[knave1]

Hi, let me first say that I LOVE BBO.... but I do have a few suggestions for you to consider.

1. I play in free tourneys quite a bit... I'll tell you later in another bullet why I play in the free ones(besides money, hahha) However I wish there were more IMP pair games in the tourney roster.. Please consider increasing the number of IMP pair tourneys.

2. I'd like to play in more of the ACBL sanctioned tourneys, but the reason I don't is because of the 4.5minute/hd restriction. I HATE speedball.. It is not real bridge. Bridge requires thought and analysis. Take sometimes can take time. Also, sometimes my OPPS are so slow or in RED and I get penalized. I HATE to be issued AVERAGE on 1/2 bds/session. It is a waste of my time and money and makes the whole endeavor not worthwhile. So I play in the free ones, where there is usually a wider time allotment. I have been looking at the ACBL tourney schedule, and it looks like there are tourneys that are 18 bds and typically 100 minutes which is about 6 min/bd. This is a whole lot more reasonable than 4.5min/bd. But the problem is they are so poorly attended because everyone is playing speedball(and perhaps people dont' like the extra Time commitment).... SOOOOOO apparently, I am in the minority when I say that "I HATE SPEEDBALL", but, may I suggest that BBO change the format of the currently unattended and grossly underutilized other paid tournaments and make them IMP pairs, 12/bds/session, 90 minute( or so sessions) play in the free tourneys instead of the ACBL sanctioned tourneys($1) price tag, and maybe they'll get some takers. I play LIVE bridge, and many people HATE MPS and would MUCH rather play SWISS or KNOCKOUTS(Imp/VP) events.

3. On the FREE tournament schedule, there should be an indicator for those tournaments that are "blocked". The old version had a "LOCK SYMBOL" showing that it was restricted. It takes a "scroll and check" method to filter through the list and it seems that this would be a simple addition considering the old version had it. Basically, my general feeling is that any advangtages the old version had over the new should be incorporated into the webversion, if possible

4. Team game starting, filtering to find a suitable team game of proper caliber, etc. was hard with the old version, and still hard with the new versions. I have no concrete suggestions for you at this time, but will be looking for ways to improve if possible.

5. You've probably got this comment HUNDREDS OF TIMES, but here goes. BBO would be VASTLY improved if it had OKBRIDGES LEHMAN ratings. While not a perfect yardstick by any means, it was infinitely better than nothing and much better than BBOS compatibility rating or self assessment. The LEHMAN rating just averaged results from ALL HANDS played by a player and kept a running average. This may be WAY too much use of BBO computational resources to do this, but let me say, that I have been frustrated SO SO SO many times by BBO "experts" that didn't know STAYMAN or didn't know how to count to 13. You BBO guys are wonderful, but OKB has it all over you here.

6. The old version had a filter on the main bridge table, so that you could filter the results by country/level/etc. I used the level filter and had it set for self assessed "experts" and "world class". The new version doesn't have this, and maybe can't, but it would be nice to filter on LEVEL.

7. This suggestion came from a friend of mine who plays on IPAD(I do not own an IPAD). "For IPAD verson, they need to show UNDO button on board. Now they hide the UNDO button under the "TABLE" button." I have no idea what this means.


Thank you very much for the chance to offer up my suggestions, and THANK YOU for running such a pleasurable, useful, usable, affordable website. You are ALL BBO PRINCES and PRINCESSES

[TylerE]

Every time they've tried slower pair formats they've completely failed to take off. Like not even having enough registered pairs to run a 3 table game.

[Bbradley62]

There's a very easy way to play ACBL tournament games and have as much time as you could want to think... play the ACBL Robot Duplicate events. There's one starting every 12 minutes.

[knave1]

 Bbradley62, on 2015-February-16, 17:01, said:

There's a very easy way to play ACBL tournament games and have as much time as you could want to think... play the ACBL Robot Duplicate events. There's one starting every 12 minutes.

Playing against ROBOTS is not the same or as much fun as playing against live competition. when I play in live tournaments as individuals, some of my opps have good judgment, some bad judgment, some play complicated systems, and some play sayc. I do use robots here on BBO when I want to fill my time, but it is not like playing against live completion. NO COMPARISON

[knave1]

 TylerE, on 2015-February-16, 16:48, said:

Every time they've tried slower pair formats they've completely failed to take off. Like not even having enough registered pairs to run a 3 table game.

, tat least that is my observation. It would be interesting to get feedback on the why the speedball tourneys are so popular. I'd say it's not as much about time, as it's about the attendance now having reached critical mass. I don't know if any competing tourneys could ever reach critical mass, perhaps all the people willing to PAY are already playing speedball and have no problems with it. If so, I am just out of luck.

[knave1]

 knave1, on 2015-February-16, 17:24, said:

, tat least that is my observation. It would be interesting to get feedback on the why the speedball tourneys are so popular. I'd say it's not as much about time, as it's about the attendance now having reached critical mass. I don't know if any competing tourneys could ever reach critical mass, perhaps all the people willing to PAY are already playing speedball and have no problems with it. If so, I am just out of luck.

sorry, part of my message was deleted. What I was saying is that

"the 18 board pair games are already very poorly attended, so couldn't have worse attendance... at least that is my observation......

[steve2005]

yes the 18 board games are poorly attended, a pity. I think its because the speedball fits into less than an hour so is convinient

[barmar]

Although bridge is a thinking game, not every hand requires that much thought. Most hands can be played in about 4 minutes, some even less, and that leaves time for the occasional difficult hand.

An hour seems to be about the most many people are interested in devoting to online bridge, and they're able to keep up with the speedballs. I also allows us to run a game every hour on the hour during prime time, which is very convenient. For those who want to play longer, they can start a new tourney right after they finish the previous one (I have a regular game every Saturday night where we play in the 8pm and 9pm speedballs).

I don't think you'll hear much support for your request for Lehmans. Debates about ratings come up perennially here, and the problems that come up on OKbridge because of Lehmans are frequently pointed out. There was just some discussion of it a week or two ago, use the search facility to find it.

[barmar]

 knave1, on 2015-February-16, 16:08, said:

7. This suggestion came from a friend of mine who plays on IPAD(I do not own an IPAD). "For IPAD verson, they need to show UNDO button on board. Now they hide the UNDO button under the "TABLE" button." I have no idea what this means.

There's not very much screen real estate on the mobile version, everything has to fit on a tiny smartphone screen. Only the most important things are given buttons of their own, other things are put into menus.

[knave1]

 barmar, on 2015-February-17, 11:15, said:

Although bridge is a thinking game, not every hand requires that much thought. Most hands can be played in about 4 minutes, some even less, and that leaves time for the occasional difficult hand.

An hour seems to be about the most many people are interested in devoting to online bridge, and they're able to keep up with the speedballs. I also allows us to run a game every hour on the hour during prime time, which is very convenient. For those who want to play longer, they can start a new tourney right after they finish the previous one (I have a regular game every Saturday night where we play in the 8pm and 9pm speedballs).

I don't think you'll hear much support for your request for Lehmans. Debates about ratings come up perennially here, and the problems that come up on OKbridge because of Lehmans are frequently pointed out. There was just some discussion of it a week or two ago, use the search facility to find it.

1. I agree that not every hand requires much thought. I disagree with your assesment that MOST hands can be played in 4 minutes.... especially on BBO with people freezing, etc. Even in real life at my local bridge club, or thie weekend at a regional, a 24 board session is played in roughly 180 minutes , so about 7.5 minutes/board.... I don't know where you are getting your statistics from, but they seem to be flawed. And regarding your comment about leaving more time for difficult hands, with a 2 board movement, i.e., 6 rounds in a 12 round online tourney,THERE IS NO EXTRA TIME... so I think you are making an incorrect assessment.

2. You may be right in saying that an hour seems to be about the most... but I would say that there MAY be 25% of serious bridge players who would love to play THEIR best and can use the extra 1.5 minutes/board(18 minutes/tourney) to work out the hard hands... OR if it was a 3 board movement, maybe Less time because of the points I made in bullet 1.

3. I will look at the other comments from other forums regarding Lehmans. If debates about ratings come up PERENNIALLY, it must be because it is an issue. So maybe it should NOT be ignored. If I were a principal in the BBO company, and I had an easy, and totally inexpensive way, to provide ratings, I would leave it to a public referendum. Put it to a vote!! online here on BBO. But I will look and see what other people say about LEHMANS(and probably comment in the forum directly) in other forums...I, for one, liked them better than not having them.

4. I am not sure who this responder is, but if you are an employee/stakeholder in BBO, I want to personally thank you for providing the incredible service to the bridge playing public.

[knave1]

 barmar, on 2015-February-17, 11:17, said:

There's not very much screen real estate on the mobile version, everything has to fit on a tiny smartphone screen. Only the most important things are given buttons of their own, other things are put into menus.

THank you, I will pass this own to my friend who wanted an answer

[knave1]

 barmar, on 2015-February-17, 11:15, said:

Although bridge is a thinking game, not every hand requires that much thought. Most hands can be played in about 4 minutes, some even less, and that leaves time for the occasional difficult hand.

An hour seems to be about the most many people are interested in devoting to online bridge, and they're able to keep up with the speedballs. I also allows us to run a game every hour on the hour during prime time, which is very convenient. For those who want to play longer, they can start a new tourney right after they finish the previous one (I have a regular game every Saturday night where we play in the 8pm and 9pm speedballs).

I don't think you'll hear much support for your request for Lehmans. Debates about ratings come up perennially here, and the problems that come up on OKbridge because of Lehmans are frequently pointed out. There was just some discussion of it a week or two ago, use the search facility to find it.

Bamar,

I searched the forums for Lehman discussions and the only ones I found are the few YOU made in one forum...... I did not see a barrage of negative press about Lehmans... am I mistaken, and if so where do I look... I did a search for Lehmans... let me try doing one for just Lehman, and if i find differently I'll post here.

[Antrax]

Barmar indeed works for BBO.
"BBOskill" is the usual string to search for when looking for the rating discussions. Here's one sample thread: http://www.bridgebas...54526-bboskill/

[evileyes]

I hope the client version can be updated because only web version update now.
It is very easy to use the .lin file to check what happened. The hand record is not very convenient to me because I only want to check what happened at my table.
But it looks like impossible to see the update for client version now. I feel sad.

[barmar]

 evileyes, on 2015-February-18, 10:32, said:

I hope the client version can be updated because only web version update now.

We stopped working on the old version years ago. There will only be updates if they're necessary to keep it working, but no new features.

[TylerE]

I really wish you guys would revisit that solution. One day a new site will come along that provides a decent native interface (the flash client is neither) and absolutely eat BBO's lunch.

[knave1]

 TylerE, on 2015-February-16, 16:48, said:

Every time they've tried slower pair formats they've completely failed to take off. Like not even having enough registered pairs to run a 3 table game.

Of course not, when there are sufficient availabiltiy of 12 bd/fast pair games. There is an ACBL sanctioned pair game that starts every hour on the hour all day long... play at 4.5min/bd x 12 boards = 54 minutes... 6 minutes between games.

What I suggest is an 18bd IMP pair game, running simultaneously with the speedball games, wih 6min/bd, 3bds/round = 18x 6=108 minutes, with 12 minutes left over between games. Charge $1.50. It may take a while for people to recognize the availablilty of these, but I'll bet that there will be some who play in these preferentially rather than the free imp tournaments, just to get some of the "riff raff" out of the event. If you're willing to pay $1.50, maybe you are somewhat dedicated to the game of bridge. Use the same ACBL directors that run the Speedball game to monitor the IMP pair game.

[knave1]

 steve2005, on 2015-February-16, 18:47, said:

yes the 18 board games are poorly attended, a pity. I think its because the speedball fits into less than an hour so is convinient

Also, the 18 board sessions seem to be randomly scattered, so pairs cannot "plan" for them. I propose an 18 board format that I described above. I think BBO needs to eliminate or make a change to their 18 board format, so I proposed a solution above. Let's be honest. It costs virtually nothing for BBO to try it for 6 months. It may take that long or longer to reach critical mass, until people realize 1. they like playing Imps sometimes over MPS 2. they sometimeslike a little more time to actually do something intelligent at the table 3. they can predict when and where the tournaments start and end, so that they can plan their bridge activity.

[barmar]

 TylerE, on 2015-February-18, 11:40, said:

I really wish you guys would revisit that solution. One day a new site will come along that provides a decent native interface (the flash client is neither) and absolutely eat BBO's lunch.

The old client is not cross-platform, it only runs on Windows. Any decent "solution" has to work on Macs and Linux.

If we ever do something really new, it will be HTML5 and be a single replacement for both the Flash and mobile versions. We've got the very beginning of that in the latest incarnation of "Just Play Bridge".

[TylerE]

There are plenty of ways of writing crossplatform GUIs, such as QT. QT apps can run on iOS and Android as well.