In australia do people use ':' instead of '*'?
i.e. :sigh: instead of *sigh* as we do in America (atleast most people I know in America).
Not aware of any general rule. Probably most people use asterisks. A leftover from some online instant messaging system or similar, perhaps. I suspect I'm not even consistent. Perhaps it's emphais: '*' is stronger than ':'. And we're drifting well off topic. :-)
I went 0-4 in my first OTB tournament too. And that was after I had been playing about a month. I ended up with a rating of 694 .