing altogether on actual higher levels but on "intermediate" not much is needed to make me happy. Also i have the feeling that only very, very few people consider themselves intermediate while they barely know the basics. But, again, on higher levels the air propaby gets considerably thinner.

My "internal rating" in the above post, by the way, was never meant to be taken seriously. Maybe it was "lost in translation", maybe it's the internet making irony sometimes difficult to see or maybe it just was not funny enough.

Anyway, good luck to you all.

[Lobowolf]

smiffy, on Sep 4 2008, 04:42 PM, said:

Wasn't Alvin Roth, together with his partner, Tobias Stone also the inventor of the so called Roth-Stone convention, aka Sputnik, aka the negative double?

Quote

Wasn't Alvin Roth, together with his partner, Tobias Stone also the inventor of the so called Roth-Stone convention, aka Sputnik, aka the negative double?

To say nothing of popularing and/or inventing 5-card majors, forcing NT, and unusual 2NT.

Additionally, I think he registered a trademark for "What's the problem?" for use on bidding panels.