[onoway]

Ran into an interesting situation today. One player new to the club registered on the PD with a normal looking intermediate profile except a big black 10 on the top left hand corner.He got invited to the tourney and it was a bit of a shock to both him and his partner. I booted the partner halfway through the second hand. When I asked the new guy later in the tourney how he was getting along, he told me his new partner was very kind and patient but he realized he was in way over his head in IAC. He said that he got into trouble constantly because he got the 10 playing BINGO but everyone thought it meant he was a strong and experienced player, and he wanted to know if I could tell him how to remove it. And that he was going back to BIL.

I told him to talk to BBO Help as I hadn't a clue, wished him luck and said I was sure we'd see him again in the not too distant future. But would it be possibly a Good Thing to consider making BINGO points a different colour or on the other wide of the profile or something? Just for the poor player's sake. He sounded as though he gets beat up a fair bit because of that 10. poor guy .

[barmar]

Doing well at Bridge Bingo doesn't require bridge skill?

Yeah, there's a significant element of luck. But it's not like real Bingo, which is just totally random. You still have to play bridge.

[42krunner]

I don't think there is much luck in Bridge Bingo at all. Only if you get a run of hands that don't suit (pun intended) well for your bingo card.

It requires a lot of GIB control, which is a learned skill. Having good declarer skills is important, but not as important as in any other format.

That said, if you play only BINGO you won't develop most of your bridge skills.

[Bbradley62]

Isn't this also possibly simply a standard side-effect of an accumulation master point system? Play in a lot of games that award points, and eventually you rack up a significant number of points.

[onoway]

I'm not making any judgements about BINGO at all, simply pointing out that apparently there is a whole lot of difference in points awarded via say the ACBL and those awarded for BINGO in what they imply about general bridge skills and knowledge outside of BINGO. And that this one person has found that the BINGO points have frequently led to grief for him in the wider BBO bridge population. Since that undoubtedly wasn't the intention, perhaps BBO ought to be aware that for some at least, there is an accidental and unfortunate side effect.

[dave251164]

Perhaps he should just mark his profile :
Advanced at Bingo but Intermediate at regular bridge or whatever level is appropriate for each?

[Bbradley62]

onoway, on 2014-October-10, 04:51, said:

... I booted the partner halfway through the second hand...

You booted a player for not being of adequate skill level for your tournament?

[Vampyr]

Bbradley62, on 2014-October-10, 15:50, said:

You booted a player for not being of adequate skill level for your tournament?

My guess is that it was not the guy's skill but the fact that he was being mean to the BINGO guy.

[1eyedjack]

Wow, I can never get a result playing Bingo. Respect.

Anyway: Obvious solution: Create a second ID. Use one in Bingo (or elsewhere where the 10 is not a problem). Use the other elsewhere.

Not that BBO probably wants to encourage the proliferation of multiple IDs, but many moons ago I made a suggestion that the MP status should be hide-able as a user option. I was laughed off the stage.

http://www.bridgebas...post__p__775250

[onoway]

The "bingo guy" asked to be replaced after the first hand because he was being yelled at by his partner. When I got to the table, the remarks were ongoing so I booted the player who was breaking the zero tolerance policy of the club. Fairly straightforward cause and effect scenario. The bingo guy's second partner had no problems playing with him. A degree of self discipline, especially if tinged with a little kindness, can go a very long way toward making even a very competitive bridge table a pleasant place to spend some time.

Certainly in the old HomeBase tournaments when I regularly persecuted the experts by playing, they were without exception kind to me - including inviting me to partner knowing how weak I was compared to the rest, - except with the card play, which was brutal.

That's what we aspire to.

[onoway]

1eyedjack, on 2014-October-10, 21:47, said:

Wow, I can never get a result playing Bingo. Respect.

Anyway: Obvious solution: Create a second ID. Use one in Bingo (or elsewhere where the 10 is not a problem). Use the other elsewhere.

Not that BBO probably wants to encourage the proliferation of multiple IDs, but many moons ago I made a suggestion that the MP status should be hide-able as a user option. I was laughed off the stage.

http://www.bridgebas...post__p__775250

A simple solution which never occurred to me to suggest. Thank you.

[jdgalt]

Bingo requires bridge skill, yes, but it also has a lot of luck in it.

What usually happens to me is that early in the Bingo game I make a good contract, say 4 Hearts, and am given a choice of two or three places to enter it in the Bingo grid. An effectively blind choice.

Then subsequent hands make contracts possible which would complete one of the Bingo lines where I might have entered the 4H score but are no good for the one where I actually entered it. So I lose, and I couldn't have done anything about it once I made that blind choice.

[1eyedjack]

In all formats of the game an element of luck is involved in each individual hand, and I suspect that there is more luck involved in Bingo than in other formats, again I repeat on an individual hand. Nevertheless, to get to level 10 by playing Bingo requires either a huge investment or some skill (combined with some understanding of the format). Maybe a combination of both.

[barmar]

This request reminds me of the proposal in the ACBL to have separate lists of masterpoint rankings based on online versus f2f masterpoints. There are so many different forms of bridge, but we award the same masterpoints in all of them. It makes little sense to segregate the points of just one variety.