[jjbrr]

I vote not wrong, Helene.

[babalu1997]

When you hit the find a game button, follow the yellow brick road cause you are looking for love in the wrong place.

It is a misnomer.

You have to do a lot of marking, mark, mark, make notes and create a pool of people to invite.

you will be surprised, people keep your name marked for years on end.

True about the main bridge club. I play with one guy only once a month. Last month we opened a table and for 25 hands i did not buy one contract, the opp psyched all the time. At hand 25, i told my partner that in a tournament, the loonie only plays for one round and is soon gone, but i was not prepared to waste my time. i was actually trying to place cards and defend with normal bidding and play so we closed the table because my partner is too polite to kick the guys butt.

This week we get a similar troll. At the third hand we discover he opened 2 clubs with nothing, his partner was unaware. the trolls have their script-- i misclicked-- no english, etc.. This time i told the guy, leave. he grumbled and left, but i did not enjoy the game as much.

You have to keep your mouse finger sharp.

[Winstonm]

Try the Vanderbilt - according to Hamman in At the Table, "We play hardball there."

[shintaro]

As Helen_t suggests the ONLY sure fire way is to cultivate 'Friends' who you find CAN play Bridge (serious) and play with them all the time:

[nige1]

Double posting. Sorry

[nige1]

auspex, on Apr 21 2010, 03:30 PM, said:

I get taken to tables filled with people who:
- don't have a clue what duplicate is
- don't have any manners
- treat the play as something you do in commercial breaks
- ask their partners to explain their bids
- leave in the middle of hands

gwnn, on Apr 21 2010, 04:39 PM, said:

Are you really going to listen to these people with little cat photos?

Elton John, on Never gonna fall in love again, said:

`Cause everywhere there's lots of foxes
And every cat I meet's a tom
I wish she didn't make me rabid
I wish she wouldn't turn me on

babalu1997, on Apr 22 2010, 09:49 PM, said:

When you hit the find a game button, follow the yellow brick road cause you are looking for love in the wrong place.
It is a misnomer.
You have to do a lot of marking, mark, mark, make notes and create a pool of people to invite.
you will be surprised, people keep your name marked for years on end.
You have to keep your mouse finger sharp.

To keep the cats away.

Winstonm, on Apr 22 2010, 10:42 PM, said:

Try the Vanderbilt - according to Hamman in At the Table, "We play hardball there."

helene_t, on Apr 22 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

Personally I would never reject someone on the basis of skill level, although given a choice between several who ask for a seat I would try to avoid "experts".

Most are "experts" at Hardball rather than Bridge.

awm, on Apr 22 2010, 04:45 PM, said:

The answer to this question is "not the Main Bridge Club." If you're sitting down to a table where no one knows anyone else and it's just four random people who feel like playing a hand or two of bridge, why would you expect anything "serious" to happen?
Slightly better is the online tournaments (especially the pay ones); although the quality of play is not necessarily too high, you get fewer people randomly disconnecting and such in the middle of hands.
Best is to play with/against friends, or play in face to face tournaments.
If you're looking for a "quick bridge fix" online between other activities, I recommend playing the robot tourneys (which start at very regular intervals). The robots are polite and do their best to play bridge (obviously they make mistakes too).

All good advice, IMO

[auspex]

uday, on Apr 22 2010, 12:56 PM, said:

By serious bridge we mean only non-frivolous ( ie, regardless of skill level) , right ?

Indeed, I don't care about skill level. I played (as the "expert") in the Canada-wide Rookie-Master game last night. It's a complete crapshoot. Even when you get a capable rookie (and I did), the winning scores are rarely close to those suggested in the hand analysis. But we had a fine time, because everybody was trying to play their best.

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club? Why does it exist?

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer. Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them. I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though). Add a "report a psych" button. A psych is a gross deviation from agreement. Even a computer can tell the difference between a natural bid and a psych. It doesn't even need to understand conventions - if the bid was alerted, assume it was explained correctly; if it wasn't alerted, and wasn't a cue of opponents' suit, does it have suitable length and strength? Make a player play a round with a bridge robot to demonstrate basic bidding and playing skills before being eligible to play in the Main club (I wouldn't even set the bar very high - 40% against the robot, and you can take the test as often as you want).

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert. I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested. Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled... You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play.

[jjbrr]

Quote

Indeed, I don't care about skill level.  I played (as the "expert") in the Canada-wide Rookie-Master game last night.  It's a complete crapshoot.  Even when you get a capable rookie (and I did), the winning scores are rarely close to those suggested in the hand analysis.  But we had a fine time, because everybody was trying to play their best.

Not everyone is interested in trying to play their best all the time, and I would contend very few are actually giving it their all. There can be lots of other distractions, and what would be the point of trying one's best all the time anyway? The scores are meaningless. I especially don't care much about trying my best agaisnt random opponents. Play in set games against people you know, and then you can expect people to play at some level of seriousness.

Quote

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club?  Why does it exist?

The laws are not the same everywhere.

Quote

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.  I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though). Add a "report a psych" button.   A psych is a gross deviation from agreement.  Even a computer can tell the difference between a natural bid and a psych.  It doesn't even need to understand conventions - if the bid was alerted, assume it was explained correctly; if it wasn't alerted, and wasn't a cue of opponents' suit, does it have suitable length and strength?  Make a player play a round with a bridge robot to demonstrate basic bidding and playing skills before being eligible to play in the Main club (I wouldn't even set the bar very high - 40% against the robot, and you can take the test as often as you want).

I admit I don't really agree with any of this. Every issue here has been discussed somewhere on these forums. Psychs are legal. If you don't like them, don't use them, but you have to accept that some people, whether for tactical reasons or just because they're terrible at bridge, will psych, and given that it sounds like you play with randoms a lot, there's no reason to expect that psycher's partner will have any more information about it than you do.

Quote

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert.  I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested.  Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled...  You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play

Read the sticky.

[pooltuna]

auspex, on Apr 28 2010, 08:52 AM, said:

uday, on Apr 22 2010, 12:56 PM, said:

By serious bridge we mean only non-frivolous ( ie, regardless of skill level) , right ?

snip

If some level of of compliance to the Laws of bridge is not enforced, or at least strongly encouraged, at the Main Bridge club, what is the difference between that and the "relaxed" club? Why does it exist?

snip

As for why the skill level on my profile says "private" - that's because I'm a better player than almost every "expert" I've ever played against here (and several of the self-described "world-class"), and I know I'm far from expert. I refuse to lie, and if that's your criterion for accepting me at your table I'm pretty sure I'm not interested. Now, if BBO devised some reasonable way of objectively rating players (which given the database of hands played shouldn't be too hard - base it on their scores relative to everybody they've played, weighting recent scores more highly than older scores - the hardest part would be giving relative values to IMPs vs MPs), I'd be pretty thrilled... You might allow some initial rating based on rankings from ACBL or other leagues - nobody believes ACBL rankings are very relevant, but they'd quickly get adjusted by actual play.

In the main bridge club they really are trying to do their best, they also think they are experts (even when they aren't and why I find those who request "real experts" hilarious). If they leave unexpectedly it is because they think you are a bad player (even if they don't understand why you took a Q finesse with a 9-card fit). If you want a ratings system I suggest you use the Dutch site StepBridge (not free) rather than OKBridge(also not free) because OKBridge's rating system IMO sucks. Not sure about Swan Bridge's rating system as I have little experience with it.

[fred]

auspex, on Apr 28 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?

Quote

I'd also like to see new players not seated until the end of a hand - let a robot play to completion, giving players who were disconnected through no fault of their own a chance to reconnect (I can think of drawbacks to that, though).

Is one of the drawbacks that there is no way we can possibly know if a disconnect was intentional or not?

Is another drawback that there is a cost associated with using robots that someone is going to have to pay?

(These are rhetorical questions - no need to try to answer them).

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo. We have spent a great deal of time thinking about these issues and we believe we have some good ideas about how to address them. However, the ideas we have are going to be complex to implement and they will almost certainly come with some adverse side effects of their own. Meanwhile, there are other areas of our site that require the attention of our programmers and, since it is necessary to pay the bills, we are naturally biased toward working in areas that generate revenue.

So yes, we do care, but any solutions that exist are a lot more complicated than you seem to think. I am confident that eventually we will be able to improve things, but I am not in a position to predict when you might see this happen.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

Online bridge is at least 20 years old, and there are a number of different sites. If there were an easy solution to this, don't you think one of them would have found it?

[phil_20686]

fred, on Apr 28 2010, 11:04 AM, said:

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo. We have spent a great deal of time thinking about these issues and we believe we have some good ideas about how to address them. However, the ideas we have are going to be complex to implement and they will almost certainly come with some adverse side effects of their own. Meanwhile, there are other areas of our site that require the attention of our programmers and, since it is necessary to pay the bills, we are naturally biased toward working in areas that generate revenue.

So yes, we do care, but any solutions that exist are a lot more complicated than you seem to think. I am confident that eventually we will be able to improve things, but I am not in a position to predict when you might see this happen.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Dear Fred,
Last I heard the EBU was planning to implement a new ranking system, that takes account of your last thousand hands and your relative scores and produces a ranking. While a lot of players are somewhat stratified and play only in their local club, you need a surprisingly small fraction of clubs to play against each other to extract meaningful statistical information. At any rate, I will be interested to see how it works out.

I just thought you might want to know this if you didn't already. It seems germane.

Phil

[Free]

fred, on Apr 28 2010, 05:04 PM, said:

auspex, on Apr 28 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?
~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

[phil_20686]

Free, on Apr 30 2010, 09:54 AM, said:

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

I dont think thats a particular problem if you are talking about repeat offenders. When they get their old accounts blocked they will have to get a new one by submitting an email. I suspect that the major hassle would just be data security. Emails are confidential information and it probably costs money to secure them. On the other hand, most people have at least one email address that they use to sign up to stuff because its inevitable that you start getting spam.

[babalu1997]

fred, on Apr 28 2010, 11:04 AM, said:

The people who run BBO are not exactly happy that the Main Bridge Club is basically a giant zoo.
Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

BINGO

It is

BRIDGE IN THE MENAGERIE!!!

[hotShot]

Free, on Apr 30 2010, 03:54 PM, said:

fred, on Apr 28 2010, 05:04 PM, said:

auspex, on Apr 28 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?
~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

The IP-address is not good enough, as it is possible that a provider accesses the Internet via some sort of proxy and all their customers seem to have the same IP.

Every Network card has a unique ID, that could help to identify a computer, but the use of some sort of proxy would give you the ID of the proxy and anyone who is capable to use Google can find instructions to transmit a false ID.

Of cause BBO could leave a "Marker" on every computer that connects to BBO, but nobody can guarantee that they can't be manipulated.

But even if you could identify a PC without any doubt, it could still be a PC from an place where a PC is available to the public (a library, some sort of restaurant).
How can you know that the person that logs into BBO, from this computer is the same, that logged into BBO from this PC before.

You can be sure that Uday and Fred are able to identify a specific PC with reasonable accurance, but they can't be sure that the same person is using it.

[cloa513]

That`s why my idea was a good one. Rather than eliminate dodgy players just allow those players who wish to be identified as good to be assessed.
It only needs a little extra communication method to reach idle top BBO players and some way to add a non-user enterred entry on your profile.






http://forums.bridge...showtopic=38912

[Free]

hotShot, on Apr 30 2010, 08:17 PM, said:

Free, on Apr 30 2010, 03:54 PM, said:

fred, on Apr 28 2010, 05:04 PM, said:

auspex, on Apr 28 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

I completely disagree that this sort of thing is not possible with a computer.  Simply make players sit for whole hands - if they leave without cause, the computer won't seat them again for some hours - you don't even have to ban them, just don't automatically seat them.

And if they log off and log in with a different ID, how do you suggest we recognize that it is really the same person?
~snip~

It's a little late now, but how about linking an email address to every account (and only 1 account per email address)? Most people have multiple email addresses so they could have more than 1 account. However, if all of them are blocked they'll need to create a new email account somewhere, create a new BBO account,... until they're blocked again. Also, if several accounts from 1 IP address are blocked, I think it's pretty safe to assume you can just block the IP address instead of the user.

(might be too simplistic since it's my first thought)

The biggest problem is, as I said, all accounts that have already been created need to be linked as well...

The IP-address is not good enough, as it is possible that a provider accesses the Internet via some sort of proxy and all their customers seem to have the same IP.

Every Network card has a unique ID, that could help to identify a computer, but the use of some sort of proxy would give you the ID of the proxy and anyone who is capable to use Google can find instructions to transmit a false ID.

Of cause BBO could leave a "Marker" on every computer that connects to BBO, but nobody can guarantee that they can't be manipulated.

But even if you could identify a PC without any doubt, it could still be a PC from an place where a PC is available to the public (a library, some sort of restaurant).
How can you know that the person that logs into BBO, from this computer is the same, that logged into BBO from this PC before.

You can be sure that Uday and Fred are able to identify a specific PC with reasonable accurance, but they can't be sure that the same person is using it.

- I know IP addresses are not the solution, you need MAC addresses.
- Transmitting a false MAC address isn't something most people can, even after searching google about this.
- You're right about the local "markers", they can be tampered with
- Lets say it's safe to assume BBO can identify a computer somehow, using IP, MAC, marker, whatever. It's indeed impossible to know who is logging into BBO. But if you have several accounts on that computer which are all locked, imo it's plausible enough that the next time someone tries to logon it will be the same person. Personally I woudn't give them the benifit of the doubt, and block the computer if there are at least 3 times as many blocked users than unblocked users (not 1-0 or 2-0). And if an unblocked user tries to connect, I'd give the error message which users have been blocked on that computer! Let them have a nice fight over this.

Still, if BBO for example uses MAC addresses to identify PC's, you can just buy a new network card and start all over. Nothing is fool proof, but you'll make it harder for them to keep ruining the game for everyone. Don't know if this investment is worth it though...

[helene_t]

Are MAC addresses submitted via tcp/ip? I thought bbo could only see IP addresses.

Anyway, using ubuntu you can easily fake a MAC address. Not sure about other platforms.

[eyhung]

Instead of technical solutions like tracking IPs for punishment, why not technology to facilitate social solutions? For each account, keep track of "reputation" by tracking the last 50 hands played by the user in terms of finished properly (left during the bidding) and not finished properly (left during the cardplay). And then allow servers in the Main Club to specify a minimum properly finished percentage before an opponent is allowed to take a seat. (The Relaxed Club should have no restriction.) Malicious users have no reason to create multiple accounts since only the last 50 hands are used, and they can go play in the Relaxed Club while they are building reputation if they want to leave in the middle of a hand. And if there are people in the Main Club who don't care about habitual leavers, they can play there too. But for those of us who want a serious game, we can specify 98% properly finished in the last 50 (or whatever percentage we want) and have the software allow or bar people appropriately.