[hrothgar]

I have been actively involved in online bridge for close to 30 years now.

I was an early member of OKBridge. I loved playing there I made friends and acquaintances that I still know to this day. However, round about the year 2K, Matt Clegg lost interest in OKB. He stopped adding new features and functions and treated OKB as a cash cow.

Luckily, about that same time, Fred Gitelman came on the scene and release Bridge Base Online. BBO was a classic disruptor. Its tech wasn’t as good as what OKB had to offer, however, it had a business model that was dramatically different and was able to support a much lower price point. Equally significant, you had a management team that was directly engaging with the user base and working to improve the product.

BBO quickly captured an enormous part of OKB’s user base and was able to extend its platform to include large numbers of end users that OKB could never really support. And for 15+ years life was good. However, all good things come to an end.

In the case of BBO, this was the decision to merge with FunBridge (which is owned by the HLD Investment Group). I don’t begrudge Fred, Uday, and their long term investors in cashing out. This was (obviously) great for them. However, this decision is screwing over their long term user base. HLD needs to recoup their investment. And in turn, this means much more focus on maximizing profits. And, as we’re all discovering, a profit maximizing monopolist has a whole bunch of opportunities to maximize their profits.

1. The cost to play in fee based tournaments has been jacked up multiple times
2. Today, BBO has announced that they are going to start charging tournament directors for the privilege of directing free games on the BBO platform

For me, this last decision is the straw that is break (this) camel’s back.

Over the years I have spent hundreds of dollars each year on BBO bucks, not because I particularly value playing against their bots (and certainly not because I care about BBO masterpoints) Rather, I wanted to give back and help support a platform that I once valued.

No more. At the most basic level, I don’t think that it is possible to reconcile the competing interest of the HLD investment and the BBO user base. And, the way’s in which BBO’s management is trying to monetize that base are so ham handed and so antithetical to the way in which the BBO community was built that I can not in good conscious support them going forward.

Equally significant, BBO has always struggled with technical debt. However, over time this seems to be getting worse and worse. It’s been years since BBO has been able to release any new functionality. Rather, all of their development effort seems devoted to producing worse and worse versions of their user interface for new platforms. From the sounds of things, the back-end is a nightmare, as evidence by all the problems that BBO experiencing trying to handle demand spikes from the COVID-19 crisis.

All and all, its seeming like a good time to bid adieu to BBO.

I’m going to spend my time looking for a better platform to play on and spend my dollars supporting the Bridge Hack-a-thon.

I’m sure that BBO will do fine without me. After all, it has all sorts refugees from ACBL clubs waiting to be shorn. With this said and done, I’ll simply note that OKB once had a dominant position in the online bridge market place. OKB lost this position because BBO offered a superior business model. And what BBO management is doing right now is emulating what killed OKB.

[shyams]

+1 to everything you wrote. I too await the next disruptor; whether it arises from the Hack-a-thon or elsewhere.

As for the chances of such a disruptor succeeding, I think the chess world saw Lichess burst onto the scene and grab a huge market share. And best of all, despite being completely free to play (https://lichess.org/features), Lichess continues to succeed and grow.

[nige1]

Skimming the surface of BBO facilities ...

• Tournaments. A wide variety of competitions, including those run by the EBU, ACBL, and private clubs
• Costs. Lots of free games. It seems reasonable to charge people for running their own tournaments, for which they might charge others.
• Vewgraph. Instructional entertainment.
• Teaching, learning. Practice/Teaching/Bidding/Casual tables. On its own, Fred Gitelman's brilliant Bridgemaster Deal collection justifies membership.
• Deal databases with facilities for editing, export, import, and double-dummy analysis.
• Features. Like Dealer (for simulations etc). Convention-card display/editing. Unfortunately, some brilliant innovations like Full-disclosure have atrophied
• Support. Yellows, Help systems and a variety of BBO fora, like this.

• GIB is becoming senile -- like some other members of BBO My guess is he will soon be forcibly retired and replaced.
• BBO should urgently adopt 3rd party FD enhancements like StanMaz's BBOalert and Kungsgeten's earlier software.

[jandrew]

 hrothgar, on 2020-August-28, 11:37, said:

2. Today, BBO has announced that they are going to start charging tournament directors for the privilege of directing free games on the BBO platform

What announcement is this?? The short statement that I have seen hardly amounts to a detailed announcement and is, in any event, an addition to a long thread which clearly targets newer tournaments - specifically excluding those free-to-play tournaments which have been running for many years.

I have little evidence but I do suspect that many of the newer tournaments are displaced from face-to-face clubs where the club or director continues to charge a fee or membership subscription using BBO as a cheap/free base of operations. Whatever motives BBO might have for charging for this service, you can hardly blame them for declining to provide a free service for a user to make a profit.

I rather expect and hope that the long standing, voluntary supporters who provide and continue to provide a free service to BBO members will find that they are able to do so into the long-term future.

Perhaps those who are concerned about these changes will, like me, hold their opinions and not jump ship until they know what is actually proposed.

[pilowsky]

Oh, come on Richard. just when I've arrived and made it safe for you..

[Vampyr]

I pay for my local virtual club, other clubs potentially, and EBU events. It might be nice if the EBU Lockdown League and some of their online sessions will stay on after lockdown.

These organisations have established themselves on BBO, and unfortunately are unlikely to move. Of course many organisations and casual play will remain on BBO because of its market share.

But I would love to learn of a better platform. When one is identified, I hope the details will be found in these forums.

[olegru]

From March 13 I run twice per week small (5 tables) tournaments for our UN bridge club.
Completely free for all players, of course.
We discussed what to do if BBO will ask for money and majority of players are ready to pay. They thankful to BridgeBase for giving opportunity to continue play during the quarantine and consider it is fair enough if BBO will ask to pay some money in return. Of course the size of the requested fee is matter.

[diana_eva]

 pescetom, on 2020-September-01, 11:45, said:

Marlowe,
are you feeling ok?

I think he has a virus or something. Removed the posts.

[Chas_P]

 hrothgar, on 2020-August-28, 11:37, said:

I have been actively involved in online bridge for close to 30 years now.

I was an early member of OKBridge. I loved playing there I made friends and acquaintances that I still know to this day. However, round about the year 2K, Matt Clegg lost interest in OKB. He stopped adding new features and functions and treated OKB as a cash cow.

Luckily, about that same time, Fred Gitelman came on the scene and release Bridge Base Online. BBO was a classic disruptor. Its tech wasn’t as good as what OKB had to offer, however, it had a business model that was dramatically different and was able to support a much lower price point. Equally significant, you had a management team that was directly engaging with the user base and working to improve the product.

BBO quickly captured an enormous part of OKB’s user base and was able to extend its platform to include large numbers of end users that OKB could never really support. And for 15+ years life was good. However, all good things come to an end.

In the case of BBO, this was the decision to merge with FunBridge (which is owned by the HLD Investment Group). I don’t begrudge Fred, Uday, and their long term investors in cashing out. This was (obviously) great for them. However, this decision is screwing over their long term user base. HLD needs to recoup their investment. And in turn, this means much more focus on maximizing profits. And, as we’re all discovering, a profit maximizing monopolist has a whole bunch of opportunities to maximize their profits.

1. The cost to play in fee based tournaments has been jacked up multiple times
2. Today, BBO has announced that they are going to start charging tournament directors for the privilege of directing free games on the BBO platform

For me, this last decision is the straw that is break (this) camel’s back.

Over the years I have spent hundreds of dollars each year on BBO bucks, not because I particularly value playing against their bots (and certainly not because I care about BBO masterpoints) Rather, I wanted to give back and help support a platform that I once valued.

No more. At the most basic level, I don’t think that it is possible to reconcile the competing interest of the HLD investment and the BBO user base. And, the way’s in which BBO’s management is trying to monetize that base are so ham handed and so antithetical to the way in which the BBO community was built that I can not in good conscious support them going forward.

Equally significant, BBO has always struggled with technical debt. However, over time this seems to be getting worse and worse. It’s been years since BBO has been able to release any new functionality. Rather, all of their development effort seems devoted to producing worse and worse versions of their user interface for new platforms. From the sounds of things, the back-end is a nightmare, as evidence by all the problems that BBO experiencing trying to handle demand spikes from the COVID-19 crisis.

All and all, its seeming like a good time to bid adieu to BBO.

I’m going to spend my time looking for a better platform to play on and spend my dollars supporting the Bridge Hack-a-thon.

I’m sure that BBO will do fine without me. After all, it has all sorts refugees from ACBL clubs waiting to be shorn. With this said and done, I’ll simply note that OKB once had a dominant position in the online bridge market place. OKB lost this position because BBO offered a superior business model. And what BBO management is doing right now is emulating what killed OKB.

LOL. Fare thee well pilgrim.

[pilowsky]

Don't give up now
come back again

[FelicityR]

 hrothgar, on 2020-August-28, 11:37, said:

IIn the case of BBO, this was the decision to merge with FunBridge (which is owned by the HLD Investment Group). I don’t begrudge Fred, Uday, and their long term investors in cashing out. This was (obviously) great for them. However, this decision is screwing over their long term user base. HLD needs to recoup their investment. And in turn, this means much more focus on maximizing profits. And, as we’re all discovering, a profit maximizing monopolist has a whole bunch of opportunities to maximize their profits.

I didn't know this except that BBO had been sold in some form. This saddens me. If I were as rich as Bill Gates who helped develop BBO, or equally Warren Buffett who is also an avid bridge player - combined wealth of approx. $197 billion - I would throw some small change at BBO to keep and make it into the best bridge site in the world.

But, that is the problem with sport generally, and bridge is a mind sport: it's all about money these days. Nobody does anything out of love for the game, any game, any more.

The next thing BBO will be doing, I say tongue firmly in my cheek, is sell advertising space to all and sundry. Celebrate your slam with a Big Mac, etc.

[mcphee]

Failing grade, and it appears nothing is being done to solve problems. In fact it seems that the power people are not giving any answers either. Hope a better mouse trap is at least considered.

[pescetom]

 mcphee, on 2020-September-03, 00:57, said:

Failing grade, and it appears nothing is being done to solve problems. In fact it seems that the power people are not giving any answers either. Hope a better mouse trap is at least considered.

It would seem not, unless they are developing it in secret and avoiding strategic investment in their existing platforms.

[barmar]

 FelicityR, on 2020-September-01, 22:22, said:

I didn't know this except that BBO had been sold in some form. This saddens me. If I were as rich as Bill Gates who helped develop BBO, or equally Warren Buffett who is also an avid bridge player - combined wealth of approx. $197 billion - I would throw some small change at BBO to keep and make it into the best bridge site in the world.

Before the merger, Gates was one of the investors in BBO.

[jimcloh]

When I log in with V3, I can see friends playing in the Total Points Club. When I click on Casual, they all disappear. When I scroll to the Total Points Club, there are no tables. This has been this way for months. About a week ago, I mentioned this to support at BBO and also mentioned that the WP Refugee Club seemed to work fine in V3. Since then there has been no difference in the Total Points Club, but at the WP Refugee Club, which had a fairly constant play, at least at my active times, no longer has any activity in V3 or the previous version, (current release 7).

[helene_t]

 jimcloh, on 2020-September-03, 21:30, said:

When I click on Casual, they all disappear.

Yeah, the casual server is a distinct server. When you switch to the casual server, you can't see those of your friends who are on the non-casual server.

[pilowsky]

Actually, they still exist. Unless you have not yet acquired object permanence

[P_Marlowe]

 diana_eva, on 2020-September-01, 17:50, said:

I think he has a virus or something. Removed the posts.

I may have missed the referenced post, but my guess is, that I know,
what caused the post.
Sometimes, when I am not alert, my son (6year old) capers the keyboard,
and being always logged on, means: he can write emails / posts under my
user.
He likes to write e-mails.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[pescetom]

 P_Marlowe, on 2020-September-04, 13:18, said:

I may have missed the referenced post, but my guess is, that I know,
what caused the post.
Sometimes, when I am not alert, my son (6year old) capers the keyboard,
and being always logged on, means: he can write emails / posts under my
user.
He likes to write e-mails.

If this is really the cause then please create him a username and teach him to logon: he is already more coherent and amusing than some posters and I am sure that within a few years he would be teaching us

[smerriman]

 P_Marlowe, on 2020-September-04, 13:18, said:

I may have missed the referenced post, but my guess is, that I know,
what caused the post.
Sometimes, when I am not alert, my son (6year old) capers the keyboard,
and being always logged on, means: he can write emails / posts under my
user.
He likes to write e-mails.

With kind regards
Marlowe

I'm afraid it was definitely some form of virus, not your son - have seen it happen under your account in the past too; it looks like quite a clever AI which writes posts that exactly match the formatting (line breaks etc) and types of words you use in your post.