Money Bridge on BBO!

[Guest Jlall]

Re poker:

 

They rake less percentagewise (but more money wise) the higher the stakes are. Perhaps you might look into doing the same if you start offering medium or high stakes as those will likely be the players who care about the rake, and you will be encouraging people to play higher which would lead to more money for you. Just a thought.

[ng:)]

In a pack there are 40 points. A pair that gets more points finds its theoretical value in following table:

 

Expected points:

 

HCP NV Vul

 

20 0 0

21 50 50

22 70 70

23 110 110

24 200 290

25 300 440

26 350 520

27 400 600

28 430 630

29 460 660

30 490 690

31 600 900

32 700 1050

33 900 1350

34 1000 1500

35 1100 1650

36 1200 1800

37 1300 1950

38 1300 1950

39 1300 1950

40 1300 1950

 

This is the value of expected points which a pair should get with the specified number of HCPs in hand. It is compared with the real value of the received points. The difference between those values is transformed to IMP's. For example if a pair received 50 points more than it was predicted, they get 2 IMP's. If the difference is -170, which means a pair had less than expected they lose 3 IMP's. The rest of rules are exactly the same as in the Chicago system.

 

Regards,

G.

[andych]

Epoch making ... :lol: :lol:

 

I play some money bridge with my friends and our scoring method is called 'Shanghai scoring' (unsure how it comes from and if it is right).

It is basically IMP scoring discounted by the extra hcp. If you score +400 (=9 IMP) with a combined hand of 24 hcp. Your actual score is 9-4=5.

If you screw a slam (-50 = 2 IMP) with a combind hand of 30 hcp. You lose actual score 10+2 = 12.

We swap partners every 8 hands. Still the player getting the cards more often end up the winner though.

If there is any consideration to implement other scoring (e.g. Russian scoring mentioned in this thread), kindly give it some thought too....

So interested to see how the BBO money bridge would develop ......

 

:) :ph34r: :ph34r:

[andych]

Question....

 

Will the myhands page show the hands from Money bridge room? Any different colour to easily identify the hands played from Money bridge room? Though one could spot it out with human-GIB vs human-GIB, some colour makes it easy if these hands would be shown. Will the results (in points) be shown somehow?

 

 

:) :ph34r: :ph34r:

[andych]

How to handle OD/bad debt?

 

Unlike blackjack/poker, you place your bet and the most you lose is your bet already deposited. One does not know how much a bridge hand costs until it's over....

 

Will a maximum stake be set for each hand?

 

The initial deposit has to be carefully selected and the balance have to be updated instantly :) :ph34r: :ph34r:

 

How would the BB$ be cashed? :lol: :lol: :lol:

[pigpenz]

btw, GIB's system as far as we can make it out to be is here.

 

http://online.bridgebase.com/doc/gib_system_notes.php

actually the retail version of GIB has several versions of bidding allowed including moscito.....http://www.gibware.com

 

 

Maybe you could allow games where we you can set the amount of the wager say some amount per imp....Like that previous post.....SCREW MASTERPOINTS....bring on the bucks

[jikl]

Saying the skill vs luck thing is so misguided. There are people that garner a living from rubber bridge. One very good Australian player kept statistics over a long period of time (decades), he would average nearly 2 points a rubber. Therefore for every rubber he would gain 2*stakes/100. On average then, this means about $60 an hour ($10 per hundred). Back to the luck thing, some days he would lose a lot, but the key is the average. On an average (8 hour) day this is $480 per day.

 

Sean

[mike777]

Saying the skill vs luck thing is so misguided. There are people that garner a living from rubber bridge. One very good Australian player kept statistics over a long period of time (decades), he would average nearly 2 points a rubber. Therefore for every rubber he would gain 2*stakes/100. On average then, this means about $60 an hour ($10 per hundred). Back to the luck thing, some days he would lose a lot, but the key is the average. On an average (8 hour) day this is $480 per day.

 

Sean

I do not understand this math, are you saying on average he is broke? What value is average?

[eyhung]

Fred --

 

I am sorry if my earlier posts came out as critical in tone or content, or did not clearly delineate between statements of opinion and statements of fact. This will teach me not to post replies hurriedly in the morning.

 

I would be willing to continue this discussion if you wish, either in public or in private. I still believe I have made some valid points which have not been resolved. If you find them (correctly) lacking in hard data, then how about the idea to maximize participation via an initial no-rake policy? That will enable you to collect as much hard data as you can so that you can make an informed decision about the eventual rake. I will of course respect your decision should you prefer to consider this discussion closed.

 

I would like to reiterate my support for both your service and your committment to innovation, which are still the best in the business. And I remain committed to helping you with constructive and (hopefully) intelligent feedback.

 

Eugene

[pigpenz]

And my argument is that the rake as it currently stands does not provide the first group enough of an edge to play

 

And how would you know this?

 

Do you have any idea what expected per hand return a strong player partnering a GIB would have over a weak player partnering a GIB?

 

Do you have any idea how changing the GIB's speed from slow to medium to high might impact this (if at all)?

Unless one has been there and gone through it one cannot kow what the adrenaline rush is like meeting world champions in the finals of a KO or Swiss Team round 8 at a regional.

 

Now play a game where you are playing for real money dollars for imps or points at rubber bridge. sure there is luck involved with the lay of the cards especially rubber bridge....but unless you have been there, its alot harder than you think.....I think JLALL was talking about Ira Corush(sorry about spelling), people like these who dont hang around to much at ACBL or WBF events but are great rubber bridge players...these guys usually are great players.

[fred]

Fred --

 

I am sorry if my earlier posts came out as critical in tone or content, or did not clearly delineate between statements of opinion and statements of fact. This will teach me not to post replies hurriedly in the morning.

 

I would be willing to continue this discussion if you wish, either in public or in private. I still believe I have made some valid points which have not been resolved. If you find them (correctly) lacking in hard data, then how about the idea to maximize participation via an initial no-rake policy? That will enable you to collect as much hard data as you can so that you can make an informed decision about the eventual rake. I will of course respect your decision should you prefer to consider this discussion closed.

 

I would like to reiterate my support for both your service and your committment to innovation, which are still the best in the business. And I remain committed to helping you with constructive and (hopefully) intelligent feedback.

 

Eugene

I am also sorry if the tone of my post sounded like I was angry with you.

 

I can assure you that this was not the case. I disagree with some of your opinions, but I know you are only trying to help us make the best possible decisions.

 

The software has been designed to be extremely flexible as far as rakes are concerned. We can easily change the per hand fee (or change things so that, for example, whover wins each hand is charged a % of his winnings). We can also arrange things so that different Money Bridge rooms have different fee structures.

 

In my opinion it will be very hard for us to know if our policies in this area are both fair to the players and sufficiently profitable for BBO until players of various levels play a lot of sessions and offer their feedback.

 

The idea of having a trial period with no rake for the purposes of building up the game has some appeal, but I don't think this will really help us to decide what rake policies are best. Such policies will necessarily depend largely on subjective opinions of the players and they will not really be able to properly develop such opinions if they are playing for free.

 

In my opinion, if what we are looking for is opinions on various rake policies, the best way to get such opinions is to put such policies in effect and see how people respond after playing under those policies.

 

I am happy to continue this discussion if you want. Doing it publicly is probably best as I am sure other people will want to contribute as well.

 

Thanks for your ongoing interest in our site. Once again I apologize if you found my previous post offensive.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Blofeld]

To those advocating Russian scoring, etc. :

 

Given that this is all computerised, if you want to score against par it surely makes sense to score versus the par (double dummy) contract on the hand, as this is (presumably) actually findable.

 

One could then play either total points or IMPs against the par contract. Sure, cards would still be somewhat arbitrary (double dummy analysers never take a 2-way finesse the wrong way, for instance), but there would at least be some balancing measure.

 

I think best to let GIB declare sometimes, just to give players the chance to relax as dummy one hand in 4. Or possibly give players the option to take over declarership from GIB?

[cherdano]

I don't like IMPing against the double dummy result, because it changes bidding odds substantially:

 

Assume you can bid a safe vulnerable small slam, or a grand slam on finding the trump queen. Double dummy you can always make this, so the par is 2210. Then the imp odds force you to bid the grand slam, too, since bidding the small slam settles for an 13 IMP loss, while bidding the grand you have a 50 % chance of a push, versus 50% of losing 20 IMPs.

 

(Russing scoring has some similar issues: Assume your partner opens 1N, 15-17, vulnerable, and you have a distributional hand with lots of spades and 3 hcp. You result will be IMP'ed against, say, -50 (assuming partner has 16 hcp). Just letting partner play 2♠ guarantees a 5-6 IMP gain. Bidding game, you win 12 or lose 2, so you suddenly need higher than 50% odds for your vulnerable game. I think the artefacts are a lot smaller than IMP'ing against the double dummy result, however.)

 

Arend

[CarlRitner]

It is a different kind of world, to be sure. $200 from Justin spends every bit as sweet as $200 from Jeff Meckstroth. Or as painful in reverse.

 

Those are examples - you don't know the folks I play with. But their $200 spends every bit as sweet....

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

Not that I would ever gamble illegally; that's just a dream I had.

[Blofeld]

I like Cherdano's argument here.

 

What about total-pointing versus the double-dummy par, though? The odds are then precisely the same as for standard total points, but the variance on cards held, while still present, is lower than normal.

[fred]

I suspect that for the initial release we will use only the kind of scoring that we are using now (with the rake policies still to be determined).

 

The method has the advantages of both simplicity and that it already works.

 

I suspect we could introduce any of the other methods of scoring that have been suggested without forcing people to download a new version. Which new scoring methods we introduce in the future will depend, at least in part, on the number of requests we get.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Guest Jlall]

Fred, I talked to Bob Hamman about the rake, here is what he said (paraphrased)

 

"A typical rubber bridge club charges 100-200 points for a 4 and a half hour session."

 

That equates to 2-4 points a board (I'm estimating 50 hands in 4 and a half hours of rubber). He seemed to think 10 points was extremely high and made it unprofitable for all but the very best players.

[fred]

Fred, I talked to Bob Hamman about the rake, here is what he said (paraphrased)

 

"A typical rubber bridge club charges 100-200 points for a 4 and a half hour session."

 

That equates to 2-4 points a board (I'm estimating 50 hands in 4 and a half hours of rubber). He seemed to think 10 points was extremely high and made it unprofitable for all but the very best players.

Thanks Justin, but can you ask Bob if he is sure this is right for right for low stakes games?

 

I doubt Bob would be much interested in a game for less than 50 cents a point resulting in card fees of $50 to $100 per session. That seems reasonable.

 

But I can't imagine that clubs would charge as little as $1 or $2 per session to their players who play in the 1 cent games.

 

I will try to find out what the rates are nowadays at the rubber bridge club in Toronto that I used to play at on occasion. I seem to recall that even several years ago, per session card fees for low stakes games were in the range of $5 to $10. I also seem to recall that the % goes down as the stakes go up (which makes sense to me).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Guest Jlall]

Sure Fred, will ask.

[Finch]

A small club down the road from me charged £2.50 for (up to) four hours of 50p/hundred. That includes free coffee, however!

[Gerben42]

That's very good value for money, thinking what a coffee without the bridge costs nowadays :P

[fred]

We are thinking about changing the rake formula so that the winner of each hand pays BBO a %.

 

Any suggestions as to what a fair % would be?

 

A successful backgammon site uses a model like this and charges 10%.

 

Included in this are transaction fees.

 

This raises another issue: is it better for us to have a higher % rake and take care of the transaction fees ourselves or have a lower % rake and make the player deal with the transaction fees?

 

The main advantage of us paying the transaction fees is simplicity.

 

The main advantage of having the players pay the transaction fees is that players will be able to save themselves money this way. For example, instead of using PayPal to make deposits (which will involve a transaction fee), they could send us a check instead (no transaction fee).

 

No doubt their are psychological advantages to both methods.

 

For example, if the customer pays the transaction fee, it may be psychologically bad for some people to desposit (say) $100 and to end up with (say) $97.

 

On the other hand, other people may find it psychologially bad to pay (say) an 8% rake which includes transaction fees instead of (say) a 5% rake that does not.

 

Those of you who have argued for a very low rake may not appreciate that these transaction fees represent real costs to someone. Other costs for BBO include the servers that will be required for running many instances of GIB at once as well as the cost of fraud.

 

Here is an interesting statistic that some of you may find useful in trying to come up with a reasonable formula for the rake:

 

The average score when a deal is played in the Main Bridge Club is about 330 points.

(uday: the std deviation is about 300, this includes all hands - tourneys, mbc, gibs, 7Nxx-7 to punish P, whatever)

 

Feedback is welcome.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[asdfg2k]

Just one minor point. For you to suggest that you will accept checks is commendable. I also think it is a disaster waiting to happen. If this thing takes off, which I sincerely hope it does, have you determined how much effort is involved in:

 

a) opening the mail

b ) determining who the check is for

c) applying it to the account

d) dealing with bounced checks, fraud, etc.

e) other?

 

I think almost everybody would understand if you have a requirement that all transactions must be handled electronically. If that is limited to paypal in the beginning (or one of the other ecommerce sites that have a good reputation) I know I wouldn't object.

 

As you know, Fred, you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time. And to take on an administrative burden that is likely to be overwhelming in order to avoid a percentage of a percentage doesn't seem like a reasonable thing for you to offer, even though I'm sure the offer is being made with the best of intentions.

[Sigi_BC84]

I think almost everybody would understand if you have a requirement that all transactions must be handled electronically. If that is limited to paypal in the beginning (or one of the other ecommerce sites that have a good reputation) I know I wouldn't object.

NB Paypal refuses to service online gambling sites. I'm quite sure this would also apply to BBO Money Bridge.

 

--Sigi

[fred]

I think almost everybody would understand if you have a requirement that all transactions must be handled electronically.  If that is limited to paypal in the beginning (or one of the other ecommerce sites that have a good reputation) I know I wouldn't object.

NB Paypal refuses to service online gambling sites. I'm quite sure this would also apply to BBO Money Bridge.

 

--Sigi

We asked PayPal and they checked with the lawyers.

 

The lawyers said "bridge is a game of skill - this is not gambling - we can work with this company".

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com