[mgoetze]

daveharty, on 2010-October-21, 20:30, said:

If you are like me you get a lot of email spam pushing "personality surveys", Briggs Myers tests, etc.

I just checked the stuff SpamAssassin has binned for me in recent months but no, I don't. Either it's all sent from hosts on the Spamhaus lists, or you're doing something wrong.

[FM75]

Dave, I like the idea. Regrouping sounds good. 9 point scale might be a little "broad". See previous answers. I don't think anybody used 1,2 maybe even 3 yet.

On your scale, 576567 (beg-intermediate)

Now, the next thing is to figure out the metric. Is it a Euclidean 6 space? Or in some dimensions, should opposite be a good fit?

Then you could add - How many books have you read? Was your improvement proportional to your effort?

[daveharty]

FM75, on 2010-October-31, 15:39, said:

Then you could add - How many books have you read? Was your improvement proportional to your effort?

Ooh, I really like the idea of including something about reading habits, it hadn't even occurred to me.

[TwstofLime]

Dave, this enjoyably makes one think about one's style. Perhaps another factor in compatibility measurement would be a ranking of "intuition" through "mathematical precision." 1 = You will go with your gut in a highly competitive situation. 9 = You will rarely deviate from mathematical/statistical precision at any bridge table.

[rduran1216]

Phil, on 2010-October-21, 21:30, said:

Hi ♥ I'm a 359581 from Orange County, CA. I like spy novels, long walks along the beach and salsa dancing.

If you are a 359511, I will wait at the Starbucks at the Irvine Spectrum with a red rose and a completed convention card.

wow haha

776699 here.

[mike777]

interesting thanks for posting

I guess I would be close to:


777777

[bluecalm]

It would be cool if someone could describe a set of questions which would then gives score. I am reading awm description of himself and I would assign different numbers to him based on this information. For example "I am very competitive but I don't try to be rude" is 8 or 9 in my book :-)

I am 578499

I like a bit of science and good bidding system but would hate to play sophisticated relays or even too many gadgets but if something solves important problem then I am in.
I lead more actively than some of my friends but still a lot more passively than "standard" so 4 and maybe even 3.
As to carding I still try to convince my partner to play substitute count in more spots than we currently do so I guess it gives me 8

[awm]

There are different ways to define "competitive" and I think it is tricky. Personally my goal is to play well (or as well as I can), but this is more a personal measure of success that is not necessarily reflected in the overall standings.

I believe that there are a lot of things a person can do outside of playing their best which will improve their chances of winning. Personally I tend not to do these things. Sometimes it has to do with enjoyment of playing, some with being a nice person, some with life priorities, etc. To give some examples:

(1) Finding good partners/teammates is often a key to doing well. I tend to prefer to play with friends, prefer to make commitments in advance (and keep them), and prefer not to pay people to play with me or on my team. All of these occasionally land me with weaker teams than I could (in principle) get if I solicited the best available players. However, while I like to personally play my best, my enjoyment is impacted more by having a team I like being around than necessarily placing the highest possible. Of course, it is true that many of my friends also care about playing as well as they can, but they may differ in experience/ability/time commitment to make that happen.

(2) Playing as many tournaments as possible is key to building a "reputation" in the game (which can help with the finding teammates thing) and also helps keep in top playing form. In my case bridge is not my primary job, and it's more important to me to deal with career-related issues than to attend a maximum number of tournaments. This interferes a lot with travel. I've also found that I don't really enjoy most regional tournaments and am not particularly willing to travel for them unless I really like the location or there are other extenuating circumstances. If I was really trying to "win major tournaments" I would be investing more time/money to attend them.

(3) There are some things one can do to try to optimize performance, including special diets, arriving early for tournaments to "get used" to the time zone, and so forth. I'm not really into these things and tend to be more trying to have a good time. Certainly playing lousy bridge or losing to lousy teams reduces my enjoyment... but there's only so much I'm willing to do to combat that.

(4) There are some things I view as rudeness, but a lot of top players evidently do not. There are stories for example in Bob Hamman or Alan Sontag's books about things that they do to "get into the heads" of their opponents (or that opponents tried to do to them). These stories are often humorous, but they aren't things I'd ever want to be involved with, and tend to make me think less of the players involved. While outright rudeness may be frowned on, there is nothing that says you have to be friendly, nothing that say you really have to practice active ethics above/beyond the minimum requirements. I think there is a space between "ethical" and "pleasant" which an awful lot of our top competitors inhabit. Maybe this is natural; one could say that I lack a certain "killer instinct" but honestly I don't find it worthwhile to behave in such ways.

[bluecalm]

Good points awm. I was only evaluating how I feel about myself and not what I am actually doing compared to other people who are considered competitive.
That's why I said it would be nice to devise a test for this. We are probably very similar in respect of being competitive but you rate yourself lower because you have different standards (admittedly more reasonable) than mine.
Those different standards will be also seen in other categories. Some people might think I am the most passive first leader in the world but from my perspective I am just a bit below average. Among my friends I am "scientist" who also want to play something "fancy" but seeing what people are playing I "know" I am not even close to higher end of the scale etc.

[Foxx]

After some careful thought, I would rate my position as

265374