[cubura]

I could not invent the worse system then the BXP. Plainly awful, just to mention some characteristics:

- meaningless numbers 1-150
- some weird arbitrary titles "virtuoso"!!!
- completely unreadable;
- the numbers do not easily associate with a level of achievement.

It's apparent that this is a step to another way of getting more money from the players, I am not sure how, but it will be obvious soon (I would expect boosts to be one of the ways). For example 4 fast boards were 10 cents not long ago, and now 56 cents, so 5.6 times more (for sustainability!?).

Overall, not good indeed.

[johnu]

The comments from BBO users in the announcement are brutal. Not as bad as my comments when BBO killed their windows version and went with web based version that is 15 years behind the times, but apparently BBO couldn't be bothered to do any polling or marketing before rolling this out.

[Arbc deb]

I’m thoroughly confused…I earned some BBO points yesterday which should have taken me from one level to another…but the rating hasn’t changed? I’m wondering if BBO point earnings don’t count anymore and you have to participate in BXP tournaments to win BXP points…and that costs more?

[benellis58]

Yes, this BXP innovation is just putting lipstick on a pig and hoping people will think it's some brilliant improvement. Instead of wasting its time on meaningless, useless nonsense like this, I wish BBO would improve the hopelessly inept GIB robots.

[diana_eva]

Arbc deb, on 2025-May-14, 23:50, said:

I'm thoroughly confused…I earned some BBO points yesterday which should have taken me from one level to another…but the rating hasn't changed? I'm wondering if BBO point earnings don't count anymore and you have to participate in BXP tournaments to win BXP points…and that costs more?

It seems there is a bug, you should indeed be level 20. We're investigating.

Thank you for letting us know.

EDIT: it's updated now.

This post has been edited by diana_eva: 2025-May-15, 04:49

[RBG]

Dear BBO Team,

We bridge players may not claim to be smarter than others, but we pride ourselves on our sharp logical and mathematical thinking. The BXP system you’ve introduced is an insult to our skills, offering a shockingly simplistic and poorly thought-out design that lacks any sophisticated mathematical or logical foundation. I’m deeply disappointed and want to highlight several issues.

First, the visual design is dreadful, a huge step back from the clear, functional interface we had before. Second, the information displayed is utterly useless, presented so clumsily it provides no value. Third, BXP feels like a lazy rebrand of Masterpoints with no meaningful innovation—if there’s something new, it’s not explained. Fourth, the system is pointless unless it counts every game, free or paid, as all play deserves recognition.

I urge you to restore the old visual style, which was far superior, and introduce a “Real Bridge Experience Presentation” showing progress in percentages, updated daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, to give us a rewarding and logical way to track our growth.

Please take this feedback seriously and create a system that respects our intelligence and passion for bridge.

Sincerely, [RBG]

[sscohen]

Uninformative level names and point ranges are the wrong approach, in my opinion.

I think the current structure is much more informative and intuitive. For example,
the Master level tells you can compete in the Royals and Masters Tournament.
The current structure just needs some tweaks, something along the lines of:

C-level: 0 up to 100
B-level: 100 up to 1000
A/Master: 1000 up 10000
Gold Master: 10000 and up -- excluding the top 99 players
Royalty: the top 99 players

Most badges are a big color-coded character followed by a small dark 1 thru 9.
a small 1 means 10% towards next milestone, a small 2 means 20% towards it, etc.

C-level badges (major char black):
C (0 up to 10), C1 (10 up to 20), C2 (20 up to 30), etc.

B-level badges (major char darkish blue perhaps):
1 (100 up to 110), 11 (110 up to 120), etc.
2 (200 up to 210), 21 (210 up to 220), etc.
continuing until 99 (990 up to 1000)

A/Master badges (major char silver perhaps):
1 (1000 up to 1100) thru 99 (9900 up to 9999)

Gold Master badges (major char gold):
1 (10000 up to 10100), 11 (10100 up to 10200) etc -- until royalty starts

Royalty (a purple pound sign and number):
#1 is top player, #2 is 2nd highest point getter, etc.

[bbstar]

Rebranding BBO Points to BXP Points is fine.
Restructuring BBO Levels to Badges is really a bad idea.

BBO Levels had one big flaw: the Level 9 step was too big, from 500 to 1000. But once you got there, the rest was pretty straightforward.
To get the "next" level you need 100 more points. To fix the issue, it probably made sense to add some more 9-levels, 9a, 9b, 9c etc before reaching level 10 to see progress.

BBO Badges system makes no sense. You need 1420 points to be a Virtuoso. And 5370 points to be a Maestro. Where do these numbers come from? There is a 10 page manual for the points-to-badges conversion rate. Looks inefficient and ugly.

[prescot_td]

cubura, on 2025-May-14, 15:30, said:

I could not invent the worse system then the BXP. Plainly awful,

I TOTALLY AGRRE! In addition to it being a stupid idea I can't see who I am joining at the table as the number is bigger than their user name. A BAD idea and a BAD presentation of the screen.

A terrible shame that a great facility (BBO) is being 'shoe horned' into something not wanted making a great facility awkward at best.

[cubura]

Agree. For example I liked my golden "13" soon to be "14". Now I will be soon promoted to "virtuoso", but I could not care less. It is not visible, and it represents nothing.

Once again once you play you have no idea of the strength of the opponent. Some silly numbers, 32, 58, 27 what do they even mean. People are not used to deal with continuous number scales and try to interpret them (I am not even going to comment on "strategist", etc.).

I sincerely hope that this is not another attempt in mooching more money by offering special double points tournaments, boosts etc.

I urge BBO to go back to the previous numbers and forget about this failed attempt.

[strags]

I'm no fan of the new system either (and seriously now: "Maestro"? "Virtuoso"? What is this, an orchestra??)

But, to play Devil's Advocate: BBO had a legitimate, if minor, issue with the old system. Two-digit level numbers supported masterpoint totals up to 10,000 points, and the Top 250 holders had letter designations. About two months ago, the entire Top 250 had reached at least 10K points, so when the 251st player surpassed 10,000 points, he or she was stuck with that "99" designation. It was like reaching adulthood but still having to sit at the kids' table on Thanksgiving because there was no room at the grown-ups table.

There were other solutions of course, one of which was simply to increase the number of players honored with AKQJ designations from 250 to (say) 400. That was what I expected them to do -- after all, the Top 250 today comprises a much, much smaller percentage of BBO members than it did 15 years ago when the designators were introduced. Another was to try to squeeze three-digit numbers into a profile box. A third was to give everyone who reached 10K a "J" designation. All of these have downsides, but yeah -- all feel preferable to rolling out a new system with elongated number ranges that appear to be totally meaningless. Not BBO management's finest hour, to say the least.

[pescetom]

 diana_eva, on 2025-May-15, 03:59, said:

It seems there is a bug, you should indeed be level 20. We're investigating.

Thank you for letting us know.

EDIT: it's updated now.

There is at least one more bug, as I started a tournament at level 21 and suddenly found myself at level 1 towards the end: admittedly I played badly, but it still seems rather drastic
And I was back to level 21 the next day.

[diana_eva]

pescetom, on 2025-May-16, 03:23, said:

There is at least one more bug, as I started a tournament at level 21 and suddenly found myself at level 1 towards the end: admittedly I played badly, but it still seems rather drastic
And I was back to level 21 the next day.

i think that was some sort of a timeout, like something didnt load -- rather than points going away.

Yes, we noted players asked why they are 1 -- we'll work on optimisation.

[Flem72]

BXP is just another arbitrary rating system, right? ACBL masterpoints are still awarded, right?

[diana_eva]

Flem72, on 2025-May-16, 08:11, said:

BXP is just another arbitrary rating system, right? ACBL masterpoints are still awarded, right?

It's the new name for BBO Points. Yes, ACBL points are still awarded.

[FrankerZ]

Completely pointless change for the sake of change. The old system wasn't broken. Good to see where the rapid increase of cost in daily and express tournaments is going though!

[blackshoe]

BBO would do better to make the interface more compliant with the Laws Of Duplicate Bridge. For example, give directors the power to award procedural or disciplinary penalties per laws 90 and 91. There are other things. Note: I'm not saying bring leads out of turn, insufficient bids, and suchlike, back to the game, as most people think of those as improvements.

Also, the Laws are updated every 10 years or so. BBO (and other bridge platforms) should be prepared to modify the software as required to reflect any changes in the laws.