[Roam]

Okay -

I am new to bridge. There are not a lot of people in my life interested in learning. I usually play in the middle of the night or over lunch. And so . . . I try to do my best but some people are really hostile out there.

Have others found ways to play in groups or whatever where the people are not so hostile?

[helene_t]

Hi Roam,

There are some clubs such as the WP Refuge Club, the Acol club, and last but not the least the BIL (Beginner-Intermediate Lounge), which tend to be more friendly than the main room.

Also, you should mark pleasant partners (and pleasant opponents) as friends and tell them you have done so, so you can play together again later.

[jillybean]

I’m sure people use the anonymity of the internet to behave at their worst, they would never behave like that at a club. (jokes aside)
I agree with what Helene has suggested, join a club , play with friends.
I’ll also add, if you are table host when someone behaves inappropriately, you have every right to remove that player from the table, mark them as enemy and don’t allow them back. Take a screen shot and send a complaint to abuse @ bridgebase(dot)com. If a player will not stop harassing you, ask a yellow for help.

It’s a great game but it has its share of idiots, good luck

[Rain]

Quick guide to taking screenshots for the nasties. (May want to use judgement and do this only for really nasty remarks...)

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

Free lesson software (Learn to Play Bridge) developed by the BBO founders:
http://web.acbl.org/LearnToPlayBridge

And finally, if you like, you can also rent the GIB robots to play with for a bit till you're comfortable playing. $3/month for unlimited usage ($1/week)
Browse around and you'll see the GIB Robot option.

[vuroth]

To be totally fair, I've seen far better players than me called morons on BBO. You've never really going to avoid it entirely, but there are certainly safe havens around. With some mentoring and study, you'll probably find that a lot of the critics are throwing stones from their own glass houses.

[bill1157]

Rain, on Aug 19 2009, 10:13 AM, said:

Quick guide to taking screenshots for the nasties. (May want to use judgement and do this only for really nasty remarks...)

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

hope the robots don't know about this, because I have been very rude to them at times!

Bill

[Fluffy]

it is hard, but if you invest time, you will end up creating a nice group of friends and be able to play with them.

[jillybean]

bill1157, on Aug 19 2009, 09:14 AM, said:

Rain, on Aug 19 2009, 10:13 AM, said:

Quick guide to taking screenshots for the nasties. (May want to use judgement and do this only for really nasty remarks...)

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

hope the robots don't know about this, because I have been very rude to them at times!

Bill

You should hear what they're saying about YOU.

[Double !]

You are unlikely to totally eliminate such comments if playing with people you don't know in the main bridge club. So, you might wish to meet some people first or play in other places as already suggested. If, as you said, you are new to Bridge, you might also wish to consider becoming a member of the BIL (Beginners and Intermediate Club) on BBO. The people there are very nice, you might find a mentor whom you like, and you will learn an awful lot and at your own speed.

DHL

[inquiry]

The BBO does not ALLOW people to call other players, moron, or stupid, or idiot, etc. The fact that this is against the rules, unfortunately, does not prevent flamming as...holes from doing just that. There is no easy solution, but you can always sent an email to Abuse at bridgebase dot com or contact any yellow online at the time. Preferably, scroll through the list of yellows and find one that is not actually playing, but if none of them are "free" (not playing), just contact one that is playing (try not to contact one playing in a tournament).

I am a bbo yellow, feel free to contact me if I am online. You can also email me at inquiry at bridgebase dot com (or send me a private message here), but best is to contact the yellow named abuse.

The Beginner/Intermediate lounge (BIL) seems perfect for you, and no one there will DARE call anyone names. It is a great place. To find out more about the BIL, check their website at http://www.bilbridge.com/. It is a safe, caring, and educational organization that is free to join, free to play, and fun to boot.

[bb79]

inquiry, on Aug 19 2009, 12:46 PM, said:

The Beginner/Intermediate lounge (BIL) seems perfect for you, and no one there will DARE call anyone names. It is a great place. To find out more about the BIL, check their website at http://www.bilbridge.com/. It is a safe, caring, and educational organization that is free to join, free to play, and fun to boot.

as far as I know, BIL is no longer free (maybe there's free trial period), but membership is not very expensive.

[bid_em_up]

inquiry, on Aug 19 2009, 11:46 AM, said:

The BBO does not ALLOW people to call other players, moron, or stupid, or idiot, etc. The fact that this is against the rules, unfortunately, does not prevent flamming as...holes from doing just that.

Ummm, I would think that calling the rude players "flaming a..holes" is also against the rules. Isn't it?

(I understand your intent...but...)

[neilkaz]

vuroth, on Aug 19 2009, 10:41 AM, said:

To be totally fair, I've seen far better players than me called morons on BBO. You've never really going to avoid it entirely, but there are certainly safe havens around. With some mentoring and study, you'll probably find that a lot of the critics are throwing stones from their own glass houses.

Agreed and I will suggest a few things, but first of all I must ask a couple things and some of what I will say may not make me any new friends here

1) How do you self rate yourself? If you're new to the game, by all means call yourself novice or beginner. If you call yourself advanced or worse yet expert and you're sitting at at table with adv/exp and don't even understand basic bidding or standard signals and take 8 tricks in game when most are making 11, you may get abused. This is life..not everyone in an angel.

2) If your self rating is private, don't sit at an adv/exp table until you are quite experienced or once again, the abuse may fly. Certainly not everyone is going to abuse you, and many PD's will leave if they expect an adv/exp level PD and they realize you play like a novice. This is life.. most good players want a good game.

3) If you can't find a beginner/novice game, try an intermediate table, or host your own and advertise for 3 nice beginners to join you.

OK now for the constructive advice.

1) By all means .. JOIN BIL !

2) Work on your declarer play LOTs .. ie study books, internet columns .. newspaper columns etc. Learn to count etc. Declarer play is something you can spend lots of time working on and don't need a PD for.

3) Make sure that you learn to understand what ever the basic bidding system is in your country if you are playing with countrymen. For most of us here, that is SAYC. If you know the basics of SAYC you can play with almost anyone on BBO in MBC.

4) You'll defend half the time. You should learn basic standard signals.

5) In your profile state what you play !! If you're an American beginner, then list SAYC (once you know it) and standard signals. If you prefer UDCA, list that, but most beginners at least in N. Am play standard. If you play Norway Standard and UDCA list that instead.

Assuming that you are self rated as beg/nov you shouldn't be getting any abuse from anyone. (Not that anyone should get abuse..but the world isn't full of angels).

Oh and JOIN BIL

.. neilkaz ..

[blackshoe]

A moron in bridge is someone who did something the idiot on the other side of the table didn't expect — usually because he wasn't smart enough to think of it.

[MattieShoe]

Play with people of similar skill level. I think that's the big one... Very good bridge players tend to take bridge much more seriously, which is probably how they got to be very good, eh? But that means they tend to be far less tolerant of people playing slowly, thinking things through, or making rookie mistakes.

That is a broad generalization of course, everybody is different... In the end though, this is the internet. Annoying jerks thrive here, where there's no real repercussions. The only way they can win is if they stop you from having fun. Cultivate a thick skin.

Regarding beginner play, I wrote a little thing to analyze the results from the bridge base myhands list for myself, and I ran your name through it.

Avg IMPs: -0.45
    Offense: -1.00
        Declarer: -1.99
        Dummy   : -0.34
    Defense: +0.02

So just at a glance, -0.45/board is a bit below average but not horrific -- Just fine for a beginner. It appears when you play as the declarer, you perform worse than when you're on defense or when your partner is the declarer. Nothing wrong with that of course, but maybe that might be the area where you could see the biggest immediate gains, eh?

The most important I've learned is to stop before you even play that first card off the dummy on that first trick. Examine every suit, note how many combined cards are in the suit, what honors are missing, did one of your opponents bid that suit, etc. Then construct a plan for the entire hand, start to finish. For a novice it's probably going to be something vague and fuzzy like "Lead out trump, then set up that 9 card outside suit" or "Set up a cross trump because I need to get rid of these losers before leading out trump". But even a fuzzy or sub-optimal plan is infinitely better than having no plan! :-) Over time, your plans will become more cogent as you start to take into account transportation, who to finesse for what, etc.

The "Learn to play bridge" software from ACBL has a section entitled "Planning the Play". I recommend going through it several times since there's too much to take in at once. Even though I've been playing years, I sat down and went through them. It still caught me a few times making the wrong plays, then it explains WHY they were the wrong plays. Very valuable :-)

The other one beginners often fail to grasp -- Position is hugely important. The later you play on a trick, the better. Sometimes the best thing you can do is intentionally losing a trick (often to a specific opponent), so you get to play 2nd and 4th instead of 1st and 3rd.

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts. Don't let the jerks get ya down. :-)

[helene_t]

MattieShoe, on Sep 5 2009, 06:57 AM, said:

Play with people of similar skill level. I think that's the big one... Very good bridge players tend to take bridge much more seriously, which is probably how they got to be very good, eh? But that means they tend to be far less tolerant of people playing slowly, thinking things through, or making rookie mistakes.

I have to disagree with that. To become a good player you have to seek the errors by yourself instead of blaming partner all the time. I doubt there is much correlation between skill level and niceness, if anything I would guess they were positively correlated.

Besides, it is hard to tell how good someone is. In general I will know whether someone is nice sooner than I know whether s/he is a good player.

[MattieShoe]

To clarify, I meant a rank beginner shouldn't be sitting down at a competitive table that specifies experts only and whatnot. There are a berjillion competent players around who don't mind playing with beginners, so no reason for a beginner to force themselves where they aren't wanted. I doubt that's what happened here -- more likely just a random jerk.

But to be honest, when a good player plays with a beginner, I think most of the time it IS the beginners fault when an easy contract doesn't make, or a contract ends up in the wrong place due to a poor bid. Things like passing out a blackwood 4NT, or assuming a splinter bid was a jump shift... Good players also seem to get annoyed when partner doesn't claim fast enough or play fast enough -- It may be instantly obvious to THEM that the rest of the tricks are won, or what order they need to be played in, but not necessarily for a beginner.

Maybe you're right though. In my experience, better players are less tolerant overall, but maybe it just happens to be the players I've watched and played with.

[jillybean]

Experts eh! these are the true morons. This is how my last pickup expert bid..

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  1♠
 Pass  2♥    3♦    3♥
 Pass  3NT   Pass  6♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

Unknown BBO experts should be avoided at all costs.

[MattieShoe]

jillybean, on Sep 5 2009, 03:15 AM, said:

Experts eh! these are the true morons. This is how my last pickup expert bid..

Dealer: East Vul: NS Scoring: IMP

♠ K2 ♥ 6532 ♦ QT6 ♣ AKQ6 ♠ AJ864 ♥ AKT84 ♦ K ♣ J3

West  North East  South

 -     -     Pass  1♠
 Pass  2♥    3♦    3♥
 Pass  3NT   Pass  6♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

Unknown BBO experts should be avoided at all costs.

Perhaps overly aggressive but that makes 6♥ cold if hearts split evenly, doesn't it?
2 heart tricks, 4 club tricks, 2 spade tricks, trump two diamond tricks and trump 2 spade tricks... If not, there's a diamond winner but it's too late to figure out the ramifications.

[1eyedjack]

The final contract may be forgivable (significantly below odds I think but I have ended in worse), but that does not condone route there.