So called expert Do you have trouble with experts?
#1
Posted 2016-June-09, 02:08
Fortunately, 2 hands later my opponent manages to bid 5 hearts over our unachievable 5 diamonds, which we double and he goes well down. I checked he was another expert!
So I managed to retain a mid-table position.
Would you trust an expert?
#4
Posted 2016-June-10, 07:10
As for trusting an expert, in truth the majority who self-rate as expert are simply not close to that standard. Rather than going by the self-ratings, I would suggest you look up their hand records for the last month and use that as a guideline. Your partner appears to have a rating something above 50% so my tentative evaluation would be that he is a good intermediate. For comparison, you have a little under 50%. Naturally, this ignores the quality of the opposition, which makes a huge difference. If you are regularly playing against world class opponents then your score is considerably more impressive.
#5
Posted 2016-June-10, 08:55
Zelandakh, on 2016-June-10, 07:10, said:
To be fair, he also denied the hand he actually had, since he had 4 spades and showed 2-3 with his 1NT bid. But that's only 1 card difference, not 3 cards as the OP assumed.
#6
Posted 2016-June-10, 11:43
Zelandakh, on 2016-June-10, 07:10, said:
He had 4 spades IIRC, some (really bad??) players respond 1NT with a weak jump shift in the majors type of hand. Opener has shown 6+ clubs and you have 5 clubs yourself. 11+ clubs and you are offering a choice of denominations? Maybe in your world, not in mine. And sitting for the double? I would invite his partner to come to the forum and defend this so called expert bidding.
#7
Posted 2016-June-11, 00:14
It seems likely you are a newcomer, you should know most of bbo players are beginners or intermediates, too many self-rating expert or world class are fake.
Please keep calm, do not expose, because anyone loves vanity, including you and me.
#8
Posted 2016-June-13, 02:38
If there were a system in place, whereby the BBO admins or robots could adjust players' self-ratings in accordance with their average performance here on BBO (or in response to a challenge from another player), well, then that would be a different story. But, as I understand things, that doesn't happen here. Or does it?
As to disputes with partners - well don't we all get those? And don't we all go on thinking "I'm right, my partner's wrong" regardless of the actual situation?
I suppose, in a regrettable spat with partner that I suffered the other day, I do firmly believe "I was in the right" (correct me if you want to). I'm sure I had a case: my partner made a bid that was clearly wrong in Acol, but would have been right in a 5CM system like SAYC. But we were in the Acol Club. He got his bidding mixed up: an error which I would have readily understood and condoned, if partner had given me the chance! However he chose to not only sabotage the subsequent bidding, but to accuse me of mis-bidding the hand, before flouncing. For that conduct, I would welcome it if he were forcibly down-rated from "advanced" to "beginner". But .... ho-hum! In my dreams!
#9
Posted 2016-June-13, 03:26
661_Pete, on 2016-June-13, 02:38, said:
I do plenty of things that various people have suggested is "clearly wrong in Acol" and perhaps it is for them. A simple example is raising partner's major suit opening with 3 card support but there are plenty of more interesting cases. It may well be that you are indeed right about your partner's bidding in this case or you might just not be aware of an aletrnative style. If you are interested in knowing for sure you could of course make a thread on the subject providing you do so in a way that does not lead back to the partner in a negative way (quite possible after giving part of the story here).
Let me give you a tip though. The community within the Acol Club is a comparatively small one. What I do is record the monthly averages in their profiles on the occasions when I happen to look players up - the minimum and maximum scores. That means I have a fairly reasonable record of the standard of all of the regulars and many of the occasional players. You play a lot more often than me so you would have a full database of entries rather quickly if you took the effort to use this approach. If you find the self-ratings frustrating, this is the answer and it is really very easy to do using the tools BBO offers.
#10
Posted 2016-June-13, 06:00
As far as logging players' averages are concerned, yes that might help, good point. But averages tend to seesaw quite a lot (well, mine has, at any rate! ). It may be down to getting a bad partner for a while, having an 'off' day, or simply the 'luck of the draw'. Even with the evening-out process of duplicate, there is still a luck element: one table takes a finesse the right way, another table takes it the wrong way, etc. etc.
Maybe I'll do that, all the same - though if I go deep 'into the red' - as I do from time to time, I just hope too many people don't look at my average!
Ideally I need a pool of partners whom I can get on well with: those who can both give and take criticism without anyone getting in a huff. The worst thing for a bridge-player to have is a 'short fuse'. Mea culpa. Something I should work on.
#11
Posted 2016-June-13, 07:12
#12
Posted 2016-June-13, 10:03
eagles123, on 2016-June-13, 07:12, said:
I shall treat that remark with the contempt it deserves...
In fact I can do better than that. How does "eagles123" rate their bidding in this recent hand (against robots)?
#13
Posted 2016-June-13, 10:48
661_Pete, on 2016-June-13, 10:03, said:
In fact I can do better than that. How does "eagles123" rate their bidding in this recent hand (against robots)?
It's very common to bid strangely against robots. Upgrading hands to 1NT is a common strategy, and it works extremely well.
#14
Posted 2016-June-13, 10:49
ps as for the hand i've done far more dumb things than that - sometimes against the robots i'm playing really quickly and miscount, but if you were to look you'd see my imp average over the past month over 500 boards (almost exclusively against robots, bbf people and TM's is +0.41 per board)
#15
Posted 2016-June-13, 11:06
The issue came up whether these self-descriptions are useful. I'll try a no alert needed convention like michaels or unusual with a partner that calls himself an expert. I find people self-labelled beginner or intermediate usually don't recognize it.
#16
Posted 2016-June-13, 11:27
#17
Posted 2016-June-13, 14:06
barmar, on 2016-June-13, 11:27, said:
Not necessarilly.
Too many chinese experts who label themselves as a beginner never be weaker than you because we believe that modesty is a virtue in Chinese traditional culture.
#18
Posted 2016-June-13, 14:20
#19
Posted 2016-June-13, 15:36
lycier, on 2016-June-13, 14:06, said:
Too many chinese experts who label themselves as a beginner never be weaker than you because we believe that modesty is a virtue in Chinese traditional culture.
There are bound to be exceptions, and this may cause offence, but my perception is that each country has a national trait when it comes to modesty, some ranking more than others. China is not alone in favouring that end of the spectrum. A year or so ago I suggested in these forums that it would be a good idea to enable players to conceal their BBO master point ranking. The response of BBO management was that they lacked the imagination as regards why anyone would want to.
Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. mstr-mnding) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.
"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"
"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq
#20
Posted 2016-June-14, 01:33
In fact, some bbo star players also label themselves as a beginner / intermediate / advanced.
For example, Dano de falco, he always be a bbo star in our hearts, always be a great expert in the world.
So self-rating ranking is useless.