BBO Awards

[1niceguy2]

Currently, a player who is awarded an 8 when he has 300 points, a 9 when he has 500 points and 10 when he has 1000 points.

I propose that BBO Awards and BB0 Master Awards be changed as follows: 9 - 400 po and ints, 10 - 500 points, 11 - 600 points, 12 - 700 points, 13 - 800 points, 14 - 900 points and BBO Master Awards 15 - 1000 points, 16 - 1100 points, And so on. Current system is unfair and does not provide the incentive to achieve and especially 500 points to become a 10 and a BBO Master. I suggest that the rating of all players with 300+ points be adjusted in accordance with the revised system.

[steve2005]

so I suppose it is just a coincidence your rating is 8+? or between 450 and 499 points

[Butchie T]

By the powers vested in me – which are as worthless and artificial as masterpoints of any stripe – I dub thee, 1niceguy2, Master of All You Survey.

[LBengtsson]

More importantly, can anyone guess how much revenue BBO loses by having a unfair system? I guess many players will stop between a 6 and a 8 rating. My friend gave up buying $BBO when she became a 6 and does not play any more tournaments any more! I wonder how many other players do similar?

 

I remember a Army major saying to me: "If you make something very difficult to achieve, less people will try to achieve it. There has to be incentive"

 

As the system stands, there feels no incentive to progress beyond a certain level.

[thepossum]

I'm not sure of the problem

Most of the scale is linear (if you are a linear kind of person) but the lower levels allow accelerated advancement at lower levels to get you interested, a funny slow bid until you reach level 10 then its as straight as an arrow :)

 

I managed to fit an approximate polynomial to it once

 

y = 5E-15x5 - 3E-11x4 + 8E-08x3 - 8E-05x2 + 0.0392x + 2.2289 (it does have problems at levels 0,1 and 2 as you can see)

 

I'm thinking of offering it to Bridgebase as a browser add-on so people can calculate their level

 

Don't try using it. Something wrong seemingly :) It looks ok on the graph but I can't copy and paste images

 

Needs work if anyone thinks it matters

[ThomasRush]

Currently, a player who is awarded an 8 when he has 300 points, a 9 when he has 500 points and 10 when he has 1000 points.

I propose that BBO Awards and BB0 Master Awards be changed as follows: 9 - 400 po and ints, 10 - 500 points, 11 - 600 points, 12 - 700 points, 13 - 800 points, 14 - 900 points and BBO Master Awards 15 - 1000 points, 16 - 1100 points, And so on. Current system is unfair and does not provide the incentive to achieve and especially 500 points to become a 10 and a BBO Master. I suggest that the rating of all players with 300+ points be adjusted in accordance with the revised system.

 

The BBO system is not so far off the ACBL system, at least up through a BBO 10. The ACBL system has lots of ranks up to reaching Life Master -- and then 750, 1000, 1500, 2500, 3500, 5000, 7500, and 10,000. Note that the point differences keep getting bigger, and the gold points required increases proportionately.

 

In the end, you'll find that your rank -- whether ACBL or BBO -- is useless, really. It reflects more on how much you play and as much on your partner's skill as on your own. The yardstick you should use is a combination of, "Am I learning? Do I do better on hands that would have flummoxed me last year?" and, "Am I enjoying myself more?"

 

Remember that both BBO points and ACBL Masterpoints are cumulative tallies. You can play 20 games a day and rack up points fast, or you can play a game a day for 30 years and rack up points slowly. Either way, you might come to, say, an impressive 3,000 points. But are you more skilled than someone who has played for ten years in a few face-to-face ACBL tournaments a year, and accumulated 1,000 points?

 

That said, there is a better measure of skill out there, a system called BridgePowerRatings developed by Chris Champion. The numbers took a real hit with cancellation of tournaments during the first Covid years, but he's now got some online ratings available. See https://www.bridgepowerratings.com/

[jillybean]

These award/master points are a strange commodity, with no monetary or resale value, and a very dubious reflection of skill level. I think platinum points are the one exception and must represent skill level. My mother, playing ACOL and I playing 2/1, won a session at the Vegas NABC Gold Rush pairs many years ago. All I really needed to do was keep feeding my mother pass cards.

 

I've not focused on points except when I first started playing in tournaments. I found that I had to lie at the partnership desk, adding about 400 to my 50 to get any sort of reasonable partner. I always found it amusing, that someone who'd played for xx years and had 160 master points wasn't interested in partnering someone with 50, or even 100 master points. Once I was somewhat established, these points have had no meaning whatsoever. Without looking it up I couldn't tell you how many, or few, master points I have. It's not in the 1000's.

[pigpenz]

I was at 9 for about 14 years, finally made it to 9+

the next jump might not be able to make it unless i spend more money

[barmar]

These award/master points are a strange commodity, with no monetary or resale value, and a very dubious reflection of skill level. I think platinum points are the one exception and must represent skill level. My mother, playing ACOL and I playing 2/1, won a session at the Vegas NABC Gold Rush pairs many years ago. All I really needed to do was keep feeding my mother pass cards.

Do you realize that we're talking about BBO points, not ACBL Masterpoints®? Your award level is displayed to everyone next to your username in the app.