[CamFella]

On BBOSkill my username = CamFella is indicated as "no Data Found".

I have played close to 1,000 hands.

Is there a reason for this occurring ?

Thank you.

[hrothgar]

CamFella, on 2016-February-25, 12:42, said:

On BBOSkill my username = CamFella is indicated as "no Data Found".

I have played close to 1,000 hands.

Is there a reason for this occurring ?

Thank you.

yes

[hrothgar]

hrothgar, on 2016-February-25, 13:20, said:

yes

In retrospect, you probably want to know what the reason is.

BBO Skill has been blocked from collecting new data from BBO for quite some time.
(As I understand matters, the app was poorly behaved in the way it made requests and the interface that BBO provides isn't intended for bulk data transmission)

[1eyedjack]

I think that it has been comatose for over 2 years now. Does the website owner get advertising revenue from clicks?

[mgoetze]

1eyedjack, on 2016-February-25, 13:26, said:

Does the website owner get advertising revenue from clicks?

I think clicks are out, views are the hot new thing nowadays.

[billw55]

bboskill was never a very good tool, and is now long out of date. No data within the last 2+ years.

Your best bet for judging another player's skill is your own eyes.

[johnu]

billw55, on 2016-February-25, 15:58, said:

bboskill was never a very good tool, and is now long out of date. No data within the last 2+ years.

Your best bet for judging another player's skill is your own eyes.

Maybe it wasn't very good, but it blew the doors off the self rating system.

Sure, you can figure out somebody is awful after a few hands, assuming you don't boot them from the table or quit the the table after the first hopeless bid or play. It's still irritating if somebody wastes your type with a self rating of expert when they are barely a beginner, and IMHO leads to unfriendly behavior when mistakes are made.

[Manastorm]

Perhaps BBO could graciously allow players to pay for rating, if they really want it.

[mgoetze]

Manastorm, on 2016-February-26, 02:18, said:

Perhaps BBO could graciously allow players to pay for rating, if they really want it.

So they pay $200 to get a session of bridge with Fred, and Fred then changes their self-rating to his assessment of their skill and makes it unchangeable?

[Manastorm]

I doubt Fred that is as cheap as you suggest.

[Manastorm]

In chess scene rating used to be exclusive for paying members, currently some sites give rating freely some dont (nobody believes in no rating). For exeample playchess and icc dont and chess24 and chesscom give. I believe the change from strength categories to ratings happened in the 70's when pocket calculators and computers appeared, internet era didn't even start from strength categories. What I gather is that you pay for live commentary and teaching videos, what ever premium membership gives.
I am quite reluctant to pay for chess at the moment, despite the product is good. Especially good live commentators make watching pleasent, which is very surprising taking into account how little happens. The juice in the commentators knowledge and ability to represent it. I suggest BBO to give commentators command of the broadcast, now they seem under mercy of the vugraph operator. It is very inconvenient to see a card played, while there is something to say about the previous position.

[Lovera]

I, although, can see that vary peoples ask for BBO Skill that, as already said, actually is blocked for "stress by use". Indipendently from utility or not of it, player that used to look for its indication had a sort of "incentive" and orientation of play level. For me can be considered these alternatives :1) up-to-date for use BBO Skill (enter brief time); 2) indication of another "BBO Skill" collegate to this site adress (for hands played and warranted by BBO); 3) explaining (if it is simple) of the alghoritm that generate rating so that any player can determinate him/herself it (on BBO Skill home page there are any indications, but are not much clear).

[Zelandakh]

johnu, on 2016-February-26, 01:27, said:

Maybe it wasn't very good, but it blew the doors off the self rating system.

But was it better than simply looking up the last months' results of the players you are interested in? Chess and bridge are quite different games to rate, after all, when you have a disaster at your table, how often are you to blame rather than the ox sitting opposite?

[johnu]

Zelandakh, on 2016-February-26, 11:47, said:

But was it better than simply looking up the last months' results of the players you are interested in? Chess and bridge are quite different games to rate, after all, when you have a disaster at your table, how often are you to blame rather than the ox sitting opposite?

I suppose somebody could have been the victim of bad players on every poor result, and never the recipient of good results from bad play on the other side, but common sense and statistics indicate that things will average out in the long run. Or maybe they are a very good player but always are mentoring a very bad player who chucks boards left and right. Too bad, I'm not going to bother analyzing a bunch of hands so see who made the most or worst mistakes. Of course, one of the legitimate criticisms of BBOSkill is that they didn't do enough adjustments for class of opponent, so someone who played mostly against top experts and held their own would be underrated, and those who were bunny bashers were overrated. I think those are fairly infrequent outliers. A couple of years ago, I looked up a bunch on players who were doing consistently well in the BBO robot games and almost every one of them had very good ratings. I also looked up several players who had very poor scores in the game I played and they almost always had corresponding ratings. Not really scientific but it reinforced my view that the ratings had at least a noticeable correlation to skill.

[Zelandakh]

johnu, on 2016-February-26, 14:27, said:

I think those are fairly infrequent outliers.

And this is your mistake. As an example, one of the best players that used to post here is Han but he consistently had a low (~INT-) rating on BBOSkill. Why? Because he nearly always played against very strong opponents. I know plenty of typical intermediates whose rating was consistently Adv+ or higher because they played in the Acol Club, where the level of opposition was low. Similarly, almost any regular pair will ordinarily have a large plus. This is hidden looking at BBOSkill but obvious seeing the original hand records.

What I personally did when I was playing last is simply record the monthly average for players I met along the way. Playing within a small group such as a BBO club means you see those profiles time and time again. And you can check back to refresh the ratings and record the high-low range. This range is imho much more useful than the single BBOSkill rating.

The main reason for BBOSkill seems to me to inflate the ego of certain players that seriously believe they are Advanced or Expert because BBOSkill states this. And sadly this is precisely the attitude that comes across from most of those that create threads advocating it on BBF. So while I love the idea of being able to check on the level of potential partners and opponents, I support the decision from BBO not to because the issues surrounding the subject are much more complex than advocates like to think. And besides, if it were there I would not have the "Experts" to laugh at any more!