[nige1]

 johnu, on 2021-January-17, 21:19, said:

BBO implemented a self-rating system. Many BBO tables (players) state they don't want beginners/novices, or maybe just expert and above. So, many players overrate themselves so they can play in advanced games. Only problem is that it doesn't take more than a hand or two before they are exposed as beginners to intermediate players. Then they'll get bounced from the table. Having a data driven rating system won't make this worse.

Understandably, some players prefer self-rating to any objective measure of skill. The nearest BBO gets to the latter is Masterpoints but, unfortunately, that just measures cash resources and experience -- although it would be slightly more effective if totals were automatically "aged".

IMO, the frequent necro of this topic shows that there is considerable interest in an objective measure of skill; and a simple optional rating-system might be an acceptable compromise.

[lmhk]

 helene_t, on 2021-January-17, 18:36, said:

You can judge the progress of your own play by seeing how your score against robots evolve under various conditions (Daylong, with three robots scored against random vugraph deals, etc). Probably your long-term trend will have a negative bias because the robots get better and better, but that will only be a serious problem if we are talking about decades rather than years or months.

Judging other players, or comparing your own bridge to that of other players, is something you should avoid, though. It would create lots of social issues:
- players blaming their partners for ruining their rating
- players leaving mid-hand when they are on their way to a result that would ruin their rating
- players selecting partners and opponents based on (mostly misguided) beliefs about how the choice influences their rating
- players avoiding playing when they are tired or distressed because of fear of ruining their own rating
- players accusing each other of cheating
- forum discussions being dominated by conspiracy theories about how the rating system is biased in favour of certain players
- players creating new accounts to start with a fresh rating (which in turns leads other players to be prejudiced against new accounts and thereby make it difficult for genuine newbies to get into the community)

Fred and Uday had seen this and/or similar disasters happening on other sites so they rightly chose not to implement a rating system on BBO.

In my mind none of the social issues you stated are real problems.
1. blaming partners: If the partners know each other, they need to work it out themselves. The point of competitive gaming is people will care about their rating, and will have to learn how to communicate with each other to improve. Arguments are always going to happen in competitive games. Communication is part of the game. If the partners don't know each other, they should follow site rules on competitive play, such as only being allowed to give constructive criticism rather than saying things like "you suck" or "idiot". Of course, site regulators would be needed to maintain a good environment, and players who are toxic should be penalized by either getting chat banned or banned from competitive play completely.
2. leaving mid-hand: This can be prevented by simply penalizing players who do so.
3. selecting partners: I assume if someone plays in my suggested competitive section as an individual, they should be matched up by the system with a player of a similar rating and cannot choose their partner.
4. fear of ruining rating: Just go play casual. My idea is that the site would be divided into a casual and a competitive section.
5. Cheating/accusing: Cheating might be hard to prevent but at the end of the day, the rating does not give you any actual benefit such as a monetary payment, so there really isn't huge incentive to cheat. (If someone wanted to cheat against me, I couldn't care less. Congratulations on the high rating.)
6.Conspiracy theories: It's just a lot of talk.
7. New accounts: In gaming, I believe the term is "smurfing": if people do this, then surely they will run over their opponents and their rating would increase drastically and quickly, resulting in them matching up with higher rated players soon enough.

All in all I think there are too many people being overly worried about the various problems that may arise over such a system, but the fact is the community is soft. A lot of people say "wdp" even though their partner played their hand horrendously and only got lucky. Some people cannot accept any helpful advice/constructive criticism. BBO is almost strictly a bridge club for people to relax and never improve. However, I believe there are still some people who want to play against serious opponents, want to learn, and want to get better by making mistakes, communicating, discussing and accepting advice from others. As stated before, even if such a system were to be implemented, there would still be a casual section for casual bridge lovers, so really no harm done to the former player group.

[hrothgar]

 lmhk, on 2021-January-18, 11:29, said:

In my mind none of the social issues you stated are real problems.

Thats nice

In my mind, someone who's been on the forums for a couple days probably shouldn't be explaining the nature of reality to folks with 30+ years experience playing in various online bridge environments.

Its nice that you have beliefs
However the rest of us have a whole lot of experience and its says that your assertions are full of *****

[mycroft]

1. "You're dropping my rating". People definitely do care. What happened with Lehmans was that people would only play in very narrow bands - and if you were outside those bands you were either "fishing for lehmans" (which the structure didn't actually do, but who cares about reality?) or endangering my rating (or for those who did understand that a 52 pair needed to make 60% against a 48 pair to not go down, "not fun having to be perfect against the fish"). And heaven help you if you were a 53-47 pair looking for a game.

Also, the reason for the rating isn't just so I know how good I am - it's so that I can find someone random that can play. And the "partnership rating" vs "play with randoms rating" can be very different. And now the players protecting their rating won't play with randoms, and especially as a mentor. That's exactly where bridge should be headed.

Sure you could play unrated, but you'll never find opponents. When I was mentoring on OKB, we eventually had to find another mentor pair to consistently get a game. It turned out that I ended up inheriting the other student and her regular partner, so my games became tutoring for the whole table. At least we could get a game.

2. Can you tell the difference between running and "last hand, get up as dummy so that the next hand doesn't show up?" For Lehmans, your rating was locked in when dummy hit. Conversely, there's the "You think I can't play? I'll torpedo your rating". You think the 7NT ragequitters are going to get fewer when they can actually damage their partner?

3. I think I covered that above. Just to say, there's evidence.

4. Unrated games - again discussed above. Good luck finding anyone to play.

5. It seems that 1% of people cheat (online, can't imagine it isn't the same FtF, just in different ways and harder to catch) now at all levels, where the only thing at stake is the ever-increasing monsterpoint. That won't go *down* when a bad game will cost you. But it won't go up as much as the "whispers" will when random nobody underleads their ace into the only setting defence (never mind the 30% game they had on the other 20 boards, including the other 2 against you).

IRL, I'd get one or two "I'm not sure about these guys, ..." a tournament, almost all of which were "they can't play, and this time it was right". The first RAH? I got 6 in 108 boards. And there were 50 directors, many of whom were running 12-16 sessions those 4 days. Again, all that was in games where their rating couldn't go *down*.

6. You're right, it is a lot of talk. Look on The Other Site at how obnoxious that talk can already be. As I wrote elsewhere, "well, there are a lot of terms for weaker players, and she’s used them all at least once; so let’s just say - 'can’t play'."

7. You can request to reset your rating on OKB. Some people would play for 6 months and request a "re-evaluation" back to 50% each time, because "it was their partner's fault they're a 44" - each time? Really?

There are three almost inescapable issues with ELO-ing bridge:
- bridge is a partnership game. You could ELO partnerships; but how do you separate that out? Especially when I, playing with my regular partners, am probably 5% better than me and someone equally rated to my partners, because of the work we've put into the partnership, and the knowledge of our styles and what partner needs from us. This goes double for anyone playing/playing against an uncommon system. My Precision partner and I couldn't get a regular game unless we asked for pairs, because nobody wanted to play with a pickup against Precision.
- you get what you measure. Whatever you put in will be gamed. If I need to keep my rating high, I'll play only with regular partnerships, playing odd systems against pickups, preferably new ones, whose ratings are yet unstable (and likely high). If it's an advantage to have a low rating, sandbagging for handicap is just as easy in bridge as it is in golf (play with randoms against regular partnerships, "don't care" for a week or two,...) And studying the calculation makes this easy.
- what is the rating for? Everyone wants a game with a partner "as good as they are" (so, slightly better), against opponents that are slightly worse. Good luck with that. If it's status, it will be used maliciously (how good someone is already is). If it's for being partnered with randoms, then what good is my ELO (who plays 90% of the time with regular partners against friends)? If it's used to select pro dates, well all I can say is that at that level, it's obvious to everyone at that level where the rest stand - it's what they won and against who. Or their non-playing skills (teaching, not being associated with "less ethical players that win, partly because of those less ethical behaviours", not being an **** to the person paying them) make the difference.

It doesn't help that most players don't want to know how good they are. They'd rather keep with their imagination that they're better than that. Prove that they aren't, and they might just go to the next game. Retention is already the #1 problem in bridge. Sure, the younger people that want the serious competition may find this yet another turnoff, but my argument against that is "after a certain point, MPs don't matter, the only thing that matters is what you've won." Let the point counters enjoy it. Everyone knows what I mean when I say one particular Gold Life Master "played at the clubs 6 times a week for 30 years" and another one "has their national win, just needs the other 6000 points". Absolutely noone equates the two.

As was said years ago on another one of these threads, the only rating system that will actually work is one that nobody knows is being run, and is used only to partner up reasonable randoms. And it might already be being done, for all we know. It's not like they'd tell you, neh?

[helene_t]

 hrothgar, on 2021-January-18, 14:59, said:

Its nice that you have beliefs
However the rest of us have a whole lot of experience

Exactly.

It's not just my experience form StepBridge, other people have similar experience from OKBridge. If someone has experience from other sites that implemented a rating system and observed more positive than negative social implications of the rating system, I would find it interesting. But the belief that BBO would be better with a rating system is not so interesting. I'm sure the World would also be a better place if we had unicorns instead of horses.

[mycroft]

 lmhk, on 2021-January-18, 11:29, said:

All in all I think there are too many people being overly worried about the various problems that may arise over such a system, but the fact is the community is soft.

Yep, it is. And if you want a 20 table game in 10 years, you'd better help keep it soft. League of Legends players (or M:tG players, or poker players, or...) aren't going to learn bridge, spend the years it takes to get good, not enough of them to keep the game going for years.

You want a stronger game? They exist. Show yourself a good enough player, and a good enough partner, to enough of those stronger players, and you'll get invited. Or just go ahead and enter the games aimed at stronger players (Reynolds, APT, NAOBC A, RAH open). Let the rest of the players enjoy their soft pastime, because they pay for your playing sites, including BBO.

Quote

A lot of people say "wdp" even though their partner played their hand horrendously and only got lucky.

Yep. And sometimes when they managed to not go down in 2♠ when 4 is cold and trivial to find. Even more obnoxious, sometimes when the only way to make the contract was for the opponents to make a mindless mistake, and we did this time.

Quote

Some people cannot accept any helpful advice/constructive criticism.

If you are being paid to teach, then that's a problem. If not, shut up and play. "Constructive Criticism" from random nobody sounds an awful lot like "watch me show you how much better than you I think I am", which is a game that has been played at bridge tables since auction, and that we've been trying to stamp out for almost as long. And if you want your partner to play better, remember: "there is exactly one person in the room that wants you to do well. It is very easy to turn them to the other side." Listen, I've never heard of you (and neither has Google, or "people finder" on WBF), and I know the name and skill level of a lot of bridge players, especially at the MikeH and up level. I'm probably not as good as you are, but I am good enough that the people I ask for constructive criticism are at the MikeH level, and they don't think they're wasting their time (I know players the next level up, too. I don't ask them for advice, because they would be wasting their time, or they get paid to teach, and asking for freebies is just wrong). And my enemies list? 90% of them either offered "constructive criticism" of their partner at my table, or to me as their partner or opponent, or attempted to show up a name player that, if they were as good as they thought they were, they'd have recognized as a name player. Maybe 1 is there because of their skill level or willingness to learn.

Quote

BBO is almost strictly a bridge club for people to relax and never improve.

Yep. And putting in something that will drive those players out of the game? Really Good Idea, Sport.

Quote

However, I believe there are still some people who want to play against serious opponents, want to learn, and want to get better by making mistakes, communicating, discussing and accepting advice from others.

Apart from the last (nobody wants advice from you unless they ask. I guarantee it. Even if your name is Bob Hamman.) there definitely is. And I, for one, can get such a game any time I like. It won't be world class - in fact, it won't be against someone for whom I "can't play" (and they're at least two levels of "can't play" away from the best). But it will be straining my skill, and when I lose I'll understand why. And if not (at least pre-covid), the trip to the bar after will be an education.

How did I get to that august place? The people that matter know how good I am, and I'm that good. My rating, whatever it is, doesn't matter.

As I said above, there are games for players who want to play with the best. Trivial to find. Go ahead and find them, if you can find a partner willing to play with you (and, in many cases, teammates that will play with you and your partner).

Quote

As stated before, even if such a system were to be implemented, there would still be a casual section for casual bridge lovers, so really no harm done to the former player group.

As stated before, when this was tried on OKBridge (pre 2000), it quickly became clear what the actual problems were, and one of them was "you can't get a game playing unrated".

[helene_t]

 johnu, on 2021-January-17, 21:19, said:

If you play only robot games, it shouldn't matter that the robots get better, or worse, over time.

Yeah if you compare yourself to tables where other humans play against robots. I was thinking of counting total points (not duplicate) playing with three robots, or scoring against a vugraph archieve deal, to avoid the bias from other humans getting worse (or better?) over time.

[pilowsky]

 hrothgar, on 2021-January-18, 14:59, said:

Thats nice

In my mind, someone who's been on the forums for a couple days probably shouldn't be explaining the nature of reality to folks with 30+ years experience playing in various online bridge environments.

Its nice that you have beliefs
However the rest of us have a whole lot of experience and its says that your assertions are full of *****

It's nice that you think that time on a Bridge forum equates with wisdom.
People that actually know what they are talking about don't agree - no matter how many asterisks you use.

Your angry petulant comments are always unwelcome, can I suggest that you get some professional help from an 'executive coach' to assist you in getting peace in your 'mind'.

[helene_t]

 pilowsky, on 2021-January-18, 17:28, said:

It's nice that you think that time on a Bridge forum equates with wisdom.

It's not about time on online fora, it's about time spent playing on sites with different rating systems, or lack thereof.

[hrothgar]

 pilowsky, on 2021-January-18, 17:28, said:

It's nice that you think that time on a Bridge forum equates with wisdom.
People that actually know what they are talking about don't agree - no matter how many asterisks you use.

Your angry petulant comments are always unwelcome, can I suggest that you get some professional help from an 'executive coach' to assist you in getting peace in your 'mind'.

Pillowsky, you want me to share the messages that you sent me gloating about how you were dragging ThePossum and asking me to pile on?

Drop the "holier than thou" shiite.
You're a sad little troll desperate for attention.

[pilowsky]

 hrothgar, on 2021-January-18, 19:24, said:

Pillowsky, you want me to share the messages that you sent me gloating about how you were dragging ThePossum and asking me to pile on?

Drop the "holier than thou" shiite.
You're a sad little troll desperate for attention.

Make up whatever you like Richard - it sounds like you need to have a nap.
Your opinions about other Forum members may be welcome but if you want to do some fake doxing give it a try.

[nige1]

 hrothgar, on 2021-January-18, 19:24, said:

... you want me to share the messages that you sent me ...Drop the "holier than thou" shiite ... You're a sad little troll desperate for attention ...

 pilowsky, on 2021-January-18, 21:09, said:

... doxing ...

I've learnt a new word

[sfi]

 nige1, on 2021-January-18, 22:52, said:

I've learnt a new word

Not surprisingly, it doesn't mean what pilowsky believes it does.

[pilowsky]

 sfi, on 2021-January-19, 00:17, said:

Not surprisingly, it doesn't mean what pilowsky believes it does.

And what does Stephen think pilowsky thinks now. Demonstrate your amazing psychic ability while he calls the men in white coats.

[nullve]

 mycroft, on 2021-January-18, 15:27, said:

1. "You're dropping my rating". People definitely do care. What happened with Lehmans was that people would only play in very narrow bands - and if you were outside those bands you were either "fishing for lehmans" (which the structure didn't actually do, but who cares about reality?) or endangering my rating (or for those who did understand that a 52 pair needed to make 60% against a 48 pair to not go down, "not fun having to be perfect against the fish"). And heaven help you if you were a 53-47 pair looking for a game.

Also, the reason for the rating isn't just so I know how good I am - it's so that I can find someone random that can play. And the "partnership rating" vs "play with randoms rating" can be very different. And now the players protecting their rating won't play with randoms, and especially as a mentor. That's exactly where bridge should be headed.

Sure you could play unrated, but you'll never find opponents. When I was mentoring on OKB, we eventually had to find another mentor pair to consistently get a game. It turned out that I ended up inheriting the other student and her regular partner, so my games became tutoring for the whole table. At least we could get a game.

2. Can you tell the difference between running and "last hand, get up as dummy so that the next hand doesn't show up?" For Lehmans, your rating was locked in when dummy hit. Conversely, there's the "You think I can't play? I'll torpedo your rating". You think the 7NT ragequitters are going to get fewer when they can actually damage their partner?

3. I think I covered that above. Just to say, there's evidence.

4. Unrated games - again discussed above. Good luck finding anyone to play.

5. It seems that 1% of people cheat (online, can't imagine it isn't the same FtF, just in different ways and harder to catch) now at all levels, where the only thing at stake is the ever-increasing monsterpoint. That won't go *down* when a bad game will cost you. But it won't go up as much as the "whispers" will when random nobody underleads their ace into the only setting defence (never mind the 30% game they had on the other 20 boards, including the other 2 against you).

IRL, I'd get one or two "I'm not sure about these guys, ..." a tournament, almost all of which were "they can't play, and this time it was right". The first RAH? I got 6 in 108 boards. And there were 50 directors, many of whom were running 12-16 sessions those 4 days. Again, all that was in games where their rating couldn't go *down*.

6. You're right, it is a lot of talk. Look on The Other Site at how obnoxious that talk can already be. As I wrote elsewhere, "well, there are a lot of terms for weaker players, and she’s used them all at least once; so let’s just say - 'can’t play'."

7. You can request to reset your rating on OKB. Some people would play for 6 months and request a "re-evaluation" back to 50% each time, because "it was their partner's fault they're a 44" - each time? Really?

There are three almost inescapable issues with ELO-ing bridge:
- bridge is a partnership game. You could ELO partnerships; but how do you separate that out? Especially when I, playing with my regular partners, am probably 5% better than me and someone equally rated to my partners, because of the work we've put into the partnership, and the knowledge of our styles and what partner needs from us. This goes double for anyone playing/playing against an uncommon system. My Precision partner and I couldn't get a regular game unless we asked for pairs, because nobody wanted to play with a pickup against Precision.
- you get what you measure. Whatever you put in will be gamed. If I need to keep my rating high, I'll play only with regular partnerships, playing odd systems against pickups, preferably new ones, whose ratings are yet unstable (and likely high). If it's an advantage to have a low rating, sandbagging for handicap is just as easy in bridge as it is in golf (play with randoms against regular partnerships, "don't care" for a week or two,...) And studying the calculation makes this easy.
- what is the rating for? Everyone wants a game with a partner "as good as they are" (so, slightly better), against opponents that are slightly worse. Good luck with that. If it's status, it will be used maliciously (how good someone is already is). If it's for being partnered with randoms, then what good is my ELO (who plays 90% of the time with regular partners against friends)? If it's used to select pro dates, well all I can say is that at that level, it's obvious to everyone at that level where the rest stand - it's what they won and against who. Or their non-playing skills (teaching, not being associated with "less ethical players that win, partly because of those less ethical behaviours", not being an **** to the person paying them) make the difference.

It doesn't help that most players don't want to know how good they are. They'd rather keep with their imagination that they're better than that. Prove that they aren't, and they might just go to the next game. Retention is already the #1 problem in bridge. Sure, the younger people that want the serious competition may find this yet another turnoff, but my argument against that is "after a certain point, MPs don't matter, the only thing that matters is what you've won." Let the point counters enjoy it. Everyone knows what I mean when I say one particular Gold Life Master "played at the clubs 6 times a week for 30 years" and another one "has their national win, just needs the other 6000 points". Absolutely noone equates the two.

As was said years ago on another one of these threads, the only rating system that will actually work is one that nobody knows is being run, and is used only to partner up reasonable randoms. And it might already be being done, for all we know. It's not like they'd tell you, neh?

Why on earth did pairs get to choose who to play rated games against?

[mycroft]

It's the Main club. Set up a table and play with randoms. Go find a table that looks like an established partnership. Set up a table and require partnerships. Play in the Alberta "for fun" teams kickaround league - you'll be playing with whoever you get partnered with (but they're probably good), and you might get 24 boards against an established pair.

Sure, tournaments are different, even club games; but that gets back to the "not strong" and "if it was in their face how bad they really are, they might stop coming" and "why would I play with a newer player, or a "friend forever, but didn't know she played bridge", or a "random from out of town"? Who would be willing to be the spare, playing with anybody who can't get matched up (note, those come in three types, and the other two are bad)?

Anything can be gamed, and if it is important to do so, will be.

[nullve]

chess.com said:

Everyone on Chess.com has a rating. The purpose of this rating is to try to show the skill of each player, to better match you against other players of equal rating.

So on chess.com I don't have to sit down at a chess board and wait, hoping someone with a rating not much worse than my own will show up.

And my opponent (who I usually get the moment I press the 'Play' button) can't just leave mid-game without losing rating points and receiving a warning.

Why can't BBO do the same, but for pairs instead of individual players?

Btw, there are

448,103 playing on chess.com
43,114 playing on BBO

right now. So much for

Quote

"if it was in their face how bad they really are, they might stop coming"

[helene_t]

In chess, your own poor rating only embarrasses yourself. You don't have all of the social issues related to partnerships.

Also, chess is rather deterministic. The better player wins rather consistently. So there are not many people that have the illusion that they are much better than they are. So telling a chess player how poor his rating is is unlikely to surprise him.

In bridge, you can easily maintain the illusion that you are much better than you are. Bad boards are due to bad luck, stupid partners, lack of field protection, cheating opponents or stupid directors.

[pilowsky]

 helene_t, on 2021-January-19, 14:42, said:

...
In bridge, you can easily maintain the illusion that you are much better than you are. Bad boards are due to bad luck, stupid partners, lack of field protection, cheating opponents or stupid directors.

Sounds like a job for discriminant analysis.
Perhaps the weighting given to each one tells you something about your ___ - oops looks like I'm overweighting already.

[pilowsky]

All of the arguments above seem to boil down to the idea that "I don't want to play with a weaker player (whatever that means) because I want to have a higher rating".
Is this a reasonable argument
1. If you never play your rating will never change - this makes no sense at all.
2. Chess players all know that different opponents have different styles - Petrosian was infamous for building a wall and waiting for his opponent to make a mistake. Some people know some openings better than others. Working out a good line ATB is hard and wastes time.
3. In Chess the timed element is as much a part of the game as anything else. Forcing your opponent into zeitnot is a tactic. I have won many games by creating complexity so that my opponent will lose on time.
4. With the advent of computers in the 1970s, players quickly learned that in games with longer time controls, it was usually better to allow your opponent to blunder. I don't know if it's my imagination, but the robots seem to play worse in defence than when Declaring.
5. On that note, congrats to BBO on the Zenith tourneys that simulate real Bridge more than the other formats - no wonder they are an instant success.
6. As with Bridge, ONLY rated tournaments affect your rating. On Chess platforms you can choose to play in rated or unrated tournaments - the same applies in BBOworld. Free tournaments will not affect your ratings, and I notice that people often use these as 'trial games'.
7. By not having a proper rating system people look for workarounds such as those I outlined in an earlier post. Or by monitoring their average scores or all kinds of things that can be contaminated by different factors.
8. Think about how you choose a partner. There is much more to it than "Are they a better player than me?" - If this were the case, I would go straight back to Chess - which is a much more complex game than Bridge in many ways.
9. People that don't realise that Chess is also a social game haven't played it.
10. Without ratings, people have absolutely no idea of their opponents' strength or the quality of the advice or criticism they are getting when they get a bad result and don't understand why.