wynsten

So if I play 10 of these "Express tournaments" to eastablish a TCR, then play just one pairs tournament over the next 60 days, I don't have to start jumping though hoops again? Well that's better. Let's see how it works out. Thsnks. Doug (Wynsten)

OK - then why not count Team Play - Team matches are typically 8 boards (longer than the Express Individuals which are 6 boards) and take more time per board because you are not constrained by a 30 second clock. My internet connection and my sitz fleisch are just as strong playing a team match as any other kind of bridge. And why, after I have jumped through these hoops and proven I have what it takes, do I have to do it all over again 60 days later? Seems like an unfair penalty for being an infrequent (but totally reliable) player.

But if it's not an onerous requirement then the bad actors will just play in 10 tourneys instead of creating a new account. You can't set the bar so high the bad guys can't get over, and so low the good guys can, 'cause it's the same bar!!

Yup - see my earlier post that the cure is worse than the disease. So far I have seen: Play as a sub Play against robots Play MP 2/1 individuals Play in tournaments that aren't free Play goulash How doing all or any of this proves that I will be well-behaved when I play IMP scored pairs against real opponents with my favourite partner I don't know.

I'd like to see a scoring version, similar to cross IMPS, where the comparison is against par. i.e. if par is 100NS and NS score 420 then NS score +IMP(320) and EW score -IMP(320) where IMP(x) is the IMP's received for a differential of x points. Not a perfect scoring system (since par sometimes requires bad play or bidding to achieve) but pretty good. When par is 600 (for 3NT making) and I score 630, it is no fun scoring negative IMPs because some idiot EW made a ridiculous sac.

Thanks - good suggestion. However these tournaments are individual tournaments (not pairs which is the type of tournament I want to play but is excluding me because of my "unknown" TCR) and expect me to play 2/1 which I do not play (I play SAYC). So, I'll do it (and just ignore the 2/1 stipulation) but it is still not ideal, and still doesn't prove anything since the "history" that is being provided is totally artificial. Why not just trust that I'm a decent fellow until I prove otherwise? Wynsten

Well the rule that you can't play in some tournaments unless you play some other tournaments kind of implies this kind of problem. I play in tournaments only occasionally but I always complete the ones I play in so I kinda feel hard done by too. I see the problem they're trying to solve: offenders who simply re-register to reset their stats. Not sure there's a cure that is not worse than the disease though.

I see. Somewhere the help pages advise offering to substitute as a way of building up completed tournaments, but when I do that I often get slotted into a team match (usually replacing a player who is disenchanted with the state of the match or the strength of his partner). Maybe that advice could be modified to mention the match exclusion. Anyway, thanks. Doug (Wynsten)

Sorry - I don't post very often; didn't realize that first post had actually happened. Thanks for telling me my number of tournaments played. Be easier on you if the software did it!

Is there any way to see the underlying statistics (number of tournaments played; number completed) rather than just the ratio, which is rather unhelpfully displayed in my profile as "unknown".

According to "Hands and Results" I have competed in at least 18 tournaments in the last 60 days but my (Wynsten) profile still reports "TCR: unknown". It would be very helpful if my profile showed not only the percentage, but also the numerator and denominator of this quotient (which surely ARE known). i.e. something like "TCR: 50% (7/14)" Thanks Wynsten (Doug)

Maybe one of South's small hearts should be a spade.

[hv=pc=n&s=sha732dac542&w=sjthkqdckqjT&n=sa42h54d5c87&e=s3h6d6432c93]399|300|EXAMPLE FIVE, STRIP SQUEEZE WITH FIVE LOSERS. I'll just end with this last example of a strip squeeze. In this eight card ending , NS have three winners (the aces) and five losers. So L=5. When South leads the diamond ACE, West can not afford to discard a heart or a spade, so he discards a club. Now on a low heart out, West will win three clubs and his heart, but NS will win the three aces and a long heart. Gaining a trick. So this squeeze worked with FIVE LOSERS. [/hv] Why can't West discard a spade?

More than tiny! How did we all miss that? Thanks Nige1. Or maybe not. If Jack draws the Ace, then King becomes available for club discard in trump coup so you don't need the diamond finesse. It is not a guarantee that heart Jack was wrong.

No. LHO will refuse to cover the Jack of diamonds. You get only two club discards on diamonds, not the three you need. If RHO has Qx of diamonds (4S 5H 2D 2C) you can get three pitches on diamonds by dropping the Queen.

OK - well I have no idea how the engines work - just making some uneducated guesses. Time to push on to a different topic. Thanks Stephen.

The reason is that in all its simulations the Queen was good enough to maximize double dummy results (so was low to the King, of course - it is always good enough). The only time that Queen is worse than King is when East holds tripleton Jack, (which as luck would have it, is how the cards lay). Of course if West has three to the Jack, the Queen must be overtaken (double dummy, remember), and the Jack taken by finesse. But by the time it comes to make that play, he is no longer playing double dummy, so it would really never happen. This suggests an improvement to the algorithm that approximates single dummy play: Prefer the line that has fewest forks. Leading out the King, Ace, and (if necessary) the Queen has no forks. Leading Queen requires overtaking against some distributions, but playing low against others. As humans, we always prefer the branchless trees. Maybe the robots should too. [Oops - the Queen is also worse when West has all four, see Bbradley62 above, so presumably that distribution was not simulated either]

That short suit lead from nothing stuff works OK against trump contracts, but not so much at notrump and you're right - I've seen that "suit with the other defender" phenomenon, but it didn't register with me that it was systemic. Makes sense though. Thanks for the tip. If robot is reluctant to lead from an honour, then since long suits tend to have more honours than short suits, he is going to avoid leading long suits. That's OK for trump contracts, and notrump slams, but good old 3NT needs to find a long suit and statistically your best shot is the one you are looking at.

No, Stephen I don't "want to play vs. double dummy defenders". Nor do I want the cards swapped beneath the table. I want to compete against humans with an even playing field, eliminating as much as possible, the luck factor. Duplicate bridge does that already, by dealing us the same hands. Currently, however, the robot defenders play like a pair of dummies. On average I can make at least one extra trick against them (especially in notrump) than I could against decent human players. But the problem is that they dole out this generosity on a rather random basis. (Of course they play identically against identical declarer play, but small variations in play can lead to silly play like the ♦j in my example.) You have a point that you can't trick a robot that is playing double dummy, so you do lose that aspect. But you can't trick them now. The defender in my example wasn't tricked into playing his Jack - he just played it at random. However you are right about the opening lead. No need for that to be double dummy since it happens before the human declarer gets in. But the current logic is worse. Look at the lead in this hand. As pigpenz correctly notes, it is outrageously bad. You are unjustly training people to be overly aggressive. I don't claim my suggestion is perfect; just better than what we have now.

Stephen: Playing double dummy isn't cheating (I'm not competing against the robots; I'm competing against the other humans). If, as declarer, I find a winning line that can't be beat double dummy, and you don't, then I should score higher than you. If, as a defender, I find a brilliant return (double dummy-like, due to my insightful card reading) then I should not be penalized because my robot partner can't play equally brilliantly. Please give me double dummy robot defenders (as partners or opponents). As for the declarer, if I am dummy, let me play the hand instead of the robot. If I am a defender (with a double dummy robot partner) then the robot declarer should just play good single dummy.

Stephen: Does the single dummy logic care about the contract, or about the scoring method (IMPs vs MPs)? None of this enters into double dummy calculations, but can be critical for single dummy.

Thanks, Stephen - that makes sense. I guess it depends what you are trying to achieve. As a competitor in a "robot tourney" I don't really care whether the robot defenders signal one another - what I want is to have my good play rewarded and my opponents' bad play punished. The current setup doesn't do that. Better (though not perfect) would be to have the robot defenders play double dummy, and where equal plays are available, play "human-like" (lead top of sequence, otherwise play low; lead longest suit against no-trump, etc).

It doesn't "think". Computing strong single-dummy play is not as easy as it seems.

"Yes, GIB absolutely recognizes count signals" Thanks - I hadn't realized that. "What it does is run simulations" Fair enough. Are the opponents in these simulations playing double dummy, or at random, or doing simulations of their own...? If they are playing double dummy or at random, then the simulations will rate unreasonably high plays that give away the locations of cards.

Sure it could "afford" to play the Jack - against an opponent who can see through the cards (or can't see at all). But aganst an opponent who sees what you play, and can't see what you don't play (and that's the usual kind) the Jack is a bad play. As for showing count, does its GIB partner recognize count signals?