[mikeh]

 Fluffy, on 2015-February-03, 17:43, said:

The problem is not his perception, but that it trasnpires that you disagree with his self proclamation. I know Nuno has made an effort to not self proclaim himself as Expert, I know that you have also taken care not to do it, not even Justin has self proclaimed himself an Expert. Nobody really does.

Well I Call myself World Master as at least that is something objective. On the other hand Fred used to call me "player with zero bridge credentials"

There I was thinking of you as BridgeGod! I mean, it's on the internet, so it must be true


Oh, and I do call myself 'expert' on occasion, but I like to think that I have some clue as to what that means and some street creds when it comes to it...there is a pretty wide range of expertise in that rank, and I am not close to the top

[Bbradley62]

 Fluffy, on 2015-February-03, 17:43, said:

The problem is not his perception, but that it trasnpires that you disagree with his self proclamation. I know Nuno has made an effort to not self proclaim himself as Expert, I know that you have also taken care not to do it, not even Justin has self proclaimed himself an Expert. Nobody really does.

Well I Call myself World Master as at least that is something objective. On the other hand Fred used to call me "player with zero bridge credentials"

There is nothing necessarily wrong with proclaiming oneself an expert, and it seems to me that there are a few simple ways to do so: (1) rate yourself as such (or World Class) in your BBO profile, (2) create threads in the Expert Forum (maybe even 13 of the 28 created in the past 30 days), (3) express your opinions in threads in the Expert Forum.

[Cthulhu D]

It would be silly to suggest that posting in the expert forum makes you an expert, and equally silly to limit it to just experts because the number of true experts on the forum is small.

I think it's more useful to think of it as a more difficulty class of problem.

I agree with PhantomSac that the best effect has been the restructuring of the Beginner and intermediate forums.

[mgoetze]

 Cthulhu D, on 2015-February-04, 01:07, said:

It would be silly to suggest that posting in the expert forum makes you an expert,

Well, I do occasionally write something there... but certainly less often than I would in other forums. I try to avoid giving answers and stick to asking questions. But I guess I'm in the minority on that one.

[cherdano]

I got to say I was surprised by Mike's post comments about whereagles - I have enjoyed his recent posts more than I used to, he posted a number of good problems. Does whereagles think he is better than he is? Probably, since 97% of all bridge players think so - but I don't really know.

[rhm]

 whereagles, on 2015-February-03, 04:17, said:

To forum admins:

Discussion of what belongs in the "expert forum" is creating a bad atmosphere. I suggest you shut down skill level-based foruns and merge "expert", "int/adv" and "interesting hands" into a single "interesting auction and cardplay issues" forum. (Leave the beginner forum, at least it's more clear what belongs there.)

Maybe the forums are all right and it's the people who are wrong. But humans are what they are. You can't force them to be educated (unless you want to start a banning spree), so we might as well adopt a forum structure that is less likely to lead to flames.

0.02 cents. Delete at will if found unsuitable

I beg to differ.
A classification is not useless just because people get the classification wrong from time to time.
And mostly the threads are classified correctly in my opinion.
And telling someone that the forum was wrong where a thread was opened is okay too.

Rainer Herrmann

[WellSpyder]

 mikeh, on 2015-February-03, 12:48, said:

My sister-in-law had to do a Masters Thesis on abnormal psychology, and she chose a small group of bridge experts

Great line for a signature, if only I had got round to working out how people put those quotes there....

[helene_t]

 WellSpyder, on 2015-February-04, 05:02, said:

Great line for a signature, if only I had got round to working out how people put those quotes there....

Click the pull-down next to your user name in the North-East corner, then "my profile". Then "Edit my profile" and then "change signature".

[PhilKing]

I have been thinking about this quite a lot and on question has really stuck in my mind. Why has it been raise in General Bridge Discussion? It should be in General BBO Discussion subsection imo.

[mgoetze]

 PhilKing, on 2015-February-04, 05:40, said:

I have been thinking about this quite a lot and on question has really stuck in my mind. Why has it been raise in General Bridge Discussion? It should be in General BBO Discussion subsection imo.

There's never been a good/obvious place to post topics about the forum itself.

[aguahombre]

 PhilKing, on 2015-February-04, 05:40, said:

I have been thinking about this quite a lot and on question has really stuck in my mind. Why has it been raise in General Bridge Discussion? It should be in General BBO Discussion subsection imo.

Will it have a gatekeeper?

[MrAce]

 cherdano, on 2015-February-04, 03:47, said:

I got to say I was surprised by Mike's post comments about whereagles - I have enjoyed his recent posts more than I used to, he posted a number of good problems. Does whereagles think he is better than he is? Probably, since 97% of all bridge players think so - but I don't really know.

I know Nuno replied that he never said or claimed to be that good. Do you want to know what Nuno really thinks his skill level is? Just click on his BBO card and see for yourself.

Who am I to judge or say anything about someone rating himself EXPERT and showing it this way to all other BBO members while he apparently believes different in forums. It confuses me when the same person suggests to shut down the expert forum and complains about some people being on high horse! Even mentions about BIG egos.

You are a bridge player, connect the dots and decide for yourself. Find out who is false carding.

[whereagles]

You're stepping out of line again, Timo.

I have better things to do than arguing about my bridge skill level at an internet forum. Let alone with people who are not worth my time.

[cherdano]

I don't actually don't much care about how strong whereagles is. I could well imagine an advanced player who has a very good sense for what problems are interesting also for experts, and so would make for a good poster starting threads in the Expert class bridge forum.

The issue I see with whereagles post is more that in his world, good partnership bridge doesn't seem to exist; if someone makes an argument why bid Y should show Z, and why an expert partner would work that out, he is never interested and just replies s.th. like "Good luck trying that with [random pickup partner]".

In fact, this is a good example of a post that doesn't belong in the Expert Class Bridge forum. This doesn't have to do anything with whereagles' level, or with the difficulty of the problem. But if a defense problem is posted in the Expert forum, I should be able to assume that we have good signalling agreements, and that partner is an expert and thus making good decisions on how to use them.

[whereagles]

 cherdano, on 2015-February-04, 08:27, said:

The issue I see with whereagles post is more that in his world, good partnership bridge doesn't seem to exist

That's not true. Good partnership bridge does exist, and I've been in two or three. Gonzalo knows, he's been with me in a European championship. In fact, I broke up a real-life top partnership because pard was too anarchic to abide by the simple rule of leading 3rd best from 6 cards. He kept leading 3rd or 5th randomly, and I could never tell what he was doing. One day the random fluctuations led to a defensive disaster and I had to put up with the indignity of hearing him (the culprit) tell me "you should have guessed I was breaking the rule because of blabla". Since I'm a calm and educated guy, I kept my mouth shut. What I really felt like doing was yelling at him "oh yeah..? well fucck off".

It's harder than it seems.

[diana_eva]

 MrAce, on 2015-February-04, 07:24, said:

Do you want to know what Nuno really thinks his skill level is? Just click on his BBO card and see for yourself.

That's not really fair, Timo. Lots of players choose exp in their BBO profile simply because they are looking for a better game. I don't know how effective it is in practice, but when the forum consensus seems to be that self ratings on BBO are pretty much meaningless, we can't also claim that they show what a player "really thinks his skill level is".

BBO and user profile are tools. People are free to use these tools as they see fit to find suitable games. They don't necessarily reflect what one "really thinks".

[MrAce]

 whereagles, on 2015-February-04, 08:06, said:

You're stepping out of line again, Timo.

I have better things to do than arguing about my bridge skill level at an internet forum. Let alone with people who are not worth my time.

Help me understand how I am stepping out of line on this one please.

You say one thing here while you say the opposite in BBO. Someone finds this out and you think he is hurting you and stepping out of line. Is there any way, shape or form to prove you wrong, to show inconsistencies and contradictions without upsetting you?

I am not the one who hijacked a thread and got into this expert-non expert bs. I am not the one who started a topic and suggested expert forum to be shut down. I did not even mention anything, not here not in expert forum not in anywhere whether you are expert or not. You mentioned it. If you are going to be hurt for the things you spilled all over the place, then just don't spill it, or be careful to synchronize them. Just don't believe finding them is stepping out of line. And for the things I have handled poorly, I already apologized. Unlike you, I ain't perfect.

[MrAce]

 diana_eva, on 2015-February-04, 09:22, said:

That's not really fair, Timo. Lots of players choose exp in their BBO profile simply because they are looking for a better game. I don't know how effective it is in practice, but when the forum consensus seems to be that self ratings on BBO are pretty much meaningless, we can't also claim that they show what a player "really thinks his skill level is".

BBO and user profile are tools. People are free to use these tools as they see fit to find suitable games. They don't necessarily reflect what one "really thinks".

Oh, so it is ok for people to lie about their skill level to fool others, in order to find a better game, but it is UNFAIR when someone believes them? What a wonderful world!

And i think (I may be wrong) just because people in the forum believes self ratings are meaningless, I do not think they believe we should all use it the corrupted way.

[johnu]

 rhm, on 2015-February-04, 03:57, said:

And telling someone that the forum was wrong where a thread was opened is okay too.

Obviously not according to some people

[mikeh]

 diana_eva, on 2015-February-04, 09:22, said:

That's not really fair, Timo. Lots of players choose exp in their BBO profile simply because they are looking for a better game. I don't know how effective it is in practice, but when the forum consensus seems to be that self ratings on BBO are pretty much meaningless, we can't also claim that they show what a player "really thinks his skill level is".

BBO and user profile are tools. People are free to use these tools as they see fit to find suitable games. They don't necessarily reflect what one "really thinks".

I think that it is one thing for the average bad player to claim expert status on BBO (tho I doubt they do it only to get 'better' games...I expect there is a large ego element, combined with a profound ignorance of what it means to be really expert) and quite something for someone who is one of the most prolific and long-standing members of BBF to, in essence, assert that 'yes, on BBO I claim to be expert, and , yes, I put almost all of my posts in the expert forum here, but...but.....look.....I've NEVER claimed to be an expert'

I call b...s..t on that argument.

We all make mistakes. Most of us, and I am in this category, say things or claim things that don't really hold up under critical scrutiny. My view, which I admit may not be universal and I don't assert that it is 'right' is that the measure of a person isn't the mistakes they make but how they react to the mistake being pointed out.

Unfortunately, I see Nuno getting all worked up and offended when his mistakes are pointed out. Hence he asserts that he has NEVER claimed to be an expert, and then gets pissed off at Timo for pointing out that in fact he routinely claims that status on BBO.

Personally, I would have expected an embarrassed Nuno to point out that he knows how silly it is to claim expert status, but, for example, he has found that claiming, say, advanced or (my own choice, private) makes it tough to find games. He prefers to attack Timo instead, and that is an ugly thing to see. Especially for someone who self-describes as 'a calm and educated guy'