Ten Years After

[Aberlour10]

The 10th anniversary of the BBO in not more so far away, ( April 2011?) so lets talk here about first experiences after joining, general thoughts, funny things, and may be some ideas for running special events, etc around this anniversary?

 

Robert

[Phil]

I was there the first year.

 

I definitely remember signing and seeing ZERO tables in play with less than 10 people in the lobby! Playing at the right time of the day was key - at some hours you had 5-10 tables in play, at some times there was none.

 

It was fun to be there for the little milestones - 1st vugraph, 1st time BBO had more than 10,000 in the lobby and things like that.

 

I hope BBO does something special for the 10 year anniversary. It would be fun to see a timeline with the changes that have been made throughout the years.

 

Strangely I didn't join BBF when it started. I think for about the first year, I got frustrated with the log in (don't remember why) and didn't bother.

[Aberlour10]

Joined in 2002, there were about 200+ players in the lobby at the european afternoon. I remember exactly my first thought after I saw the BBo table to the first time. "This is really a comfortable thing! <<<<<( Before joining the BBO, I played exclusively on a polish site with very small tables/cards :) in a pop up window)

[Siegmund]

I peeked in when it was new, didnt see much, didnt ever play a hand...

 

I peeked in again in 2004, mostly to read Fred's articles that got moved from the webpage to inside the software.

 

Only started playing and posting much last year.

[whereagles]

ten years after?? isn't that a rock band from the 70s or something??

[Elianna]

I did things in the wrong order. I checked 2005, and then looked when I joined the forums, and that said 2004. And I think that I joined BBO before I joined the forums, so I should have checked 2004. Oh well.

[matmat]

I don't remember :)

[Lobowolf]

ten years after?? isn't that a rock band from the 70s or something??

A very underrated one. Alvin Lee is a great guitarist. Best known for "I'd Love to Change the World."

[heyrocky]

I still have a hard drive from what was my computer in 2001, which I save only because it's my record of three hands I got to play with Fred during the first year of BBO.

[Free]

Around 2002-2003 I think. I don't remember if I found the old forums or BBO first. I guess BBO because I was looking for a way to play bridge online for free. Before, I played on the MS servers, which was awful bridge. Thank god they stopped this service! :)

[gwnn]

I learned to play bridge on BBO June 2005 when I turned 18. Started to play with physical cards only in September 2005 :)

[hotShot]

Guess I joined 2002. I have hand records from that year.

And I'm sure that I have seen 2 digit numbers for players online a lot.

[G_R__E_G]

I voted 2002 but it may have been 2001, I'm not too sure.

[kenberg]

I see that I joined Sep 2004. Often I don't remember what I had for dinner last night but for some reason I remember how I first heard of BBO. I was at a local tourney. Ed and Dot Lewis had a book selling table and I would sometimes drop around and chat and or buy books.I mentioned a hand that I played on OKBridge and she suggested I give BBO a try. I figured I would give it a shot and see if more of my finesses worked on BBO. Nope.

 

I think the View Graphs were just getting started, run by some opinionated guy named Roland something or other. I had never heard of him. Possibly he had never heard of me. I took an instant liking to this project and I guess I am not alone since the kibs run in the thousands now.

 

I also like the non-existence of a formalized rating system. We all chuckle about BBO experts and even the occasional WC player who have taken one too many courses in the Power of Positive Thinking but in truth all of the rating systems are seriously flawed. Long ago the late Victor Mollo suggested that we establish a rating system based on who is willing to play against whom for money. That's an idea with promise.

 

I am in a book club and we are currently reading Loving Frank. Perhaps contrary to the author's intent, I am getting the view that Frank Lloyd Wright was an architectural genius and a total jerk. From what I have seen on BBO, Fred is a great bridge player, an innovative genius, and a really good guy. Congratulations and thanks.

[Hanoi5]

ten years after?? isn't that a rock band from the 70s or something??

A very underrated one. Alvin Lee is a great guitarist. Best known for "I'd Love to Change the World."

Going home in Woodstock was way better.

 

And I know I signed-up very early but I can't remember exactly what year. To the forums I got later, though.

[ArtK78]

I joined e-bridge (which was known as ACBL online at one time) in April 2001. My first recorded ACBL masterpoints on BBO are dated January 2005, but I know that I joined BBO prior to that date. My forum membership has a joining date of September 2004.

 

So I put 2004 as the year that I joined BBO.

[Aberlour10]

I hope BBO does something special for the 10 year anniversary. It would be fun to see a timeline with the changes that have been made throughout the years.

Or a mega event like a tournament in several stages with an interesting not everyday's format.

 

10th >>>Would it be not a good occassion to open The BBO Hall of Fame? :blink:

[paulg]

I think I joined in 2002, probably late in the year. I started my first BBO team in June 2003 (in the Polish league) and started helping in the BIL in September 2003.

 

I have been playing online bridge since around November 1996.

 

Paul

[Aberlour10]

I have been playing online bridge since around November 1996.

Out of pure curiosity, does anybody know when there was the very first possibility to play online bridge in WWW?

[Phil]

I have been playing online bridge since around November 1996.

Out of pure curiosity, does anybody know when there was the very first possibility to play online bridge in WWW?

I played on the Imagination Network before OKB and before they hiked the fees to whatever godly sum they decided to charge. It actually had a very cool interface.

 

1995 maybe?

[Stephen Tu]

Out of pure curiosity, does anybody know when there was the very first possibility to play online bridge in WWW?

 

OKbridge came out in 1990 I think, I started playing on it (all ASCII text client run on Unix systems) in 1991. This when it was still "the internet" and no one really knows about it except computer geeks, and "www" as such does not exist yet, first web browser being invented around same time!

[Aberlour10]

Out of pure curiosity, does anybody know when there was the very first possibility to play online bridge in WWW?

 

OKbridge came out in 1990 I think, I started playing on it (all ASCII text client run on Unix systems) in 1991. This when it was still "the internet" and no one really knows about it except computer geeks, and "www" as such does not exist yet, first web browser being invented around same time!

My fault, in everyday speach... I wrote WWW and meant Internet, these are of course not one and the same. Anyway I am a little surprised that there was online bridge play already at the beginning of the 90's.

[jdeegan]

:D I found BBO in 2005 after playing on OKBridge for a number of years. I saw immediately that Fred's model was far superior. No up front $100 buy in, open door for tournament directors world-wide, financial support from some big guns, and best of all, from my point of view, no Lehman score.

 

Like any REAL bridge player my entire sense of self-worth is determined by the result on the last bridge hand I played. The Lehman score catered perfectly to my needs. Unhappily, other players often felt the same way. Some players would bail out of any table at what they saw as the first sign that the combination of players at the table would lead to a session that would lower their Lehman rating. It made it hard to keep a table together.

 

Other players used OKBridge as a forum to berate their partners' frequent errors, real and imagined. What fun that was!

 

Even sicker was how the OKBridge mentality affected attitudes toward a well-known bridge character known to many by a name designated by a single English letter. After switching to BBO, this fellow has settled in to a nice niche, and he has become a healthy asset to our game. After all, this is a game, and we play games to have fun. Our colorful characters are part of the fun.

 

Here is to you G.E.O. Day. Let me pin a rose on that one. I got the mustard for it. I still recall playing your system in the morning game. Or the time you confronted Jim Jacoby at an obscure tournament in the desert town of Lubbock, Texas. You got right in his face, as you always do, starting a tale of a bridge hand under south goal of the Texas Tech basketball arena and ending it under the north goal. Every time Jim told (and retold) the story, we expressed our amazement that Jumbo could walk backward as fast as G.E.O. Day could walk forward.

 

Hurrah for BBO!!! Good luck for the next ten years.

[Aberlour10]

It remains a few weaks from now or? :)

[Rossoneri]

I started my account Dec 2003, after starting to learn the game and being told that BBO was far better than Yahoo or MSN...