Where does one go for SERIOUS bridge?

[nige1]

I get taken to tables filled with people who:

- don't have a clue what duplicate is

- don't have any manners

- treat the play as something you do in commercial breaks

- ask their partners to explain their bids

- leave in the middle of hands

Are you really going to listen to these people with little cat photos?

`Cause everywhere there's lots of foxes

And every cat I meet's a tom

I wish she didn't make me rabid

I wish she wouldn't turn me on

When you hit the find a game button, follow the yellow brick road cause you are looking for love in the wrong place.

It is a misnomer.

You have to do a lot of marking, mark, mark, make notes and create a pool of people to invite.

you will be surprised, people keep your name marked for years on end.

You have to keep your mouse finger sharp.

To keep the cats away.

Try the Vanderbilt - according to Hamman in At the Table, "We play hardball there."

Personally I would never reject someone on the basis of skill level, although given a choice between several who ask for a seat I would try to avoid "experts".

Most are "experts" at Hardball rather than Bridge.

The answer to this question is "not the Main Bridge Club." If you're sitting down to a table where no one knows anyone else and it's just four random people who feel like playing a hand or two of bridge, why would you expect anything "serious" to happen?

Slightly better is the online tournaments (especially the pay ones); although the quality of play is not necessarily too high, you get fewer people randomly disconnecting and such in the middle of hands.

Best is to play with/against friends, or play in face to face tournaments.

If you're looking for a "quick bridge fix" online between other activities, I recommend playing the robot tourneys (which start at very regular intervals). The robots are polite and do their best to play bridge (obviously they make mistakes too).

All good advice, IMO

[auspex]

By serious bridge we mean only non-frivolous ( ie, regardless of skill level) , right ?

Indeed, I don't care about skill level. I played (as the "expert") in the Canada-wide Rookie-Master game last night. It's a complete crapshoot. Even when you get a capable rookie (and I did), the winning scores are rarely close to those suggested in the hand analysis. But we had a fine time, because everybody was trying to play their best.

 

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club? Why does it exist?

 

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer. Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them. I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though). Add a "report a psych" button. A psych is a gross deviation from agreement. Even a computer can tell the difference between a natural bid and a psych. It doesn't even need to understand conventions - if the bid was alerted, assume it was explained correctly; if it wasn't alerted, and wasn't a cue of opponents' suit, does it have suitable length and strength? Make a player play a round with a bridge robot to demonstrate basic bidding and playing skills before being eligible to play in the Main club (I wouldn't even set the bar very high - 40% against the robot, and you can take the test as often as you want).

 

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert. I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested. Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled... You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play.

[jjbrr]

Indeed, I don't care about skill level.  I played (as the "expert") in the Canada-wide Rookie-Master game last night.  It's a complete crapshoot.  Even when you get a capable rookie (and I did), the winning scores are rarely close to those suggested in the hand analysis.  But we had a fine time, because everybody was trying to play their best.

 

Not everyone is interested in trying to play their best all the time, and I would contend very few are actually giving it their all. There can be lots of other distractions, and what would be the point of trying one's best all the time anyway? The scores are meaningless. I especially don't care much about trying my best agaisnt random opponents. Play in set games against people you know, and then you can expect people to play at some level of seriousness.

 

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club?  Why does it exist?

 

The laws are not the same everywhere.

 

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.  I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though). Add a "report a psych" button.   A psych is a gross deviation from agreement.  Even a computer can tell the difference between a natural bid and a psych.  It doesn't even need to understand conventions - if the bid was alerted, assume it was explained correctly; if it wasn't alerted, and wasn't a cue of opponents' suit, does it have suitable length and strength?  Make a player play a round with a bridge robot to demonstrate basic bidding and playing skills before being eligible to play in the Main club (I wouldn't even set the bar very high - 40% against the robot, and you can take the test as often as you want).

 

I admit I don't really agree with any of this. Every issue here has been discussed somewhere on these forums. Psychs are legal. If you don't like them, don't use them, but you have to accept that some people, whether for tactical reasons or just because they're terrible at bridge, will psych, and given that it sounds like you play with randoms a lot, there's no reason to expect that psycher's partner will have any more information about it than you do.

 

 

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert.  I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested.  Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled...  You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play

 

Read the sticky.

[pooltuna]

By serious bridge we mean only non-frivolous ( ie, regardless of skill level) , right ?

snip

 

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club? Why does it exist?

 

snip

 

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert. I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested. Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled... You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play.

In the main bridge club they really are trying to do their best, they also think they are experts (even when they aren't and why I find those who request "real experts" hilarious). If they leave unexpectedly it is because they think you are a bad player (even if they don't understand why you took a Q finesse with a 9-card fit). If you want a ratings system I suggest you use the Dutch site StepBridge (not free) rather than OKBridge(also not free) because OKBridge's rating system IMO sucks. Not sure about Swan Bridge's rating system as I have little experience with it.

[fred]

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?

 

I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though).

 

Is one of the drawbacks that there is no way we can possibly know if a disconnect was intentional or not?

 

Is another drawback that there is a cost associated with using robots that someone is going to have to pay?

 

(These are rhetorical questions - no need to try to answer them).

 

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo. We have spent a great deal of time thinking about these issues and we believe we have some good ideas about how to address them. However, the ideas we have are going to be complex to implement and they will almost certainly come with some adverse side effects of their own. Meanwhile, there are other areas of our site that require the attention of our programmers and, since it is necessary to pay the bills, we are naturally biased toward working in areas that generate revenue.

 

So yes, we do care, but any solutions that exist are a lot more complicated than you seem to think. I am confident that eventually we will be able to improve things, but I am not in a position to predict when you might see this happen.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

Online bridge is at least 20 years old, and there are a number of different sites. If there were an easy solution to this, don't you think one of them would have found it?

[phil_20686]

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo. We have spent a great deal of time thinking about these issues and we believe we have some good ideas about how to address them. However, the ideas we have are going to be complex to implement and they will almost certainly come with some adverse side effects of their own. Meanwhile, there are other areas of our site that require the attention of our programmers and, since it is necessary to pay the bills, we are naturally biased toward working in areas that generate revenue.

 

So yes, we do care, but any solutions that exist are a lot more complicated than you seem to think. I am confident that eventually we will be able to improve things, but I am not in a position to predict when you might see this happen.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Dear Fred,

Last I heard the EBU was planning to implement a new ranking system, that takes account of your last thousand hands and your relative scores and produces a ranking. While a lot of players are somewhat stratified and play only in their local club, you need a surprisingly small fraction of clubs to play against each other to extract meaningful statistical information. At any rate, I will be interested to see how it works out.

 

I just thought you might want to know this if you didn't already. It seems germane.

 

Phil

[Free]

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?

~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

 

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

 

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

[phil_20686]

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

I dont think thats a particular problem if you are talking about repeat offenders. When they get their old accounts blocked they will have to get a new one by submitting an email. I suspect that the major hassle would just be data security. Emails are confidential information and it probably costs money to secure them. On the other hand, most people have at least one email address that they use to sign up to stuff because its inevitable that you start getting spam.

[babalu1997]

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo.

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

BINGO

 

It is

 

BRIDGE IN THE MENAGERIE!!!

[hotShot]

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?

~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

 

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

 

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

The IP-address is not good enough, as it is possible that a provider accesses the Internet via some sort of proxy and all their customers seem to have the same IP.

 

Every Network card has a unique ID, that could help to identify a computer, but the use of some sort of proxy would give you the ID of the proxy and anyone who is capable to use Google can find instructions to transmit a false ID.

 

Of cause BBO could leave a "Marker" on every computer that connects to BBO, but nobody can guarantee that they can't be manipulated.

 

But even if you could identify a PC without any doubt, it could still be a PC from an place where a PC is available to the public (a library, some sort of restaurant).

How can you know that the person that logs into BBO, from this computer is the same, that logged into BBO from this PC before.

 

You can be sure that Uday and Fred are able to identify a specific PC with reasonable accurance, but they can't be sure that the same person is using it.

[cloa513]

That`s why my idea was a good one. Rather than eliminate dodgy players just allow those players who wish to be identified as good to be assessed.

It only needs a little extra communication method to reach idle top BBO players and some way to add a non-user enterred entry on your profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=38912

[Free]

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?

~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

 

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

 

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

The IP-address is not good enough, as it is possible that a provider accesses the Internet via some sort of proxy and all their customers seem to have the same IP.

 

Every Network card has a unique ID, that could help to identify a computer, but the use of some sort of proxy would give you the ID of the proxy and anyone who is capable to use Google can find instructions to transmit a false ID.

 

Of cause BBO could leave a "Marker" on every computer that connects to BBO, but nobody can guarantee that they can't be manipulated.

 

But even if you could identify a PC without any doubt, it could still be a PC from an place where a PC is available to the public (a library, some sort of restaurant).

How can you know that the person that logs into BBO, from this computer is the same, that logged into BBO from this PC before.

 

You can be sure that Uday and Fred are able to identify a specific PC with reasonable accurance, but they can't be sure that the same person is using it.

- I know IP addresses are not the solution, you need MAC addresses.

- Transmitting a false MAC address isn't something most people can, even after searching google about this.

- You're right about the local "markers", they can be tampered with

- Lets say it's safe to assume BBO can identify a computer somehow, using IP, MAC, marker, whatever. It's indeed impossible to know who is logging into BBO. But if you have several accounts on that computer which are all locked, imo it's plausible enough that the next time someone tries to logon it will be the same person. Personally I woudn't give them the benifit of the doubt, and block the computer if there are at least 3 times as many blocked users than unblocked users (not 1-0 or 2-0). And if an unblocked user tries to connect, I'd give the error message which users have been blocked on that computer! Let them have a nice fight over this.

 

Still, if BBO for example uses MAC addresses to identify PC's, you can just buy a new network card and start all over. Nothing is fool proof, but you'll make it harder for them to keep ruining the game for everyone. Don't know if this investment is worth it though...

[helene_t]

Are MAC addresses submitted via tcp/ip? I thought bbo could only see IP addresses.

 

Anyway, using ubuntu you can easily fake a MAC address. Not sure about other platforms.

[eyhung]

Instead of technical solutions like tracking IPs for punishment, why not technology to facilitate social solutions? For each account, keep track of "reputation" by tracking the last 50 hands played by the user in terms of finished properly (left during the bidding) and not finished properly (left during the cardplay). And then allow servers in the Main Club to specify a minimum properly finished percentage before an opponent is allowed to take a seat. (The Relaxed Club should have no restriction.) Malicious users have no reason to create multiple accounts since only the last 50 hands are used, and they can go play in the Relaxed Club while they are building reputation if they want to leave in the middle of a hand. And if there are people in the Main Club who don't care about habitual leavers, they can play there too. But for those of us who want a serious game, we can specify 98% properly finished in the last 50 (or whatever percentage we want) and have the software allow or bar people appropriately.

[hrothgar]

Are MAC addresses submitted via tcp/ip? I thought bbo could only see IP addresses.

 

Anyway, using ubuntu you can easily fake a MAC address. Not sure about other platforms.

Depends on whether you are using IPv4 or IPv6

 

Many IPv6 implementation use the MAC Address to generate part of the IPv6 address. its a dreadful layering violating, but there you have it.

 

For what its worth,

 

1. If you have an old NIC card, you can often manually configure the MAC address of the card. I'd be shocked if this was still available (It was always more of a bug than a feature and folks use to run into MAC address conflicts). I'd be shocked if this

 

2. It isn't that hard to find a driver that will let you software configure your MAC. Trivial under Linux. Supported under MAC. Doable under Windows.

 

3. I seem to recall that there are some registry options that let you configure your MAC address under Windows.

 

(Wow, this all takes me back)

[barmar]

1. If you have an old NIC card, you can often manually configure the MAC address of the card. I'd be shocked if this was still available (It was always more of a bug than a feature and folks use to run into MAC address conflicts). I'd be shocked if this

I'm pretty sure it's a requirement. Remember, one of the companies that designed Ethernet was DEC, and DECnet required you to be able to set your MAC address based on your DECnet address.

[mycroft]

And almost all routers have MAC address masquerading, because so many people sign up for internet, get MAC-locked, then buy the router when computer #2 comes in (or they realize that the firewall on the router is much much better than the one on their Winbox).

 

That's why my house reports the MAC address of the computer that the current computer that is my Mythbox replaced 5 years ago, anyway...

[Kemistry]

I'm not sure why there can't be a club set up that requires some number of BBO master points to enter. Seems like this would be similar to a Life Master pairs event, where there's a minimum criteria to play.

 

This would not guarantee the club would be filled with friendly people, but at least it would filter out a lot of beginners. And if it's an opt in club, it could be a place for experienced players to go find a pickup game and hope for a higher level of play.

 

My experience in the Main Bridge Club is that the players with numbers by their names tend to know their systems and are more responsive. The people who don't know bridge very well, or are away from the game a lot, tend not to have these marks. It seems like it would be easy to sue this as a filter for a specific club.

 

"Find me a seat in the BBO 3+ Club" would probably be pretty popular. And if people don't have those master points, it might encourage them to run some tournaments to get the credentials needed to play there.

[jillybean]

MP clubs? phooey. I've played with enough 'life masters' to know MP's often have more to do with ego's than skill at the table.

The only answer as far as I can tell is to play with known players and friends.

[onoway]

The problem of trying to find a serious but friendly game was the basis for the forming of the private IAC club. Unfortunately it's seldom that anyone plays there. It takes some jumping through hoops to get to us (we consistently get plaintive messages in response to announcements "how do I get there? " or "how do I find you?" and it is understandably discouraging to get there and find no other players.

 

If someone had a group of friends to bring to the club to play with and they played fairly regularly, perhaps more people might start to play there as well and it would grow to be used as it was meant to be used. To be sure, not everyone is the level of advanced or expert, we have a lot of intermediates..most of our members are fairly honest as to their abilities. That said, most who do play there or join our tourneys/team matches are trying to play as well as they can, many are working to improve their game, and many of our members are good players, some even (dare I say it?) real experts.

 

Also, there is virtually NO problem with people disappearing in the middle of hands or other rude behaviour as we will not stand for it. We have a bit more freedom to act as a private club within BBO than perhaps BBO itself does in terms of sorting out how much latitude we allow. Membership is free (register at http://iac.pigpen.org.uk/ ) and we really would love to see people use the club, especially better players.

[gwnn]

Where does one go for SERIOUS bridge? Alpha Centauri.

[Trumpace]

Where does one go for SERIOUS bridge? Alpha Centauri.

Grr... You ought to be whipped with Orion's belt.

[Rain]

Try team games or arranged games.

[bluecalm]

We have this problem for a long time. I tried to find some at least decent partnerships to play against on bbo and I failed every time. When I posted here looking for partnerships for training matches nobody responded.

What is left is to play with people we already know live.

 

It would be really great if there was a place when you can go to play against pairs which have experience together and are decent+ by live tournament standards.

I don't know how to solve that. Maybe some kind of club when you verify your name/bridge experience first. Not sure if there is any interest though.