Cibor

The original post is so sweet... My advice to the original poster is - forget it, you don't even begin to imagine how meaningless these levels are. Way back when BBO was created I naively read their descriptions of various levels. For Expert it read Someone who has enjoyed success in major national tournaments Since at the time my biggest success was winning a regional three-day congress I decided that I didn't qualify and set my level to Advanced. I quickly discovered that on BBO Expert actually meant "somebody who can tell the difference between the takeout double and the jack of clubs" and that's about it. The turning point for me came in an individual tournament when I was paired with a Turkish expert. I opened 1NT, he responded 2♣, I rebid 2♦ and he bid... 4♦. It already smelled bad, there is a common agreement that this is how responder bids a game-going hand with 4 spades and 6 hearts - Stayman followed by a delayed Texas Transfer Bid but I was highly suspicious. It seemed wrong to pass though, so I tried 4♥ but back came 4♠. I don't recall what I did next but after the hand the Turkish expert was pissed off because 4♦ was our last makable contract as he bid 4♦ with 11 HCP and 4=2=5=2. He was so angry at me that he wrote the sentence that became legendary among my teammates: DON'T RIGHT HERE ADVANCED It took me a few seconds to grasp that "right" was actually a spelling error and he must have meant "write" and that he was referring to my BBO level in my profile. Then I thought "damn, the chap is right!", I changed it to Novice and have kept it that way since. Konrad Ciborowski Kraków, Poland