Regular Partnerships?

[sharon j]

Do many online bbo players have regular online partnerships? Do many online bbo players want regular online partnerships? Over the past few years, I have noticed few players advertise for regular partners on this site (under seeking partner/teacher).

 

Why not? Are the few that do advertise sucessfull?

[jillybean]

Do many online bbo players have regular online partnerships?

I do. I have a couple of regular partners and others I would call regular/casual.

I'd rather not play than play with a pickup pard online.

 

Do many online bbo players want regular online partnerships?

Yes, but I'd rather find a regular, live partner. :lol:

[Phil]

Yes. Meeting people on BBO is no different than coming down to a bridge club, making friends, and asking them to play. If the pair is compatible, then a partnership might develop.

 

I have made many friends, partners and teammates through BBO over the years.

 

It takes time, and its probably more difficult now, since BBO is so large.

[TimG]

BBO and OKbridge have both made it much easier for me to start and maintain offline partnerships. But, I don't recall ever developing a partnership with someone I met through online bridge.

 

Last year I started a partnership with someone I knew from offline bridge, but had never partnered. We exchanged e-mails about system and practiced on BBO before sitting down at an actual table. I've done this twice in the last year, the second time was with someone who I had played with at a couple of club games a few years ago.

 

I think BBO is different from the local bridge club or bridge tournament just because there are so many people on BBO. You might play a few hours every week without ever encountering the same pick-up opponent for months.

 

I could imagine developing a strictly online partnership for the purpose of experimenting with an unusual system. But, in general, I am interested in developing a partnership for offline tournament play.

 

I do wish that there were more opportunities for organized league type play on BBO. (Perhaps some of you will remember Riko's Bridge Ladder from OKbridge days.) I could also imagine developing a partnership for this sort of thing, though it is more likely that I would enter with an already established partnership.

[Free]

A few years ago I had some online partnerships, but now I just don't have enough time to play all the time and maintain them... :(

[kenberg]

I like this topic a lot.

 

I have some people that I play with fairly regularly online which is not the same as saying that I have regular partnerships. For example:

1N 2C

2S 4N

 

 

I played f2f with a friend before he moved to Florida. This auction showed slam invitational values w/o four spades (so presumably with four hearts). This auction is undefined with all of my online partners. It came up recently, I was the 4NT bidder, I had four spades, I guessed that this particular partner would take it as rkc, I was right, but it was a guess. With f2f partners I have generally had far more discussions about what bid shows what.

 

In theory, we should be able to go through a card with online partners but in practice it seems to be tougher. I am, I like to think, fairly flexible. Recently I played one day at the Hunt Valley regional. I played with a new partner. He had sent me a card via email, I said I preferred standard carding, he had Texas on the card and I suggested that it be on if the interference is 3C or less, I asked if 1D-2C was also a gf in his thinking of 2/1, and then we played his card. Somehow I haven't found it to go so smoothly in online discussions.

 

I once started a website where I planned to put down my preferences along with a note "If you don't like these, tell me what you do like" but all the screwing around with html drove me to drink. I have also tried suggesting things such as "How about we play 2/1 as on Lawrence's disk?" but that doesn't seem to go far either.

 

Perhaps part of the issue is this: My f2f partner and I knew each other and liked each other away from the bridge table and so constructing a card was a joint effort between friends. I like many people I have played with online but of course I won't be dropping over to their house for an evening if they live in Norway. When it begins and ends with bridge, perhaps it is tougher.

[Quantumcat]

I play on BBO with people I am practicing with for a tournament, it is cheaper and more convenient than going to a club, and in practicing a new system, the Partnership Bidding room is excellent. I also sometimes play with some friends of mine that I know in real life, for fun. If possible in every circumstance we try to play against people we already know in real life.

 

On occasion you find a nice random who is not unpleasant to play against, but most of the time they do idiotic things that stuff up your picture of the hand, you can't make any inferences about their line of play if you are defending, nor about their hand from the way they defend when you are declaring (I have seen many leads of 2 from QJ2, or K from KT76, or 8 from KQJT8 etc). They are incredibly rude (esp. to their poor partner), and don't understand what claiming means: when forced to play against randoms, I try to restrict claims to when I really have nothing but trumps and high cards rather than on crossruffs or things like that, but people STILL reject! They usually don't understand how to claim, either. Continuing to think whether to play the ace of trumps or the king of trumps in the 2-card endgame. They usually are very rude to their partners when they get to a bizarre contract, and usually it's their fault. They usually also don't understand what the ? symbol does, and like to use 50 of them as though they were testing out what result it gives. Anyway, in conclusion, I avoid random BBO people whenever possible. I haven't yet met a random who is nice enough I would consider playing with them, although I admit there is a possibility a nice one exists.