QuiteACard

Hi Jacki: Yes that's what happened. I believe the match was a high visibility event (there were more than 100 kibitzers) and my comment was unrelated to the match itself. Please don't pursue this. If in fact I was booted for my comment (and it's not clear that I was), my comment was out of line. Wait... sending the message to all kibitzers did not automatically disconnect me. I got the sense that someone gave me the boot for my poor manners.

I visited BestBuy this afternoon and played with the HP TouchPad for about 30 minutes. I was able to log into BBO, kibitz at a table, view the bidding and play at that table, send a message to the kibitzers (which got me booted from the table and BBO), and send a private message/mail to Fred. I noticed that the ad banner on the left side of the screen was not present. In addition when kibitzing a table I was unable to access the "tabs" that appear on the right side of the screen showing Friends, Results, etc. I did not play so I don't know what support, if any, exists for that function. Performance was acceptable: not super fast but no obvious lagging. That's it. QuiteACard

In this thread I offered the following suggestion as an alternative to the per-friend login notice option and requests for additional types of friends, acquaintances, and so on: Would being able to view the lobby anywhere provide a useful solution to this problem? While I don't spend lots of time malingering in tournament lobbies during registration I know I'd find it useful if the "Lobby" button were active there. Is the "Lobby" button available during Vugraph sessions? If it's not I suspect many of you would find it useful. QuiteACard

Hi folks: At a teaching table using uploaded hands, the software assigns the "dealer" based on the position of the uploaded hand in the .lin file. For the first hand in the .lin file, North is always the dealer; for the second hand in the .lin file, East is always the dealer, and so on. There is no clean way for the teacher or the players to adjust the bidding starting point so that another player is assigned as the dealer. For example if the teacher wants West to be the dealer on the first uploaded hand then North, East, and South must make fake initial pass bids so that West can make their bid. There's a couple of residual problems that this adjustment doesn't address: (1) North still appears as the dealer in the vulnerability box in the upper left corner of the screen, and (2) those annoying initial passes still appear in the bidding box for North, East, and South. Experienced BBO members are smart enough to ignore them but those initial passes often confuse less experienced BBO membes. I suggest that the teaching table (and only the teaching table) software be enhanced and a (for lack of a better term) "Skip" button be added to the bidding keypad. This Skip button would have the following behavior: 1. If a player presses the Skip button three things happen: a. that player loses their turn in the bidding sequence (i.e. the bidding keypad disappears from their screen and appears on the screen of the next bidder), b. nothing appears in the bidding box for that player's bid, and c. the "Declarer" icon advances one player clockwise in the vulnerability box in the upper left hand corner of the screen. 2. As soon as any non-Skip button is pressed the Skip button disappears from the bidding keypad. The assumption here is that any valid bid indicates that the Skip-ping process is complete and that the bidding process has begun. I believe that Fred and Uday are working on a long-term solution to this (and other issues) related to the .lin file formats. I offer this as a "quick fix" in the meantime. Pete

Post the scheduled date and time and I'll try to join the festivities listen/only.

Ken, I too find this definition unsatisfactory for similar reasons that you do. And I too agree with you that the goal should be to develop a statement of purpose and not define enforcing credentials. To me, the core issue is simply: what differentiates an intermediate from an intermediate++ and an advanced player? This is not a theoretical question for me. It helps me determine where I am in the learning process and where I need to channel my energies in order to move to the next level. I believe that time spent learning fundamental concepts and techniques pays big benefits down the road. As an example of the type of criteria that I find useful, I offer the following guidelines excerpted from a thread posted in rec.arts.dance back in Jan 2003: -An intermediate understands the major rules to duplicate bridge and understands the basics of the scoring system despite not necessarily bidding and playing directly advantageously to the scoring all the time. -An intermediate knows the dominant bidding system in their locale and a smattering of the major conventions, but is not using them all and relies 90% on the bedrock system, which they are comfortable with. -An intermediate has play problems but knows the underlying mechanics of planning declarer play for the 4 most common contracts: 1NT,3NT,partscore suit contract, and major game contract. -An intermediate understands at least one decent defensive carding system well enough to make use of it, and while not giving away tricks like crazy comapred to the novice, will still make many defensive errors. -An advanced player understands the scoring system and mechanics of duplicate well enough to play competitvely on this basis. -An advanced player bids comfortably in their base system with many conventions to optimize their chosen style. They probably have experience playing against a menu of several opponent's systems and may know more than one system reasonably well. -An advanced player is comfortable with a wide variety of declarer strategies and plans the play of the hand based on percentages and worst-case-scenarios. Unblocking plays, throw-in plays, etc are used regularly. Some familiarity with various squeezes, but not mastery. -An advanced player's defense gives away very few free tricks in a typical session of duplicate in a competitive field of non-world-class players, and is thorougly signalified. The killer shift is found a pretty reasonable percentage of the time. ... (1) I recall seeing similar definitional schemes in other places - exactly where I can't remember right now. FifthChair.org perhaps? And I know that some of these issues were discussed in the calling all experts thread here in the forums. Another way to state this is: what are the fundamental concepts and techiques that mid-level intermediate players must master and what are the fundamental concepts and techniques that intermediate+++ and advanced players must master? These definitions would be useful in a number of ways. They would enable members to perform self-assessment and to prepare a plan for their personal development. The definitions could be used to develop a curriculum for this club: it would allow planners and teachers to assume a certain level of expertise and to develop lectures based on the definition of an intermediate+++ and advanced player. Respectfully offered. Pete (1) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.b...1018e98901ab7c4

Oh come on Ben, tell us what you really think. ;-)

Fair enough jb. If we want a membership-only club then we need membership criteria. Any ideas on this? My general suggestions involve three areas: (1) allow people to perform self-assessment of their abilities against objective criteria, (2) state the level of conduct or behaviour expected of all potential members, and (3) require people to identify themselves via e-mail address - preferably using an e-mail address tied to a for-pay ISP. Thinking off the top of my head for item (1) we might recommend that people work through the Bridge Master samples on BBO and suggest that they need to demonstrate proficiency to a certain level in order to contribute to and to derive benefits from membership. Alternatively we might hold membership application tournaments to assess skill levels and conduct. Or we might publish lists of concepts and techniques one is expected to have mastered in order to join this club and require each potential member to rate their proficiency concerning those concepts and techniques. Regarding item (2), it should be pretty easy to collect some of the thoughts expressed in this thread as a starting point for desired and expected conduct. Comments?

I prefer a private club if for no other reason than to require potential members to register. If people are unwilling to spend the 3 minutes required to submit their registration info and are unwilling to wait the 24-48 hours for their request to be processed then I wonder if they'll have the patience and maturity to be a valued member of such a club. This is similar to the idea of offering something for free vs. charging a nominal fee. Everybody wants something for free; requiring people to pay even the smallest fee deters folks we probably don't want as members anyway, especially when the "payment" is nothing more than delayed gratification. Regarding ArcLight's suggestions: in general I agree with them. Regarding point 2: I'd find this type of post-mortem info useful when *I* request it and I'm willing to offer it to my partner when *they* request it. Now that I think about it, I'd like to hear our opponents interpret each of our bids; that's really a test of our bidding skills. Regarding ArcLights's point 3: Hear! Hear! I'm a book learner. I find it necessary to read and re-read material before I "own" it - and that's for *well-written* material - the *poorly written* material takes even longer. Lectures alone don't work well for me unless the speaker is extremely organized and a focused and practiced communicator who writes fluently in English. I'd love to attend lessons based on a particular chapter (or even a couple of specific hands from a particular chapter) of a well-written book that's appropriate for my level. Shameless plug: I just completed shep*'s 30 week group lesson series using William Root's book "How to Play a Bridge Hand" as the textbook. I found the course extremely useful (although you'd never guess it if you've seen my declarer play lately) and I recommend it highly. For those interested shep* is going to offer this course again starting early Jan 2006. In addition she plans to offer another course using William Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand" as the textbook. End of shameless plug. My $0.02.

Why couldn't I see that the "Chat" button is already available here? Oh yeah: it's right in front of me.

OK, I admit it: Fred and Uday were right; I was wrong. I turned off the "Notify me when a friend logs in (Chat)" function. I have so many (more than 1,000) names in my friends list that the resulting output renders my chat log useless. After restructuring my use of the Friends function (e.g. removing "Stars" from my friends list) and giving this further thought the following changes would give me the functionality I need. (I considered requesting a "tabbed" chat area with one "tab" reserved for "Notify" messages. However "tabbed" interfaces are sooooo 20th century that I decided not to request it.) I've listed these in order of priority, most important first: 1. Enable the "Lobby" button (the one that appears on the right hand side near the top of the chat window while playing at a table) everywhere in BBO. If "everywhere" isn't possible then I'd be happy with (most important to me first): ++ Tournament lobbies (especially during registration) ++ Viewing tournament results (and I'd like to see the "Chat" button available here.) ++ Chat rooms 2. Enhance the "View" / "Select levels..." option to let me select folks based on BBO masterpoints. In other words I'd like the option to view all folks with enough masterpoints to have been awarded a "letter" (i.e. the A, B, C, and so on folks) or folks with a 6 or 5 ranking or, in general, whatever rankings (based on BBO masterpoints) that I choose. If I had option 1 my use for a "Notify me when a friend logs in" would diminish rapidly. I suspect this option would be appreciated by many, many BBO users. Option 2 is a nice-to-have that would satisfy my personal needs. Respectfully offered.

Uday, would it be possible to relax the note limit for TDs? I can see that it is extremely useful and convenient for them at that role.

Hear! Hear! I especially like the way we can left/right click on the friends login automated message. Cool beans. Thanks folks.

You can create specific hands (i.e. complete hands for all 4 players) in a Partnership Bidding table. Open a table, press the movie button, click on the first line of the traveller, click on the North hand, and type in the contents of each hand for that board. Use the up/down arrows to move from suit to suit within a hand. Use the tab key to move from hand to hand or simply point to the desired hand using the mouse. You can continue to do this for as many boards as you like. To work on a new board click on an unused line from the traveller and follow the instructions above. When you're finished press the "Save" button to store the completed boards in one .lin file on your hard drive. Later, in a Partnership Bidding room (or a teaching table) you can press the Movie button to find the file you've previously saved, select specific hands for practice, and then press "Send" to play them.

I can think of a couple of options all based on the fundamental concept of "opting-in". Option 1: Use, for lack of a better term, "mutual reciprocity" as the basis for sending "bulk" chat messages. By "mutual reciprocity" I mean that lapinlam can send "bulk" chat messages to members only if lapinlam's name appears on each receiving member's friends list. Option 2: Allow tourney directors to maintain special friends list. Members (and only members) may add/remove themselves to/from these special friends list at any time. Anyone who adds their name to the list explicitly agrees to receive bulk chat messages from this tourney director.

Hear! Hear!

Hi all: I propose that BBO place Google ads (and/or ads from other vendors) on the myhands search and output pages as a means to generate revenue for BBO. I'd be in favor of requiring myhands users to provide general demographic info about themselves so that the ad engines can provide ads targeted to each user. I use myhands to review tournament results. I find it an extremely useful tool. I'd like to see the database history extended and the search and display capabilities expanded to make it even more useful. I understand that BBO keeps a limited hand and tournament history due to the BBO's limited computing capacity. I offer this suggestion with the hope that by generating revenue from these ads that BBO can self-fund the myhands facility (and BBO in general) and provide more useful services to BBOland. I trust Fred, Uday, and the other BBO staff members will conceive a tasteful design for such ads. QuiteACard

Audrey Grant's ACBL series (especially the first three books) are great for beginners.

Hi Rain: You wrote: >Are you saying you want to talk to yourself? Yes. I'd like to add notes (I call them comments) that will appear in my chat window and transcript log - and no where else. I specifically want these comments to appear in-line in the chat window and my transcript log. I know I can add comments to the profile for each BBO player. That doesn't solve my problem. For example if I'm kibitzing a lecture session the session leader might say something and I'd like to make a note to myself - perhaps as a tickler for further research I'd like to pursue outside the session. Pete

Is it currently possible for me to type what I'll call "comments" in my chat window in such a way that: + they do appear in my chat transcript log + they do not appear in anyone else's chat window or transcript log. Pete

Thanks Uday!

Do URL references exist to the "Explore Bridge!" "Bridge Base Standard" pages? It would be convenient to view these pages while playing or practice bidding or during a BIL lecture.

I would not be very difficult at all, but it would have a negibable impact on the problems we are going to have if our numbers continue to grow. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Is it fair to ask which resources are the limiting factor to BBO's growth as it exists today? I have reviewed the thread Scaling, Opinions/ideas solicited but there's not too much technical detail provided. In general is system growth constrained due to limitations regarding memory, processor, IO, network communication, or something else? I understand this is an easy question to ask and almost impossible to answer definitively but I'm just trying to get a feel for the situation.

I doubt that in my case the firewall is an issue. For what it's worth I use the current version of ZoneAlarm. Nothing has changed on my side of the modem in the past few weeks except the version of BBO.

Would it be that difficult to start to move some of the services (e.g. vugraph, "Explore Bridge", the private clubs) to separate physical servers without the players even knowing about it?