[Rain]

http://www.bridgebas...h/scrnsnap.html

Sorry this happened, but please take screenshot of rude private chat to send to abuse@bbo

Otherwise the complaint can't really be processed. The link above is a guide to screenshots in case you need it.

[mcphee]

Very nice, your partner has what some would consider an opening bid and passed 3S. He needs to stop drinking the water, pass of 3S from him is strange.
I agree with Fred, send him the info. I think you owe this to all players. Permitting players to behave poorly suggests you condone the action.
More areas should adopt zero tolerance.

[kenberg]

I think he meant to say "I am an imbecile, I clearly should have bid 4D, I apologize". A language problem perhaps. Although I in fact would have bid 3N, after which I might well silently scream.


BTW. I am anything but politically correct, as my friends can tell you, but I want to take a moment to observe that no nationality owns the patent on rudeness.

Ken

[jdeegan]

pigpenz, on May 30 2006, 09:23 AM, said:

you could have asked him how many poles it takes to screw in a 4♦ bid

I have to be very, very careful about using Polish ethnic slurs. I have been married to a Polish woman for 25 years so far.

[dcvetkov]

Yes, I agree opening is a bid light, preempt would probably be more descriptive.
His second problem may be that once in, ne needs to know where to go for tricks.

As the lead was very obvious, from shortness, he ( or she) know clubs suit is hopeless, and free 3D bid promises at least 6 cards. Still nothing can be lost if he tries to cash K♥

Facing an opening bidder, it s hard to imagine, letting them play 3♠ undoubled.
Most people would bid 4♦, or take a shot at 3NT hoping for lots of diamonds tricks if you have AK

His pass is not forcing, but its interesting what would dbl show? penalty, cooperative, showing values?

[foo]

1= and most important, assuming you are reporting accurately and that the "star" was intentionally insulting you...
Fred is absolutely right that no real expert, let alone one who has been trusted with a star, has any right behaving in the manner you have described.
Please report him. Such behavior makes every other real expert look bad and is bad for Bridge.

2= I have no problem with you deciding to Open a 2 Quick Trick, 7 loser, nice single suit 10 count 1D. The "classic" HCP range for a opening 3bid is ~4-9 HCP.
Your hand is too good for a 3D opening by classic standards.

3= Make a Support X rather than rebidding your D's. By "classic" standards, your hand is not strong enough to rebid 3D.

4a= Your CHO misbid his hand. He never came close to showing his values. Ma\ybe he thought he was playing Polish Club? Or was not used to playing SA or 2/1?
4b= NS should be in Game after S's 3D rebid (another reason to be careful about "having" your bid...)

5= If you are defending, either lead your suit or CHO's suit unless you =know= some other lead is best. It's easier on partnership harmony.
Frankly, it's a toss-up to me whether I would lead a D expecting CHO to be short and therefore possibly giving him a ruff at some point, or I would Opening lead the HA intending to play the HJ if CHO signals encouragement.

[jocdelevat]

IMO an apology from polish player or a warning should be enough. I see as extreme action to take his/her star. My reasons for that:
1. polish player was rude in private chat not as bad as it in public
2.not all great players in any sport has good social skils or are good caracters
3.IMO happens sometimes to be in a bad mood or affected by an event that makes you overreact for simple mistake that you consider your friend or a stranger made.

Best regards
Jocdelevat

[sceptic]

Quote

1. polish player was rude in private chat not as bad as it in public

well thats ur opinion, I would like to differ on that a lot

Quote

IMO happens sometimes to be in a bad mood or affected by an event that makes you overreact for simple mistake that you consider your friend or a stranger made.

dont play in a indy in a bad mood

[fred]

jocdelevat, on May 31 2006, 06:34 PM, said:

IMO an apology from polish player or a warning should be enough. I see as extreme action to take his/her star. My reasons for that:
1. polish player was rude in private chat not as bad as it in public
2.not all great players in any sport has good social skils or are good caracters
3.IMO happens sometimes to be in a bad mood or affected by an event that makes you overreact for simple mistake that you consider your friend or a stranger made.

Best regards
Jocdelevat

His star has been removed. He can get it back if he apologizes and promises not to do anything like this again. If it matters, this is not the first report of rude behavior that I have received concerning this particular star.

In my opinion, removing his star was, if anything, a mild punishment for the offense that he committed. Jdeegan handled this situation about as well as possible. I could easily see other people getting so upset by an incident like this that they would want to stop playing bridge (or at least stop playing on BBO).

For sure there are plenty of rude BBO members who call other people imbeciles all the time. Most of our members are able to shrug this off. But when the insult comes from someone who has been recognized as a top player from one of the world's premier bridge nations, I suspect that many people would be understandably very upset by this. Apparently Jdeegan has enough self-confidence to have not lost much sleep over this incident. My guess is that many other BBO members would not have been able to do this.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[foo]

So, given that Ira Rubin has passed away...

...how does one say "The Beast" in Polish?

[rona_]

Quote

jocdelevat



IMO an apology from polish player or a warning should be enough. I see as extreme action to take his/her star. My reasons for that:
1. polish player was rude in private chat not as bad as it in public
2.not all great players in any sport has good social skils or are good caracters
3.IMO happens sometimes to be in a bad mood or affected by an event that makes you overreact for simple mistake that you consider your friend or a stranger made.

\
You cannot be serious, or you must be a friend of the star. I wouldn't give him back a star even if he apologised. This is an indi. He signs up for indis he has to keep his mouth shut.

By the way,I have no idea who the * is, just my personal opinion. And yes jdeegan handled this well. Someone like me would have quit bbo and bridge forever:) oh, and jdeegan tell him he can't spell, lol.

[kenberg]

Removing the star seems exactly right. Stronger action depends on what else may have happened in the past, and what may happen in the future. However a star means that he, to some extent, represents the values of Fred and his team. Clearly he does not represent these values, and removing the star makes that clear to him and to everyone else. Perhaps this action will bring about a change in his behavior, or maybe it won't, but whatever he does he will be representing only himself.

[fred]

kenberg, on Jun 1 2006, 01:46 AM, said:

Removing the star seems exactly right. Stronger action depends on what else may have happened in the past, and what may happen in the future. However a star means that he, to some extent, represents the values of Fred and his team. Clearly he does not represent these values, and removing the star makes that clear to him and to everyone else. Perhaps this action will bring about a change in his behavior, or maybe it won't, but  whatever he does he will be representing only himself.

Nice sentiment, Ken, but I am afraid this is not how it works.

Stars don't represent anything other than accomplishment. I know some stars in real life who I consider to be truly reprehensible human beings (and others who I do not consider to be especially good bridge players). Some stars have been caught cheating and others have been known to be involved in illegal and immoral activities outside the realm of bridge.

What I happen to think of a star's character or bridge skills is not relevant as far as the star symbol is concerned.

However, we (actually we=I since stars are my responsibility) expect certain things from players who have these symbols. For example:

- if I find out a star lied about his accomplishments in order to get his star it will be taken away
- new stars are not given out unless the player in question has his/her full real name and proper country in his/her profile. Stars that subsequently edit their profiles to remove this information have their stars removed (they can get their star back exactly once in this case by correcting their profiles). This rule does not apply to people who had their stars before this rule was in effect.
- new stars are expected to behave themselves on BBO. Here "behave themselves" is a purely subjective notion based on what I think constitutes proper behavior for a star. While we have tried to establish well-defined rules for handling general abuse cases, there are no such rules for how a star should behave. In my opinion stars should know what constitutes unacceptable behavior - they should not need to have the rules spelled out for them.

I don't remove stars very often and the removal of stars is not something that our abuse department gets involved in (though occasionally our abuse department will inform me of a complaint about a star and leave it up to me to decide whether or not to remove the star symbol).

It should be noted that the purpose of the star is not to boost the ego of the person who has it. The stars are there to give non-stars (especially those who are not experienced tournament players) a better idea of who the most successful players from various countries are.

One of the main reasons that we want "average players" to be able to identify the stars is to help them know which players rate to be worth kibitizing and which players rate to be able to offer good bridge advice. Since we hope that the average players on our site will interact with the stars, we expect the stars to behave themselves and not upset the average players.

Given that bridge has greatly enriched the lives of most of those who have enjoyed success at our game, I don't think it is a lot to ask these people to make the very small effort that is required to give something back by being courteous and helpful to the masses.

If a given star feels that this is too much of a burden, that is fine (as long as their behavior doesn't violate our general abuse rules of course) but they will have to learn to live without their star. Many truly excellent players have decided to do just that (although for most of those their reasons for not wanting a star have had more to do with privacy and/or not wanting to draw attention to themselves as opposed to not wanting to have to behave as they know a star should).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdeegan]

foo, on May 31 2006, 04:01 PM, said:

So, given that Ira Rubin has passed away...

...how does one say "The Beast" in Polish?

ZWIERZ

[ArcLight]

>- new stars are not given out unless the player in question has his/her full real name and proper country in his/her profile. Stars that subsequently edit their profiles to remove this information have their stars removed (they can get their star back exactly once in this case by correcting their profiles). This rule does not apply to people who had their stars before this rule was in effect.


I'm curious why a top player wouldn't want their name on their profile.
It's not like they have to also give an email address.

Is it because they don't want other experts studying their play and bidding?

Is it because they don't wnat to be seen making mistakes in a meaningless game?

If thats the case, make a second alias/nic and rate your self expert and see if you can play other strong players (make an Expert only table).


I think I was kibitzing either Alfredo Versace (or Lorenzo Lauria )
partnering a non-star. I asked one of the kibitzers who the non-star was and they told me it was Lauria (or Versace).

[barmar]

ArcLight, on Jun 1 2006, 08:56 AM, said:

I'm curious why a top player wouldn't want their name on their profile.
It's not like they have to also give an email address.

I've wondered that myself for a while. I've been kibbitzing Dano De Falco and his crowd for years, and he doesn't have a star or his name in his profile in either OKbridge or BBO. But everyone knows who he is, because most of the other players at the table are stars from his regular team.

I guess some people prefer a little more privacy, and not to call attention to themselves. When he's not playing in one of these set games that everyone looks for, he can login to BBO mostly unnoticed.

[joshs]

Here is a story from OK Bridge from about 7 years ago:

Bob Kerchner sits down with Les Bart (both are good players from the DC area) to play against a pair with identical 75 Lehman ratings. (The highest possible). Les was highly suspicious of the identical 75 lehmans (there was another such pair kicked out for cheating). On the first hand, this pair played perfectly, and Les started grumbling. On the second hand, again they played perfectly and won 5 imps, Les got up from his seat and said "I'm sorry, you guys are too good for us" and left the table. At this point Bob, now upset that his quality game had been cut short said "I am truely sorry, Mr. Garozzo." Benito and Lea went by Papi and Snabu on okb, and this was before everyone knew who they were...

[kenberg]

joshs, on Jun 1 2006, 10:35 AM, said:

Here is a story from OK Bridge from about 7 years ago:

Bob Kerchner sits down with Les Bart (both are good players from the DC area) to play against a pair with identical 75 Lehman ratings. (The highest possible). Les was highly suspicious of the identical 75 lehmans (there was another such pair kicked out for cheating). On the first hand, this pair played perfectly, and Les started grumbling. On the second hand, again they played perfectly and won 5 imps, Les got up from his seat and said "I'm sorry, you guys are too good for us" and left the table. At this point Bob, now upset that his quality game had been cut short said "I am truely sorry, Mr. Garozzo." Benito and Lea went by Papi and Snabu on okb, and this was before everyone knew who they were...

That's a truly great story. I'm sure there is also a moral in there about jumping to conclusions, but first and foremost it's just a great story.

[dcvetkov]

fred, on May 31 2006, 09:43 PM, said:

Many truly excellent players have decided to do just that (although for most of those their reasons for not wanting a star have had more to do with privacy and/or not wanting to draw attention to themselves as opposed to not wanting to have to behave as they know a star should).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Yes, some excellent players have decided to go without a star, probably for privacy reasons and maybe he ( or she) had some bad experiences

I know one such example, World Champion Benedicte Cronier ( patapon on BBO) decided to live without a star, and I am sure there are probably more.

[slothy]

i want to add some illumination to this thread and perhaps remove any ambiguity to his comment

'Imbicil' is a Polish vernacular spoken near Krakov and is an intransitive verb literally translated as 'I am a *****'.

For any further philological interpretations, please do not fail to contact me

Yours faithfully

Alex

PS Out of curiosity, how many Polish people does it take to bid 4♦. Re another post in this thread i too was [notice tense] married to a Polish woman. She changed one light bulb during the whole of our relationship. Pity it was the bulb in the wrong bedroom. sigh