Some players on BBO have already met in person, others have known one another on social media and seen more than enough images to form a picture of what their partner or opponent at the table looks like. But there are many cases where you haven’t met your bridge partners or opponents – and not all bridge players are going to turn their webcam on for a game.

Sometime this week, I found myself wondering whether anyone else puts any thought into what other players at the table might look like and what factors they’ll use to put together the image of the other player in their head.

Playing GIB and Argine

It has everything to do with the origin of the name, but I always picture Argine as a female – and of course, always as somewhat royal. Argine has a clear accent and spends a lot of time and money on her hair and appearance. Designer dresses only, usually varying by game (and going all-out for the bigger tournaments).

GIB is something else in my head entirely. Where Argine is an obvious female, GIB is male – and his pictured appearance varies more on my mood when I’m put against him.

Sometimes GIB is an expressive red light stuck in the machine with the voice of HAL 2000. Most of the time, actually. Other times, GIB seems to take on the appearance of a Man in a Black Suit, possibly because the acronym throws my brain back to that of MIB (or the infamous Men in Black).

How do you picture GIB, Argine and any of the other bridge AI systems out there, if you attach a face or personality to it at all?

The Faces of Real Players

When playing against anonymous players with randomized nicknames on some bridge sites (and general board games sites, for that matter), I find that my brain randomizes their appearance just as much. I don’t know anything about them and my brain assumes as much.

This makes anonymous randomized nickname players look like the average nondescript poker player in a hoodie and sunglasses. Anonymous players are male or female, present somewhere in cyberspace behind a screen. An avatar in my head for the most part. Sometimes, my brain adds a mask to the picture, mostly Guy Fawkes.

Players I know and ones who use their real names are easier to imagine, of course, because there’s usually a profile picture or YouTube video that gives you a clue of what they look like. If I don’t know what they look like, I’ll generally look up their profile just because it helps to have a face to picture when I play – and I think everyone else does this, too.

Do you?