[Dacbridge]

I am noticing that players are not bidding, declaring, and defending to the best of their ability, especially in the Express games. One example is from tonight where the opponent opened the bidding 2 clubs and their partner (an "Expert") passed! I have had my partner overcall 1 heart when they only had 3 small hearts and 6 good spades. I had an opponent ("Advanced") on defense claim 2 more tricks with only 2 points in their hand after the very first trick was played when my partner (the declarer) was going to only lose 1 trick in total (they seemed to want to rush my partner). The players take a very long time to bid when their bid is obvious and it takes so long for the robot to replace them. I have written to BBO and their response is to report each incident/player. I don't want to do that. I think they should monitor the cases and put out a statement that players should play fairly and ethically. Obviously there are misclicks and sometimes the player makes an honest mistake, but this whole thing is making it not fun to play in these games. I wonder if anyone else is experiencing this.

[smerriman]

As Hanlon's Razor puts it:

Quote

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

No amount of policing will turn Express games into anything but pure randomness.

[johnu]

For one thing, there might be a negative correlation between the self ratings (e.g. advanced, expert, world class) and playing ability. Players inflate their rating so they won't be automatically rejected from games because of low ratings, or to indulge delusions about actually being a good player.

There are some actual experts, and some actual world class players who have won national championships and/or played for their countries in international competitions. They are few and far between compared to those who self rate as experts and world class. If you don't know that they are expert players, a good rule of thumb is to assume they are actually long time novices or intermediates at best.

[Dacbridge]

I understand that there are people who inflate their rating; I don't know why someone would list themselves as an expert or advanced when they are nowhere near that level. But my issue also is that the mistakes that are made are so bad that a lower intermediate or even a good beginner would not make them. I just encountered a hand where my partner passed a 14-point hand in first seat. I had another partner fail to ruff a card (hesitated so long and I thought that maybe they only had the trump Ace but it turns out that they had more than one trump left). The other thing that makes the game less enjoyable is that the players are taking so long to make their decisions (bidding, playing, and defending) and I think that BBO should lessen the length of time that they allow before the player is replaced by a robot.

[pilowsky]

"I am noticing that players are not bidding, declaring, and defending to the best of their ability,"
There's the problem.
When you encounter someone on BBO you have absolutely no idea what is meant by "the best of their ability".
Also, your CHO may be stoned, dead tired or shopping.
It's hard to believe I know, but many people on BBO aren't taking it very seriously at all.

[mycroft]

The problem with the Express tournaments is the unsupervised nature. So, someone opening 1NT with 5314 13 count - meant to open 1S. But can't call it back now. 25A be damned.

The person who tanked on opening with an "obvious" bid was in another tab as dummy and didn't hear the bing of the new hand. Or got a text they had to reply to. Or the coffee spilled on the computer table. Or... Or, you know, it's not obvious to them, because they're new, or because "we don't *play* Stayman" (actual quote from my partner IRL, after tanking, then remembering our actual system, and putting down a 4243 14 count in 3NT).

I'm all for playing quickly, but the "replace by robot" times are already too fast for many (and more so in the Express tournaments, but at least "if you know you can't play that fast, don't sign up".) Witness the *many* threads about "how do we disable the timeout".

Having said that, if you want a game where we play "to the best of our ability", I'll set you up sometime against me and B-. I guarantee you within 4 hands you will be tearing your hair out about all the "long tanks before making an obvious play". But it will be the *right* obvious play, and unlike you, he'll know it's still right against the four or five distributions you and I didn't even consider... So "ethical, good, fast, and fair" might be one of those "pick three (you can't have all four)" things.

I do get your frustration. But realize that unlike FtF, you can't see what's going on behind the computer, and give them the benefit of the doubt over some things that seem odd. Or, you know, find a good group of players that fit all your wishes and get out of the Permanent Floating Pickup Pool (or "random opponents in tournaments")

As for "report it when it happens" vs "BBO should find all these and proactively deal with it" - do you expect your FtF directors to find all these issues and proactively deal with it, or do you report them to the director? There's a reason for that - your games would cost $150/session (or be 4 table games instead of 7) to have a director at every table calling penalties like in hockey. Now scale that up to 150 tables, every hour of the day (yes, even with computerized auditing help)...