Why isn't there any rubber bridge at BBO?

[Jojask]

The thing is, my mother, who is very old, would very much like to play bridge on the internet, but having grown up with rubber bridge, and having played it all her life, she cannot imagine playing anything else. She really, really does not like the IMP way of scoring. For her it is like a dead fish. I do not share her sentiment but I understand it. In rubber bridge you build on what went down so far, whereas in IMP pairs every hand stands for itself, not in real life, but on BBO where it's common not to reset scores once a player leaves. So ultimately the IMP's often mean very little.

 

Not so with rubber bridge, I think it would be a welcome addition. So why does it not exist?

[manudude03]

There used to be a rubber scoring setting on the old Windows download, but it was removed, presumably due to lack of use.

[lycier]

Who plays rubber bridge?

Who is willing to play it?

Time have shown no one has a special requirement for rubber bridge.

[helene_t]

Your mother could play total points and/or ask the table host to reset the score.

[oryctolagi]

I asked the same question when I first started playing on BBO. Up to then I'd been used to rubber, however I've more or less got accustomed to IMP pairs now. But it's a pity to lose the rubber format altogether.

 

Rubber bridge plays best in a social setting, four friends get together for the evening, no time limit, coffee break between rubbers, no-one expected to leave the table early, cut for partners at the start, etc. etc. Very informal. That's how I used to do it. I don't think it works so well in an online setting, where people are coming and going all the time. Nor does it fit in with tournament play where it's all about skill (although as I've discovered, luck does play a part).

 

I've not yet tried out the Total Points format which BBO does have - and which is more like Rubber I believe. Maybe that's a decent compromise.

[helene_t]

Yes, that is a bit of an issue: if someone leaves halfway through a rubber, do you want the next pair to take over their part-score? You could of course say that by default the partscore stays but the table host can reset the score, just like with other bridge. The partscore is more of an issue than the accumulated score, though, as it influences strategies so you can't just ignore it.

[Gazumper]

When I first learned bridge all I played was rubber and I miss some of the plays involved. Scoring above and below the line, tallying scores and making mandatory doubles and all that. Great days.

[Pertinax]

 

Not so with rubber bridge, I think it would be a welcome addition. So why does it not exist?

 

Rubber existed, and still does exist, in BBO. Since BBO does things by hand it was a bit of kludge implemented in the Windows client over the top of that. There are still some Rubber players in the Relaxed Club but you need a copy of the old Windows client and an old account to see or play at the tables. It is dying out though because you can no longer download the Windows client and can't open a new account for it if you do find a copy of it.

 

Rubber is a terrific game for social play and new players, much better than Duplicate. The problem of players leaving is less of a problem at Rubber than it is in Duplicate tournaments.

[1eyedjack]

Personally I would never play rubber bridge on BBO, and I expect that there are few who would (although there would certainly be some).

 

From a purely commercial viewpoint, it probably would not make sense to devote resources to the task of implementing it. I say "probably" because I have no idea how difficult it would be and what it would consume in resources. On the one hand, BBO have already written the code once for this, for use with the old Windows download client. On the other hand, porting that into the Flash (or mobile) interface may for all I know be a major headache. I am no programmer. I have little doubt that were it trivial to provide the service it would have been provided.

 

But all that said, I believe that it is quite a severe shortcoming of the site not to make it available, and it saddens me. In the real world there is still a thriving population of rubber bridge players. While BBO is primarily a commercial organisation I am convinced that it is a secondary goal of the founders to promote the game generally and part of the process of promoting the game is protecting its core from dying.

 

it feels a bit like a vinyl record with a single slight scratch in one of the tracks. 40 minutes of blissful Jonas Kaufmann conducted by Antonio Pappano, marred by that snick-snick itch when you get to the emotive bit.