xeno123

I don't know if this discussion from 2005 is still "good law", but here are examples of permissible and impermissible 2♣ openings with long suits and low point count. (Note that my hand has a 4 losing trick count perhaps making it eligible for a 2♣ opening). http://www.bridgeguys.com/Conventions/2_clubs_opening_bid.html

One of my opponents in a robot tournament today was very lucky indeed when Gib failed to lead its Ace against 7NT doubled in this freak hand: [hv=sn=olafjo1&s=S32HDKCAKQJT76432&wn=Robot&w=SAT8HJ9632DJ6432C&nn=Robot&n=SJ975HAK87DAT95C9&en=Robot&e=SKQ64HQT54DQ87C85&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=P1CP1H(One%20over%20one%20--%204+%20%21H%3B%206+%20total%20points)P4NP5C(Zero%20or%20three%20key%20cards%20--%204+%20%21H%3B%206+%20total%20points)P7CP7H(4+%20%21H%3B%2014+%20total%20points)P7ND(4+%20HCP%3B%2016-%20total%20points)PPP&p=D3DAD8DKHAH5S2H2HKH4S3H6C9C5CAD4CKS8D5C8CQD6D9S6CJH3DTS4CTSTH7HTC7D2H8D7C6DJS5DQC4HJS7HQC3H9S9SQC2SASJSK]400|300|[/hv] I'd call that a bug! I ended up in 7♣ down two when Gib found the Ace lead against me. For a discussion of the best way to bid this unusual hand, see this thread: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/66769-freak-hand/page__gopid__797850#entry797850

I understand that, but here opening 2♣ and jumping to 4♣ as you suggest seems to me most likely to have us end up in the right contract - you'll at least find out about partner's controls. Hard for me to imagine a similar sequence starting with 1♣ given the fair chance the opponents have points and a fit someplace and are unlikely to be silent. Your next bid might well need to be at the four level after your 1♣ opening, so pretty hard then to set clubs as trumps and find out about controls.

Makes sense. So you prefer to open 1♣? Seems like that increases the chances of the opponents finding a massive major fit someplace. I assume the hand is too good to open 5♣.

So playing in a robot tournament, I was dealt the following freak hand: [hv=sn=xeno123&s=S32HDKCAKQJT76432&wn=Robot&w=SAT8HJ9632DJ6432C&nn=Robot&n=SJ975HAK87DAT95C9&en=Robot&e=SKQ64HQT54DQ87C85&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=P2C(Strong%20two%20club%20--%2019+%20HCP%3B%2023+%20total%20po)P2D(2D%20bid%20waiting%20--%20forcing%20to%202N)P3C(Opener%27s%20suit%20--%205+%20%21C%3B%2019+%20HCP%3B%2023+%20tot)P3H(4+%20%21H%3B%205+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N)P4C(19+%20HCP%3B%20twice%20rebiddable%20%21C%3B%2023+%20total)P4D(4+%20%21D%3B%204+%20%21H%3B%205+%20total%20points)P5C(19+%20HCP%3B%20strong%20rebiddable%20%21C%3B%2023-25%20tot)P7C(2+%20%21C%3B%204+%20%21D%3B%204+%20%21H%3B%2013+%20total%20points)PPP&p=SAS5S6S2STSJSQS3SKCTS8S7&c=11]400|300|[/hv] Results were all over the place, from my unfortunate down 2 after GIB leaped to 7♣ after my 5♣, to 7NT by South doubled and making (BAD, BAD GIB for not leading its Ace!). Opening 1♣ generally seemed to work best. The players that jumped to 6♣ quickly generally made with an overtrick. So what's the best way of finding out if partner has the relevant controls here? Or does one just leap to 5 or 6♣ and hope for the best?

How do you buy BBO dollars in the iPad app? I looked around and don't see how to do it.

Yes, that seems a sensible analysis - thanks. But isn't there one other line to consider - trumps 3-1 and diamonds either 3-3 or 4-2 with the 10 dropping or with the person holding the A clubs also holding the 4 diamonds. T1: heart ruff T2-3 trumps - if 2-2 then claim T4 diamond to ace T5 club ruff T6 heart ruff T7-9 trumps (so now declarer has J diamonds and KQJ clubs; dummy has KQ9x diamonds) T10 J diamond, overtaking with king run diamonds if 3-3 or 10 drops or the person with the A of clubs also had 4 diamonds. BTW, it was me playing the hand not GIB - these days the human always declares. Peter

In a recent GIB (MP) tournament I bid and made this 7♠ contract. Two questions: 1) Is my 7♠ bid appropriate after GIB cue-bid in response to my splinter? (Note I had more points than the stated requirements for the splinter, but what else to bid?) 2) What is the optimal way to play this hand after the king of hearts opening lead? As the cards lie (2-2 ♠ break) it's easy. But what's the best way to survive a 3-1 break? Transport is hard if you ruff a club and then draw trumps - the only remaining entry to dummy is by overtaking the diamond jack. And if you do ruff a club, which one - king (hoping E goes up with the ace) or low? [hv=sn=xeno123&s=SAKQHA9743DKQ952C&wn=Robot&w=ST9HJT6DT876CAT86&nn=Robot&n=SJ87652HDAJCKQJ73&en=Robot&e=S43HKQ852D43C9542&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1S(Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points)P4C(Splinter%20--%201-%20C%3B%204+%20S%3B%2013-16%20total%20poin)P4D(Cue%20bid%20--%205+%20S%3B%2021-%20HCP%3B%208+%208421%20HCP%20in%20D%3B%2018-22%20total%20points)P7S(1-%20C%3B%204+%20S%3B%2016+%20HCP%3B%2016-%20total%20points%3B%208)PPP&p=HKHAH6C3SAS9S2S3D2D7DAD3DJD4D5D6S5S4SQSTDKD8C7H5&c=13]400|300|[/hv]

I assume you are familiar with a more detailed study on risk-taking that showed some sex-differences: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4405460/RWP10-034_Zeckhauser_alia.pdf?sequence=1&origin=publication_detail One of the authors was economist Richard Zeckhauser, who was a Blue Ribbon pairs winner. Peter

IMP tournament: http://tinyurl.com/klq9wqu Seems no basis for this wild jump by GIB to a grand slam on only 24 combined points with one of the opponents bidding strongly. On the other boards with different second round bids from S (either 3♠ or 4♦ instead of my double), E-W ended up in either 4♥ (down between 1 and 3) or 5♣ making, and on some boards N-S were in 4 or 5♠ doubled, down a few.

I think the instant tournaments are inherently more random than the regular tournaments. In the regular tournaments, all the GIB's basically bid and play the same (assuming the human bidding or play is also the same). Here, because the GIB's are being compared with older versions, the bidding (and to a lesser extent play) are likely to be different. Here's a good example: http://tinyurl.com/q5qowdq In the original tournament all the GIB Easts raised their partner's 1♠ overcall to 2♠ which got passed out. By contrast, my (new-style) GIB East bid the better 3♣ and ended in a making game with an overtrick. I really don't think there is any way to fix this issue short of using more recent tournaments (with GIB's that are more similar to the current version) or comparing your results to others that have recently played in the same instant tournament instead of only to the original players. Peter

I still think there is something strange going on. If I look at my "Recent Tournaments" page, I'm seeing a number of recent "Rank 1" listings where I came second or third in my section. So maybe it has to do with ranking within your flight within your section? Not sure why that would be useful information. Peter

I just played a robot MP tournament (48 players in three sections). My "Rank" ended up being shown as 1, but I in actuality ended up third overall (and also third in my section). So just wondering if this is a bug due to the new sectioning somehow? I was first in "Section C" but I assume that isn't used for anything yet. Or was "Rank: 1" just a preliminary verdict and hence a tease?

I agree here. Let me contrast my results in two recent IMP tournaments: 1. In the first tournament, I was the top overall scorer with +26.89 IMPs, and received 0.52 points as winner of Section 1. The winner of Section 2 was fourth overall with 15.98 points (well behind players who came second and third overall) and scored 0.56 points (more than I got). 2. In the second tournament I played badly and ended up with a score of -1.27 IMPS, good only for 12th place out of 25 boards. But amazingly, that was good for 4th place in Section 2, yielding me 0.18 points. In fact, even the person with a -6.7 IMPS score received some points in my section! Compare that to Section 1, where the matching 5th place finisher scored +9.22 IMPS. So two players with a nearly 16 IMP difference between them got the same number of points. I suppose this could be ameliorated some by stratifying the sessions on some basis. But I really fail to see what the Sectioning achieves other than to spread masterpoints around more liberally in a somewhat random fashion. Basically this devalues new masterpoints compared with those achieved under the old version. (I should note that I personally would likely "benefit" from this new version because I only just started playing tournaments last month and still have under 10 to my name.) Peter

It is an easy fix - if the simulations say that GIB is indifferent between two cards of the same suit, then discard the lower one. I grant this particular example with the !NT psyche (not by me I would add!) is in and of itself not that important, but with the basic bots this sort of error happens much more, even without a psychic bid. I assume the smaller number of simulations lead to more cases where it doesn't seem to matter what discard to make, even when in fact it does.

So an easy fix is to pitch the lower card when it wants to pitch "whatever." This particular issue doesn't seem to come up much with the advanced bots, but it comes up a lot with the basic bots.

I think that is an unfair comment. Programs don't understand bridge in the same way that people do. In general, Gib does a pretty remarkable job in most situations. Once you get into competitive bidding situations things become much murkier and it's hard to devise general decision rules. What's needed here is some sort of tweak - perhaps there truly is a bug; or perhaps there needs to be a general rule that additional bids by partner after a pass do not necessarily show new-found strength. Peter

In the following tournament hand, 3♠ doubled, down one, scored 100%, while when I bid this hand, Gib pulled that double to 4♥(??) which I was forced to correct to 5♣, scoring 0%. Note that for Gib's proposed 4♥ contract, our side's combined heart holding was the 97432! http://tinyurl.com/llyk5hb Any idea of what happened here? If Gib wanted to pull the double, why not 4♣ instead of the bizarre 4♥? I've noticed that GIB generally seems to pull nearly all competitive penalty doubles, and if you ever have the temerity to bid "one more" to compete for the contract (after having previously been willing to pass out at a lower level), Gib seems to take this as a sign that you suddenly found a few heretofore missing Aces and gaily raises your competitive bid to game. Comments? Peter

I've seen the basic bots stupidly discard a boss card in a suit when they still have a low card available, but this is the first time I've noticed a tournament bot do this (someone else was declarer here): http://tinyurl.com/mnrha8l In the 3-card ending, the bot playing East discards the A♣ instead of the 10♣ on the play to the 11th trick. Any possible logic for doing this, or is it a bug? Declarer has only one unknown card at the time of the discard, and the discard of the A♣ can only ever hurt (as it did here). If declarer had a heart instead of another club, then the discard makes no difference, but that is inconsistent with the bidding (declarer denied a four card major). I suppose it could be that the initial underbid by declarer lead the bot to assume that West had the K♣ in which case the discard makes no difference. But the logic here should be to go with the play that dominates (as good or better in all circumstances). I must say the tournament bots in general really do play (and in particular defend) a lot better than the basic bots! Peter

But $1/day is very expensive for someone that likes to play a few hands every day. If they charged $100 for a year's worth of advanced bots I would go for that. It's also irritating that when you play through viewgraph hands the system won't let human declare. I've whined about this previously but to no avail. Peter

Just to clarify, I mistakenly linked to the Cavendish hand instead of the hand I played with GIB - in my hand GIB passed my 2♣ bid after the same initial bidding.

In this hand, GIB weirdly declined to give preference to my opening heart bid in favor of leaving me in my second suit: http://tinyurl.com/aq7cwgk In the same hand (from old Cavendish tournament), Moss (opposite Gitelman) gave the natural preference to 2♥ after the same initial sequence, making an overtrick. The other N/S pair (no bidding given) ended up in 3NT making - I assume North must have bid 2NT and South raised to game (assuming they were playing a natural system). Play must have been pretty tricky despite the combined 26 points.

Couple of recent hands I played: Supporting my second suit is not "Fourth Suit forcing" as the description claims: http://tinyurl.com/ad8q7nk On a more substantive note, why no support for my 2♠ overcall of a 2♥ pre-emptive opening when my bot partner has 4 spades and close to an opening hand in support of spades: http://tinyurl.com/bbqlp2b This was a replay of a Cavendish deal, and in the bot's position Zia as North bid 4♠ over a 3♦ intervention by West after the same two initial bids, while Bathurst in the same scenario chimed in with 4♦ (presumably constructive spade support) converted to 4♠ by South. I suppose one might argue that the diamond bid improved North's hand some, but surely the North hand over a pass by West is worth at least 3♠? My overcall is described as 12-18 points, so North should know game is at very least possible. (I'm assuming the bot doesn't know enough to discount his AK♥ some because of the opening bid).

Correct - the bots do sometimes play differently, even with the same bidding. But that's not the main issue for me - the key is I want to practice my play and, bidding permitting, compare my play with that of experts from Viewgraph matches (using the neat new feature that lets you play Viewgraph deals). Watching 3 bots play among themselves is just wasting my time.

Now that some tournaments have the "Human Declarer" feature, is there any reason at all to not make this standard when playing with 3 bots? People use bots to practice, and watching 3 bots play (sometimes badly) is not why anyone would bother to rent a robot. Human Declarer would double the number of contracts you play, and also remove some of the luck involved when your partner bot massacres an easy contract. Given no improvements to bot play in the near term are likely (focus is on bidding improvements), isn't this an obvious and easy way to make users happier? Is there any possible defense for the current "bot declares" system other than inertia? I tried emailing support on this - they said post in this forum and I would get a response. I hope that is true. Peter