[inquiry]

rona_, on Mar 1 2005, 03:46 PM, said:

Quote

despite the fact that these two pairs came in DEAD LAST in the events they were suppose to be cheating in.

You will find that people who feel the need to cheat aren't very bright, so fortunately for everyone else, some cannot take advantage of their cheating. Coming first or last should not even be a subject of discussion, nor the concern of abuse, in my view.

Some hopelessly inept people cheat, some OUTSTANDING quality players cheat. It is clear that a person could cheat and still come in last, but that would be rare. We did look at all the hands played by the last place pairs in both of these events. In each case a hand was submitted that was outrageous.. how could someone bid or play that way even we had to ask... that is until we saw how they bid and played the other hands in the event. Sometime a novice will do something so stupid it is impossible to imagine such a dumb play (or bid)... and yet on a given hand, it turns gold. This is what happened in both these cases. Eight boards, eight dumb things, one of which worked, 7 which didn't. Dead last. If you only saw the one that worked, you could rightfully guess cheating....but the other hands prove no cheating.

ben

[TimG]

inquiry, on Mar 1 2005, 03:46 PM, said:

But even a report that pair x and y are cheating, is enough to have at least a cursory look but unless it is so flaggarnt and repeated, such a single report will probably not get them caught. Six such reports, on the other hand might get them found out.

I understand. But, if individuals are discouraged from reporting incidents unless they have 3 or 4 examples, then lots of incidients will go unreported, incidents that could, when added together, make a strong case.

Tim

[Rain]

Sorry for off-topic.

I think the key is not to discourage reporting of cheating; rather, asking for 10 boards will help

1) Discourage frivolous reporting of cheating

2) Reporter do some "homework" so they can have a general idea if the people they are accusing are actually cheating.

3) 10 sounds like a huge number. I am content with less, BUT the boards selected and sent in normally do not all look unusual. So if the "success" rate is only 50%, 10 becomes 5, 6 becomes only 3, etc, which, depending on the number of boards played and event entered, may not be an anomaly.

Rain

[HeartA]

I have never known there is such a link to rate players on BBO. I am "advanced", not too bad.

[TimG]

Rain, on Mar 1 2005, 04:29 PM, said:

Sorry for off-topic.

I think the key is not to discourage reporting of cheating; rather, asking for 10 boards will help

1) Discourage frivolous reporting of cheating

2) Reporter do some "homework" so they can have a general idea if the people they are accusing are actually cheating.

I want to the reporting process to be as simple as possible. We don't want lots of people investigating on their own, that will only generate bad feelings. This is not a job for vigilantes. Sure, some would be capable of investigating discreetly, but the vast majority of investigators would offend someone, especially considering these investigators would likely be biased (since they thought enough of the original incident to report it in the first place). Those accused are much less likely to be offended if the people investigating the allegations are considered neutral.

I'm quite happy with "frivolous" complaints so long as the accused never sees them. The body (or person) assigned to the complaint would speak to the accuser (if appropriate) and the accused (if appropriate) and save the complaint (if appropriate). The problem arises when a "frivolous" complaint is the potential for confrontation between the accuser and the accused.

Tim

[bearmum]

TimG, on Mar 2 2005, 08:44 AM, said:

inquiry, on Mar 1 2005, 02:26 PM, said:

You want to help catch cheaters? When you suspect someone is cheating, send an email to abuse and include links to the hand swhere you feel strongly that cheating occurred. We find that allegations of cheating accompained by 3 or 4 hands are much more often correct than an email naming  someone or email iwht only one hand offerened in proof that cheating was occruing.

It shouldn't be the job of those reporting to gather multiple hand records. I might feel an action is suspicious, but not end up playing against this pair (or individual) again for weeks (or ever). There should be a central depository of reports and when a certain name keeps popping up a closer examination of events should take place.

ITA Why should it be up to a single person to collect more than ONE suspect board??

IF and I DO mean IF all reports to abuse@ u know where have ANY relevance - SURELY it it to collate "suspect cheating " boards ---[and I also realise that a LOT of the "cheating" allegations will be totally frivilous] but UNFORTUNATELY that's the only way a "casual" player (like me who rarely plays tourneys with the same player more than maybe twice and in Main room maybe play with a "friend" more than that ) can hopefully stamp out unethical behaviour ( and that is MORE than cheating)

[Elianna]

I support the idea of a friendliness (non-obnoxiousness) rating system. I would like to add the suggestion that people can opt into it. This way people who are interested in playing with friendly people (and know how to be polite in leaving a table that is inappropriate for their level) can find like-minded people, and those who don't care don't have to be bothered with this.

Another idea is to have, as on AIM (and I believe these forums, but haven't tried it out) a "warning" button, that one can press when a player has done something rude (left in the middle of a hand, made obnoxious comments, etc.) You could have something that when one "warns" someone, they must make a comment (so it's not frivolously pressing a button) and then after the player has been warned a certain number of times (5 maybe?) by different people, an automated email or message or something could be sent to them, telling them that their warning level has risen, and showing them the messages (annonymously). This way maybe they'll come to the realization that the names on their program are actually people. And maybe I'm too idealistic.

[aray]

Do not know if anyone will ever read the post now after such a long time but can not resit my desire to comment on after reading all the threads. Hope I will not be hammerred by the same guy, who has so badly tried to attack another person just because he does not like his opinion!!

1. There is absolutely nothing to complain about BBO. This is the most wonderful thing one can get free of cost and this has undoubtedly revolutionalised online bridge (with or without rating)

2. It is understood that rating system would cause various problems but somone should accept that there are controls to check issues like cheating. I believe it is impractical to ask for those controls to be in place in a free site because that demands for additonal effort and associated cost.

3. But a player with good rating not being willing to play with a player of inferior rating should be a non issue to be discussed. Will Fred play with me in a NABC tourney? when the answer is no and it is perfectly ok, it should be the same in online as well. There are social players and serious players and online bridge should serve both the communities. Forum comments is not a true reflection of BBO community, purely because of the low % that use forum.

4. We should also try to accept the fact that the rating system in paid tourneys are no way flawless and it is probably a commercial compulsion inevitable to do such an wonderful job like BBO.

5. We as bridge players should know and believe by heart that a very few % of bridge players are cheaters anyway. I must repeat that there are very few. There are majority of players like me who use BBO ti imporve their game and would be happy to have a scientifc comparison with rest of the players and it hardly matters if the dataum is not that perfect because of 5% people who cheated.

6. Online bridge though popular is far far away to replace real life tournments. Everyone knows that you may have a .9/1 rating in a bridge site but if you are a dog in real life, you remain there. So, do not think there would be any undue importance to rating. Offcourse there are some players like one of my friend who said to me that some national champion in India is not a good bridge player because his abalucy rating is below .5 (with due respect to abalucy rating system and the standard of play), but there are many more like me and my friends who laughed at him.


Again I must restate, none of these are written to demand a rating system at BBO, because BBO has given us so many things without asking that I can not really demand anything.

But it is just posted to make us think of the other side of the coin and understand that rating system is not so bad afterall. Rating system would probably not spoil the fun in BBO more than it does sometimes when you choose an expert partner who can not count!!

[csdenmark]

I don't understand who needs the present rating system - I have nothing to use it for. For partners I find out their level very quickly and for non-partners a persons skill level is irrelevant to me.

I like to see a new skill level: RUDE

This skill level aut. to be inserted into any persons ID who are leaving table in the middle of a game and to stay there for 4 weeks. The person himself will be unable to hide or change that info even with settings for 'No information available'

[Free]

csdenmark, on May 21 2005, 09:51 AM, said:

I don't understand who needs the present rating system - I have nothing to use it for. For partners I find out their level very quickly and for non-partners a persons skill level is irrelevant to me.

I like to see a new skill level: RUDE

This skill level aut. to be inserted into any persons ID who are leaving table in the middle of a game and to stay there for 4 weeks. The person himself will be unable to hide or change that info even with settings for 'No information available'

Great idea! But maybe 4 weeks is long... Maybe start with a week, and everytime they do it again add a day. This way they might become a better person.

[csdenmark]

Doesn't really matter Free. What is of importance is to attract attention and priority to the 2 most hot topics in bridge in general and here on BBO especially:

- Rude behavior
- Alerts - convention cards

Those topics have been adressing in many threads under very different names. The topics are interrelated in a way that I am unable to see which is causing what or the other way around.

But basically Free about 1 week. We are talking about ordinary decent behavior of grown up people. We certainly warn children winning them for better manners. For grown up persons we don't warn. They know themselves.

As soon these topics have been dealt with I am quite sure you will see a lot of askings for software modifications to enable decent persons to be able to handle their scheduled appointments in a responsible way.

I am very much hoping for such a nice day.

[adf]

I like rating systems, but see that I am in the minority and would propose an alternative, which would also address some of the other issues on this topic.
Add a new right-click option:
View recent results
This would show you the last ten tournament results for the player, including who their partner was and whether they played the full event. This information is already available online (not sure if it all is, but mostly), but this would make it easily accessible when you were deciding whether to play with someone.

One reason for possible mis-self-rating is that (AFAIK) there is no guideline to determine how to describe yourself. If you can set up a squeeze, does that make you an expert? If you can pull off a squeeze when it falls in your lap, are you advanced? Do you need to win a national championship to be World Class?

Finally, with regard to the RUDE label, here's a suggestion (not original with me): you can label someone as "rude" but that also adds one to your own "rude" score. Not a problem if you are really nice, that will be your only black mark. But it will keep people honest there. And maybe you lose one mark for every 100 boards you play.

[csdenmark]

adf, on May 22 2005, 02:42 PM, said:

Finally, with regard to the RUDE label, here's a suggestion (not original with me): you can label someone as "rude" but that also adds one to your own "rude" score.  Not a problem if you are really nice, that will be your only black mark.  But it will keep people honest there.  And maybe you lose one mark for every 100 boards you play.

It is not the point that I will be able to catch a few of those persons. The point is they have to be public labelled. Then they will have no other options than to play with each other and decent people will be relieved.

Surely it will be a MUST to all tournament organizers to exclude such a skill level and I doubt any table-host will accept them for play. That will stop this kind of rude behavior very quickly.

[Elianna]

adf, on May 22 2005, 07:42 AM, said:

One reason for possible mis-self-rating is that (AFAIK) there is no guideline to determine how to describe yourself. If you can set up a squeeze, does that make you an expert? If you can pull off a squeeze when it falls in your lap, are you advanced? Do you need to win a national championship to be World Class?

See http://www.bridgebas...m/help/english/ (click on settings, and then profile)

[beatrix45]

the saint, on Feb 7 2005, 12:22 PM, said:

Bridge in general needs a better personal rating system. BBO certainly does not. If we accept (as we should) that people won't get their own ratings right all the time for whatever reason, but that as an approximate guide it works reasonably well, then there is no problem. I personally never cared too much about my rating during the brief time I was on OKB - my bridge battles lay elsewhere, but it destroyed so many games when people would disconnect at the merest whiff of a bad board. The way BBO is set up, there is always the (very) odd bad egg who will be selfish and ruin things for others, but the overwhelming proportion of people on here are cool, so lets not get stressed about it and just enjoy ourselves!!

Alan

Alan says it all for me. Automated ratings are horrid.

As far as cheating goes, as Alan says, my bridge battles lay elsewhere. BBO is just for practice. Fair to average players who cheat turn into good to excellent ones. So, between the actual good to excellent players and the ersatz 'good to excellent' players, the BBO field is just what one needs to stay sharp.

But, please keep an eye open for blatant cheating. As long as it is disguised, it passes for bridge, and I don't mind playing against it.

[aray]

adf, on May 22 2005, 07:42 AM, said:

I like rating systems, but see that I am in the minority

I am afraid you are not in the minority. However when you read forum comments, it definitely appears so. It is because majority of forum posters are persons who pass their maximum available free time only in bbo, it is a vritual club for them and so besides playing bridge bbo is also a forum for them to interact with others, make friends and share opinions etc. And for obvious reasons these social players will not want a gradation which would divide BBO.

However beyond the regular forum users, there is a vast majority of regular bbo users who are serious bridge players and would like to see rating system. (we can not ignore equivalent popularity of a competitive online bridge site among serious tournament players, whether it is aligned with bbo goal is altogether different). However these players hardly use forum or hardly bother to let thier voice heard.

I do not have stats to support the above, but may be a figure like how many gold stars (excluding yellow) use the forum would be good stat to prove my point.

Again the result of majority/minority would probably be strictly dependent on number of social/tournament bridge players in BBO and it may be that the former is a majority because of the free nature of BBO, however I am sure the later is also of significant volume.

[Elianna]

aray, on May 23 2005, 04:05 PM, said:

adf, on May 22 2005, 07:42 AM, said:

I like rating systems, but see that I am in the minority

It is because majority of forum posters are persons who pass their maximum available free time only in bbo, it is a vritual club for them and so besides playing bridge bbo is also a forum for them to interact with others, make friends and share opinions etc. And for obvious reasons these social players will not want a gradation which would divide BBO.

I think that I am more of a tournament player than a social player, in real life, that is. I think that you will actually find that most forum users are actually tournament players, unless you mean what kind of BBO players people are (as opposed to in real life). For example, on BBO I tend to play teammatches or at tables with friends, but not because I want to be social (that's a laugh to those who know me! ) but because I prefer to avoid ridiculous bridge when possible.

Anyway, as I said, I think that you will find most people who use the forums are "tournament players", if by this you mean serious players who go and compete in big tournaments.

I think that your asking about goldstars is irrelevant. There are a signifant number that are regular forum posters, but if you observe them playing in BBO, most tend to play at "social" (but permission only) tables (ie, not at tournaments), to practice against people similar to themselves.

Speaking solely for myself (and thus hoping to avoid generalizing other people's opinion based on my perceptions of them) I am against bridge-playing-based ratings imposed by the program mainly because I'd view them as unreliable. I know how good I am, I know how good my most frequent opponents are, and I don't usually need help figuring out the level of random opps.

Having ratings can create problems. For example, on FIBS (which, granted, is backgammon) people quit losing matches (and never return to finishing them) thus preventing their ratings from going down. Granted, I have no idea why someone would do this, but it is highly annoying for the OTHER person.

Maybe I just don't like change, but I dislike someone telling me where my opinion comes from.

[awm]

Before playing on bridgebase, I played on okbridge for several years. Among other differences, okbridge has a fairly reasonable system of computed ratings (the lehman system). Obviously, this is not a perfect rating system (rating individuals in a partnership game is a VERY difficult problem) but it's better than masterpoints and the like.

In my experience, the upshot of this rating system was mostly negative. Some observations:

(1) The ratings discouraged people from playing with random partners, for fear it would hurt their ratings.

(2) People demanded opponents within a very narrow range of ratings, even though it was obvious to any objective observer that the ratings were not useful to that degree of accuracy.

(3) Many excellent players had poor ratings, because they often played with students, or played against even better players with expert (but non-established) partnerships.

Obviously it can be somewhat annoying to play at a table in the open room, and have individuals who obviously have no idea what they're doing wander in and play as your partner or opponent. However, it's not a problem that can easily be solved.

One nice feature though, might be a way to look for a game as a pair seeking another pair -- at least this way you get opponents who are familiar with each other and their system, less likely to have a random misunderstanding or leave in disgust in the middle of a board.

[Al_U_Card]

Wow! Reading all of the posts in this thread has really opened my eyes and even changed my mind about rating systems.
My only rule for bridge is the same as in life, do unto pard (or opps) as you would have them do unto you.
The site is fantastic, the service great, the company enjoyable and the level of play suitable.
Fred G. , respond to market (if you dont charge, is it a market?...lol) forces, if the time and resources allow of course.
Make rooms for individual players to join in progress (like now), rooms for established pairs (whether external or made on-site, at the moment) and teams. Make rated rooms and even money rooms. Factor in rudeness, table presence, anything else you like but what a lot of work! OR....

When a person leaves a table, the other three players give the person a rating of from 0-10 for how much they enjoyed playing with or against them. One vote per person per table presence. Nothing like being judged by your peers and policing yourself. How about that?

[pigpenz]

people can always go and check someones hand records see what they last months averageis for imps and matchpoints.....the more hands they have played then the truer the ratings are mostlikely.

I have a friend who has been playing for about 30 years and though he nas never won a national acbl championships he has been in the top ten numerous times, his first experiences with BBO has been very humorous.....so called expert telling him that he has no idea what he is doing.....sound familiar