Partners

[Wayne_LV]

Seems to me that one of the biggest advantages to online bridge is the ability to quickly find a game for a few casual hands at any time of the day or night.

 

Also seems to me that one of the biggest disadvantages to online bridge is the inability to find a compatible partner that will make the causal games fun.

 

The skill ratings of players topic has been beat to death in this forum and no solutions are forthcoming. Besides, a true expert in Precison Club is of little value to a SAYC or 2/1 player.

 

The profile provides way too little space to describe any but the simpliest of system preferences and with all the arcane abbreviations it is of dubious value in most cases. By the time you scan the profile of players at open tables the seat has long since been taken and you have to look for another and that one is gone ......... and it never ends.

 

My suggestion is to either expand the profile or provide a link off the profile with check boxes for the most popular systems and conventions. Then provide a search tool whereby other BBO members that meet your desired criteria of basic systems and favorite conventions would be displayed. Those with best match could then be added to a list of prospective partners, similar to the friends list that could be used for online contact. If email addresses are available for those prospects, that information should be part of the output of a compatibility search. Then it would be up to the player to make contact with those prospective partners and arrange for a trial game or two and up to both individuals as to whether to form a "regular" partnership or not.

 

A search might include (from a check box search) such things as:

 

Pacific time zone

2/1

Weak NT

lebensohl

 

 

or

 

Eastern time zone

SAYC

RKCB

 

 

.... of course the simplier the search the more hits and the less value of the list

 

In general I am taking about a search with criteria similar to those used by all the online Real Estate Sites

that would yield a list of prospective partners.

 

If a BBO member does not want to be contacted by prospective partners due to having a regular partnership or whatever other reason should be able to opt out and the search would bypass them altogether. Members that have been inactive for a long period of time should be excluded from the search as well (there must be thousands of inactive user names due to members having multiple names or names reserved and then never used.)

 

This would all have to be done in a searchable database with all interested BBO members responsible for checking the boxes and "opting in" to such a program.

 

As an adjunct to this suggestion, I would also suggest that BBO free up user names that have no log in for a year.

 

The stated objective of BBO is to provide a site where players can maximize the online bridge experience and Fred and his crew have done an admirable job.

 

However, Bridge is a partnership game and the ability to find compatible players and form regular partnerships seems to have been overlooked.

 

I realize what I am suggesting would require a great deal of progamming and not inconsiderable expense. This feature, as are the Gibs, could be a service for pay. Perhaps 1 or even 5 BBO$ per search after the data base has grown to sufficient size to be useful. Another approach might be an annual subscription to the service for a fee.