OldPlayr

I understand what you are saying. However, I feel that the trade off between missing the relatively few friend invitations and worthwhile comments is outweighed by the large number of disappointing and worthless chat comments. I'd rather see none that all. Being an Internet site, anonymous and freely open to anyone, such is the state of comments. Probably a fair sample of society in general. Frankly, I'm surprised that the professional spammers haven't arrived. Perhaps the audience is too small.

I am not a fan of playing with robots, however they do have one thing going for them. I have never seen one make an unfriendly comment. On a serious note...Whenever I play in the main club or in tournaments, I do so with the chat window hidden. While I'm sure I miss an occasional worthwhile comment, the ratio of those to garbage comments is too low to make chat useful. Being relatively new here, I do wish that the software made it easier to find games with players marked as friends. Perhaps a way to set a "looking for a game" flag. I think I saw that, or something similar, on another bridge site. Sort of trolling for an invitation.

I see better with more screen real estate. The value to trash ratio in chat is too low for me to bother.

Sorry Jillybean. I never saw the invitations - I always play with the chat window hidden.

Some simple improvements could be made. Profiles could have checkboxes for the major bidding systems that a player can play, perhaps with one as a preferred. This could be used in the "find a game" feature. Given that BBO has a record of all hands played with results, a player could be put into one of four quartiles, based upon average ranking for all hands played. Not perfect, but it does convey some indication of ability. This also could be used in "find a game". In searching for a game, one could select "plays ACOL", ranked in quartiles 2,3, or 4. While not guaranteeing a good fit, it would at least eliminate many bad fits.

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 :D 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.

Express is the only option? Not much choice. Express tourneys have been discussed in other threads. Bidding and play in those freebies approaches randomness.... No options for a reasonably decent game amongst individual humans?

A check of upcoming tournaments for individuals just showed 13 using robots, and one without - a free express. Now, tell me where the opportunity to play with humans exists?

On the subject in disappointed in tournaments, I'm disappointed that so few tournaments for singles involve playing with humans. The site should be renamed RBO - Robot Bridge Online. Hard to believe that ACBL awards points for playing with robots.

Clearly, making a tournament pay vs. free will not eliminate bad players. It will, however, reduce the number of "drop-in" players who come thinking that they can learn the game by just entering free tournaments. I'd rather play in a pay tournament with 3 or 4 decent players, than in one with 80 drop-in beginners. I certainly prefer that to always being forced to play with robots and use their bidding system. Unfortunately, suggestions made to this forum seem to always be met with negative responses and resistance to change or new ideas. "tried that", or "nobody wants that". Makes me consider why I bother...

I suggested in another topic that there be a paid version of the express tournaments. I think that this would eliminate many of the novice "free" players that one comes across in the free express tournaments. I rather like the opportunity to play short tournaments with real people, rather than robots.

A lot of nit-picking about random number generation. Gotta love the internet community :P Random functions are certainly good enough for dealing bridge hands! I'd be more concerned about online opponents cheating with IM, SKYPE, phone conversation, or sitting in the same room. I know that this is common in online poker. Most college kids will tell you that. I'd never play big money poker or bridge online.

How about at least an option to 'exclude blank profiles"? Tired of spending 10 minutes jumping in and out of tables to find a game. Lots of good ideas in this forum. Do any of these suggestions ever get implemented?

I can't seem to see any of these tourneys that you mention. Does one have to join these 'private clubs'? Sorry, I'm rather new here.

I don't follow... You have FREE tournaments without robots that need directors. PAID tournaments would be better in covering director costs, don't you think? I'm simply suggesting that you start running some express tournaments, with all live people, and charge for them to get a larger percentage of serious players.

Simply because it is this way does not mean that is has to be. This is why I made my suggestion. I'm looking for more individual tournaments that offer the opportunity to play with real people. There are many options to vary bidding systems. BTW. No chat is probably the only thing I like about robot tournaments. I've not seen player comments of much value, but have seen many that expose the less attractive side of people. I've never heard a robot say anything mean to anyone ;)

It would be nice to have more tournaments where an individual can play with real people, instead of the robots. The Express-free fun format is nice 30 minutes & playing with real people. The downside of that is that, being a freebee, the player quality is lacking. Too bad there are not more chances to play that format in a BBO or ACBL tournament. I know that there are a few offered, but they are few and far between. I don't understand why so many tournaments are robots-only, forcing their single convention use, or nothing. I feel like I'm stuck in an old Twilight Zone episode - only a robot for companionship :)

It sure is tedious jumping in and out of many 'find a partner' tables before finding someone who does not have either a blank profile, or a system that I don't wish to play.... I can't believe that it a tough coding task to add a check-box bidding system selection to profiles and optionally use it in find a partner.

My point is simply that having "SAYC" in a profile is better than nothing when placing one at a table. I'm not looking for a lifetime partner, just less time table hopping, trying to find someone without a blank profile or something that I don't want to play. Once the match narrows down the selection, I can always read the fine print in the profile. I usually just stop by the site for an hour or so to pass some time & don't want to spend time finding a partner who knows at least the basics. After a career in software, I try to ask for small things, that the site can do easily. Yes, some major profile definition improvement could match people who play all sorts of complex convention combinations. That would be great, but I just want a simple first step. 20% of the work may yield 80% of the possible benefit. I do like the profile check box suggestion, though.

I'd settle for just being able to select partners with a top level bidding system in their profile. As suggested - show me openings where the partner has "SAYC" in their profile. That alone eliminates the 50% that I find with no profile at all. I often have to jump through dozens of open spots before finding a player with the same system. Just a simple string search of available profiles when assigning a seat would be of great benefit. I agree that any more complex partner matching may require a change or addition to the current profile capability. While more complex matching would be great, just start simple. Bidding system is the characteristic that I care about most. Country is not something that I'd use, as I enjoy meeting people from different countries. Maybe online bridge can help international relations :)

The 'find a game' function should let one specify the bidding system that they want a partner to play. That would save having to get placed at a table, check the partners profile, and leave if they do not play my system (or have no system listed, as is common). I often have to go through several tables before I find someone who plays SAYC. Less common systems must be much worse. Even better would be to allow the find a game request to specify multiple attributes for a partner match. Bidding system, listed skill level, completion percentages, number of logins, or whatever else BBO tracks on players. Better partner matching would greatly improve the appeal of the site for individual players. Sort of like a dating site :D

Thanks. Reading the robot explanations helps. Knowing the rules helps :) Somehow I missed that. I'm still having trouble finding my way around the site. I'll go back & give 'em another try.

I'm relatively new to the site & just tried a few of these. I can see no sense to playing them... The robots make bids that make absolutely no sense at all. Do they play some sort of bidding system? Other than practice playing all sorts of crazy bid & distribution hands, I see no value. What do you all see in these robot tournaments? Is there some sort of guideline document someplace? Am I missing something?

It would be nice to be able to specify your bidding convention (like SAYC) when using "help me find a game". I find that I have to drop in and out of several tables before locating a partner who plays the same main convention. If the "find a game function" allowed one to specify the convention desired in a partner, it would make the site much better.