players rating

[Free]

Yes it makes sense, but it still has the same consequences: some people won't play with others, and some will cheat to get a better ranking. Always the same story, so no ratings in any form plz!!!

[hotShot]

Well if we start a discussion about ranking systems lets start with the problems:

 

First lets define some rules that must be applyed to a rating system, to make it work!

1) Winning against a weaker rated Pair/Team/Player may not influence the rating , that way playing weaker opps will not help you to improve your ranking, nor will it ruin theirs.

2) Winning against a better rated Pair/Team/Player should increase your rating

3) Loosing agains a weaker Pair/Team/Player should decrease your rating

 

Now lets think about what d data do we take into account, and what the rating system should tell us.

At a team event the rating system should tell us which team will me more likely to win.

This is the most simple case, as to teams meat and one ist winner and one is looser.

 

At a pairs event the system should predict the final ranking of the tournament.

Here we have a problem. Let us assume we have a perfect “7 Table Howell”, we play 13 rounds. We have 2 top pairs, that make 100% against each opponent and get 50% if playing against each other. The other pairs are of exactly the same strength and play 50% against each other loosing only 2 the top pairs. What would we expect ?

2 Pairs at the top off the list with almost 96% and all other pairs should be equil at about 46%.

But we won’t get that scoring in Matchpoints. We will have the weaker pairs distributed from 46% down to 41%.

This range is created by the movement we used. At some boards both top pairs score NS or EW so the avarage score for the “normal” pairs is different depending on the fact that they are on the same side as the top pairs or on the other side.

In any other movement than the “7 Table Howell” it is even worse.

This is why typical BBO 8 Boards/ 4 Round/ lots of pair tournaments should be compared to lotteries and not to tournaments.

 

This is why there should be special ranking pair events, with a small number of players and a big number of boards. Subbing should not be allowed ( because who’s strength do you take for the final result that of the sub or that of the player he subbed in for, and who’s ranking is adjusted?) All results of pairs that are eliminated should be erased from the tourney.

 

Considered all that there are still 2 Problems to solve:

 

1) How do we find a rating for a new player if everybody else has a valid rating (this is easy if everybody else has one)

2) How do we get the initial rating for all, if nobody has one

 

 

Have a nice day

hotShot

[Chamaco]

1) How do we find a rating for a new player if everybody else has a valid rating (this is easy if everybody else has one)

In chess servers with rating, one enters with a fixed rating, but the fluctuations in rating at the beginning are multiplied by a coefficient which is larger at the beginning and decreases in time.

 

So basuically: at the begiinning you experiene large loss and gains in rating very quickly, then after a while you start to stabilize your level while your coefficient decreases.

 

After a while you find yourself at the level you deserve.

[paulhar]

I saw some posts suggesting that pairs get ratings; that you should have a different rating with each partner. OK, so I have 600 ratings, almost all based on 1 to 3 boards played in an individual! (An aside: individuals are better slapstick comedy than any you would go pay to see. Keep your eyes on the chat for maximum comic effect.) Unfortunately, these ratings are pretty meaningless, as are any ratings of others that are derived from them. I would think that most people's playing profile looks a lot like that - BBO encouranges people to click into rooms and play with whomever for a few hands, and under this rating system, that would be just one more meaningless rating that will play a factor in determining other pairs' ratings. A pair probably shouldn't be rated until they have played at least 20 deals with each other, and even then problems arise because their opponents on some of those deals won't have played the requisite boards. You could 'fake' their opposing pair's rating by combining their totally hidden from all individual ratings, which would make it a lot easier for pairs to play twenty meaningful boards. Also, there comes the problem mentioned earlier that a pair would have had to play some cross-section of BBO; i.e. if pair A and pair B are all new to BBO and play 20 boards against each other, they could both be awesome pairs or both be beginners so any numerical rating assinged to them would be meaningless. (Individual ratings would suffer the same defect.)

 

I would not be at all surprised if over half the pairs I play against have not played 20 boards with each other - usually they just clicked into my table. I know for a fact that there are not that many people on BBO that I have played 20 boards with.

Pairs ratings work if you play a lot with the same people and can find other pairs that play together a lot, and those pairs also play against other pairs besides you. In the BBO environment, at least as I see it, there would be too few pairs with meaningful ratings to matter. But the whole point is moot - because it has been pointed out on many occasions that 'Ratings are evil!' or 'Ratings make people evil!' or perhaps it's the love of a high rating that is the root of all evil!

[Cascade]

In chess servers with rating, one enters with a fixed rating, but the fluctuations in rating at the beginning are multiplied by a coefficient which is larger at the beginning and decreases in time.

 

So basuically: at the begiinning you experiene large loss and gains in rating very quickly, then after a while you start to stabilize your level while your coefficient decreases.

 

After a while you find yourself at the level you deserve.

I have experimented with this sort of thing at the local club.

 

I estimated the score of a player as a function of rating, partner's rating, the ratings of player's in the field and then adjusted this based on the score obtained. When I had very little data about a player I made big adjustments and when I had lots of data about a player I only made small adjustments.

 

This seemed to work well for me and was much more useful than some infamous online rating systems I have seen.

[helene_t]

What is the purpose of a rating system anyway?

 

I really don't care if my partner is good at hand evaluation and declarer play. It may influence the results, but it will not influence joy or frustrations. Of course, if I were to give partner instructive comments, or receive instructive comments from him, it would be nice if we knew each other's skills. But most people don't want comments, or don't have time for it. Besides, instructive comments are useful when given from an expert to an beginner, but rating schemes would tend to prevent experts from playing with beginners. I do have a slight preference for players who don't play advanced conventions unless they really understand those conventions. A rating would give me little clue to that except that a real expert would have a somewhat higher probability of being ok than an intermediate or advanced player would, but a real expert wouldn't waste his time playing with me anyway.

 

I would like the profiles to be more elaborate, though. The self-rating is not very informative.

[paulhar]

(portions deleted) I do have a slight preference for players who don't play advanced conventions unless they really understand those conventions. A rating would give me little clue to that except that a real expert would have a somewhat higher probability of being ok than an intermediate or advanced player would (portions deleted)

Ah, the solution is simple. People can rate themselves as 'I really don't fully understand these convetions, and I don't want anybody to comment on my use of them, but I want to play them anyway'. How many people would partner this person? Nobody would ever admit that anyway - since everybody assumes that they know the convention. And they're telling the truth - they know everything they have heard about the convention. Are they playing it right? Not likely. If I agree to play 'multi', I'm probably not playing it right either, but I'll happily admit that. Most people are just not aware that there's a lot more to a convention than they know about it. Take transfers. We don't like to teach transfers to newer players because they get the taste of it and they think they know how to play them, whereas they are quite in the dark in many special situations (like what if the opponents overcall?)

 

We were discussing this philosophy with a couple of students who totally agreed, but of course, they had totally discussed transfers and they knew the ins and outs of transfers and had been playing it for some time so there was no problem. I decided to test this theory, giving one of them a 1NT opening and the other one[hv=s=s65hk98762d74cj105]133|100|[/hv]

and let them bid it. I threw in a 2D overcall expecting the responder to bid hearts and the other to take it as a transfer, or for the responder to double (stolen bid - arrgh!) and the other to correctly (in theory) pass, or some other disaster to befall them, but the heart hand stated 'Transfers are off over interference' negating all chance for a misunderstanding. Then she said "so I have to pass." If she weren't playing transfers, she would have competed to 2 hearts! But merely playing the convention has clouded her normal thinking.

 

A couple more examples pointed out that it was obvious that they needed a lot more discussion about transfers (one of the two was ready to give them up but that was not my intention.)

 

So, it is quite practical to assume that your partner is not going to understand some infrequent nuance of a convention and to avoid these if at all possible, unless trying to form a very regular partnership with this partner.

 

A real expert would have a somewhat higher probability of being OK? How on earth would you know? Judging from the response I got when proposing ratings that NOBODY ELSE CAN SEE - the probability of knowing somebody is an expert by seeing their rating on this site and having the players happy about it is approxmently the same as the probability of seeing complete peace and harmony in the Middle East in our lifetime.

[paulhar]

You've seen in my past posts what I was trying to avoid by having ratings that nobody can see. Now I have encountered a new unpleasent occurrence twice in two days that non-visual ratings would have prevented.

 

Because the open slots in a game go so fast, one doesn't have time to examine the profiles of all three players at the table - if you are lucky to find an empty seat opposite a partner whose profile you like, you must jump at it. So, I did. Turns out that my opponents were marked 'intermediate' which is supposed to mean 'average player on BBO' but in reality, means 'average player in an under 300 game'. We play about five hands, and one of my opponents who was down 31 IMPs said something like "I've had enough of this! I didn't come here to lose 31 IMPs!" and promptly left. Today I found a friend available when I logged on and he asked that I find a couple of opponents. I clicked on a table which had two advanced players as opponents. Again, almost like clockwork, 5 boards later, they were grumbling about 'enough of this' (like it was my fault!) and left. Now, as unpleasant as this was for us (my 'friend' didn't seem too happy about the whole affair), I'm sure it was more unpleasant for them - and they showed their displeasure, which is what made it more unpleasant for us.

 

We would have avoided both these pairs (and they both would have avoided us and been a lot happier) had we been able to put a minumum rating on the table. No doubt, there was probably another pair that would have loved a tough game - I just didn't happen to find them.

 

Lest the sceptic call me arrogant again, let me just say that I am not intending to brag. (I know it sounds that way, but how else could I have made that point?) I make many too many errors to be a top player and being rated isn't going to boost my ego - I'm all too painfully aware that I'll never be one of the top 10,000 players in the world. But I would like to avoid the players that are so outclassed that they're going to leave in a huff after a few boards. Don't tell me to only play against World Class players, most of them won't allow me at their table, presumably because they don't know me, because as far as I know, I haven't ever played with or against any of them. I actually don't mind being outclassed that miserably - I'm bound to learn a lot when I am. However, I also feel that I have no right to inflict myself on a table where they want world class play, because I'm not going to be able to deliver the goods.

[dogsbreath]

Hi Paulhar..

first of all I'd like to say you're a hell-of-a typist :P Not only the quantity, but the lack of spelling mistakes and generally accurate grammar will really fox 'Slothy'. I'm generally uneasy about rankings on BBO but not enough to get into a row about it. However i do suspect it would discourage stronger players from playing with beginners/intermediates. As to finding a (decent) table to play at.. you are welcome at mine anytime .. and I will be happy to introduce you to many fine players on BBO.

I have regular games with 'beginner/intermediate' players which I enjoy and regard as a greater challenge than playing with experts since I must take more care to try to ensure I get the best out of them and that they enjoy their game. I know plenty of others who do the same and wouldnt like to see a situation where a ranking system discouraged this. When a 'serious' game is planned we simply set player permissions ON - we never ask for 'expert' as most 'advanced' players here are solid players. If someone is disrupting a table - ask them to leave or boot them if they wont go quietly :o .

If you want to join a table or team match where they are asking for expert/WorldClass ..just edit your profile :ph34r:

Rgds Dog

 

furnulum pani nolo

[guggie]

I fully agree with Paulhar. Playing in mainbridge is very hard as p and opps come and go very very fast. I almost completely quitted it, being not able to find a table with players who play for love of the game and wanting to improve.

The self chosen skill level is 80% inadequate (also in my own case, I should be intermediate followong BBO standards but viewing other people's skills I proceeded to advanced;-. I cannot bring me to call myself an expert, every real good player who knows me should have a fit of laughter. )

 

Nevertheless rating is worse.

 

Cannot we create a corner in BBO were abuse and roaring monkey behaviour is strictly forbidden, and tables are open to those who love the game?

[EarlPurple]

There is a lot of difference between having ratings here, which is a partnership game, and in a chess server, where you have an individual game.

 

In a chess server, you only lose ratings by your own losses, particularly against lower-rated opponents.

 

With bridge, where you have a partner, you start to get a situation where players protect their ratings too strongly. And perhaps they are right to, as anyone without a good rating is liable to be excluded from stronger games. So the whole situation becomes far more "tense".

 

If you do have to have a rating system, then at least let it be inclusive of only the last 3 months of results. That would help newbies get a chance to "establish" their ratings within a reasonable length of time, and anyone who has done badly knows that the ratings will be "worn off" sooner rather than later.

 

By the way, I think we could have peer-ratings - you can privately set someone's "rating" so you can mark them as a "weak player" (maybe someone you wouldn't want to partner) without having to mark them as an "enemy".

[Trpltrbl]

It could be nice to create something like the ATP tennis ranking

Perhaps only the stars should maintain their rating.

Many thanks for the attention.

I would really like to see theses stars mantain their ratings, because I have seen some play as if they just learned the game. I think it would be to funny to see a star with a beginner rating, because some do deserve it...

 

Mike :D

[sceptic]

Most people know if they are good or bad at playing bridge, what we should rate is peoples egos

[Trpltrbl]

I agree

 

Mike :lol:

[EarlPurple]

It could be nice to create something like the ATP tennis ranking

Perhaps only the stars should maintain their rating.

Many thanks for the attention.

I would really like to see theses stars mantain their ratings, because I have seen some play as if they just learned the game. I think it would be to funny to see a star with a beginner rating, because some do deserve it...

 

Mike <_<

You think there are people who take up the name of a top bridge player claiming to be them?

[paulhar]

You think there are people who take up the name of a top bridge player claiming to be them?

I know for a fact that this happens. In one case it was obvious that it was an imposter rather than the real expert playing drunk because the impersonated expert has some rather unusual views on bidding that he feels quite strongly about, and these views were not shared by the person playing with that name.

 

Please remember that when you suspect an expert to be playing like a beginner. Any of them (the real world class players, not their impersonaters) would trounce any of us mere mortals in a long match. Even the best have their lapses - yes, even an expert would go down in a contract that you would make. Perhaps maybe he actually played a higher percentage line that you don't see - but your line would have worked this time?

[Trpltrbl]

It could be nice to create something like the ATP tennis ranking

Perhaps only the stars should maintain their rating.

Many thanks for the attention.

I would really like to see theses stars mantain their ratings, because I have seen some play as if they just learned the game. I think it would be to funny to see a star with a beginner rating, because some do deserve it...

 

Mike :lol:

You think there are people who take up the name of a top bridge player claiming to be them?

That I am not sure of, just that being a star from certain countries doesn't take a whole lot.

In the land of blind people, one-eye is King.

If you only have 500 players in your country, and 100 of them play in competition, it's a lot easier to win few national titles. You don't even have to play good bridge.

But I have already long discussions about this :rolleyes:

 

Mike ;)

[amfnz]

If rating points are provided only in tournaments then players who choose not to play in tournaments will never be rated.

 

I prefer the self assessment system. You are able to make your own judgement of self assessments and make comments in the profile if you feel players are abusing the system :D

[jtfanclub]

Pardon me for talking out of my butt here....

 

Why not have an Advanced private club? Put a dozen people who it's generally agreed are good players in charge of it, have them set the criteria as anything they want. Then they can let people in and out as they choose, which will likely not be based solely on how well they play bridge.

 

We can even have an additional rank to Beginning/Intermediate/Etc....Advanced Club member. Then if people want to only play with Advanced club members, they can play in that room.

 

What's the disadvantage to playing with this sort of ranking system?

[luke warm]

Pardon me for talking out of my butt here....

 

Why not have an Advanced private club? Put a dozen people who it's generally agreed are good players in charge of it, have them set the criteria as anything they want. Then they can let people in and out as they choose, which will likely not be based solely on how well they play bridge.

 

We can even have an additional rank to Beginning/Intermediate/Etc....Advanced Club member. Then if people want to only play with Advanced club members, they can play in that room.

 

What's the disadvantage to playing with this sort of ranking system?

hi jt... there's already at least one such club, abalucy... and welcome to the forums

[nige1]

What makes BBO different, if you haven't noticed, is that it really is setup to serve as an educational tool....

 

The lecture room

Teaching tables

Partnership bidding tables

Chat rooms

private clubs (often used for lessons)

double dummy problems

direct links to BBO's excellent educational software

 

The environment coddles beginners and novices, and that carries over here in the BridgeBase Forums. 

 

Are ratings evil? Not in and of themselves. Think about it, as an educational site, wouldn't it be useful to find players of better skill level to kibitz or ask questions? The "gold star" players worth watching helps with this. What is bad is ego...people who can't stand a bad result, who "NEVER PLAYS WITH BEGINNERS...or intermediates...or whatever". Those people and their boarish behavior will be with us with or without a rating system per se... sit down with them, and make a bid (even an expert bid) that they don't agree with... they will label you a beginner or novice... and act with the same behavior.

 

Now, having said that. I am not all that wild about changing the "self" rating system. What i am looking forward to is ladder team play, ladder tourments, etc, just for the fun of competiting.

 

Ben

Ben's arguments persuade me. The point is that BBO has a rating system, (ab)used by members.

 

For example, few self-rated "experts" are.

 

In my experience. on BBO "experts" have the worst manners. They often refuse to play with "lesser" players. They leave in a huff in the middle of a hand, usually after perpetrating an egregious error.

 

The problem is that BBO self-rating and even Fred's star rating of players is subjective.

 

An objective rating system would be still be a crude measure of skill but more accurate and reliable than subjecitve assessment.

 

This would prevent the majority of players from getting away with spurious claims of expert or world-class status. They might then behave more humbly and less rudely.

 

I endorse Ben's main argument. Young and improving players would be the main beneficiaries from objective feedback. A rating system would recognize talent early and accelerate its development to its full potential.

 

Objective ratings could be optional and apply only to designated open tournaments. It's hard to understand the violent objections to this idea. Surely all could be happy. The non-rated would continue to enjoy peaceful play in the main bridge club and in non-rated tournaments, spurning those ""with an inferiority complex. scrabbling after the reassurance of winning rat-races". The rated player would play in both environments, depending on his mood; and he would feel superior to "residents of a fools-paradise terrified of self-knowledge".

[hrothgar]

An objective rating system would be still be a crude measure of skill but more accurate and reliable than subjecitve assessment.

 

This would prevent the majority of players from getting away with spurious claims of expert or world-class status. They might then behave more humbly and less rudely.

 

I endorse Ben's main argument. Young and improving players would be the main beneficiaries from objective feedback. A rating system would recognize talent early and accelerate its development to its full potential.

 

Objective ratings could be optional and apply only to designated open tournaments. It's hard to understand the violent objections to this idea. Surely all could be happy. The non-rated would continue to enjoy peaceful play in the main bridge club and in non-rated tournaments, spurning those ""with an inferiority complex. scrabbling after the reassurance of winning rat-races". The rated player would play in both environments, depending on his mood; and he would feel superior to "residents of a fools-paradise terrified of self-knowledge".

Design a rating system that

 

1. Is accurate

2. Can be explained to Carl Hudachek

3. Will be warmly embraced by those players who are ranked below average

[inquiry]

An objective rating system would be  still be a crude measure of skill but more accurate and reliable than subjecitve assessment.

If you are just interested in how you are doing, and you are REALLY interested, I can tell you what your lehman rating is using the same metric they use on OKBRIDGE. Private message me if you like. I have checked yours using the NUMBER ONE as the last character of your name. There is a player with the letter "L" as the last character as well.

 

I will tell you that your lehman is currently above average despite the fact that you play with no single partner very much, as you have played with 59 different partners so far this year in the main room. So far, the most hands with any one nickname was only 31, and there are nine one board partnerships. Switching partners a lot usually results in lower ratings. All that is for Main room play, you play with many fewer people in team games and tournaments.

 

On the otherhand if you want to check out other people's lehman's you are on your own. Because I agree with Fred's views on this, So I don't share the ratings as a rule, nor tell you how you can get them but they are publically available for a small fee -- and also because currently mine is not as high as it should be .... :)

[BillHiggin]

Design a rating system that

 

1. Is accurate

2. Can be explained to Carl Hudachek

3. Will be warmly embraced by those players who are ranked below average

In trying to examine how a bridge rating system might be designed so as to match the acceptance level of elo ratings for chess, a variation on #3 finally convinced me that the effort was doomed.

 

Some people are motivated more by instant gratification than long term gain. "Some" being very intentionally fuzzy. Unlike chess (where every result can be attributed to fine performance by one player or poor performance by the other), in bridge you can have a very poor result that is neither a result of poor performance on your part nor brilliance by your opponents - partner can blunder. All bridge players are all too capable of blundering, but we are most accutely aware of our own. Any player, not just the below average ones, may percieve that better players who place special value on their rating will not be willing to risk playing with them for fear of the instant loss should they blunder. Whether this fear is genuine or merely percieved matters not - the rating system generates that fear and thus lowers the confidence of "some".

 

In my opinion, most players are not overly concerned with the idea that they might be ranked below average (unless they truly are convinced that they are substantially above average). What bothers them is the idea that they may be shunned becuase of others trying to protect their ratings. Even if the ratings are done in such a way that the stronger player is not penalized over time (or is even rewarded), the fear of instantanious decreases alters behaviour and that cannot be prevented by any statistical based rating system (i.e. one that cannot truly "place blame" which is an exceedingly difficult thing to do).

 

Arguments that "things will even out over time" are approximately as effective as trying to convince a teenager that doing his homework is more important than the party at the friends house (and some teenagers will actually listen to that).

 

I am convinced that Fred has made exactly the best decision and am happy to know that he will stick to it.

[awm]

Accurate rankings for individuals in a partnership game are actually a hard mathematical problem. A number of career mathematicians are working on this sort of thing; my dad (a mathematician) went to a talk about this a while back.

 

There are arguments that a system which actually rated accurately might be less objectionable than a system like the Lehman ratings used by OKB. The problem is that it's fairly easy to manipulate your Lehman rating by carefully selecting your partner and opponents -- this creates an environment where people who care about the rating are encouraged to do this sort of selection, which makes for a rather unpleasant site. Basically, if you want to raise your Lehman rating all you have to do is play exclusively in established partnerships against pickup opposition.

 

One thing that might be interesting is to rate partnerships instead of individuals. Of course, this doesn't satisfy the goal that most rating proponents seem to have of "being able to pick my partner as someone good." Nonetheless, rating pairs accurately should be easier, and it might be interesting to see how some of us rate in our favorite partnerships.