[EricK]

Assume you sit down to play with 3 strangers, and everyone agrees to play a simple system. How many hands do you think it would take to work out how good everyone was (eg to say in what BBO category - beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc they belonged)?

Let's say there are two scenarios - one where there is no talking or post mortems (so you just get to base it on the bids, plays and tempo), and the other where you get to listen in to the other people's post mortems but you're not allowed to ask any leading questions.

[maggieb]

How about BBF forum posts?

[Jlall]

Very quickly if they aren't that good, much much longer if they are good. For instance I think in a few hands I could say someone if someone was a beginner rather than int. It would take me longer to determine if they are an int or an advanced, but I could place them around that level. It would take much longer to decide if someone is advanced or expert.

And telling the difference between an expert or a world class would take many many hands and many different sessions. A world class player could easily play like a mere expert on a given day depending on their motivation and how tired they were etc.

[EricK]

maggieb, on Nov 16 2009, 09:17 PM, said:

How about BBF forum posts?

In that case we need a new category. As well as Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert and World Class, we would need to add Ken Rexford.

[Jlall]

The thing about good bridge is it rarely requires anything spectacular, so it's not like you'd just see some hand played and be like WOW HE MUST BE JEFF MECKSTROTH. And in general all expert+ players are capable of making some play on a good day unless it's extremely spectacular, so what seperates them is being really solid and good on the run of the mill decisions.

That being said, there are some errors that you just never or almost never make once you reach a certain level, so if you see those happening and if you see frequent errors you can be confident that someone is not as good as a certain level.

Basically it's a game of mistakes, and the better the player is the less they will make, so the less you will have to judge them on.

[Hanoi5]

How do you become solid?

Spoiler

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

[awm]

Not sure I really agree with Justin here.

First of all, everyone makes a lot of mistakes in bridge. Even world-class players seem to make a lot of mistakes (albeit fewer than the rest of us). It's not like experts make one mistake per hundred boards and world-class one mistake per thousand or something ridiculous like that. I think the vast majority of players will do something wrong within twenty boards.

Second, I think there are gray areas between all the levels. For example, I know some people who definitely fit into the category of advanced, but who I've seen make mistakes on BBO that seem like "beginner/intermediate level" things.

I agree that it doesn't take more than a hand or two to distinguish an expert from a beginner. The types (and frequencies) of errors made by experts and beginners is quite different. But distinguishing any two "consecutive" levels seems more difficult, especially since people play on BBO when they are tired or drunk or watching TV (and obviously play below their normal standard in all of these cases).

[hotShot]

I once wrote a program that tested boards played on bbo and checked how many tricks the players lost against what the double dummy solver could do. Please realize that these plays are not necessarily errors!
The result was that experts/world class played 1 card in 4 boards that lead to a trick less than the double dummy play.
Intermediate Players/Beginner played an average of a little more than 1 trick per board.

[H_KARLUK]

If you are indexed to win all the times i don't think anything out of that route will satisfy. Because life is full of with curves and winning everytime in everywhere is impossible. Shortly there will be mostly some wise guys.

If you enjoy to question and judge the others then you shouldn't get bother one day when somebody better than you follows your way. You know they say what you think you deserve it.

It's a thing like no matter how good anybody in any field of life should show respect himself/herself and to others. i.e. Though i disagree most of my friends encourage me that i have a velvet voice to sing well, anyway that doesn't mean i have to criticise and protest lower performances when they are at the stage. Even if some of them may be arrogants not worths to discuss. Like many others i am supposed to wait their turn's over.

In the meantime I've two sweet oldies in local club, nine out of ten they finish at the bottom, say even there were only four tables. Surprisingly they enjoy more than everybody.

Have fun, good luck

ps. Maybe you should try to hire professionals if you are ambitious enough to reach better scores.

[pooltuna]

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?

Well since your body is mostly water....

[babalu1997]

awm, on Nov 16 2009, 05:02 PM, said:

Not sure I really agree with Justin here.

First of all, everyone makes a lot of mistakes in bridge. Even world-class players seem to make a lot of mistakes (albeit fewer than the rest of us). It's not like experts make one mistake per hundred boards and world-class one mistake per thousand or something ridiculous like that. I think the vast majority of players will do something wrong within twenty boards.

Second, I think there are gray areas between all the levels. For example, I know some people who definitely fit into the category of advanced, but who I've seen make mistakes on BBO that seem like "beginner/intermediate level" things.

I agree that it doesn't take more than a hand or two to distinguish an expert from a beginner. The types (and frequencies) of errors made by experts and beginners is quite different. But distinguishing any two "consecutive" levels seems more difficult, especially since people play on BBO when they are tired or drunk or watching TV (and obviously play below their normal standard in all of these cases).

Why should you judge, depends, I think, on what you are trying to do.

Once I was floating in the tournament lobby of another bridge site. Perhaps it was my punk outfit, but no one was inviting.

And there was a guy hanging there with a ridiculously high rating, who in fact holds a star at bbo.

-- expert partner needed!!!
--expert partner needed!!!

no takers

-- advanced partner needed!!
-- advanced parner needed!!

no takers

the game starts and he shouts:

ANYONE, ANYONE, I WILL PLAY WITH ANYONE

so I asked, even me?

He said, let`s go we already lost a round, just have common sense.

Well we came 2nd, i am sure i made tons of mistakes but the key is this:

The guy was not expecting me to go around playing squeezes or cuebidding 5th round control!!! He, I suppose, was just eager to play a few boards.

But truly, if you guys are looking to find the world class, or even judge them, with the "take me to a table" button, you are looking for love in the wrong places.

[ggwhiz]

I'm with jlall on this one.

Rookies have such an arsenal of glaring errors that they will show up quickly and it takes much longer to determine if a player is advanced, just advancing or on a hot streak.

I've been hammered a few times in a row by players that I know are not that good from past encounters. Shows potential but I'm not moving them up in rank until they do it for a while.

Tempo helps. I play a lot of speedballs instead of watching bad tv where it is magnified but take note of it at the table as well. The nature and speed of claiming, accepting or rejecting a claim is telling.

Performing basic squeezes, strips and endplays etc. at high speed is a positive too although some really fine players are SLOOOOW.

[Phil]

The curve is probably logarithmic - so I suppose I agree with Justin.

With a rookie to an intermediate you can tell within a few tricks.

A bad intermediate to a good intermediate in more tricks.

An intermediate to an advanced - one hand.

Advanced to expert - 4-5 hands.

Expert to WC - the number of mistakes might differ by 1 in a set of 12 boards.

Adam's point about the number of mistakes isn't really relevant. I am quite sure I have gone for streaks of more than 20 hands and not made a single error. I have also made several errors in several hands in a row. Does this mean I have good days and bad days? Sure, but it also means that some bridge decisions are tougher than others too. I have seen the same on vugraph at the highest levels. You occasionally see pairs that are totally flawless for a set. You also see mistakes that are more of the 60/40 type where the play or bidding wasn't optimal.

I also firmly believe that the better the player, the more aware he is of the mistakes he makes. When we were good INTs, didn't we think we all played perfectly?

[mikeh]

I'm more or less with Justin on this one.

However, I think it may be difficult for any player to quickly evaluate the skill level of another player whose ability/knowledge of the game is markedly different.

While I think I would recognize a beginner within at most a few tricks...often during the bidding if I were kibitzing, I'm not sure I could quickly differentiate between a 'good' beginner and an intermediate or a 'good' intermediate and an advanced. It is, after all, a continuum, not a set of non-overlapping categories. I doubt that a beginner would ever, unassisted, tell the difference between an expert and a WC player, since the mistakes made by the expert will usually be too subtle to be recognized by the beginner or even an intermediate.

As for the differences between WC and expert.... one is the frequency of mistakes, and anyone watching the late stages of any major tournament will see lots of mistakes so one cannot argue that WC players make almost no errors. But they do make fewer errors than experts. Another is imagination..... the WC player will visualize positions on play or defence that might escape a mere expert....but these situations arise so infrequently (well, as a mere expert, it may be that I simply don't see them) that one might watch a full session and not see a WC player exhibit this extra feature.

Finally, there is judgement, and on watching vugraph, that is the area that seems to me to most separate out the WC from the expert....the WC player simply appears to get more competitive decisions 'right' than the expert. This is an area that really can't be judged outside of strong competition....I don't think that we'd pick up on this much of we watched two pairs...one expert, one WC...play two weak pairs. The weak pairs wouldn't usually be putting the stronger pairs into the situation where that extra level of judgement possessed by the WC pair would show any real edge.

[hanp]

Phil give me a call when you are on your next 20-board streak.

[junyi_zhu]

EricK, on Nov 16 2009, 09:14 PM, said:

Assume you sit down to play with 3 strangers, and everyone agrees to play a simple system. How many hands do you think it would take to work out how good everyone was (eg to say in what BBO category - beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc they belonged)?

Let's say there are two scenarios - one where there is no talking or post mortems (so you just get to base it on the bids, plays and tempo), and the other where you get to listen in to the other people's post mortems but you're not allowed to ask any leading questions.

Well, it's not very difficult from a counting point of view. All experts don't have counting problems. All beginners don't count. All intermediates sometimes count. All advanced players sometimes don't count. World class is a word I tend not to use just because in my observation, at least 10% players in bermuda bowl and venice cup have counting problems. The difference between top experts and experts is the experience in top level events, but those who can attend top level events don't have to be experts, or don't have to be advanced players.

[Jlall]

junyi_zhu, on Nov 18 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

The difference between top experts and experts is the experience in top level events

Ummm,,,,, don't agree. The difference is, the top experts play better!

[aguahombre]

And the really top experts are the only ones who notice most of their mistakes

[mike777]

BBO forum members have repeatedly said there are about 10-100 top experts in the world so....we can assume whoever is not......easy.....

The rest of us play for fun....hopefully.

[gwnn]

of course experts are better at finding mistakes in their games AND they're better at not making mistakes. why does everybody assume the first one is stronger than the second one and people automatically find more and more mistakes? Personally, it is a spiral, I hope it's leading somewhere, but the immediate observation is that sometimes I find lots of mistakes and sometimes I find just a few and just don't get my low % or imp count.