[bill1157]

I classify people as those I would take to a tournament and those I wouldn't. Its just a practical matter of: do I want to spend all day or several days and lots of money playing with this person. I want to at least have a slight chance of doing something.
Beyond that, I can have a good time playing with someone who is sensible and tries, even if they are not advanced or expert.

Bill

[Codo]

I really doubt that star players are better in realizing their mistakes. The ones I know are as human as you and me. "A cow flew by" is no sentence from a merely advanced player.

As others have said, it is easy to rate true beginners and I would guess if you have just three categories (beginners, int and good) it would be possible to rate the most people fair within as few as 10 boards.
But to judge it more precisely, is a nearly impossible task. Sometimes when I judge players I watch, they make some obvious mistakes in counterplay. But who am I to judge? Maybe they just followed the marks from their partner? Maybe their was a different explanation of the bidding?

So, I would need at least 100 boards to differ between an expert and an advanced player and 1000 to identify a true expert.

[Oof Arted]

Hanoi5, on Nov 16 2009, 04:59 PM, said:

How do you become solid?

Spoiler

I mean, how do you become a solid player? What common mistakes do experts/world class avoid?

You could ask Odo from DS9 to take you to the great lake

[Free]

Generally I'm with Justin, beginner can be identified very easily, experts takes more time.

However, one should take into account in which situation people are. For example, if I'm playing late at night with a whiskey next to me, I sometimes make noobish mistakes (and post ridiculous comments). On the other hand if I'm playing real life bridge with my favorite partner, I'm sure I play a lot better since I'm way more focussed...

[cherdanno]

It takes about 3 posts to be certain. Oh, you mean when playing bridge?