[LCarey13]

Hello. I've been setting up games with people I know, in the "Casual" section. I've watched another table have scores reflected during their game, not just IMPs. I looked under "Table Options" and it looks like at the top of that tab is where I can choose to display points or IMPs, but that section is greyed out.

Is there a way to get that space to display regular rubber bridge scores instead of IMPs, which continue to be a complete mystery to us as to their value in determining who really played the best?

Thanks!

[smerriman]

When you click 'Start a table', you can choose between IMPs, Matchpoints, or Total Points. So choose it then; you can't change it after the table has been created.

In terms of your last sentence, you have things a little backwards. Suppose you get dealt good cards with which anyone would make game. You get 400 points for doing so, and your opponents get none. Does this mean you played better than your opponents?

With IMPs or MPs, you're compared against people who are dealt the same cards as you as a true test of how you play with the luck of the deal removed.

[LCarey13]

Thank you smerriman! Perfect!

The thing is, I've played Duplicate bridge and understand the concept of comparing your play with others who have played the same hand, and then putting the players in ordinal rank as far as how well the pair did against the other pairs. What is so distracting to us is that the IMPs seem to change for no reason - after we've had a hand dealt but haven't begun bidding, for example.

[jandrew]

 LCarey13, on 2020-April-24, 10:19, said:

Thank you smerriman! Perfect!

The thing is, I've played Duplicate bridge and understand the concept of comparing your play with others who have played the same hand, and then putting the players in ordinal rank as far as how well the pair did against the other pairs. What is so distracting to us is that the IMPs seem to change for no reason - after we've had a hand dealt but haven't begun bidding, for example.

I suppose that you mean that the IMPs seem to change in respect of the last hand, after you have started the next. You should not be able to see any IMPs for a hand until you have finished bidding and playing that hand
Hands are played at 16 tables and you might well not be the last table to play the hand - indeed, you may sometimes be the first.
The IMPs score does not finalise until the 16th table has finished the play. Until then it will fluctuate after each of the remaining tables finish.

[LCarey13]

Thank you for your response, Jandrew. I guess I've been unaware of how a "casual table" play works. I had guessed they just randomly dealt our hands and then compared us with data from other times when those hands were played on BBO. But are you saying that when you play in the Casual Room, with no possibility of points, you're playing the same hands in real time as other hands are being played for points on BBO? I hadn't considered that while we played in Casual we were playing the very same hands being played elsewhere at that moment, and that's why it was taking time for comparisons to be added up and factored in.

[smerriman]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "playing for points". If you're just playing casually, you'll be compared against 15 other tables that are also playing casually. But yes, some of these might have played the hand before you (you'll see those results immediately), and some of these tables might not have completed (or been dealt) that hand yet (which will result in the scores changing as they do).

[LCarey13]

smerriman - when I say "playing for points", I mean you need 100 points to win a game at your table, and the partnership that is the quickest to win 2 games wins the rubber (they get a few more points if they win it in two consecutive games, instead of best 2 out of 3).

When you are looking at scoring that way, it doesn't matter what anyone else in the room is doing.

My bridge friends usually take the more "duplicate" bridge bidding philosophy in that we try to really wring the most bidding out of each hand, but we still are interested to know how those hands would be scored in the old fashioned kitchen table bridge scoring system. Just out of curiosity. Because it's a different way of viewing the bidding process to bid what you need to win, and not necessarily bid the highest bid you could possibly make every single hand.

Anyway, thanks smerriman and jandrew for helping me navigate this BBO - we're enjoying playing.

[barmar]

This is not rubber bridge, your points do not accumulate between hands, and there's no "best 2 out of 3" games to win a rubber.

There are two ways to play where your scores are compared against past plays rather than other rooms that are playing in real time:

1. Select "Vugraph deals" in the Deal Source window. You'll play the hands from an archived Vugraph event, and your scores will be compared with the results from the original event.
2. Play in an "Instant Robot Duplicate" tournament. This is a robot game, not a game for 4 humans. You play the boards from an old Robot Duplicate tournament, and your scores are compared against a random selection of 14 players from the original tournament.

[LCarey13]

Thanks, barmar. I guess the trick is to spend time trying to understand the IMP system, which seems confusing. When I play Duplicate Bridge in person, you get a listing of the players and how well they did against the others in their position, in order of excellence of play. So it's easy to see where you stand - out of 25 pairs, if you're 8th, that's easy to comprehend.

In casual play here, is there any way to see the IMPs listed in ordinal rank at the end of a series of games?

[smerriman]

You're compared against a different set of 15 tables every board, since it's randomly dealing them throughout all the different tables that are online, as new people come, others leave, etc. So comparisons only make sense for a single board at a time. But if you look at the results for that board (initially, or later on when more results come in), you'll see the scores for all of the other people who played that board, in order of how they scored.

[LCarey13]

smerriman, that makes sense, thanks!