JJE 0

Good one :) I thought that's what this was about too, but I couldn't figure out why or how anyone would want to restrict players who are [over/under] the age of [xx]

Hi Anders Most of the responses here have the tone of "bridge is hard; learn from your numerous mistakes, and you will get better", which, although I agree with the basic content, might not be addressing your problem. And I agree with you -- ostensibly players who are not "expert" in some manner get a whole lot more discouragement than encouragement. As humans, I've noticed that our (faulty) tendency is to blame or partners in bridge, before considering that we ourselves have made a mistake, or even most likely, the opponents' usually great (or catastrophic) play is the primary factor in influencing the results. I play in a club with individual tournaments, and the number of times I've been told to "stop playing bridge" is outrageous. Are there really still places in the world where people are banned from playing a leisurely game just because an angry troll has decided that they're too stupid to be allowed (of course there are, but it's hard to say if anyone really is truly happy in those places)? When partner makes a mistake it is not sufficient evidence to conclude that they need to leave and not return until they have learned the game. How long would that even take anyway?! :P Also consider Anders that there is a popular bridge instructor who uses the free daylong for instruction. He's quite good so I would imagine that hundreds if not thousands of people are playing with "extra knowledge and insight", not because they intend to cheat, but because it doesn't count and the "play along" exercise is tremendously helpful in learning. So, for sake of argument, I agree that it would be good to have other means of comparing oneself with others who are approximately around the same level to try and measure the improvement in some manner. We all know that the Masterpoints system (BBO or ABCL or otherwise) doesn't quite capture current ability, and rewards disproportionately players who play more often. With enough money one can get the most skilled partners to help them generate as many masterpoints as they would like. Thanks for reading Jeff

Mine took about 3 days. I thought maybe it wasn't working too, but it all worked out in the end. :)

I know that in other online games "multi"s as they are referred to are multiple accounts presumably used by the same person with the same IP address, and they are generally forbidden in those games. My understanding is that almost every online "massive" game forbids this, checks routinely, and suspends any accounts that are doing this. For ACBL black point regular weekly club play, there are lots of husband-and-wife pairs; I do not particularly suspect them of cheating (although the opportunity is evident), but it would surprise me greatly if they all took the care to get separate IP addresses!

I won a few masterpoints (SYC Daylong) and they didn't get registered on the ACBL until the *following* month so I recommend just make a note of it and wait patiently for a month or 2

I've noticed (compared to the flash version) I don't get an audible "dink-dunk" notification when I am asked to substitute in a for a tournament. So if I'm in a different window, or a couple metres away from the keyboard, I'll completely miss the invitation.

When invited to sub in a tournament, I no longer can hear the "doot-deet" that alerts me to the 20-second (or so) window to accept the invitation or not. If I'm in another window, or a couple metres away from keyboard, then I'm often missing the invitation completely. Thanks JJE

My own opinion is that the self-ratings just aren't that reliable. Looking back on my recent performance I'm averaging 42.84% in ACBL matchpoint tournaments. I have about 25 ACBL masterpoints....? ("club master") -- whatever. In some non-ACBL-sanctioned tournaments online I am often told (after making a single mistake) that I'm an "idiot/beginer(sic)/novice". Surely these "eminently intelligent" people themselves would understand that everyone makes mistakes from time to time. INSTEAD It would be a lot more useful and indicative to compare partnerships. It's a partnership game after all. Especially at the intermediate level there can be so many gaps and chasms between two partners' playing abilities and bidding abilities. So my partnership with Anne Boleyn might have a rating of 53% while my partnership with Charles Darwin might only average 43%, and with Edward Furlong we tend to get 48% on average. But honestly I'd just like to see less text-screaming and "???????????????????????". People who insist on playing individual tournaments and then also insist that every single random person in the world sees what they see, knows what they know, and acts as if they would act (in particular in the dummy position and under a bit more pressure than them). So I'm intermediate. I'm about average at my real-life clubs, and I perform approximately as can be expected with someone who has the same number of masterpoints, which is just a measure of life experience (anywhere between 0 and 99% of which is forgotten anyway). I could demote myself to beginner I suppose, but this is inconsistent with a lot of play and bidding that elicits sincere congratulations from others. I'm the first person to claim that I'm just lucky, but when I'm cruising in the pocket and everything clicks, there is some achievement and skill there. And what do I do about my real-life partner who is certainly an advanced player, but an absolutely awful bidder? Yelling at one's partner is not just the domain of online trolls. I've been shouted at for making mistakes in play I didn't know I made. As Randal McMurphy said to a fellow inmate at the blackjack table at the mental institution "I can't hit you because it's not your turn. You see there other people here? These are REAL PEOPLE! These are the real ones!". It's a scourge of mental illness that is endemic to the game of bridge. I particularly scoff at those who think that some others should not be permitted to play bridge at all. Finally, sometimes I play later in the evening when I know my head's not totally in the game and my memory is not at its best. But I don't mind paying USD1.25 for an hour of 12 boards. Maybe I will win, more likely not; maybe I will learn something, quite possibly not LOL. Should it really go on my permanent record if I (or my partner for that matter, which happens often) flakes out? Nobody has defined precisely what Intermediate means other than it's approximately the same as "most" other people on BBO. If I'm 0.8-0.9 standard deviations below the mean, then I'm intermediate too. Compared to a lot of people who don't exactly behave like civilized humans, in a manner of speaking LOLOL Jeff