[uday]

Here is an interesting website about ACBL masterpoints. I think it is relevant to this discussion because it talks about awards (like the bbo symbols, like masterpoints) and ratings.

http://www.masterpointinfo.com/

The author posted his link to usenet, where it also generated a lively discussion

Thread on usenet on this subject

[sceptic]

I think ratings suck for some of the reasons given, rudeness etc etc.

But there again, an afwul lot of people want them, I am not convinced that they want to know who is the BEST player in BBO, but more to find the level of pick up partner and level of Opps.

Justin has a made a point that is indicative of BBO

Quote

Many people wont play vs me because of the rating system
Many are abusive towards their partners because they are "wrecking" their lehmans
Cheating.

Please don't take this the wrong way Justin (no offence intended, BUT, I have never seen you open a table and not lock it, you are just as fussy (on occasions) as who sits at your table, may be not for ratings but for your enjoyment, you want to play against (most of the time I think, not that I pretend to know what you are thinking) people of a certain level.

That is an ideal for us all, I would always want to play against better opponents than myself (I have an advantage over Fred and Justin here) a far bigger pool of people to choose from )

May be take expert off the ratings system and replace it with adv, adv+, adv++, adv+++ or int, int+, int++, int+++ and describe intermedaite with a much broader description in BBO as I am sure more belong there than anywhere else

[sceptic]

Quote

Ken you should not be afraid to get close to them. In many cases you will find that players don't even properly know half the conventions they list; (for example they say they play Cappelletti, but when they have a good hand is response to the Cap bidder, they have no idea whatsoever on how to proceed). Some others just list copious conventions I suspect in order to either intimidate the opposition or to impress prospective partners. (Think of it as a peacock preening in order to impress its mate.)

Spot on Mr Hog, I consider myself in this catorgory (not out to impress) but I list conventions I have learnt, you are correct, take Lebensohl on my convention, I am learing it, but if I don't list it I never get the chance to try it, I should have a statement on my profile saying conventions I am willing to try, please expect the odd disaster (but alas there is not room to write every think down I would like to and I doubt most people would bother reading it anyway.

[TimG]

inquiry, on Jan 24 2005, 03:59 PM, said:

TimG, on Jan 24 2005, 04:49 PM, said:

inquiry, on Jan 24 2005, 03:36 PM, said:

Rating systems, it is not going to happen here on BBO (Fred has long ago spoken on this issue).

It has already happened on BBO and it has been endorsed/enabled by Fred. You know those little numbers next to some players' names that denote how many masterpoints they have won online.

Lol... you got to be kidding. Boian, maybe the best regular player on BBO has no such number... so I guess he is a beginner. And some of the people who play four and five tourneys a day have face cards, do you think that means they are great??

No, I don't think it means that any more than hundreds of ACBL masterpoints denote bridge skill. Or, even achievement. But, there are lots of people in the ACBL who mistake (at the encouragement of the ACBL) masterpoints as a measure of skill. And, there are, no doubt, those who do the same with BBO's symbols next to names scheme.

It seems to me a mistake for BBO to start down this path; like ACBL, I imagine BBO will find that once you've started down the path it is impossible to turn back.

Tim

[TimG]

fred, on Jan 24 2005, 04:01 PM, said:

Same goes for the star symbol.

Another status symbol which causes confusion.

[inquiry]

TimG, on Jan 25 2005, 10:18 AM, said:

And, there are, no doubt, those who do the same with BBO's symbols next to names scheme.

It seems to me a mistake for BBO to start down this path; like ACBL, I imagine BBO will find that once you've started down the path it is impossible to turn back.

Tim

Tim,

Let's be realistic about the situation on BBO. Fred is adamant that free tournements and free access to BBO remain. People from the world over can log on and find, at no cost to them, a place to play bridge 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the otherhand, the servers, software development, and support cost Fred and his partners money.

How can such a situation be maintained? Well, for one thing, people volunteer their time. You will find 100's of people running absolutely free tournements, who donate their time and effort so members can find free tourneys to play in. For another, you will find dedicated members who take on a number of task in the form of being a yellow host, or to serve answering support email or abuse email, without compensation. Fred and uday I am sure are not compesated (at least directly) for their software development time. You will also find dozen of volunteer beta testers right here on this webpage who try to help track down software bugs.

But how does the negative cash flow associated with mantaining a site get fixed? The answer is through selling software (bridge master, and the various other commercial products prepared by Bridgebase), and more recently the "fee-based tourneys".

But if there is going to be "free" tourneys (and there are still way more free ones than fee-based ones..... .it looks like that is not the case if you look at the list of upcoming ones, but the fee-based ones go on a week, maybe two in advance, the free ones pop up anywhere from an hour to 10 mintues before they begin), what value do the fee-based add to get people to pay some amount (typical $1.00) for them? In ACBL event, it is ACBL masterpoints. The use of numerals and bridge face cards as an "award" is the way other events add value. If having a JACK on your profile is attractive to you, then you will be more encouraged to play in such events. If it means nothing to you, the fact that others have it should not bother you.

I look forward to the day when fee-based tourneys offer post hand analysis which includes full travellers for all hand played, which includes the hands themselves iwth par result, and includes "expert=commentary" on how the bidding/play might should go, and why. But obviously, this would require 1) money for the director to arrange the hands, 2) money for the "expert" to prepare the commentary, 3) money for someone to piece together the hands and travellers, and 4) money for someone to collect email addresses amd send the hands, or make a password protected webpage where these could be accessed only by those who played in the event.

The day will come sometime too, where "pro's" can charge students BBO$'s to play with them and a small percentage of that money going to BBO. And more and more teachers may start classes that use BBO facilities and collect BBO$, again with a small amount going to BBO to help defray cost.

My personal belief (THIS IS NOT A BRIDGEBASE ONLINE VIEW, JUST MY OWN) is that it is a responsibliity of all regular onsite players who have the financial ability to do so to play in at least an occassional fee-based tourney. That is, if you are enjoying and benifiting from the site, you should be willing to support it at some modest finincial level Better yet, buy their software. Of course it helps if we could all find tournyes with value-added that we would like to have... if it is not the rating awards of the profile symbols, then something eles.

I myself volunteer my time on line as a yellow, here as a moderator, I have purchased bridgemaster hands in the past, and I have bought some of the BBO software as a gifts. I have also played in a fee-based tourneys. I plan to continue with each of these (other than paying for bridgemaster hands, as I have worked them all now).

Ben

[fred]

TimG, on Jan 25 2005, 02:18 PM, said:

inquiry, on Jan 24 2005, 03:59 PM, said:

TimG, on Jan 24 2005, 04:49 PM, said:

inquiry, on Jan 24 2005, 03:36 PM, said:

Rating systems, it is not going to happen here on BBO (Fred has long ago spoken on this issue).

It has already happened on BBO and it has been endorsed/enabled by Fred. You know those little numbers next to some players' names that denote how many masterpoints they have won online.

Lol... you got to be kidding. Boian, maybe the best regular player on BBO has no such number... so I guess he is a beginner. And some of the people who play four and five tourneys a day have face cards, do you think that means they are great??

No, I don't think it means that any more than hundreds of ACBL masterpoints denote bridge skill. Or, even achievement. But, there are lots of people in the ACBL who mistake (at the encouragement of the ACBL) masterpoints as a measure of skill. And, there are, no doubt, those who do the same with BBO's symbols next to names scheme.

It seems to me a mistake for BBO to start down this path; like ACBL, I imagine BBO will find that once you've started down the path it is impossible to turn back.

Tim

Tim,

Both BBO and the ACBL are businesses. The nature of both of these businesses is that we try to make our members happy. The more happy members we have the more successful our businesses will be.

ACBL members like masterpoints. The subset of the BBO membership that pays us money to play in pay tournaments likes the symbols. If the remainder of the BBO membership doesn't like these symbols, I am afraid I don't have much sympathy. Having to endure them is a small price to pay for access to a high quality free online bridge site.

These symbols have been and continue to be good for business so I cannot imagine what you are thinking when you characterize our introduction of these symbols as a "mistake".

For sure there are plenty of BBO members who do not understand what these symbols are meant to represent (and there are plenty of ACBL members who do not understand that having lots of masterpoints does not necessarily mean having lots of bridge skill). This does not imply that there is anything wrong with the symbols (or masterpoints) themselves.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[TimG]

fred, on Jan 25 2005, 09:58 AM, said:

These symbols have been and continue to be good for business so I cannot imagine what you are thinking when you characterize our introduction of these symbols as a "mistake".

My characterization of the symbols as a mistake was in relation to your anti-ratings stance. Even if what you are rewarding is achievement in ACBL games on BBO, you have introduced a ranking scheme. Perhaps it doesn't rate bridge skill, but it could easily be mistaken for an attempt to do just that. (Otherwise, why would anyone be proud of their symbol? Why are the symbols good marketing tools?)

Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. But, you cannot attempt to rank things without also rating them. To rank is to assign a relative value or position. To rate is to assign relative rank. They go hand in hand.

I've read your explanation of the symbols and they are a ranking scheme. They rate relative performance (or attendance) in ACBL tournaments on BBO.

In light of this, I thought Ben's statement:

Quote

Rating systems, it is not going to happen here on BBO (Fred has long ago spoken on this issue).

to simply be wrong. There is at least one rating system on BBO.

Perhaps your position is that there will be no system wide rating system. Or, that there will be no dynamic rating system. Or, that there will be no rating system which attemtps to measure bridge skill. But, you've already instituted a rating system.

Tim

PS I'm in favor of rating systems; I wish there were lots of them.

[slothy]

Dear All,

May i just corroborate what Fred and Ben said in their ultimate posts in this thread.....

My spiel on this. IMHO, Fred is in the unenviable position of having to run a business, as he said - yet unlike some businesses, i believe he has a genuine concern in standing by his principles (as long as he can) and having his ear open to suggestions from the users of his product and responding to them if HE sees fit and if HE believes it is realisable and for the overall good of the evolution of the site, whilst concurrently minimising any compromise of these principles. He isnt seeking accolades or martyrdom, but if i read between some of his lines he is a bit pissed off with some people (my understanding) making a bagel out of bread-crumbs (excuse my imagination, couldnt think of any other way to put it).

If having a rating system - whatever that may be and if it REALLY constitutes a RATING system per se as some of these posts, vortexing into a whirl-pool of Babeldom, seem to be discussing - is a source of income, which ANY business needs to concern itself about, isnt it a SMALL price to pay (if you dont agree with it, whereas some people seem to like it and endorse it) to be able to play on a site for free??? and one that, perhaps, arguably offers a better service than ones one has to subscribe to and, in some cases, implement the very thing you seem to want BBO to avoid?

***

I still fail to understand what the bone is about? some people are chewing a bone that obviously has a bitter after-taste to them...

if one believes that the self-appointed rankings are a bad idea, DONT LOOK AT THEM or<span style='color:red'> JUDGE A PLAYER BY THEM</span>.

They were introduced originally, i am sure, for people to be able to pin-point people of a comparable standard to themselves, and if ego-inflating people wish to distort them for delusional self-aggrandisement or in some cases out of sincere ignorance as to their own standard, lol <span style='color:red'>DOES IT REALLY MATTER</span>????
(In fact one of the posters recently had WORLD CLASS in his profile .. ummmm)

if one really believes that stars are wrong, or that a particular star-studded player has been wrongly appointed (which i know is an implicit dig of some of the posts in other threads) <span style='color:red'>DONT LOOK AT THEM </span>or <span style='color:red'>JUDGE A PLAYER BY THEM</span> . A benchmark has to be used, for the reason in the next sentence, and the metric that Fred has used is as good and as fair as any i have come across. The fact that a BBO user may want to randomly kibbitz someone who is of a high calibre for his own enjoyment or to watch good bridge to learn from, there must be some way of knowing who they are...

It shouldnt cause CONFUSION unless one is reading more into the symbols or whatever abstraction we are talking about than what they were originally conceived to convey...

BBO is an on-line 'community' yet simultaneously a business - like any similar social arrangement, and there are many believe me, compromises have to be made whether they want to or not. As it happens, in this case, the decisions lie with those who ultimately have a lot more to lose than the rest of us, have more at risk and have much more invested and and thus are, i am sure, very conscious of what are the best compromises to make or not to make.

I come on here to play bridge - good bridge if i am in the mood - and to socialise with a very diverse group of people and i think it creates a happy medium between the two. If there is anything that i dont particularly agree with, i tolerate it as, in my experience, the satisfaction and benefits BY FAR outweigh any slight dissatisfactions. I dont really care whether someone thinks i am a bad player or a good player or whether any symbol quantifies or qualifies my standard or anybody elses and certainly dont see the point of squabbling as to whether it does or not.

I just play bridge and let people decide. If i enjoy it, because of the standard i wish to play or because of the company i wish to keep, and I and others can create an environment at the table/tourney where they also feel the same level of enjoyment then my time on BBO aint wasted...

Sorry to say folks, everything else is just baloney...

Alex

[fred]

TimG, on Jan 25 2005, 04:02 PM, said:

fred, on Jan 25 2005, 09:58 AM, said:

These symbols have been and continue to be good for business so I cannot imagine what you are thinking when you characterize our introduction of these symbols as a "mistake".

My characterization of the symbols as a mistake was in relation to your anti-ratings stance. Even if what you are rewarding is achievement in ACBL games on BBO, you have introduced a ranking scheme. Perhaps it doesn't rate bridge skill, but it could easily be mistaken for an attempt to do just that. (Otherwise, why would anyone be proud of their symbol? Why are the symbols good marketing tools?)

Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. But, you cannot attempt to rank things without also rating them. To rank is to assign a relative value or position. To rate is to assign relative rank. They go hand in hand.

I've read your explanation of the symbols and they are a ranking scheme. They rate relative performance (or attendance) in ACBL tournaments on BBO.

In light of this, I thought Ben's statement:

Quote

Rating systems, it is not going to happen here on BBO (Fred has long ago spoken on this issue).

to simply be wrong. There is at least one rating system on BBO.

Perhaps your position is that there will be no system wide rating system. Or, that there will be no dynamic rating system. Or, that there will be no rating system which attemtps to measure bridge skill. But, you've already instituted a rating system.

Tim

PS I'm in favor of rating systems; I wish there were lots of them.

My "anti-rating" stance is an "anti-skill-rating" stance.

I have nothing against "rewarding" successful players and that is exactly what the profile symbols do.

Inquiry understands this and, when he said that a rating system on BBO was not going to happen, he was referring to a system that rated skill.

Apparently I did make a mistake when I introduced these symbols - I did not make my opinions and intentions clear enough (I tried, but I guess people don't actually read our readme.txt files). However, I do not think that the introduction of the symbols themselves was a mistake (quite the contrary - I am confident that this was a smart move) and I feel strongly that the existence of these symbols does not contradict my "anti-skill-rating" stance.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[slothy]

As i was saying before i got distracted by a rather overdue beckoning of Mother Nature...

Further, what i find more astonishing is that some experts, TRUE experts, and i personally know of a few, who deliberately 'dumb-down' their ratings (or dont don their stars, but they are a handful) in order not to intimidate others. Ironically, I dont see these people hankering for a rating system which collectively no doubt they would most likely dominate.

Or is it that some people want to somehow prove to themselves and to others who they think underrate them that they, peacock-like, deserve some adornment, recognition (or accolade that Fred overlooked) which they can brandish when they strut into the BBO lobby?

Rating systems may make the bridge more competitive but as has been said over and over and over again in this forum (and on rec bridge) to the extent that some people seem unwilling to budge one bit and no amount of presuasive argument makes them think otherwise, and here i am sure the BBO management has taken lessons from bridge sites that preceded them, that going in this direction opens a can of worms best left to stew in its own putrid syrup. And as far as i am concerned Lehman-lovers are at will to drink it

Good bridge needn't be competitive* just as much as competitive bridge isn't necessarily good

*in the sense that every time you are playing you are shooting a %.

IMHO, i agree with 'Master Poster' Ben in his last post in this thread (assuming he doesnt post before i submit this ). I would like to see the day when 'value-for-money' tournaments or games are instituted where expert commentary and other add-ons, which B mentioned, are provided in-cost. If anything this would improve the understanding and appreciation of many of us who play on here more than anything i can think of.

But this requires investment, management and the support of its users. I try my best to support the site and i have bought my fair share of online Bridge Master series and i play in paid tourneys (for which ACBL points are utterly worthless to me unless i decide to emigrate to the States..oh Bush got re-inaugurated, ah well...).

For those people who seem concerned about the quality of this site i just urge you to put your hands (one hand may suffice unless your wallet is especialy bulky) in your pocket and give currency to the site-developers to maintain and improve the site in a way you might agree with instead of trying to persuade the powers-that-be to change something they have said over and over again that they will not.

Alex.

PS Spleen-explosions permitting i will now go and play some bridge...

[luke warm]

for what it's worth, the only rating system i'm in favor of is the one already in use, the one where i can see a gold star and go kib... fred? brad? rubin? soloway? hamman? heck, it's hard for people to sit and enjoy and learn from that caliber player in almost any other endeavor, at least for free...

and contrary to timg's post, the star system doesn't cause me one bit of confusion

[HeartA]

Conventions one plays does have anything to do with declaring, defending, AND finding the good contracts. I have seen too many players who know a lot of conventions, but don't know how to bid an easy hand.

[hotShot]

A rating system would useful only to those you want to improve their skills and need a mesure for that.
If you start a sport e.g. running, you can time your effords and see how you improve. If is very hard to mesure your advances in bridge.

A true World Class Player has no need for a rating System to tell him/her that he/she is good.

The problem is, as far as i know there is no good rating system.

A rating system has a effect on people. I don't need to repeat what was said earlier about this.

And anybody who wants a rating system should decide, if they can deal with a result that is different from what they expected.

If you are not the bridge god, you thought you were, can you accept that?
Can you accept to be turned down as a partner, because you are not good enough?

And if you are the bridge god, do you really want a bunch of kib's hanging around at your table every time you play?
How do you deal with all the "rubbish" players, that try to play a few boards with you?