[benlessard]

For time to time i log with the browser to see if its better, ive noticed the bridgemaster is now on the browser version Cool. But I still prefer the old version by a mile.

So for me there was no significant imporvement in the last 10 years.

1-setting up TM is still a pita and its quite rare that it goes smoothly for others.

2- No "only partnership" room so if your with your partner and want to find decent opps without asking specific players forget about it.

3- There is no bonding feature ("A" bond with player "B" so whatever player A do his partner will follow etc.

4- Stopping players for bashing into empty seat or reserving seat is a hassle.

5- Not a great deal of options for generating hand for bidding practice

6- not sure ive notice an improvement for the bidding bots.

7- chat is atrocious

8- convention card or full disclosure didnt change.

Its simply better if I stop now becuse the list could go on for quite a while.


My proposed solutions is just work on the basic

1- setting different type of room for different type of players.

Some just want to play for 15 min and have no partner, some want to play "serious" bridge for at least 1 hour, some players dont speak a word of english and would probably like to have an internationnal room etc..

2- allow more options for the background, if you find a background ugly you dont want to stand 3-4 hours in front of it.

3- Following your partner or your team should be really easy not a PITA. The amount of work to setup a TM is simply a joke

4- a more user friendly chat system

[hrothgar]

benlessard, on 2013-November-24, 15:33, said:

5- Not a great deal of options for generating hand for bidding practice

Say what?

BBO integrated Hans van Stavern's "Dealer" into the bidding rooms.
There is a full scripting language available for generating hands.

What more do you want?

[helene_t]

sorry for not providing more constructive feedback but tbh your two first suggestions are silly while the two latter are too vague to be helpful.

[benlessard]

Dealer is nice but what i think is minimal of a deal generator is like

1M opening followed by an overcall without any need of entering all the possible distribution and HCP.

If I enter settings for a bidding practice I would like to save them (like a lebenshol practice) not saving the hands.

As for

Quote

your two first suggestions are silly

You obviously didnt spend a lot of time in games servers on the internet. Just look how its done elsewhere.

IMO for bridge a nice setup will have at least between 20-30 rooms and not do the room under private rooms nobody see them.

At least 8-10 rooms of different languages +

1-quick play.
2-Goulash
3-No overtricks Imps
4- SAYC room
5- Precision room
6- The bridge World room
7- UDCA room
8- kitchen bridge etc...
9- Indy room
10-Star only room
11- analysis room (where an expert players is willing to take 2-3 minutes to comment after each deal theyve just played)
12- 2 human vs bots rooms
13- mini bridge room
14 - room of the latest tournament hands (instead of being random hands you are going to play hands that were played in the last WC for example)
I know you can load them but its simpler if they are already loaded and played by everybody in the room no ?


You can have sponsors that pay and have their own rooms so they configure their own settings.

Lets just say that im somebody who played many years ago but plan to make a comeback, but only play precision or only speak italian ? or that i would like to play kitchen bridge at a slower pace ?

As for the TM its should be easy I click bond with X my partner he accept, my partner make an offer to Y+Z they accept yeah we have a team ! Our team ask for TM of 10 boards yep there is a team waiting in 3-4 cliks like 10 seconds the TM can start not 5-10 minutes.

Its easy you just need to see like its done elsewhere, like any poker site or any games that have thousand of people.

[1eyedjack]

Hard to be specific, but as a long time hard-assed Windows client advocate for some years I have to admit to being converted to the Flash version.

Now, if only the mobile version could be kicked into second gear ...

[barmar]

benlessard, on 2013-November-25, 01:00, said:

If I enter settings for a bidding practice I would like to save them (like a lebenshol practice) not saving the hands.

If you go to the Advanced tab, the settings are displayed in Dealer specification language. You can copy this to save them, and later paste them back in.

[hrothgar]

benlessard, on 2013-November-25, 01:00, said:

Dealer is nice but what i think is minimal of a deal generator is like

1M opening followed by an overcall without any need of entering all the possible distribution and HCP.

Oh, I understand...

You want other people to do your work for you.
Let me get right to it!

In all seriousness, there is a reason that all the "real" dealing programs are based on scripting languages rather than some kind of uber GUI that does whatever you want at this particular moment.

As long as you're organized and save your work, you'll soon find that you have a library of scripts that you can tweak for whatever purpose you want.

I have some fairly extensive ones for MOSCITO openings that I posted ages ago.

[barmar]

This is something we could conceivably do with GIB. It already has functions to deal out hands consistent with a particular auction, since that's used as part of its declarer and defensive play simulations. So we could add a way to give it an auction, and it would spit out a few dozen hands from its simulations.

However, you'd only be able to do it for bidding according to GIB's system. If you're trying to practice your own system (like Richard practicing MOSCITO), this feature wouldn't be very helpful. In some cases you might be able to fake it out, though. For instance, my partner and I wanted to practice Mexican 2♦ auctions. Although GIB doesn't play this, the hands that open 2♦ are essentially the same as ones that open 1 minor and rebid 2NT, so you could put that auction into the dealer.

[benlessard]

Quote

You want other people to do your work for you.
Let me get right to it!

In all seriousness, there is a reason that all the "real" dealing programs are based on scripting languages rather than some kind of uber GUI that does whatever you want at this particular moment.

99% of users want nothing to do with script or to compile anything. Automatic software installer and no brainer interface should be today norm except for the high end users. Programmers should always say "can my mother who have problems using TiVo use it ?"

I don't understand why so many few software/hardware designer understand this.

IMO the best example of dumbest design is Microsoft Word & Open Office

Customize,Settings,Preferences,Options,Parameter,Tools,Insert. Operations simple as pagination in O-Office can often turn out to be a real nightmare.

[Bbradley62]

fred, on 2010-April-28, 10:04, 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...

benlessard, on 2013-November-25, 01:00, said:

... IMO for bridge a nice setup will have at least between 20-30 rooms and not do the room under private rooms nobody see them.

At least 8-10 rooms of different languages +

1-quick play.
2-Goulash
3-No overtricks Imps
4- SAYC room
5- Precision room
6- The bridge World room
7- UDCA room
8- kitchen bridge etc...
9- Indy room
10-Star only room
11- analysis room (where an expert players is willing to take 2-3 minutes to comment after each deal theyve just played)
12- 2 human vs bots rooms
13- mini bridge room
14 - room of the latest tournament hands (instead of being random hands you are going to play hands that were played in the last WC for example)
I know you can load them but its simpler if they are already loaded and played by everybody in the room no ?

I may have oddly juxtaposed these quotes, and I realize that Fred's was from 3.5 years ago, and that BBO has done things like adding timers and robots, but it seems to me that Ben presents a very simple way to vastly improve the MBC. We can certainly quibble about the relative merits of the various rooms he suggests, but it should be quick and easy to establish 10 or 12 of them and see how it works.

[benlessard]

The rooms are already there just put a link to them from the front page. Of course you dont add all the rooms at the same time you add 2-3 each time.

For the room with programmation. You can find some sponsor ill happyly pay 100 or 200$ to sponsor a no overtricks simplified scoring IMPs rooms where all partscore are worth 120 pts all games 420 or 620. Slams are 950,1400,1470,2180 Going down 1 or 2 NOT vul is -100 or something similar.

It would be just great for someone who want to practice IMps to lose no time on overtricks or on the 2nd NV undertricks.