[OysterT]

After completing a round of "Play 4", BBO gives the player a "ranking". But, there is no context. If I rank 5,000 out of 6,000 that means something. If I just rank 5,000 it means nothing! Am I missing something? Thanks, if you can help.

[undoubling]

It's better to look at your score percentage to determine how well (poorly) you did. The "rank" doesn't provide enough data to determine the "true" value of your "rank". Percentage-wise provides a better snapshot of your performance relative to ALL others who played in that event.

[nudnikbp]

When you finish a "Start a Bridge 4 Game" (free on BBO), no percentage score is shown. At least, I've never seen one. You only receive a ranking, which could be anywhere from #1 to #52,000, or something like that.

[diana_eva]

 OysterT, on 2021-December-18, 17:09, said:

After completing a round of "Play 4", BBO gives the player a "ranking". But, there is no context. If I rank 5,000 out of 6,000 that means something. If I just rank 5,000 it means nothing! Am I missing something? Thanks, if you can help.

The score is the total points you accumulate during your set of 4 boards. The ranking is how good your score is compared to everyone else who has played that day (it resets every 24 hours).

5000 out of 6000 means you are 5000th out of the 6000 players from that day.

Your best shot at scoring high is to bid (and make) slams, ideally doubled and redoubled too

[barmar]

 undoubling, on 2021-December-19, 13:57, said:

It's better to look at your score percentage to determine how well (poorly) you did. The "rank" doesn't provide enough data to determine the "true" value of your "rank". Percentage-wise provides a better snapshot of your performance relative to ALL others who played in that event.

Bridge 4 is not matchpoint duplicate bridge, there are no percentages.

[OysterT]

All of these replies simply confirm my initial complaint. There is no percentage given and there is no context for the rank. I wish someone from BBO would look at this. Does anyone know how to get their attention? Thanks.

[smerriman]

 OysterT, on 2021-December-23, 12:18, said:

All of these replies simply confirm my initial complaint. There is no percentage given and there is no context for the rank. I wish someone from BBO would look at this. Does anyone know how to get their attention? Thanks.

The last two replies above are from BBO employees

The point of this format is not to see how you compared to the whole field. Everyone on the leaderboard gets dealt different hands, so even if it did tell you that you were 50000 out of 60000 this doesn't mean you did badly; it probably means you weren't dealt high scoring hands.

It's more to see how close to the top (in absolute terms) you can get after you get dealt some good hands so you can get your name on the leaderboard.

If you really want to see how many players are playing, bid 7NTxx and concede all 13 tricks (only takes a minute) - but it's not that meaningful a number.

[OysterT]

Thank you for the sensible reply. It's not what I wanted, but it does explain the situation. What venue do you suggest for someone who wants to play interesting hands, solitaire, and get a comparison with the field? I've tried the IMP tab, but I often get hand after hand that has little or no playing strength. I don't mind any hand if playing with my partner, but, with a robot, it's nice to have some control of the situation. If I'm off-thread, I aplogize. Thanks for you answer.

[smerriman]

Yes, the MP and IMP anonymous games are non-best-hand, so you get a completely random hand. But these are both scored duplicate, so no matter how good/bad a hand you're dealt, you can achieve a good score if you play your cards better than anyone else in your situation which is what your goal is on every hand.

Most of the robot tournaments after logging into BBO are dealt best-hand, which rotates the deal so you always have the best hand of the 4 players, which it sounds like you'd prefer.

Under Competitive - Free Tournaments, there's a Free Daylong Tournament (8 boards) every day of the week (though I think there may be a limit on the number you can play in a week - was 3 at one point) with huge fields. Plus an occasional extra one, like the Free Super Sunday Daylong (12 boards).

Each hand is scored duplicate, so you can see how you compared to others who played the same hand. Note that while you also get an overall ranking at the end of the tournament, to reduce cheating not everyone gets dealt the same set of 8 boards - so your ranking is still somewhat subject to the types of hands you get dealt (eg lots of flat ones where almost everyone scores the same so it's hard to score more than 50%, or wide-ranging ones where you can achieve high scores).

You can also play under Solitaire - Free Weekly Instant Tournament. There you're compared to ~15 players who played these hands in an old tournament. The tournament resets the deals once per week, so you can even play it multiple times to try different lines on the same hands - this is just a "practice" tournament; you're always compared against the same players who could only play it once originally, so there's no incentive for "cheating" by playing it twice.

There are plenty of additional paid tournaments as well.

[AdmiralAl]

In the past, if I bid and played 4 hands really well…took chances etc, I could get a ranking under 100 or under 10 and once I was #1. This no longer happens. Today Each hand was bid and played well. There could be no slams made . I received a ranking of something like 120,000. What does that mean? I’m definitely missing something from the BBO responses on this thread.

[smerriman]

 AdmiralAl, on 2022-June-02, 09:28, said:

In the past, if I bid and played 4 hands really well…took chances etc, I could get a ranking under 100 or under 10 and once I was #1. This no longer happens. Today Each hand was bid and played well. There could be no slams made . I received a ranking of something like 120,000. What does that mean? I’m definitely missing something from the BBO responses on this thread.

Every time you play, you get a different set of hands (and others on the leaderboard get different ones to you). If you get dealt 4 hands where you can't make any slams, you're guaranteed to be low on the leaderboard no matter how well you play them.

[thepossum]

IMO some people worry too much about how they rank in a meaningless tourney

I'm currently pondering gambling a whole dollar on another type of meaningless tourney

But if its all about tricking a bot into ridiculous doubled slams why bother - unless you are good enough to make a living from it - but I don't know how tradeable BB dollars are