[winkieone]

I am an intermediate player with approximately 450 points. I play regularly on BBO with a player with 1500+ points. My partner also considers herself an intermediate player. While I realize our games are stratified, I can’t tell you how often we are paired against World Class, Advanced and Expert players. I think it would behoove BBO to try to adjust algorithms and stratifications to allow players in like levels: “Leveling the field” so to say. There are usually 400+ pairs in the games we play in, so there are likely many in our strata, as well as the others.

I hope that you can take this into consideration.

[TylerE]

You're thinking of flighting.

BBO does not flight. You play the entire field. It's an open event.

Stratification effects the final ranking/points only. Not who you play against.

[pilowsky]

For a moment I thought you said 'fighting' - pretty sure BBO doesn't fight either.

[mycroft]

There are flighted games, and there are masterpoint limited games. But as Tyler says, "stratfied" means "you play everyone, but there's a separate 'first place' for B and C players."

But also, when you're 1500, the only place you're an "intermediate" is on BBO where advanced suggests "Open Regional win". Which means, at least for that day and in that place, you were better than the World Class and Experts who showed up.

The only way to get better is to play stronger players. Luckily, with stratified games, you don't see too many of them (about the same number as everybody else), and you don't have to beat them to win (strat C). The other benefit is that you *can* beat them and win Strat A.

You wouldn't believe the number of players who have come to me complaining about having to play the experts - you know, Life Masters, people with 400 points,...

[pilowsky]

 mycroft, on 2021-February-27, 11:01, said:

There are flighted games, and there are masterpoint limited games. But as Tyler says, "stratfied" means "you play everyone, but there's a separate 'first place' for B and C players."

But also, when you're 1500, the only place you're an "intermediate" is on BBO where advanced suggests "Open Regional win". Which means, at least for that day and in that place, you were better than the World Class and Experts who showed up.

The only way to get better is to play stronger players. Luckily, with stratified games, you don't see too many of them (about the same number as everybody else), and you don't have to beat them to win (strat C). The other benefit is that you *can* beat them and win Strat A.

You wouldn't believe the number of players who have come to me complaining about having to play the experts - you know, Life Masters, people with 400 points,...

For what it's worth, and this may help some people get a sense of what all these points, titles and rankings mean, is synthesised data on the numbers of players (active only) that sit within each ranking?
The data would be even better if further normalised by moderating it by the (at least) number of years they have been playing?
Even better would be to normalise by the number of deals they have played.

For example, are there 1, 5, 10 or x% of currently active players within the 1000 to 1500 points category?

It still would not give a true picture of a person's playing ability at any one time, but no ranking system does.

In Chess, for example, people obtain titles - e.g. International Master or International Grandmaster based on scoring well in certain highly rated tournaments. Rankings in Chess are titles that mean something. Titles are independent of playing ability which is measured by their rating (a fluctuating measure).

The combination of the two: rating and ranking, help you when you sit down to play with someone. You are less 'adventurous' with a stronger player (say a US master) even if their current rating is lower than you might expect.

In Bridge, it is difficult to tell if a person's "point count" means much for all sorts of reasons, but it would help to know if they were, say, in the top 5% of active players in (your club, state, Country or the world).

[TylerE]

Masterpoints are a measure of attendance, not skill.

Comparing them to ELO is a fool's errand.

[pilowsky]

 TylerE, on 2021-February-27, 14:59, said:

Masterpoints are a measure of attendance, not skill.

That is exactly my point, master, it is still possible to derive useful metrics - even from a system as bonkers as masterpoints which are sold wholesale to coffeeshop owning travel agents who then retail them to customers.
The EBU uses the NGS - it seems to have something like Elo's system behind it.
The ABF uses inter alia an improvement index, which is not completely useless.

To put it algebraically, masterpoints are just a numerator in search of a denominator.

Quote

Comparing them to ELO is a fool's errand.

Elo - as in Arpad Elo

[mycroft]

But who cares? If you can't play four boards with or against someone and know where they rank in broad strokes, then you're in the same position as the poker player who can't find the fish at his table.

There are gradations right up at the top that, to me are all "much better than me" - again, who cares if they're "absolutely world class" or merely "second class pros"? I mean, if you don't have the kind of money that can be wasted on a professional team/buying a winery. If you do, well, then results will shine better than some random "ranking". So will the opinions of the first pair you get for your team.

As far as masterpoints go, I would say that a factor of two probably means something and a factor of 10 definitely means something. Of course, it might mean they play 6 games a week at their club and have got 50 points a year from it for 30 years.

But as I have said many times, eventually - and to me, that means "after Life Master" in the ACBL - the only things that matter are "what you've won"[*] and "who'll play with you." Maybe, for the wealthy, "why they play with you", I guess. One of the interesting variants (but not at all disproving my statement) since Brogeland's Defeat is watching how the revelations change the answers to those questions, and whose answers change.

I have yet to find someone who can explain clearly why they care. Not quite true, there have been people who want a whole bunch of things, but they're still frequently in the "Elo rating is good because it's good" camp.

• You want to find a good game for you? That's easy; surely after all this time you know the games on offer and which ones match.
  
• You want a partner slightly better than you at your level? Pickup is (occasionally) fun, but I'll take a (slightly) weaker practised partnership over a pickup pair every day of the week. And a number isn't going to tell you anything about the important part of partnerships. And I'll certainly take a pleasant near-novice over a couple of players I know who are much better than me, and are very willing to let me know.
  
• You want to be able to lord it over the lower players, with a "sure" number that "proves" you're better? Go back to Chess. Bridge doesn't need any more of you.
  
• ???

[*] "Won" isn't a Lombardi-level requirement. Come 5/8 in the Spingold? Yeah, that's a win. Make the playoffs of the CNTC open? Yep, that too. Make day 3 of the BRP? That counts. And if what you've won is your district's GNTB, or one of the Martinique's Wednesday Shark Tank games, that counts too (but rates you lower than 5/8 in the Spingold, of course!) And if what you've won is 1500 masterpoints playing in the weakest games you can find and finding pairs that play much past their MP ranking to drop you a bracket or two, so you can win bracket 6 instead of challenge and lose bracket 4; that's an answer, too.

Heck, my first "win" was making the final of our Sectional Saturday open/consolation. I still remember that proudly, even if now (if we still had it), I'd be embarrassed to miss; equally embarrassed to get the 35% I got in the final that evening. The people I told that to, and my teachers told that to, treated it as a win, too. Even if they also would have been embarrassed to miss, and expected to have a good carryover.

[pilowsky]

An activity where there is no reasonable basis for comparing your skill level to other people is not a sport; it's a game.

The 'Bridge' that is played around the kitchen table is entertainment.
The 'Bridge' that happens in shady dens of antiquity, online tournaments, or against robots is practice.
The 'Bridge' that people play in major tournaments is the real thing.

When I learned the basics in the common room, I was in category 1.
Now I'm in category 2.
At my age (and skill level), I don't expect to get to category 3.

Masterpoints only apply to category 2. Within this group, it would be fun to have a sense of how you are performing.
Masterpoints don't say anything about performance.
Masterpoints exist to enable the owners of the retail outlets to make money.

[mycroft]

That - is ludicrous. Except for the last three lines - that's 100% correct. And it works, too.

When did anyone ever say that there was no reasonable basis for comparing your skill level to other people in bridge? In fact, wasn't my entire previous post showing you how it's done?

We're just saying that masterpoints ain't it. I absolutely agree with you there.

How do you determine "reasonably" the ELO of a footy player? You can't. All you can do is see how their team fares (people try to compute WAR, sure, but that's a highly inexact science). Same in bridge. You can easily compare one team's skill level to another's, or one pair's to another. What you can't do, is determine from there one *player's* skill level. Not objectively. Not with a number. Not, as you say, "reasonably". Big game, that footy. Wonder if it'll ever make it big as a sport.

That's the nature of team sports. Bridge, to quote the greats Roth and Stone, is a Partnership Game.

And your "major tournaments" comment seems to have ignored my footnote completely. I regularly play with one of the best players in my city, and that's saying something serious. She isn't capable of winning Canada (but she tries, and has come close), especially not with me as a partner. The Canadian team isn't likely to win the BB, or the Spingold, but they try. But "worth laying a bet on for best pair in Calgary today, playing with a regular partner, at least if you can get some odds" is better than tens of thousands of serious bridge players. Many of those have their accomplishments, even if it's "I won bracket 6 in Penticton, playing with a ringer to get us out of bracket 8". And they are proud of that, and should be (and I really lean on the "but that's not *real bridge*" people because they're trying to stop people from being proud of their achievements. From there lies death of Bridge).

As for bridge being a sport or a game, that opens up whole cans of worms not worth getting into. Especially because I'm only wearing 2 of my five rings today.

[pilowsky]

 mycroft, on 2021-March-01, 22:59, said:

As for bridge being a sport or a game, that opens up whole cans of worms not worth getting into, especially because I'm only wearing 2 of my five rings today.

I really hope the worms don't get into your rings - it sounds uncomfortable.

Drawing a false equivalency between football and Bridge doesn't help your argument much.

All the same, I 100% agree with the second half of your first sentence.

Being right about something is a great start.

FYP btw - no charge for that.

[mycroft]

Okay, you made the claim, prove it.

And nah, the phrasing was deliberate. And if you don't get it, I'm not willing to help you with that. Call me elitist all you want.