iansyd

Hi I am a 15 (almost 16) yr old from Australia. You'd never guess it but my name is Ian and I was from Sydney. I have played bridge since I was very young. My grandparents taught me. For the last few years I have been playing in club matches with a regular partner - averaging close to 55 matchpoints in fields with a number of good players. My bridge playing has taken a back seat recently because my father was sent to Port Moresby for work and unfortunately we had to go too. There's no bridge here that I can get to. My regular partner isnt allowed to play online much because it is his last year of school. My grandparents are afraid of computers. My father bought his three children a computer each because none of us were happy about being located so far from our friends. So I thought Id play on BBO. Mostly I just quietly watch the good players - but Id like to play too. Often when people see my age they start giving me lessons - well school is for that and the teachers there are qualified. And most experts dont want to play with a 15 year old - I can understand that. So feeling intimidated, I tried the relaxed room. While the people were nice, the card game being played did not seem like bridge to me. So I've been using the 'find me a game' function. It works really well - theres so many players here you are put in a game instantly. The problem is that most often people with 'no permission required' are 'novice' or 'intermediate', or I cant communicate with them (I only speak english) or they play systems and conventions I dont know (I can play 2/1 or polish club or acol but since I have mainly played with 1 person i dont know a lot of variations). Basically out of many attempts at finding a game and being placed in hopeless situations I have given up. So my suggestion is to build a little more functionality into the 'find a game' feature - at least so it matches on systems and maybe self-ratng (which I know dont mean a lot - there are so many experts some countries must have their national championships every weekend). Im not expecting to find a perfect partner or to make friends - 15 yr old bridge players arent everywhere - but I would like a better chance at finding a reasonable game occasionally. Thank you for the site and for listening to me.