[NOosAnCE]

Hoi Fred,

I have been playing here quite some years now, compared to OKB, where I played before, I see advantages and disadvantages. Of course I won't complain about the advantages. I do have some suggestions to improve BBO though. This is not only my opinion but many players with me think alike:

1. Like in OKB I would like to be able to remove a spectator revealing hands in public or just being a nuisance, this is extremely annoying. I know I can shut out spectator talk or spectators in general, but 99,8% would never act so childish and I like to have spectators, it makes it more realistic and lively.
2. In BBO a player who keeps on clicking on an empty seat can prevent the host from talking, letting a serious player in or making settings to prevent this. I would like to be able to ban a player from my table during that session insisting to sit in the empty seat. I know I can call a yellow, but even that is hardly possible, then I would have to shut down the table and wait for a yellow, report the player etc etc, this takes ages, fun spoilt.
3. To score a hand every board is compared between 16 pairs, this result means nothing especially the tops and bottoms have an disproportianate influence on the average. On OKB 52 pairs are compared, and if I am not mistaken the top 2 and bottom 2 do not count for the average. On BBO you have so many more players, can't you compare 100 boards and delete tops and bottoms for a more realistic result?
4. Many players will sit at a table make agreements and then disappear after between 0.5 and 3 boards, they want to kill time before their team game or tourney starts, can you prevent them from sitting if their game starts within half an hour or so? Also can you prevent them from accepting a team game or applying a tourney while playing or don't let them suddenly disappear? Maybe even prevent players from leaving their seat in the middle of a board in general.
5. Because of point 4 and many other reasons (rudeness, playing level etc etc) one needs enemy lists, PLURAL, or an enemy list followed by a selection of a number from 0-9 to show the reason why this person is on your blacklist. After so many years of playing the list will be full soon (I now have over 1150 blacklisted), and I don't want to forget why I didnt want to play with or against those players.
Of course a rating system other than self rating will help a lot, but I know this will stimulate cheating even more.
6. Most players do not know the proper way to take a seat (request from the lobby to an empty seat), most will go to the table, see all hands then either the hands get skipped or when the hand has been started by another player he has seen all cards. Many won't mention this and just play or defend the hand, since there is a lot of players coming and going usually many hands are ruined this way. When players get booted because of a bad connection they come back to the table as a spectator, see all hands and another hand is ruined. Maybe only let players request to play from a place where they can't see the cards?
7. Full disclosure is very nice, but the explanations should only be shown to the opponents, else it will merely be used by a majority as a tool to find the right bid and be notified what the meaning of their partners bid is.
8. The first few months I played on BBO it was torture because of 1 reason only: I did not know many players and I wanted to check the profile of the player I would play with if I would click the empty seat, so I knew he would play a similar system as I do. This is impossible, seat and empty seats keep moving so fast you can't keep track. A stationary list with refresh option is much easier to use.
9. Is it possible to remove logins that have not been used for a certain period of time, like 6 months or so? At the same time remove those logins from blacklists and friendslists, I think in my lists are many dead logins.
10. Let players manage their own blacklist and friendslist as a file on their pc, and be able to see someone's profile even though that player is not online.

I have been complaining about these matters at my table for a long time, and then every now and then a yellow friend encourages me to post it here, but then I always say that I am not the only one here thinking this way and telling BBO about it and it never changed, so what is the point? Well this time I took the time to do it, please do not disappoint me

Regards,

Martin Amorison
login: noosance

[diana_eva]

Will split your suggestions into separate posts, that way it will be easier for people to give their opinion

[hotShot]

It seems you are using the Windows program and not the Web-Interface using Flash.

[fred]

NOosAnCE, on Feb 4 2010, 07:46 PM, said:

I have been complaining about these matters at my table for a long time, and then every now and then a yellow friend encourages me to post it here, but then I always say that I am not the only one here thinking this way and telling BBO about it and it never changed, so what is the point? Well this time I took the time to do it, please do not disappoint me 

Regards,

Martin Amorison
login: noosance

Hoi to you too, Martin.

Thanks for your suggestions. I am not going to make any comments on the specfiic points you made, but I will say that I do agree with some of what you said and that you should not be surprised to see some of your suggestions implemented eventually (with "eventually" being the key word).

With respect to things "never changing", you might want to stick with your BBO vs. OKB comparison for a minute longer and consider respective rates of software changes. I think you will agree that the difference is like night and day. Also, it may be best to keep the cost-comparison out of your BBO vs. OKB equations, unless you like dividing by zero

You may not have seen thing change much since it sounds like you have been using the BBO Windows client (which has not changed much in recent years and is unlikely to change much in the future).

But if you log in to BBO through the yellow "play bridge now" link on our home page (www.bridgebase.com) you will be able to log in to BBO using some software that is changing rapidly. Some of the suggestions you make have already been implemented in the BBO web-client.

We release a new version of the web-client every month or two and we frequently include suggestions from our users. I should warn you that there are a lot of possible improvements out there competing for our time. There are also a lot of good ideas that would be impractical to implement. So try not to be too disappointed if some of your suggestions are not addressed (or take a while to be addressed) by our programmers.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[NOosAnCE]

Hoi Fred,

First of all I don't care about the money issue, if you charge me (and me alone of course) 200+ USD a year it's ok with me. I am more tham willing to pay for a good product.

I hope you won't feel insulted but I have tried the web based version and ran away screaming Many options do not work there, also my macro editor (OKscript) does not work, the chat area is much smaller, I would never be able to play from there.

Of course never say never, I will try again, but it hasn't been a very long time since I tried. I will try right now, I do need my macro editor to call for players, explain bids (no full disclosure is too much work if you want to do it perfect, that is if you define all, including sequences where opps interfere, I tried and failed, I spent months doing this).

As I understand now BBO windows client will stay as it is, bummer. This means I will be kicked out BBO several more times for rude behaviour against fake experts, WC's (I call them toilets) and others that will try to ruin a nice game.

Thanks for your fast reply,

Martin

[fred]

NOosAnCE, on Feb 4 2010, 08:33 PM, said:

Hoi Fred,

First of all I don't care about the money issue, if you charge me (and me alone of course) 200+ USD a year it's ok with me. I am more tham willing to pay for a good product.

I hope you won't feel insulted but I have tried the web based version and ran away screaming Many options do not work there, also my macro editor (OKscript) does not work, the chat area is much smaller, I would never be able to play from there.

Of course never say never, I will try again, but it hasn't been a very long time since I tried. I will try right now, I do need my macro editor to call for players, explain bids (no full disclosure is too much work if you want to do it perfect, that is if you define all, including sequences where opps interfere, I tried and failed, I spent months doing this).

As I understand now BBO windows client will stay as it is, bummer. This means I will be kicked out BBO several more times for rude behaviour against fake experts, WC's (I call them toilets) and others that will try to ruin a nice game.

Thanks for your fast reply,

Martin

A few points about the web-client:

- Probably your macro thing won't work, but there is a facility built into the software for saving and recalling chat messages (click the blue "My BBO" button at the top of the screen then "Chat manager" on the menu that appears).

- You can resize the chat area (click and drag the slider just above it). If you reduce the size to zero, the chat area will appear in a "tab" at the right side of your screen. That configuration works well for those who like to chat.

- There will be a new and further improved version coming out soon.

- There is not much point in trying unless you are willing to devote some time to get used to it and learn how it works.

And don't worry about me being insulted

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[NOosAnCE]

Hoi Fred,

I am willing to try and just did. My macro editor is not just some toy with a few lines, it has thousands of lines written in menus and buttons, to send to lobby to ask for players and to alert and explain sequences to both opponents and kibitzers at the same time. Plus some fun junk.

I also can't see a blacklist there, I can find the list to edit, but not the ones online, like the friends list.

I resized the chat area and downsized the font to 9, this helps a bit.

Martin

[NOosAnCE]

Of all points I metioned number 1, 2 and 3 are most annoying to me and most sane players on BBO (yes I dont consider myself sane

It will help immensely if those problems will be solved.

[Gerardo]

On 3 (taking out tops and bottoms part):

BBO uses Cross IMPs. It does NOT use Butler, so there is no average involved.

Tthe process is exactly the same as MPs (your result is compared to every other result one-on-one, and assigned a result), but instead of 1/0.5/0, the assigned result is based on the IMP table. Then, all results are added (if you recall the Cavendish scores, they are calculated this way). BBO, after all this, divides that number by the number of comparisons, so the final result looks like something that could come from a Butler process, but it is not.

<opinion>
Butler is a crutch from pen and paper times to need less math operations to arrive to a firly good result.
Cross IMPs are fairer than Butler.
With computers doing the math, the crutch is no longer needed.
</opinion>

[NOosAnCE]

Gerardo, on Feb 5 2010, 02:31 PM, said:

On 3 (taking out tops and bottoms part):

BBO uses Cross IMPs. It does NOT use Butler, so there is no average involved.

Tthe process is exactly the same as MPs (your result is compared to every other result one-on-one, and assigned a result), but instead of 1/0.5/0, the assigned result is based on the IMP table. Then, all results are added (if you recall the Cavendish scores, they are calculated this way). BBO, after all this, divides that number by the number of comparisons, so the final result looks like something that could come from a Butler process, but it is not.

<opinion>
Butler is a crutch from pen and paper times to need less math operations to arrive to a firly good result.
Cross IMPs are fairer than Butler.
With computers doing the math, the crutch is no longer needed.
</opinion>

whatever the base is, butler or XIMPS, 16 scores is not enough, the base is not what this post is about it is about the big plusses and minusses you score on 1 board because so few pairs played it and because 1 huge score from others influences your score too much

[NOosAnCE]

Gerardo, on Feb 5 2010, 02:31 PM, said:

On 3 (taking out tops and bottoms part):

BBO uses Cross IMPs. It does NOT use Butler, so there is no average involved.

Tthe process is exactly the same as MPs (your result is compared to every other result one-on-one, and assigned a result), but instead of 1/0.5/0, the assigned result is based on the IMP table. Then, all results are added (if you recall the Cavendish scores, they are calculated this way). BBO, after all this, divides that number by the number of comparisons, so the final result looks like something that could come from a Butler process, but it is not.

<opinion>
Butler is a crutch from pen and paper times to need less math operations to arrive to a firly good result.
Cross IMPs are fairer than Butler.
With computers doing the math, the crutch is no longer needed.
</opinion>

if 16 pairs play of which 14 play 4S, 1 goes down 1, 13 makes and 1 pair plays 7NT XX down 5 and another 2S+2, I do NOT score zero when I make 4S, on every board you play on BBO you either get an undeserved big plus or an undeserved big minus if you score average, because some idiot claims down 13 or plus 7

[Gerardo]

NOosAnCE, on Feb 5 2010, 09:42 PM, said:

Gerardo, on Feb 5 2010, 02:31 PM, said:

On 3 (taking out tops and bottoms part):

BBO uses Cross IMPs. It does NOT use Butler, so there is no average involved.

Tthe process is exactly the same as MPs (your result is compared to every other result one-on-one, and assigned a result), but instead of 1/0.5/0, the assigned result is based on the IMP table. Then, all results are added (if you recall the Cavendish scores, they are calculated this way). BBO, after all this, divides that number by the number of comparisons, so the final result looks like something that could come from a Butler process, but it is not.

<opinion>
Butler is a crutch from pen and paper times to need less math operations to arrive to a firly good result.
Cross IMPs are fairer than Butler.
With computers doing the math, the crutch is no longer needed.
</opinion>

if 16 pairs play of which 14 play 4S, 1 goes down 1, 13 makes and 1 pair plays 7NT XX down 5 and another 2S+2, I do NOT score zero when I make 4S, on every board you play on BBO you either get an undeserved big plus or an undeserved big minus if you score average, because some idiot claims down 13 or plus 7

Nor you should, being the extreme result 7NTxx down 5 or 5H x down 3.

[barmar]

NOosAnCE, on Feb 5 2010, 07:38 PM, said:

whatever the base is, butler or XIMPS, 16 scores is not enough, the base is not what this post is about it is about the big plusses and minusses you score on 1 board because so few pairs played it and because 1 huge score from others influences your score too much

In most real-life bridge games, there are at most about 13 comparisons. The exceptions are large tournaments with scoring across multiple sections.

Since everyone else's score is affected similarly, there isn't really much need to remove the extremes. It changes your absolute scores, but the relative scores aren't impacted very much.

And if you throw out the extremes, what happens to the pairs who score those extremes? If I'm the only one to make game while everyone else goes down, shouldn't I get that big score? And shouldn't everyone else get a minus score for not making it?

[hotShot]

barmar, on Feb 8 2010, 01:02 AM, said:

In most real-life bridge games, there are at most about 13 comparisons.  The exceptions are large tournaments with scoring across multiple sections.

In real life, you have established partnerships and I doubt that a player who wants to visit the club again, would intentionally go down 7 or punish his partner by bidding 7NT on nothing. With random partnerships without agreements the variance of the result is big. With players of very different strength the variance will be even higher.
With a higher variance more results should help to seperate the signal from the noise.

barmar, on Feb 8 2010, 01:02 AM, said:

Since everyone else's score is affected similarly, there isn't really much need to remove the extremes.  It changes your absolute scores, but the relative scores aren't impacted very much.

If a board has a "right" contract that almost everybody is in, a score of exactly 0 would be nice. The relative score is unaffected.

barmar, on Feb 8 2010, 01:02 AM, said:

And if you throw out the extremes, what happens to the pairs who score those extremes?  If I'm the only one to make game while everyone else goes down, shouldn't I get that big score?  And shouldn't everyone else get a minus score for not making it?

Indeed there is no obvious solution how to do it with XIMPs, while using Butler scoring this is simple.

[NOosAnCE]

Gerardo, on Feb 6 2010, 02:29 PM, said:

NOosAnCE, on Feb 5 2010, 09:42 PM, said:

Gerardo, on Feb 5 2010, 02:31 PM, said:

On 3 (taking out tops and bottoms part):

BBO uses Cross IMPs. It does NOT use Butler, so there is no average involved.

Tthe process is exactly the same as MPs (your result is compared to every other result one-on-one, and assigned a result), but instead of 1/0.5/0, the assigned result is based on the IMP table. Then, all results are added (if you recall the Cavendish scores, they are calculated this way). BBO, after all this, divides that number by the number of comparisons, so the final result looks like something that could come from a Butler process, but it is not.

<opinion>
Butler is a crutch from pen and paper times to need less math operations to arrive to a firly good result.
Cross IMPs are fairer than Butler.
With computers doing the math, the crutch is no longer needed.
</opinion>

if 16 pairs play of which 14 play 4S, 1 goes down 1, 13 makes and 1 pair plays 7NT XX down 5 and another 2S+2, I do NOT score zero when I make 4S, on every board you play on BBO you either get an undeserved big plus or an undeserved big minus if you score average, because some idiot claims down 13 or plus 7

Nor you should, being the extreme result 7NTxx down 5 or 5H x down 3.

?

Nor you should what? This result should be taken out for the calculation for everyone except the pair that played 7NT XX down any number, your replies are not related to the subject or you read wrong.

[barmar]

hotShot, on Feb 8 2010, 03:19 AM, said:

barmar, on Feb 8 2010, 01:02 AM, said:

In most real-life bridge games, there are at most about 13 comparisons.  The exceptions are large tournaments with scoring across multiple sections.

In real life, you have established partnerships and I doubt that a player who wants to visit the club again, would intentionally go down 7 or punish his partner by bidding 7NT on nothing. With random partnerships without agreements the variance of the result is big. With players of very different strength the variance will be even higher.

So you want to change the scoring method just because there are some jerks logging in and doing random things?

I suggest you play Matchpoints, then it's just one MP rather than lots of cross-imps.