[c3cummins]

The "new" look of the award symbols is not crisp and clear. It has a smudged appearance. I'd like to see this made better. The "old" one was at least more clear. Thanks. c3cummins

[c3cummins]

c3cummins, on 2014-March-07, 16:07, said:

The "new" look of the award symbols is not crisp and clear. It has a smudged appearance. I'd like to see this made better. The "old" one was at least more clear. Thanks. c3cummins

I believe if the gold outline was removed it would be much more clear.

[1eyedjack]

Maybe right, but I can’t get excited about it.

[Bbradley62]

I agree with Jack. This whole update seems like a solution in search of a problem.

[fred]

Bbradley62, on 2014-March-08, 19:38, said:

I agree with Jack. This whole update seems like a solution in search of a problem.

No, there was a serious problem with the old system: once one became a 10 it was close to impossible to advance in rank. Some 10s were getting frustrated. Some even stopped playing.

(A somewhat less serious problem was that the gaps between 8 and 9 and between 9 and 10 were very big - we added the plus symbols in an attempt to encourage people who were stuck in these gaps)

(A further issue was that the percentage of players who were AKQJs had been getting smaller and smaller over the years - we increased the numbers of Ks, Qs, and Js in an effort to do something about this)

My fault for not giving enough thought to the original ranking system. My only excuse was that it was hard to foresee just how successful and popular our masterpoint tournaments were going to become 10 years after these tournaments (and the ranking system) were first introduced. Yes, I suppose I might have figured this out by thinking about the history of the ACBL and its masterpoint ranks

As for the actual design, our artist suggested that plainer-looking symbols would be easier on the eyes (especially at low screen resolutions). However, she also thought the gold outline looked OK and some people on our staff (including me) thought it was important to add a little pizazz to the design. If we start to get a lot of complaints then we will likely reconsider this decision at some point in the future.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Bbradley62]

If people have been quitting because they can't get past the level of 10, maybe this ties in to Eagle123's thread about who cares about masterpoints.

[1eyedjack]

I guess it does not matter in the grand scheme of things but just out of curiosity I would be interested to know how many BBO master points are held by the lowest ranking Jack, or Queen or King (I can find the Ace).
Or more to the pont, how to find that data for myself.

[barmar]

Login to the web version of BBO and click on "Masterpoints and Races", then click on "Lifetime Leaders". This shows the top 100 masterpoint holders, which used to be all the royals, but now will show all the AKQ. We're looking into the impact of increasing this to the top 250, so it will again show all the royals.

[barmar]

For anyone who's curious, here are the current masterpoint ranges for the royals:

• A 12680
  
• K 4723-9901
  
• Q 2842-4683
  
• J 1991-2841

So this means that the highest Master rank players can currently achieve is 19; everyone higher than this is a Royal.

[scarletv]

• A 36979
  
• K 12527-31623
  
• Q 8647-12467
  
• J 5996-8623