Re: The decline of OkBridge ?

"vida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Warwick Todd) wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

I like BBO a lot. I like the software, I like the fact that is free.

I really don't know how much it costs Fred to maintain it, but is
probably not as much as you might think. Once the software and
hardware is there, his biggest expense is probably bandwidth, and
luckily for everybody, it gets cheaper almost as fast as Fred starts
to need it (due to the increase of members).
After saying this, I have to mention that I really don't play a lot on
BBO. Why? Because being an *unknown*, is difficult to get a good pick
up game, and the only thing you have to go with when deciding to seat
or not seat @ a table is the self-proclaimed level of the players. As
anybody that played online bridge knows, this is usually not even
close to being accurate.
This is why I still play most of my bridge on OKb. I don't think
lehman's are an accurate indicator of bridge ability, not even close.
I don't think either that they are a *good* rating system. But is
definitely better than nothing. Why BBO hasn't implemented something
like this? I don't know. If I'd have to guess,I'd say that they try to
avoid the nastiness that this rating system sometimes generates on
people.
The other thing that would happen if they do something like this,
considering that membership is free, is that within a month, they'd
triple the number of accounts. Not because of new people signing in,
but because people would play some hands, get a poor *rating score*,
and sign up w/ a different nickname (or let them *reset-it* w/o
keeping track).

As of your question, is OKb declining? I think so, at least in part.
BBO is better and free. But there are a lot of people like me, that
don't have *regulars* online partners, don't know anybody on BBO, and
the only thing they have to go with when deciding if sitting @ a table
or not is somebody's lehmans. These people will stay @ OKb at least
until offered something better in this field.

-vida.

*There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand
binary, and those who don't*.