[timve]

Lately I tried to become a star myself. After years of hard work, painfully bad mistakes and horrible results I finally started to win some tournaments. From 2007 onwards won Dutch (open) and world titles (student and youth). Never wanted to obtain a star. But with becoming older you sometimes see the need of exploding ones name. So I obtained for one. With the results of some other 'stars' I didnt thought my application would give any trouble. Till I received this reaction:

Hello Tim.

We are sorry but our rules for new stars have become very
strict and very specific. For players from most countries, the
typical path to be awarded a star is to play in certain fairly
recent World Championship Events.

We have no doubt that you play bridge at least as well as many
of our existing stars, but please understand that our
estimation (or anyone's estimation) of your skill does not
factor into the equation. We have learned the hard way that
judging the skill of our members leads only to trouble for us
and hurt feelings for them.

Our rules for assigning stars are therefore based purely on
specific tournament accomplishments. This method is not
accurate in terms of identifying the best players on our site,
but it has the virtue of being manageable.

Something else we have learned the hard way is that trouble
follows whenever we make exceptions to our rules. Still, we
trust that you will keep us informed of any future successes
you have at bridge. We're always happy to have another look
when updates are needed.

As for right now, we hope you can appreciate the position we
are in and, star or no star, you continue to enjoy BBO.

Hmm ok this makes sense. The inflation of Stars on BBO is big, very big. Playing against a star or see a star commenting on a game is not even close to have an idea of them being good. Some players have not won any big tournament who have a star. But if I dont think a change of policy will end this. Cause there are already so many people who in my humble opinion don't deserve a star that the whole idea has been demolished by the inflation. If BBO wants to have real stars as star I think they should make some kind of 'superstars' or remove a lot of the stars they have given.

Looking forward to your opinion,

Tim

[cherdano]

We need the Super-Star.

[matmat]

nah, we need merit badges.

Instead of a single star we need little ribbons of various colors with annotations:

"John Doe won the Upper Elbonia stratiflighted world championships for players who began playing less than 6 weeks prior"

My personal inclination would be to scrap the stars altogether and either not have starred players, or start awarding them from scratch.

[pooltuna]

Superstars would be like Novas!! So we should call them something close to that. I know we can call them Novices

[Phil]

Agree with Matmat. The stars have been BBO's achilles' heel.

The letter from BBO is very clear that a star does not equal skill or even profiency. Yet, unfortunately it is the only indicator of skill on a players profile, except the meaningless ACBL awards. If someone was looking for a teacher on a for-hire basis, then a star tends to grant instant credibiity since a new player has no idea what to judge a teacher on.

If BBO wanted to get rid of stars altogether, it wouldn't break my heart, but I like the idea of a new player wanting to watch an interesting table with good players, so there are benefits to having stars.

BTW if the OP was on the Dutch Open team, then the star is warranted right? If he's a junior that represented his country, then I am sure he will have plenty of opportunity to win national championships and represent his Open team at a later date

[chasetb]

What would be interesting is if they removed all Stars, but then started reassigning them, with a higher criteria to get the re-awarded. It would be cool if they also had different colored stars, so you would know just how good the competition was. They could have one for Juniors, one for Seniors only, maybe several colors for national (we all know that some nations don't stack up as well to others), and an ultimate one for placing in the Bermuda Bowl. A person could have multiple stars - as an example Fred Gitelman would have one for his success in the Juniors, as well as one for being 2nd in the 1995 Bermuda Bowl, as well as his recent string of wins at NABCs despite 'not being a professional player '.

[babalu1997]

“I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.” Grouch Marx

Once I happened on to a World Class partner in the main bridge club.

We argued about some mundane bidding issue, I was right,but he pulled rank:

He: I am world class, you know.
I: no, you're not, if you don't have a star you are not world class.
He: I am. How do you get a star?
I: you have to ask Fred Gitelman.
He: Fred Gitelman is my personal friend, I have played with him many times. Tomorrow I will log with a star and show you.

I did not even make a note of his name, but the next day he did say hello to me:

He: Hello, can you give me Fred gitelman's phone number?
I: where is your star?
He: I have to call Fred to get it. Do you know his phone number?
I: Aren't you his personal friend? You call him at home.

I don't know if he called, he never said hello again.

[nige1]

pooltuna, on 2011-April-19, 12:01, said:

Superstars would be like Novas!! So we should call them something close to that. I know we can call them Novices

[wyman]

Phil, on 2011-April-19, 12:17, said:

BTW if the OP was on the Dutch Open team, then the star is warranted right? If he's a junior that represented his country, then I am sure he will have plenty of opportunity to win national championships and represent his Open team at a later date

Several USA Juniors have stars, of course.

[timve]

wyman, on 2011-April-19, 20:21, said:

Several USA Juniors have stars, of course.

But according to the new rules they shouldnt have one, unless they won a national.

[hrothgar]

To me, the great question (by far)
is whether Fred was conciously thinking of sneetches when he chose the term "star"

[paulg]

wyman, on 2011-April-19, 20:21, said:

Several USA Juniors have stars, of course.

timve, on 2011-April-20, 08:44, said:

But according to the new rules they shouldnt have one, unless they won a national.

Unless perhaps they played in a recent World Junior Championship? Which most of them have as far as I aware.

[matmat]

paulg, on 2011-April-20, 10:07, said:

Unless perhaps they played in a recent World Junior Championship? Which most of them have as far as I aware.

If the OP is who I think the OP is, and I think he is (how's that for a meaningless circular statement?) then not only did he play in a recent junior international tournament, but he also happened to win an event in it, soundly trouncing many of the US (and other) Juniors who do have stars. Also seems he might have represented the Netherlands in philadelphia... hmmmm...

Just strikes me there is quite a bit of inconsistency in the star-awarding process. Almost feels like there is some sort of bias...

[Bbradley62]

It seems to me that anyone with a WBF title (World Master or above) should qualify for a star. Of course, there will probably be many other combinations of credentials, but that one should be sufficient.

[timve]

matmat, on 2011-April-20, 10:35, said:

If the OP is who I think the OP is, and I think he is (how's that for a meaningless circular statement?) then not only did he play in a recent junior international tournament, but he also happened to win an event in it, soundly trouncing many of the US (and other) Juniors who do have stars. Also seems he might have represented the Netherlands in philadelphia... hmmmm...

Just strikes me there is quite a bit of inconsistency in the star-awarding process. Almost feels like there is some sort of bias...

Yep Im the guy your referring to

[fred]

matmat, on 2011-April-20, 10:35, said:

If the OP is who I think the OP is, and I think he is (how's that for a meaningless circular statement?) then not only did he play in a recent junior international tournament, but he also happened to win an event in it, soundly trouncing many of the US (and other) Juniors who do have stars. Also seems he might have represented the Netherlands in philadelphia... hmmmm...

Just strikes me there is quite a bit of inconsistency in the star-awarding process. Almost feels like there is some sort of bias...

Stars are awarded for participation in only certain specific World Championship events. One thing that all of these events all have in common is that the WBF greatly restricts who can enter. For example, in some of these events each country is allowed to send only one team. To the best of my knowledge all of the events in Philadelphia were open events. Since just about anyone who shows up can play in such events, we do not award stars automatically to participants.

Additionally, a BBO member can earn a star by winning any of a number of specific non-World Championship events. Although I am not involved in our star department these days, I am fairly certain that (rightly or wrongly) there are no junior events that fall into this category.

Most strong junior players I correspond with who do not qualify for stars according to our rules are remarkably understanding and mature when I tell them something like "I am sure it is only a matter of time before you get a star". It seems that most young talents know they are destined for stardom in the true sense of the word and do not need to see the symbol in order to prove this to themselves or to anyone else. I have to admit that I find this somewhat suprising and refreshing.

The rules we have are actually well-defined and there is certainly no bias going on. However, it should be noted that the rules have changed a couple of time (slightly) over the years and that (occasionally) mistakes are made.

Those who suggest that we allow perceived skill to enter the equation should really think about the horrifying implications. One nice thing about the current system is that, when a star-application is rejected, almost all candidates take it well - it is easy for most adults to accept that rules are rules even if they disagree with the rules (and even those who disagree with our rules tend to admit they are at least reasonable after a serious and un-ego-involved effort is made to understand the reasons behind the rules). However, if we awarded stars based on someone's perception of a given player's skill, it would be a different story - rejected stars would then feel insulted as the implication would be "in our opinion you are not a good enough bridge player to get a star".

And yes, Richard, I have to admit that the star symbols themselves were sneetch-inspired

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[JLOGIC]

Hey Tim,

I honestly sympathize with you about this. When I got a star like ~7-8 years ago, BBO was much smaller and it was basically Fred and some others who decided, on a subjective basis, whether to award a star. I was lucky because I got one right when they changed it to an objective system (and it was a lax one, junior champions got one, but I had not even played in junior events yet, and was not a national champion yet).

The decision to transition to a completely objective system as BBO got bigger was kind of automatic, from what I understand the subjective system routinely led to conversations with Fred like this:

"Can I have a star?"
"No"
"But I have 8,000 masterpoints, and stars X, Y, and Z have only 3,000!"

Obviously this led to hurt feelings for those people rejected, and also to a lot of grief for Fred and his staff.

Now, an objective system is not perfect, and some people might fall through the cracks when they deserve one, or get one when they don't deserve one, because the criteria is flawed. But certainly, it's better the alternative which might reflect badly on BBO and hurt the feelings of some customers.

I think their initial criteria for what was required to be a star was much too loose, leading to some relatively weak players getting a star. Again, BBO was much smaller, so it wasn't that much of an issue, but now since BBO is so huge, this led to star inflation.

So, it sounds like they changed the system again. The biggest imperfection with that is that now some people who qualified under the old system cannot get a star anymore (like you), and I'm sure this breeds a similar type of thought process as the above conversation:

"Can I have a star?"
"No you do not qualify under the new criteria."
"But I have equal/better qualifications than some people who are already stars."

This is exactly what happened when they made the change like 7 years ago from a subjective system to an objective system. Some people complained that people (like me at the time) did not qualify for a star under the criteria.

But think about the alternative. You can either grandfather in people who already received a star, or take it away because they do not meet the new criteria.

IMO, it is obvious to let anyone who had received a star keep it. It would be very wrong to strip people of their star through no fault of their own, if BBO judged they could get one at any point, they should honor that. It would be extremely hurtful to someone to receive a star (maybe a goal of theirs), and then have it taken away.

Yes, this is imperfect, and leads to situations where someone like you who is more qualified than previous stars possibly having hurt feelings, or feeling entitled to one based on the others having their star.

But if the option is strip others of their stars, or not address the previous issue of making the qualifications too loose, I think this is the only thing they can do.

You're right, it's possible they could make another designation for "superstars" but it kind of defeats the purpose, and goes against BBOs general tendency to avoid rating systems.

Whatever BBO does will not be perfect though at this point, and maybe you should be qualified for a star, but BBO definitely has to stick to an objective policy or it opens up a can of worms. If they were to start making exceptions for people, the same thing would happen as last time they had a subjective system.

[MickyB]

fred, on 2011-April-20, 17:39, said:

To the best of my knowledge all of the events in Philadelphia were open events.

The junior events were not open, the Dutch team qualified by finishing fourth out of twenty-three in the U25 Euros in 2009, for which each country could enter one team. Initially, the top five or six teams were awarded places in Philadelphia, but this was later increased to eight.

[JLOGIC]

I thought it was obvious that:

1) No junior events (to Fred's knowledge) count towards a star anymore.
2) Participation alone in an open world championship is not enough if there is no qualifier to get there (duh, anyone can play).

Therefore, according to matmats post:

Quote

If the OP is who I think the OP is, and I think he is (how's that for a meaningless circular statement?) then not only did he play in a recent junior international tournament, but he also happened to win an event in it, soundly trouncing many of the US (and other) Juniors who do have stars. Also seems he might have represented the Netherlands in philadelphia... hmmmm...

Nothing was a star qualification according to whatever the policy is right now.

The inconsistency here is not bias, it is simply a policy change. Had Tim tried to become a star a year or two ago with his current qualifications, he would be qualified multiple times.

[timve]

Well that the standards have changed Im sure of, nearly all of my junior friends in Holland have obtained a Star by becoming European champion in 2007. What I think is indeed a very good result, that should be awarded this way. Nevertheless I think that some of the results I had since that moment are equal or even better than this result.

That I want to obtain a star is surely out of self interest. With a star your name becomes more famous by the great public. That can have merits. Its not that I want to show off (see me having a star), cause some of my results are from 2008-2009, if I really wanted it I could have asked for one that year. Even this topic I started after an advice of one of the BBO people themselves.