New Player Definitions

[Brandal]

We agree that this scheme,or any other scheme,

has a purpose?

 

The purpose only,to be able to pick a partner

with better accuracy without playing with him first?

 

Or a pickup game with reasonable chance of finding

one just by looking at the player level?

 

Hope the "vote-button" doesn't enable until we have

played at least 20 boards with/against other players.

I guess we agree that the current method (self-rating) is useless.

 

Many people (those with regular BBO partners and friends for example) do not need any ranking scheme.

 

So know we can remove ranking entirely from BBO and assume that it would not bother that many people at all if we did. Alternately we can assume that there are a few players who actually care for some kind of ranking method that is more accurate than the current one. Todd has proposed one and I guess we should give it (or a similarly promising approach) a go.

 

BTW a part of Todd's algorithm takes care of disabling the vote button until enough boards have been played with a partner.

 

In the end, everybody is free to ignore any rating figures that appear on a players profile - I for my part would like to have something a bit more valuable than the current self-tagging.

 

--Sigi

Yep,we agree that selfrating is "useless" as accurate measure.

 

I've seen enough to say,alot of players rate themselves 1 level

too high on avarage....but then again,this is by MY understanding

of the levels :P

 

I "judge" how others play,by how I would play,to draw that inference.

 

Won't it be the same when rating others directly?

 

Obviously a player gets many different people's votes,but all

is still based on subjective meanings of how an "equal" player would play?

[pigpenz]

you could also show number of events person has played in and numbers of first seconds they have had or just the latter at least it shows they are winning some

[DrTodd13]

Please, not another masterpoint debacle or any other "rating" system based on attendance.

[Brandal]

I don't think the "vote button" should appear only after 20 hands. My proposed weighting system would largely solve the problem of play 1 hand, decide partner is an idiot and give a terrible rating. Your rating wouldn't have hardly any weight if you've only played one hand with the person.

I like the way you think,I'm not against a better ratingsystem in principle.

 

I ask questions because that is how I can understand better.

 

And examples are also a nice car,so here is one:

 

You're talking about a weighted system.

 

Player A plays 12 boards tournament with a new partner,

new partner gives Player A his rating.

 

Player A then plays a 12 board indy,1 board with 12 different

new partners.

 

Question is,will 1 board with 12 partners have same weight as

12 boards with 1 partner?

 

I'm not concerned with bad ratings,I'm concerned with how accurate

will this system be?

 

I think Fred landed on self ratings because for the most part,it is a

fair indication to level,and because little bad can come from it,

except the usual "you???????expert??????????LOL" kinda thing,

and that will not go away in any scheme.

[Sigi_BC84]

Please, not another masterpoint debacle or any other "rating" system based on attendance.

Not that but one could display the average IMPs and MP %s for every player with the profile (since this data is publicly available anyway on the web). I think it gives some impression of player performance. This has been suggested already in this thread.

 

Maybe that was meant by "tournament perfomance".

 

Attendance ratings suck, of course.

 

--Sigi

[Sigi_BC84]

I think Fred landed on self ratings because for the most part,it is a fair indication to level,and because little bad can come

*Cough*. What exactly did you mean by "for the most part" and "fair indication"?

 

What is that online service called where you are playing?

 

--Sigi

[Brandal]

I think Fred landed on self ratings because for the most part,it is a fair indication to level,and because little bad can come

*Cough*. What exactly did you mean by "for the most part" and "fair indication"?

 

What is that online service called where you are playing?

 

--Sigi

I meant that someone who rates himself i.e. advanced,

is usually in the neighborhood between advanced/intermediate

and advanced/expert....ofcourse your experience in the matter

can be something else.

 

Do you think a "poll system" will pinpoint exact levels?

 

The online service I play,is called BBO,and perhaps due to

the self rating system,the friendliest I have ever played on.

 

And I like friendly :unsure: alot

[Al_U_Card]

Until you can get shot for losing, I wholeheartedly agree.

[Al_U_Card]

In a similar vein, after my pard excused herself, a "World Class" took her place and after the auction 1C-1D-2NT-all pass took off when he saw my 5 hcp xxx Ax Jxxxx xxx hand. Not sure whether he was miffed at my pass of his motley 19 count or that he felt he was cheated out of a game, the hand went down 2 (shb 1 only) on the standard lead and a poor choice of finesse by the new(er) pard that replaced him.....World Crass is perhaps what he meant?

[Sigi_BC84]

I meant that someone who rates himself i.e. advanced, is usually in the neighborhood between advanced/intermediate and advanced/expert....ofcourse your experience in the matter can be something else.

 

Do you think a "poll system" will pinpoint exact levels?

 

The online service I play,is called BBO,and perhaps due to

the self rating system,the friendliest I have ever played on.

 

And I like friendly  :)  alot

My experience in the matter is quite different indeed. BBO abounds with "Experts" who are in fact average club players (and often bad partners and masterminds), this not even being an exaggeration of the facts. Certain not to be named countries are obviously quite prone of producing this kind of player...

 

I also think that BBO is very friendly (I have no first hand comparison to other services however), but I don't see what this should have to do with the self-rating system. Being able to rate others and actually having an incentive to be nice because your reputation is on stake might make BBO even friendlier.

 

The players who are amiable already will not turn into jerks because they're being put into a position where they can rate the amiability and strength of others. However, some of the individuals who bail out on you at the first opportunity might start to reconsider their position when they find out that their bad amiability rating prevents them from finding pickup partners. You won't be labeled unfriendly just because one or two people on the service don't like you. This won't happen unless you really try to get ostracized.

 

Nonetheless I don't think we will ever see something like peer-review of likeability, it's simply too sensitive a topic (if I was running the service I would certainly be very wary).

 

As for the pinpointing of playing strength: needless to say any attempt to do this is futile for reasons already discussed on this thread, but still I think it might be more precise if many others rate you than yourself doing it. The ratings will average out and they will be less biased and deluded... But peer rating the strength is possible I think and more realistic to actually happen on BBO (you might make it an opt-in service so people who don't want to be judged by others would not have to be).

 

Now back to where it all started: New Player Definitions. The current definitions are indeed not very good. Firstly the actual defining text is hidden and most players don't know it. There are too many levels, too. IMHO you'd need only four: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Star. The latter is given only on application. Then everybody who thinks of him/herself of a strong club player will be "Advanced", the more modest ones being "Intermediate". What more do you need? In order to find out what's true you'd have to play a few hands first anyway. So if we stick with self-rating my proposal is to trim down the set of labels to these four.

 

--Sigi

[DrTodd13]

If you only give one category on which to rate people and you call that category "skill" then what will people do with someone who is a decent player but a real jerk? I think the tendency will be to attempt to punish them by lowering their skill level. On the likeability factor, if mean people are ostracized and leave, do we care? I think we'd have less bad behavior if we had it. Maybe some people would be rated poorly and wouldn't care. All the mean people could play with just mean people. That is ok too.

[Sigi_BC84]

If you only give one category on which to rate people and you call that category "skill" then what will people do with someone who is a decent player but a real jerk? I think the tendency will be to attempt to punish them by lowering their skill level. On the likeability factor, if mean people are ostracized and leave, do we care? I think we'd have less bad behavior if we had it. Maybe some people would be rated poorly and wouldn't care. All the mean people could play with just mean people. That is ok too.

I agree with all you said -- however I think the potato labeled "amiability ranking" is too hot for the ones running the service. It might give an impression of problems with rudeness and discord if there is such a label in the profile. I can imagine that BBO wants to avoid this at all costs.

 

I'd really love the hear the position of Fred on this one, considering the solutions that have been proposed so far.

 

Apart from all that, as I said, I think you are 100% correct.

 

--Sigi

[fred]

My positions are:

 

- We have thought a lot about this over the years and we read threads like these with interest even if we don't comment.

- We are very busy working on other projects right now which makes it a bad time for us to revisit this complex issue.

- Self-ratings are not meaningless. They tend to be close to accurate for people "advanced" and below. "World class" players without stars should be avoided. "Expert" in general should not be taken seriously - a random "advanced" player rates to be better.

- Self-ratings will become more accurate as player education improves (we need to do more in this area).

- Seeing the ratings of other players is only valuable for the purposes of pickup games. This will become less of an issue over time because more and more people will become parts of ever expanding circles of friends who know that they like playing with each other. Similarly, as more people learn to use features like "player notes" and make more notes over time, ratings of other players will become less important.

- I am not exactly in love with any of the (many) alternative ways of doing this, but that doesn't mean that our policies in this area are set in stone forever. The time will come when we think this over again, but it is not going to happen in the near future.

 

Fred Gitelman

Birdge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Al_U_Card]

You guys are doing just fine so far, so keep your priorities as they are and keep up the better than good work.

[Brandal]

I also think that BBO is very friendly (I have no first hand comparison to other services however), but I don't see what this should have to do with the self-rating system. Being able to rate others and actually having an incentive to be nice because your reputation is on stake might make BBO even friendlier.

 

The players who are amiable already will not turn into jerks because they're being put into a position where they can rate the amiability and strength of others. However, some of the individuals who bail out on you at the first opportunity might start to reconsider their position when they find out that their bad amiability rating prevents them from finding pickup partners. You won't be labeled unfriendly just because one or two people on the service don't like you. This won't happen unless you really try to get ostracized.

 

Nonetheless I don't think we will ever see something like peer-review of likeability, it's simply too sensitive a topic (if I was running the service I would certainly be very wary).

 

As for the pinpointing of playing strength: needless to say any attempt to do this is futile for reasons already discussed on this thread, but still I think it might be more precise if many others rate you than yourself doing it. The ratings will average out and they will be less biased and deluded... But peer rating the strength is possible I think and more realistic to actually happen on BBO (you might make it an opt-in service so people who don't want to be judged by others would not have to be).

 

Now back to where it all started: New Player Definitions. The current definitions are indeed not very good. Firstly the actual defining text is hidden and most players don't know it. There are too many levels, too. IMHO you'd need only four: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Star. The latter is given only on application. Then everybody who thinks of him/herself of a strong club player will be "Advanced", the more modest ones being "Intermediate". What more do you need? In order to find out what's true you'd have to play a few hands first anyway. So if we stick with self-rating my proposal is to trim down the set of labels to these four.

 

--Sigi

Don't you think many players would "worry" about who

they partner with,if their rating is at stake?

 

And seriously,are "we" in a position to rate opps after

1 or 2 boards in a tourney?

 

How accurate will that be?

 

Should we be able to rate the same player more than once?

 

If yes,why? Are we wrong the first time?

 

Or if we voted "better than me" the first time,will the other

options be greyed out?

 

I don't think BBO is so friendly because of self rating,but because

of the absence of other ratingschemes.

 

And I don't think for 1 minute that BBO will become more friendly

with peer rating,I really don't.

 

:)

 

I agree with Fred,writing in player notes if this is a player you

don't mind playing with or against,or writing that this player is

not welcome at your table,is much more efficient,and much more

accurate too :D

[ArcLight]

>amiability ranking

 

What if you play against a jerk? Might they not also rate you a jerk when an argument develops?

 

A few days ago, in a pick up game in the main room (not a tournament)

LHO opened 1 Heart, pard overcalled 1NT (stopper with 15-18), RHO raised to 3H. I had a long diamond suit that I thought might be able to run if pard had the Ace or Ace King, and I had the stiff Q of hearts, so I hoped pard might have a double heart stooper becaus eof that, so I bid a specualtive 3NT.

 

A heart was lead, and 3NT was made, pard did have a double heart stop.

 

My bid was probably not wise, but we were vulnerable and I thought the opps were trying to steal, and I figured pard would win any finesses she needed. I rate myself intermediate.

 

RHO blurted out we were F_CKING CHEATERS

I was a bit taken aback. I could understand a comment like "DUMB BID, You were SO Lucky"

 

I sent the screen shot to Abuse and booted him. He resat, so I added permission required, and booted him again, and he tried to sit again and again as I kept denying permission.

 

If I rated him "JERK" would he not do the same to me?

If you play enough games, would you not run into lots of nasty people and accumulate a number of "JERK" ratings and become less desirable as a partner?

[DrTodd13]

Don't you think many players would "worry" about who

they partner with,if their rating is at stake?

 

And seriously,are "we" in a position to rate opps after

1 or 2 boards in a tourney?

 

How accurate will that be?

 

Should we be able to rate the same player more than once?

 

If yes,why? Are we wrong the first time?

 

Or if we voted "better than me" the first time,will the other

options be greyed out?

 

I don't think BBO is so friendly because of self rating,but because

of the absence of other ratingschemes.

 

And I don't think for 1 minute that BBO will become more friendly

with peer rating,I really don't.

 

:)

 

I agree with Fred,writing in player notes if this is a player you

don't mind playing with or against,or writing that this player is

not welcome at your table,is much more efficient,and much more

accurate too :)

People might worry about who they partner with if they expect their partner to view them as less of a good player than they think they are. I'm not sure how you would know that though.

 

Again, if you play one or two hands with someone then you have one or two hands more information about them than someone who hasn't played with them at all. That is why my proposed scheme would give proportionally less weight to ratings based on a small number of hands.

 

Yes, you can rate the same player more than once. Only your latest rating would count. If you play 10 boards and then rate someone and then play another 10 boards with them then your opinion may change. So yes, if we change our opinion then we must ourselves believe that our original opinion was wrong.

 

So let me get this straight, there is some jerk on BBO that nobody would want to play with or against. Your "efficient" method is for everyone on BBO to play with this jerk, then realize he is a jerk, then mark him as an enemy? It seems a lot more efficient to me for 5 or 10 poor souls to have to suffer through the jerk and be able to tell the rest of us "watch our for the jerk."

[DrTodd13]

>amiability ranking

 

What if you play against a jerk? Might they not also rate you a jerk when an argument develops?

 

A few days ago, in a pick up game in the main room (not a tournament)

LHO opened 1 Heart, pard overcalled 1NT (stopper with 15-18), RHO raised to 3H. I had a long diamond suit that I thought might be able to run if pard had the Ace or Ace King, and I had the stiff Q of hearts, so I hoped pard might have a double heart stooper becaus eof that, so I bid a specualtive 3NT.

 

A heart was lead, and 3NT was made, pard did have a double heart stop.

 

My bid was probably not wise, but we were vulnerable and I thought the opps were trying to steal, and I figured pard would win any finesses she needed. I rate myself intermediate.

 

RHO blurted out we were F_CKING CHEATERS

I was a bit taken aback. I could understand a comment like "DUMB BID, You were SO Lucky"

 

I sent the screen shot to Abuse and booted him. He resat, so I added permission required, and booted him again, and he tried to sit again and again as I kept denying permission.

 

If I rated him "JERK" would he not do the same to me?

If you play enough games, would you not run into lots of nasty people and accumulate a number of "JERK" ratings and become less desirable as a partner?

Yes, a jerk might rate you as a jerk but that is a reason for not playing with jerks. If you believe the vast majority of people are not jerks then one "jerk" rating won't hurt you. So long as the number of non-jerks you play with (or against) is greater than the number of jerks then you won't be in danger of being categorized a jerk. Perhaps this system would break down if you had all jerks or equal numbers of jerks but I don't believe this to be the case.

[uday]

uday is getting confused.

 

Are we talking about just adding the following commands?

 

- mark someone as a pleasant person

- mark someone as an unpleasant person

 

and

 

- mark someone as a good player

- mark someone as a bad player

 

 

This will produce 4 scores for each player. What formula should be used to convert these into 2 usable numbers (or should we try to just show all 4 ?)

[Sigi_BC84]

This will produce 4 scores for each player. What formula should be used to convert these into 2 usable numbers (or should we try to just show all 4 ?)

I suppose that's Todd's secret formula with which he hasn't come forward yet for a reason. However he already pointed out that he wants to weigh votes by the amount of hands you have played with the person submitting the vote.

 

So, lets' say each board adds 0.05 to the credibility factor for a person. After having played 20 boards with that person, the credibility factor becomes 1, so if that person votes you to be a "jerk", your jerk count increases by one.

 

If a real jerk plays one board with you, then bails out after a bidding misunderstanding while tagging you a "jerk", his cred factor will be 0.05, adding 0.05 to your jerk count.

 

You might add additional toys like even further decreasing the factor for proven jerks on the assumption that these people give unreliable votes.

 

In the end you can normalize the figures onto a scale from 1-10 or whatever you like.

 

Probably Todd's system is much more sophisticated than the above.

 

--Sigi

[Al_U_Card]

How about everyone carries a "dossier" with their name. When you put the cursor over their ID, you see how many smiley faces, aces, whatever, etc. have been awarded by opps and pards. There might not be room on the screen for some of our denizens but it might be interesting anyway..... :P :) B)

[DrTodd13]

COPYRIGHT 2006 - Todd A. Anderson

No permission to use this code or the ideas embodied herein unless specifically granted by the author.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The main function of interest is "ComputeReputations." Ratings are on a

scale of 0 to 10 and ratings weight maxes out after 20 boards but as you

can see this is a configurable parameter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

#define MIN_RATING 0
#define MAX_RATING 10
#define MIN_BOARDS 1
#define MAX_BOARDS 20

using namespace std;

class Evaluation {
protected:
   unsigned int m_num_boards;
   unsigned int m_num_days_since_epoch;
   unsigned int m_skill;
   unsigned int m_niceness;
public:
   Evaluation(void) {}
   Evaluation(unsigned int num_boards,unsigned int days_since_epoch) :
       m_num_boards(num_boards), m_num_days_since_epoch(days_since_epoch), m_sk
ill(UINT_MAX), m_niceness(UINT_MAX) {}
   void AddBoards(unsigned int num_boards,unsigned int days_since_epoch) {
       // prevent wrap-around
       if(m_num_boards + num_boards > m_num_boards) m_num_boards += num_boards;
       m_num_days_since_epoch = days_since_epoch;
   }
   void NewEvaluation(unsigned int skill,unsigned int niceness);

   unsigned int get_num_boards(void) const { return m_num_boards; }
   unsigned int get_days_since_epoch(void) const { return m_num_days_since_epoc
h; }
   unsigned int get_skill(void) const { return m_skill; }
   unsigned int get_niceness(void) const { return m_niceness; }
};

class Reputation {
protected:
   map<string,Evaluation> m_evals;
   double time_weight(unsigned int x) const;
public:
   void AddBoards(const string &username,unsigned int num_boards,unsigned int d
ays_since_epoch);
   // 0 = success
   // 1 = parameter out of range
   // 2 = no boards played
   int NewEvaluation(const string &username,unsigned int skill,unsigned int nic
eness);

   void ComputeReputations(unsigned int days_since_epoch,float &skill_reputatio
n,float &niceness_reputation) const;
};

void Reputation::AddBoards(const string &username,unsigned int num_boards,unsign
ed int days_since_epoch) {
   map<string,Evaluation>::iterator eval_iter = m_evals.find(username);
   if(eval_iter == m_evals.end()) {
       m_evals.insert(pair<string,Evaluation>(username,Evaluation(num_boards,da
ys_since_epoch)));
   } else {
       eval_iter->second.AddBoards(num_boards,days_since_epoch);
   }
}

void Evaluation::NewEvaluation(unsigned int skill,unsigned int niceness) {
   m_skill                = skill;
   m_niceness             = niceness;
}

int Reputation::NewEvaluation(const string &username,unsigned int skill,unsigned
int niceness) {
   if(skill < MIN_RATING || skill > MAX_RATING || niceness < MIN_RATING || nice
ness > MAX_RATING) return 1;

   map<string,Evaluation>::iterator eval_iter = m_evals.find(username);
   if(eval_iter == m_evals.end()) {
       return 2;
   } else {
       eval_iter->second.NewEvaluation(skill,niceness);
   }

   return 0;
}

// This is something else I haven't already mentioned.
// Ratings degrade in weight over time.  If you played with someone
// a year ago then your rating counts less than someone who played
// with them 2 days ago.  There is a lot of time for improvement over
// a year but not 2 days.  The following piecewise formula is complex
// but basically it is relatively flat for up to 80 days and then drops
// pretty linearly for another 80 days and then has a relatively long
// flat tail.
double Reputation::time_weight(unsigned int x) const {
   double val;
   if(x<120) {
       val = 1.5 - 0.5 * exp(x*x/20775.0);
   }
   else {
       val = 0.5 * exp((x-120)/-173.0);
   }
   return val;
}

void Reputation::ComputeReputations(unsigned int days_since_epoch,float &skill_r
eputation,float &niceness_reputation) const {
   map<string,Evaluation>::const_iterator eval_iter;
   double sum_skill    = 0.0;
   double sum_niceness = 0.0;
   double sum_weight   = 0.0;

   cout << "ComputeReputations" << endl;
   for(eval_iter  = m_evals.begin();
       eval_iter != m_evals.end();
       ++eval_iter) {
       unsigned int num_boards = eval_iter->second.get_num_boards();
       num_boards = num_boards > MAX_BOARDS ? MAX_BOARDS : num_boards;
       cout << "ComputeReputations " << num_boards << endl;
       if(num_boards >= MIN_BOARDS) {
           double weight = time_weight(days_since_epoch - eval_iter->second.get
_days_since_epoch()) * (num_boards / MAX_BOARDS);
           sum_skill    += weight * eval_iter->second.get_skill();
           sum_niceness += weight * eval_iter->second.get_niceness();
           sum_weight   += weight;
       }
   }
   if(sum_weight == 0.0) {
       skill_reputation    = -1.0;
       niceness_reputation = -1.0;
   } else {
       skill_reputation    = sum_skill    / sum_weight;
       niceness_reputation = sum_niceness / sum_weight;
   }
}

[ArcLight]

Wow, its been years since I've programmed in C++. I much prefer the naming convention you use:

m_num_boards to the other style numBoards

I find it more readable. What is the m_ for, is that your cenvention for unsigned int?

 

 

// This is something else I haven't already mentioned.

// Ratings degrade in weight over time. If you played with someone

// a year ago then your rating counts less than someone who played

// with them 2 days ago. There is a lot of time for improvement over

// a year but not 2 days. The following piecewise formula is complex

// but basically it is relatively flat for up to 80 days and then drops

// pretty linearly for another 80 days and then has a relatively long

// flat tail.

 

I like this idea.

 

 

Lets add some more complexity! :P

If someone gives out lots of negative ratings, then their weighting should probably be reduced. That way on crab doesn't ding scores of others.

[uday]

No permission to use this code

 

Does this mean i can browse it with an eye towards implementing a variant in C if i like it and it isnt too hard ?

[DrTodd13]

m_var_name is meant to indicate that this is a member variable of a class (struct) rather than a local or global variable. I picked this up as part of a coding standard on some project I was working on and have kept it. g_variable would mean that the variable is global. Variables without prefixes would be local.

 

To Uday, you can create a C version and tinker with the idea. My only request is that nothing go into active use unless I give additional permission.

 

The idea of lowering the weight of people's ratings who themselves are poorly rated is an appealing one but in my experience, such modifications can potentially lead to instability. I'd have to do some studies to find out what effect such a decreased weight would have.