Antrax

I understand that, but you have to realize that GIB will never "understand" that. There's no easy way to introduce such logic to it, so we'll have to contend ourselves with the knowledge that we have to consider plays like this "okay". It would've been great had GIB had an extra layer of "the most deceptive play" or "give the opponents the most headache" or something, all other things being equal, but that's probably never happening.

Your last sentence is correct.Nevertheless, the leading Bridge engines use the same approach. I think it means this approach is at least somewhat viable. Your point about "not enough simulations" might be true but is irrelevant to this thread, where GIB's sample size was apparently enough to determine the truth: the contract makes on any defense.

Would you agree that playing lowest always (3 from 345) leaks information? Then you want "one of the equal lowest" to avoid that. Do you agree that on the actual hand (and thus potentially in the sims), all plays result in the same outcome, double-dummy? Then all spades are equally low. That's the "electronic thought" (as in OP) in GIB's head.

Thanks for showing this. I admit I stopped splintering altogether a while ago, since GIB would just always sign off.

All but one are.

Hey, I know just enough to think myself into stupid plays :) For serious I tried visualizing and all that and decided declarer will score 5 clubs off the top before losing the lead a second time and us cashing a lot of pointed suit cards.

The first pass is clear I think - mostly because partner might bid again. If partner were barred for the rest of the auction, would 4♠ have been right? I can't figure out why you shouldn't double 3NT. You're looking at 10 HCP to go with partner's 6+, so it's not like they're going to hit you a 30 combined. Breaks are bad for the pointed suits, so it looks if you just go passive declarer should have a hard time finding a ninth trick, no? On the actual hand

None vul, IMPs. [hv=pc=n&s=sjt98742haq32dck2]133|100[/hv] Partner opens 3♦ (partner is GIB, so preempt style is fairly disciplined) in first seat, pass to you. Any bid? I passed, LHO bids 3NT back to you. Now what?

Isn't 4♦ the Goldman slam try? Also, doesn't it show 5-3-3-2? I think 2♥ and then 4♠ is the way to go. Hopefully partner will realize I could raise to 5♠ if I was worried about the quality of his spades.

It features gratuitous Nicholas Cage acting and falls into "so bad it's bad again" territory.

Karen Walker's page is a very good place to know when starting out. Here's her page about NMF: http://home.comcast.net/~kwbridge/nmf.htm

Yeah, at work we use "straw man" to mean an initial proposal through which you can understand a matter more in depth to get to a more refined suggestion. Knowing only the rhetoric technique, I was quite confused the first time I saw a email where someone called his own work a "straw man".

[hv=?bbo=y&myhand=M-56662026-1412558313]400|300[/hv]

Or alternatively, lower the limit but blacklist common words like "and" and "the"?

You can't search for short words to prevent a malicious user from deliberately making searches that return huge sets of results, straining the server the forums are on. It's sufficient to add the string "site:bridgebase.com" (no quotation marks needed) to normal Google queries to limit the search to things in the forums.

[hv=pc=n&s=sq82hkt943dqjtc63&w=sa975h7dk7ca98542&n=s63hj86da986542cj&e=skjt4haq52d3ckqt7&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=3dd5dppd(4-4M%2C%2017+%20TP)p6d(9+%20TP)ppp]399|300[/hv]

You're right that the rule you quoted is not a part of the program, so in a sense it's been omitted. There have been several discussions here about this, here's one : http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/52967-gib-leads/ The short version is that they're aware of that but it's not an easy change and it's unclear whether GIB would defeat more contracts if you added that rule in.

Looks like I found a bug. On the second one (#363), I wanted to open 1♦ in third. The computer recorded my bid as pass. I clicked "restart" to try again, this time I bid 1♦ and now LHO is in the tank and I don't think he's coming out.

When I learned "SAYC" (in actuality, "Israeli Standard" which isn't that far away), 1 any - 2NT was 10-11 balanced, presumably with no fit.

Did you check that X is responsive here? Some GIB doubles are surprisingly penalty-oriented. (IOW, are you asking that they change the system or the rules DB?)

This one is easy. You can't have a singleton club because you opened 1NT, so ducking can't cost.

Hey, I know a couple of friends who went driving drunk and entered the wrong direction in a roundabout. Figuring out their mistake, they did the only reasonable thing (if you're drunk), and shifted to reverse, so now they were going backwards but in technically the right direction. Naturally they ran into someone and THEIR insurance company refused to believe that damage to their car's rear could be their fault. So you never know.

Perhaps I should clarify the light was red and I wasn't even first in line.

For the record, I've had a license for 15 years now, and in both accidents I was involved in my car was not moving at all (once someone backed into me, another time a drunk rammed into me while I was standing at a stoplight)

What do I do with ♣Kx, though? I could reasonably be 5-4-2-2 with no support for GIB, or if 2NT precludes that, only have three clubs with no useful T9.