[VMars]

barmar, on 2012-December-05, 10:19, said:

But anyway, the relevant point for this thread isn't whether to use masterpoints specifically, but whether you should be required to provide some indication of your playing level. We don't just pair people up randomly, we try to put them together with compatible players. If everyone put "Private" on the pairing slip, we couldn't do that.

Maybe it should be a requirement if people want to use the "Find me a Table", or other partnership pairing tools, but I don't see why I, who does not use these tools, should be required to have a rating.

And if I were willing to have a table filled with random players, I would much rather know about their affability than about their rating. I recently played on a team with someone who was so extremely rude I refused to sit at the table during the comparisons. I would rather have had a beginner on the team than have had to be around him.

[Bbradley62]

VMars, on 2012-December-05, 12:36, said:

Maybe it should be a requirement if people want to use the "Find me a Table", or other partnership pairing tools, but I don't see why I, who does not use these tools, should be required to have a rating.

I like this idea! Similarly, if you list your skill level as "private" and your partner's seat is now empty, your table should be invisible to the HMFAG function. (It should be included in "list all tables", but not HMFAG.)

[barmar]

VMars, on 2012-December-05, 12:36, said:

Maybe it should be a requirement if people want to use the "Find me a Table", or other partnership pairing tools, but I don't see why I, who does not use these tools, should be required to have a rating.

If you don't play in pickup games, then no one should care what you put in the rating field.

But if you do play in pickup games, it doesn't really matter which method you use. If you go to a random table and ask to take a seat, shouldn't your prospective partner or table host be able to look at your profile and decide if they want to play with you?

Quote

And if I were willing to have a table filled with random players, I would much rather know about their affability than about their rating. I recently played on a team with someone who was so extremely rude I refused to sit at the table during the comparisons. I would rather have had a beginner on the team than have had to be around him.

Been there, too. In Philly, some friends paired me up with someone on their team, and I found him extremely annoying.

But if you think assessing playing ability is hard, assessing personality compatibility is probably 10x harder. We do what we can.

[jillybean]

Who are we kidding?
The only way to find a compatible partner on bbo is to play a number of boards with them, or kibitz for a while.
What someone writes as their skill level is likely to have no relevance to their card skills. I have seen many good players use novice, and many more hopeless players with advanced,expert, WC

[barmar]

Of course. But if you don't want a total crapshoot, you need something to go on. BBO management has explained many times why we don't want to display objective ratings, like OKbridge does with Lehmans. So all we have to go on is self-ratings.

[pirate22]

I agree with Barmar--Privates are a NO NO for starters,I then create my own list of
friends:)and black out Duffers... but these points are an indication in the
right direction.but one has to be an ACBL member to obtain them.
somewhat anti social

[jillybean]

Guess what Harmon Edgar & Jimmy Cayne list as their skill level?

[VMars]

jillybean, on 2012-December-04, 22:39, said:

I hope you were polite and wished him a speedy recovery from his upcoming surgery.

It's a very sad state of affairs when players feel unpopular when they call the director about these or any infractions but it is the reality.

I just say "hello" and ask them which one of them is "Sarah"?

I actually don't know if I'm unpopular because of calling the director. It's more that at nationals, many people that I knew and am friends with would walk right by me when I said "hello" to them.

[barmar]

jillybean, on 2012-December-06, 20:32, said:

Guess what Harmon Edgar & Jimmy Cayne list as their skill level?

What difference does it make? They don't play with randoms.

And even if they did, they're well known so no one needs to look at their profile. Profiles are for randoms.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-December-07, 09:51, said:

What difference does it make? They don't play with randoms.

And even if they did, they're well known so no one needs to look at their profile. Profiles are for randoms.

You may know who they are, but people who aren't part of the "cool kids" club very well may not recognize their screennames.

[dwar0123]

Bbradley62, on 2012-December-07, 13:03, said:

You may know who they are, but people who aren't part of the "cool kids" club very well may not recognize their screennames.

They still don't play with randoms.

[quiddity]

barmar, on 2012-December-06, 06:55, said:

Of course. But if you don't want a total crapshoot, you need something to go on. BBO management has explained many times why we don't want to display objective ratings, like OKbridge does with Lehmans. So all we have to go on is self-ratings.

Displaying them is one thing, but compiling them and using them behind the scenes should be another thing altogether...

edit: I went on a minor rant here but then thought better of it. I'm sure that it is not easy to create a good pickup-pair compatibility system and I know that BBO is probably understaffed as it is. Still, I wish someone could think about it because pick-up games on the site have been such a dreadful experience (for me, at least).

[RunemPard]

In regards to MP...I dunno about other countries...but we use a handicap system and masterpoints in Sweden.

I have been playing bridge at our club for about 16 months and now my handicap is rather low(good) with not even 10MP yet...

[barmar]

Bbradley62, on 2012-December-07, 13:03, said:

You may know who they are, but people who aren't part of the "cool kids" club very well may not recognize their screennames.

Most of them have a star, too. The few who would be eligible for a star, but have chosen not to have one (e.g. Dano) definitely don't play with randoms.

[1eyedjack]

I list myself as "Private" for no reason other than that I have no desire to sit at a table of players who object to that designation, and so listing myself is an effective way of avoiding them.

Not quite the same thing, but it reminds me of pickup partners who have "Do not lead opponents' trumps" in their profile. Red rag to a bull. Probably counter-productive. I would bet that they get more trump leads than without that comment.

[Antrax]

That comment is useful when choosing which partners to avoid, TBH.

[onoway]

I use private for skill level because sometimes I play fairly decently at what I've been told is advanced level and other times I might make stupid silly mistakes that would embarrass any intermediate.

Also, I don't play as many conventions that most people seem to play, but stick to a bunch that seem to come up enough to be regularly useful. It seems pretentious to sit opposite a player with multi and Walsh and all sorts of other things on their profile and claim to be advanced when I don't know half of the conventions on their profile.

The most useful thing I have found is to look for partners who claim to play 2/1 rather than sayc and to look at what conventions they play. I have seen NO TRANSFERS in big black letters on a number of sayc profiles claiming to be advanced players, and feel doubtful.

OTOH I do use my real name and country and like to have an idea where people are from.For example, if someone is from Malasia or Bulgaria or Turkey (or even Quebec!) etc.,they may not understand English as well as most Americans, so knowing that might help avoid misunderstandings. I dislike playing with people who refuse to admit to having a name or anything on their profile at all, it feels like a sort of oneupsmanship tactic."Guess what I play, ha ha you got it wrong." With the number of people on BBO it's hard to imagine that anyone could be readilly identified by a first name and a country unless the name was exceptionally unusual, in which case they could simply choose a different one to play under.

[helene_t]

onoway, on 2012-December-10, 20:37, said:

Also, I don't play as many conventions that most people seem to play, but stick to a bunch that seem to come up enough to be regularly useful. It seems pretentious to sit opposite a player with multi and Walsh and all sorts of other things on their profile and claim to be advanced when I don't know half of the conventions on their profile.

The most useful thing I have found is to look for partners who claim to play 2/1 rather than sayc and to look at what conventions they play. I have seen NO TRANSFERS in big black letters on a number of sayc profiles claiming to be advanced players, and feel doubtful.

I think it is reasonable not to play transfers in a pick-up partnership. You don't have to discuss whether they apply after interference and in response to NT overcalls or not. I agree that someone who is not familiar with transfers at all is unlikely to be advanced (although it could be the case). But someone who puts "no transfers" on his profile could easily be a good player.

[OldPlayr]

Sad that BBO has no functionality to aid in finding partners in pickup games. Reading through the random text that players put in their profiles is the best that one can do. This results in jumping into and out of a dozen or more tables before finding someone with whom you can partner with with even a minimum of understanding.

Number of logins is possibly the only profile part worth anything. One must hope that someone with 4000 logins has picked up some skill along the way

The self rating field is totally worthless. BBO might just as well assign the rating at random. It should simply be dropped.

Being a new member, who always must resort to playing as a single, I find the opportunities to play with humans disappointing. I'm pretty much limited to the ACBL individual tournaments every hour or so.

[jillybean]

As others have said many times before, the only way to find a quality game on BBO is to play with "friends" and an extended circle of friends.
How do you get this list of friends? Befriend local players, bbf'ers, random players you are compatible with and partners of "friends".

And expect to kiss a lot of frogs along the way