[cc41139]

It has come to my attention that many of the players in BBO do not have the ability they claim on their profile. Some so called experts play at intermediate or novice level, resulting in a very disappointed partner, and not a pleasant experience.

My solution: since BBO keeps track of all hands played, it should be relatively easy for them to determine an individual's success in tournaments as well as bridge rooms.
For matchplay, a person's rating would be the average of all his hands, expressed as a percentage.
IMP players would have a rating expressed as + or - so many IMPS.

A new player would be assigned a no-rating until he has played, say, 10 hands. After that, every time he came on to BBO, an instant rating would appear by his name, possibly expressed as (56%/-2.9). This would make it easier to find a partner of suitable ability, and make the game more enjoyable for all concerned.

[655321]

gwnn?


Edit: never mind, Here is a small selection:-

http://forums.bridge...p?showtopic=875
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=3505
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=6262
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=6535
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=8226
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=16066
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=18854
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=19308
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=19628
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=23749
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27178
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27187
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27445
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27836
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27945
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=28280
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=29025

This post has been edited by 655321: 2009-November-18, 20:26

[Phil]

Like clockwork.

[Jlall]

655321, on Nov 18 2009, 08:50 PM, said:

gwnn?


Edit: never mind, Here is a small selection:-

http://forums.bridge...p?showtopic=875
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=3505
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=6262
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=6535
http://forums.bridge...?showtopic=8226
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=16066
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=18854
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=19308
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=19628
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=23749
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27178
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27187
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27445
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27836
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=27945
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=28280
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=29025

LOL

[mohitz]

LOL. We should probably have a pinned topic about this

[babalu1997]

cc41139, on Nov 18 2009, 08:44 PM, said:

It has come to my attention that many of the players in BBO do not have the ability they claim on their profile.

The end is near. Repent!!!

[mohitz]

Anyone wanna guess how many % of forum members' first post is about the rating system?

[helene_t]

Dear cc41139,

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for your suggestion.

As the other posters say, similar ideas have been posted many times before. It seems that most people here don't want objective rating schemes, mostly because of concern for the social impact such a scheme will have.

When you have been on BBO for a while and build up a list of friends, it won't be a problem. There will be plenty of people you know to be good (or bad) players. Make use of the player notes, and mark players you like to play with as friends.

[peachy]

helene_t, on Nov 19 2009, 09:13 AM, said:

Dear cc41139,

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for your suggestion.

As the other posters say, similar ideas have been posted many times before. It seems that most people here don't want objective rating schemes, mostly because of concern for the social impact such a scheme will have.

When you have been on BBO for a while and build up a list of friends, it won't be a problem. There will be plenty of people you know to be good (or bad) players. Make use of the player notes, and mark players you like to play with as friends.

Second all that, plus, BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

[fred]

peachy, on Nov 19 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

Not sure that is accurate.

What we want is to do what we think is best for BBO and its members. If and when someone figures out how to implement a rating system in such a way that we are confident it will be an improvement over what we have now (which we admit is far from perfect), I suspect we would implement it.

I am not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

Note that I am not referring to finding a great method of computing player ratings. This is mostly about policies about when/where/how to display playing ratings.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[kenrexford]

www.askkenrexfordwhosucksatbridge.com

The most trusted source in bridge rating news.

(Edit: there is no comma. This website is NOT "Ask Ken Rexford, who sucks at bridge." LOL)

[gwnn]

nice catch nameless numerical friend!

[655321]

kenrexford, on Nov 19 2009, 03:46 PM, said:

www.askkenrexfordwhosucksatbridge.com

The most trusted source in bridge rating news.

(Edit:  there is no comma.  This website is NOT "Ask Ken Rexford, who sucks at bridge."  LOL)

There are posters who take phrases from posts and quote them in their sig. Just saying...

[pooltuna]

fred, on Nov 19 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

peachy, on Nov 19 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

Not sure that is accurate.

What we want is to do what we think is best for BBO and its members. If and when someone figures out how to implement a rating system in such a way that we are confident it will be an improvement over what we have now (which we admit is far from perfect), I suspect we would implement it.

I am not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

Note that I am not referring to finding a great method of computing player ratings. This is mostly about policies about when/where/how to display playing ratings.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Well if you want at least a smattering of a rating system why not set up a series of individual swiss tourneys where you can earn a "star" by total "placing points" in say 10 tournaments a month(well best 10 placements) but to keep it you have to repeat your performance every month

[mink]

fred, on Nov 19 2009, 08:41 PM, said:

peachy, on Nov 19 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

Not sure that is accurate.

What we want is to do what we think is best for BBO and its members. If and when someone figures out how to implement a rating system in such a way that we are confident it will be an improvement over what we have now (which we admit is far from perfect), I suspect we would implement it.

I am not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

Note that I am not referring to finding a great method of computing player ratings. This is mostly about policies about when/where/how to display playing ratings.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Hi Fred,

this is my idea of what could be done:

Compute ratings that nobody can ever see, maybe not even publish that they exist.

Use them when a player clicks on "Take me to a free seat" to select among the available partners the one with the best fitting rating. Maybe for pair tourneys introduce a new button "suggest a player to invite" located below the partnership desk list: the profile of player with the closest matching rating is displayed along with a button to invite him.

Both functions could exclude players if one is in the enemy list of the other.

These functions could be enhanced the following way: Extend the players profile with a set of check boxes for the most common systems, conventions and carding methods. (This should be displayed on request only, maybe a button in the profile.) For each item, one can check "I do not know this", "I know this" or "I like to play this". When matching players, take this information into account together with the rating. When a pair is established, compile a convention card from the methods common in both profiles.

The whole thing could be extended for team games: Create a function "I like to join a team game", where a player can say how many boards he likes to play and optionally who shall be his partner and teammates. When 8 matching players are found, an automatic invitation occurs.

Karl

[babalu1997]

Is there a lack of sites where play is rated?

AFAIK there is at least one rated site where one can play for free and two where there are annual fees.

You can always log on to find a 3 digit figure of players in the rated tables. Why not play there?

Obviously the majority does not wish a rating system and make bbo the largest and most successful playing site.


Play in the main bridge club is not that hard:

Once you discover the guy does not play stayman you can leave, no feelings hurt.
Sometimes I chance to play with players who are more advanced than i am and they leave on me, however sometimes i gain from some smart thing they did. If they leave without calling me a moron i am even happier.

[peachy]

fred, on Nov 19 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

peachy, on Nov 19 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

Not sure that is accurate.

Sorry, Fred. My understanding from your past posts was that the likelihood of BBO implementing a rating system was approximately zero. Thanks for the correction.

[TimG]

babalu1997, on Nov 20 2009, 11:34 AM, said:

You can always log on to find a 3 digit figure of players in the rated tables. Why not play there?

Obviously the majority does not wish a rating system and make bbo the largest and most successful playing site.

Because the only difference is one has a rating system and one does not?

[babalu1997]

TimG, on Nov 20 2009, 02:02 PM, said:

babalu1997, on Nov 20 2009, 11:34 AM, said:

You can always log on to find a 3 digit figure of players in the rated tables.  Why not play there?

Obviously the majority does not wish a rating system and make bbo the largest and most successful playing site.

Because the only difference is one has a rating system and one does not?

Hi Tim, what I was trying to say is that folks who like rating should opt to paly in online bridge places that offer rating.

I was a member of such a club for a year, I did not like it because first, I was raided for my ratings upon arrival and then I had a hard time finding partners-- the better ones were protective of their ratings.

Tho i took a partner there, he had the strange belief that in the long run the rating would self-correct, an i did not think so because the people who played us were in the same bracket. And even if that rating were to self correct, it would have to be that both partners come to the table ready to play veyr seriously which you might not want to do all the time in an online situation.

While I was there, I met a man who was a highly-ranked player in the late 60s. He got there and played with evryone, his rating went down terribly. Towards the end, he would only play with me (who had only played for about 2 years at the time) and a norwegian expert player who was fully aware of this guys real playing ability (apparently he was the only one to realize that because others only looked at his rating).

Anyway, he no longer plays online bridge, he became so despondent that he stopped playing online. I tried calling him at home a few times to bring him over to bbo-- he keeps saying he like rating and would not play non-rated games.

So to people who want rating, I say, go and seek places where you can be rated according to a system of your liking.

It matters not to me why bbo offers no rating, but i want it that way.

If that were to change, I would just go and maybe take up scrabble.

[fred]

peachy, on Nov 20 2009, 06:03 PM, said:

fred, on Nov 19 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

peachy, on Nov 19 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

BBO owners/administrators do not want a rating system.

Not sure that is accurate.

Sorry, Fred. My understanding from your past posts was that the likelihood of BBO implementing a rating system was approximately zero. Thanks for the correction.

I am not hopeful that there will ever be a system devised that I would want to implement so, from that point of view, the odds may well be close to zero.

The fundamental problem in my view is that just about everyone wants to know how well other people play, but many people do not want other people to know how well they play. There are also plenty of people who really don't want to know how well (or more likely how badly) they themselves actually play.

It is hard for me to imagine solving these problems with software.

But some other things could happen:

- I am not the only one who would be involved in such a decision. If the rest of my business partners wanted to implement some kind of rating system, even if I hated it, I would not (and could not) stand in their way.

- Peoples' attitudes toward this may shift dramatically one day.

- Maybe one day we will make a new site (or part of the existing site) with ratings.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com