[1eyedjack]

I just played in #2434 Robot Duplicate (IMP)
I came in first place, and apparently qualified as first ranking player in ranks A and B, but was not appearing in rank C
The person who came in 5th place overall in the tournament is listed as coming in fifth place under rank A (no surprise there), but did not appear in either Rank B nor rank C.

My BBO master point ranking is currently 9+

The person who came in 5th overall has master point rank 5

How is it possible that I qualify for Rank B, but the person who came in fifth did not?

I must be missing something fundamental, but I understood that the higher up the BBO MP ranking you go, the fewer ranks you qualify in the flighting system.

Obviously it makes no difference to my MP award on the tournament, as you cannot get more than 0.60 for coming in first overall.

[Bbradley62]

It's my understanding that the tournaments sometimes also use "other information", such as ACBL masterpoints, to determine strata. Hopefully Barmar can confirm.

[Bbradley62]

retract

[1eyedjack]

Bbradley62, on 2016-March-12, 11:01, said:

It's my understanding that the tournaments sometimes also use "other information", such as ACBL masterpoints, to determine strata. Hopefully Barmar can confirm.

I would sort of understand that in an ACBL tournament. Which this was not.

[Bbradley62]

1eyedjack, on 2016-March-12, 11:20, said:

I would sort of understand that in an ACBL tournament. Which this was not.

I can't find it now, but I think the logic was something like: if a Diamond Life Master joins BBO tomorrow, we want to treat him (in stratified events) like someone good enough to be a Diamond Life Master, not like someone with zero masterpoints.

[1eyedjack]

I am not saying that your explanation is wrong. Indeed it currently seems to me to be the only credible one, bar a software bug. But if so it is a truly appalling policy. A software bug would have been preferable.

BBO operates a pretty liberal privacy policy, by which users can (generally) play anonymously. They need not, but the choice is theirs. It is a policy that has its critics, but that is a separate issue. I speculate that even the critics would concede that any replacement policy would only be an improvement if it applied universally.

There are two facilities that BBO provides, the (optional) availing of which requires surrendering anonymity;
(1) the purchasing of BBO$, which if not paying by BitCoin (not currently an option I think) requires disclosure of a card-holder, and
(2) the accretion of ACBL master points in an ACBL event, which requires disclosure of the ACBL member number traceable back to the human player.

In both cases privacy is preserved as regards the general BBO population, the identity being known only by BBO (and ACBL in case 2).

Where BBO become aware of the real identity of a player, it would be logical, which is to say consistent with their general preference in favour of privacy, if they limited the use of that information to the purpose for which it was supplied. Arguably the privileged circumstances by which they come by that information suggest that this is the only responsible way in which it should be used. At the very least it should not be used to discriminate in competition against the player who has volunteered the information.

In 1543, Copernicus determined that ACBL is not the centre of the universe.

I happen to have a respectable ranking in the EBU, of which BBO is unaware. The player who came in fifth was unfairly discriminated against. He or she may well justify the assigned flight, but that presupposes that the other players in the event are flighted on the same (and therefore fair) basis. That requires a closed set of data on which to draw. If I were to join ACBL I would expect to start from the bottom up in their events.

[barmar]

We use your BBO masterpoints or ACBL masterpoints, whichever is higher.

Also, in ACBL tournaments, if you're a new BBO member and don't have an ACBL number registered, you're automatically put in strat A -- this prevents people from repeatedly making new accounts just so they can get into C.