[mgoetze]

...is it just me, or is putting "Intermediate" on your profile the easiest way to get a lot of "Permission denied" notices in the Main Bridge Club?

I have a feeling there are quite a few "Advanced" and "Expert" players on BBO who don't play any better than I do. Yet it seems to me that many table hosts care quite a lot about what the "Skill Level" part of your profile says. So... is there any solution other than lying about my skill level to get a decent pickup game?

Also, I am really appalled by the standard of manners on BBO. Many peope won't even return my "Hi" when I sit down as their partner. Can we have a "Willing to discuss system Bridge Club" where people will at least say "sayc std 2/4 ok?" And then there are those players who will boot you off their table without comment if you make any bid with which they disagree in the slightest...

[Aberlour10]

mgoetze, on May 13 2007, 08:15 AM, said:

...is it just me, or is putting "Intermediate" on your profile the easiest way to get a lot of "Permission denied" notices in the Main Bridge Club?

I have a feeling there are quite a few "Advanced" and "Expert" players on BBO who don't play any better than I do. Yet it seems to me that many table hosts care quite a lot about what the "Skill Level" part of your profile says. So... is there any solution other than lying about my skill level to get a decent pickup game?

Not only you. I meet with this every day , but I do not care about it in any way, because from my longtime personal own experience, it is better to practice a bit of understatement by rating myself. ( my rate: declarer play=adv, defence=interm., bidding=interm+)

Robert

[Flame]

Play money with gib
One solution is to find people that you have fun playing with and try to play mostly with them. I admite that I'm one of those who will usually not accpet intermidietes at my table. I know many advances or experts that i accept are accpet could be intermidietes or even beginners but i still believe on avarage those who claim to be experts are better then those who claim to be intermidiates.

[jillybean]

Flame, on May 13 2007, 02:08 PM, said:

but i still believe on avarage those who claim to be experts are better then those who claim to be intermediates.

Oh, it must be the self rated WC players who are worse than the intermediates then. Seriously, imo the self rated experts are increasing in number and decreasing in ability.
Ignore tables wanting expert+++ only!!!, play with who you can and build friends lists.

[keylime]

Beaner's hit it on the nail - associate yourself with good people.

[mrdct]

University tests have shown that self-rated World Class players never are.

Hey, I've got a great solution for the self-rating problem on BBO - don't have one. Players can mark the players they want to play with and against as "friends" and make their own player notes on people.

The self-rating system serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than pissing people off.

[mgoetze]

Of course, I'm constantly working on my buddy list. But it doesn't help when I want to play at some weird time, say Sunday around noon (European time), when everyone's still sleeping...

For me, getting rid of self-ratings entirely would certainly be preferable to getting denied all the time just because I happen to be honest.

[helene_t]

Are you sure you'd like to play against those who reject you because you labeled yourself "intermediate"?

Just asking, not a retoric question. Just like there's little correlation between self-rating and real skill level, there may be little correlation between notions about self-rating and general social skills.

[Mike_P]

What a great game. Where else can you get your feelings hurt pretty much continuously?

[mrdct]

mgoetze, on May 14 2007, 06:03 AM, said:

But it doesn't help when I want to play at some weird time, say Sunday around noon (European time), when everyone's still sleeping...

Prime-time in the antipodes.

[jillybean]

mrdct, on May 14 2007, 03:35 AM, said:

University tests have shown that self-rated World Class players never are.

Hey, I've got a great solution for the self-rating problem on BBO - don't have one. Players can mark the players they want to play with and against as "friends" and make their own player notes on people.

I don't think you need to go to University to work that one out

I agree with your suggestion to slove the problem; keep friends seperate and use green for 'those with whom I can play a decent game'

[Badmonster]

The tables where they will not let you sit are probably not tables you'll be happy at anyway. No?

[sceptic]

Quote

The tables where they will not let you sit are probably not tables you'll be happy at anyway. No?

Hi Deb, I would disagree with this statement, I find a lot of the people that restrict levels are trying to avoid the beginners, it may even be they are trying to improve and to do that you need to play better players. also, most of the expert community here reject a lot, so may be they would answer honestly, why they reject people from playing at thier tables, this may give an insight into the issue.

My personall belief is they want a decent game and having an intermediate or over rated advanced or expert is not thier idea of fun

I used to get frustrated when I get rejected continuously somedays, but there must be an awful lot of "Sceptic is an idiot do not play with again" on the players notes (I do not always endear myself to my partners or opponents on some days).

I am probably in a minority, where I would like ratings to be more accurate and believe that self rating is better than no rating at all, I consider myself good intermediate, I am sure there are people here that consider me bad intermediate, but the one thing is I am not a beginner and I am no expert so where on earth do you draw up a scale between ?

No ratings is in my opinion something that is a non starter, I believe that most people are honest, they rate them selves as slightly better than they really are through, pride in their achievemnt as opposed to any malicious intent.

Has anyone considered that you are rejected more because of the Flag you have or the system you play, or maybe the inadequate details on your profile and maybe not just your bridge skill level.

I know a lot of people on BBO that reject people from certain countries because in general they do not seem to be the most accurate at putting a skill level on thier profile

I know I reject people with private and blank profiles and certain comments on thier profiles get them rejected and I do not feel that they deserve an explanation, some people when rejected become quite abusive, I also advertise for advanced opps some days and still noovice, beginner and intermediate try and sit, so I reject a lot.

Quote

is there any solution other than lying about my skill level to get a decent pickup game?

Simple answer here is NO, either lie about your standard, just upgrade to advanced, I find it is the expert status that is the one that causes greater issue, intermediate and advanced is such a wide range and I believe it overlaps anyway when you start to get better at this game

I use another ID, when I am fed up being rejected and I open a table and sit at it and wait for it to fill up, which is usually very soon, I have no probs lying about my ability and quite honestly, I do get a much better standard of game and better partners and opps, I even get invited back to play again with these people.

Anyone that believes this exasserbates the problem on BBO, well you are entitled to your opinion, I happen to have played on BBO for years and listened to all sorts of arguements and debates about ratings etc and most of it is b*****x, IMHO

There are some nice people that reject anyone under advanced, they want to play similar standard of player (and at the end of the day they have every right to do this) I just wish they would type in a table description

We should not take it personally

The easiest way to keep our feelings in tact is to open our own table and enter our own table desriptions (it is a pity Fred could not save these so the default to our individual table) and reject who we don't want

[helene_t]

I'm surprised to hear that self-rated experts are more likely to get accepted.

Personally, I'm more likely to accept a self-rated non-expert than a self-rated expert because I have the silly prejudice that self-rating correlates more strongly with arrogance than with skill level. But I reject for other reasons as well, in particular
- Waiting for an answer from opp about whether s/he has a prefered partner or whether I must accept anyone
- Several players apply simoultaneously. I just choose one more or less randomly and reject the rest.

[hotShot]

The selfrating system has a feedback loop, if you say you are a beginner, you risk to be rejected from any intermediate+ host. If after a while your fed up, you decide to upgrade your profile to intermediate. Now the true intermediate players need to upgrade to advanced and the advanced upgrade to expert. Now with all those fake ratings around, the rejection rate climbs higher leading to more fake ratings .....

I would like to have a true measurement of skill, but seeing more and more tables/tourneys who try to exclude advanced- players and the rude way this is often enforced, I 'm sure that any sort of rating will lead to lees polite behavior on BBO.

[jillybean]

hotShot, on May 15 2007, 05:17 AM, said:

I would like to have a true measurement of skill, but seeing more and more tables/tourneys who try to exclude advanced- players and the rude way this is often enforced, I 'm sure that any sort of rating will lead to lees polite behavior on BBO.

I don't see too many of these Expert+++ tourneys, full of self rated errr experts
but who the heck wants to play in it anyway If you really must, just click on expert and join

How are the skill levels enforced anyway?

[mgoetze]

sceptic, on May 15 2007, 10:50 AM, said:

Quote

The tables where they will not let you sit are probably not tables you'll be happy at anyway. No?

Hi Deb, I would disagree with this statement, I find a lot of the people that restrict levels are trying to avoid the beginners, it may even be they are trying to improve and to do that you need to play better players. also, most of the expert community here reject a lot, so may be they would answer honestly, why they reject people from playing at thier tables, this may give an insight into the issue.

My personall belief is they want a decent game and having an intermediate or over rated advanced or expert is not thier idea of fun

I think they're more likely to get a decent game by letting me sit than by letting an anonymous "expert" with a UN flag sit. I just wonder why they think otherwise.

Quote

I am probably in a minority, where I would like ratings to be more accurate and believe that self rating is better than no rating at all, I consider myself good intermediate, I am sure there are people here that consider me bad intermediate, but the one thing is I am not a beginner and I am no expert so where on earth do you draw up a scale between ?

I don't think a real rating system would work well on BBO, because Bridge is about Partnerships, not individuals. I would prefer a reputation system. I know it has been discussed before, but I might start another thread in the Suggestions forum anyway.

Quote

Has anyone considered that you are rejected more because of the Flag you have or the system you play, or maybe the inadequate details on your profile and maybe not just your bridge skill level.

I dunno... considering that I hardly ever see anything such as "How about 14-16 NT, partner?" or "do we play Lebensohl?", I have serious doubts about the value of listing a bunch of random conventions of my profile. Still, this seems to work well for a lot of people.

Nevertheless, I've changed my profile from something like "Prefer strong club (Mos2005, Blue, Prec), or natural with any gadgets except Bergen, Gerber, Drury, GSF" to "Your system, partner." - let's see if it helps. But maybe the problem is just that people hate Germans.

Quote

Quote

is there any solution other than lying about my skill level to get a decent pickup game?

Anyone that believes this exasserbates the problem on BBO, well you are entitled to your opinion, I happen to have played on BBO for years and listened to all sorts of arguements and debates about ratings etc and most of it is b*****x, IMHO

There are some nice people that reject anyone under advanced, they want to play similar standard of player (and at the end of the day they have every right to do this) I just wish they would type in a table description

Well, I think it's not working. On the one hand, you say you think people will be honest. On the other hand, you're saying I have no choice but to upgrade myself to "advanced".

If you read the "rules of this site", it defines intermediate as "someone who is comparable in skill to most other members of BBO". I'll bet that if you checked the statistics, how many experts, advanced, intermediates etc. there are on BBO, your hopes of honesty would be immediately shattered...

[jtfanclub]

mgoetze, on May 13 2007, 08:15 AM, said:

...is it just me, or is putting "Intermediate" on your profile the easiest way to get a lot of "Permission denied" notices in the Main Bridge Club?

It's a double-back filter.

Rating yourself as a Beginner says "I only want to play with people who are willing to play with Beginners". Rating yourself as an Expert says "I want to play with people who only want to play with Experts". It really doesn't have anything to do with how good you are.

Sorry if that was confusing.

[Gerben42]

And Private for "I don't want to play with anyone"? I don't care much about the ratings but I prefer to know where people are from. The UN flag as well as "fun" flags turn me off (yes I know one regular player is really from Reunion).

[mgoetze]

jtfanclub, on May 15 2007, 03:23 PM, said:

Rating yourself as a Beginner says "I only want to play with people who are willing to play with Beginners". Rating yourself as an Expert says "I want to play with people who only want to play with Experts". It really doesn't have anything to do with how good you are.

What do I do if I want to play with people who want to play with "someone who is comparable in skill to most other members of BBO"? Do I choose the mode (probably "expert"), the median (probably "advanced"), or do I fall back to the definition found in "rules of this site"?