[recount123]

Hi all, particularly conspiracy theorists
I noticed that when me and my partner get to play against high rated opps (like 25 | 45) we get odd scores.
By odd I mean we make an overtrick and we still have a minus - not 0.8 or 1.2 as per ususal but 6.0 or worse.
While opps play normal looking 4♥ and get +8 all of the sudden.
We list Other Tables and these show completely unusual list.
It dawned on me that this Other tables list may be doctored to arrive at target score.
This wouldn't be much of a problem but lately it became quite intensly skewed.
Also in such circumstances we don't get opening hands - like 2 or 3 times during 20 board session.
Admins are welcome to peek into my recent hands.
Sure, for our fees these days, BBO may try to "raise our players experience" and do well intentioned moves.
However me and my Australian partner get frustrated very often recently - most of the time in fact. We've been on BBO for years.
So please investigate: how Other tables list gets compiled and why it is sometimes empty, when scores are favourable for us - I think empty turns into our win 4 out of 5 times.
Cheers, Paul

[mycroft]

My guess (as a 25-ish rated player, but that's more to "my regular partners either don't play online or play in team games"; my favourite rating is "experts ask me to play") is that your games underbid.

"we make with an overtrick, and are -6"; yeah, either 2♠+1 or 3♠+1 with 4♠ biddable and makeable.
"they are in a normal 4♥, and are +8"; yeah, the room is in 6 off 1 the 25% of the time both finesses are wrong.

When you get what you think is an odd result, look at the "other tables" list. See what the contracts are that scored (significantly) better than yours did, and look to see if they are actually reasonable, and it's your table that's odd.

How you get different numbers of results is that hands in the Main area are played 16 times max; you might have a board that's early (and the scores will settle out as more come in, there's a refresh button for that) or you might have the one that for some odd reason only gets played 4 times (BBO has done that for decades; I have no idea why).

"we didn't get the points, maybe 3 times in 20 boards" - yeah, that'll actually happen about one time in 10, just due to statistics. But because humans are pattern-matching creatures (and bridge players doubly so), I guarantee you'll remember them (and, less so, the ones where you got all the points) where the "average" sets tend to blend into the background, so you "remember" the outliers being maybe one time in 3 or 4. Don't worry about that, so do I :-)

[recount123]

Thank you for the reply.
Your unswer feels like fire fighting
I am a system analyst; I understand phenomena you explained to me.
My query therefore I simplify as follows:
Seemingly "Other tables" list is strategically manipulated;
There's no accountability of scoring available to players;
This observation coincides with BBO turning commercial;
I'm posting this observation to see, if anyone else is experiencing the same.
This is not call for explanations.
I realize now, that Forums are not often visited by players.
I'd be glad if someone suggested a better venue.
Cheers, Paul

[kerkido]

You and anyone else can look up the hands you've played over the past few weeks here:

https://www.bridgeba...time=1792148400

You can see who was playing at the other tables and how they were scored.

Perhaps you can give some specific examples of which of these hands you think were 'strategically manipulated' and how?