myprac

Thanks. And BTW, my remarks aren't complaints and I hope they aren't too nitpicky. Just trying to contribute toward improvements, even if minor ones.

And here's another inconsistency. The CC says "Opening major rebid does not promise 6 cards in the suit." In the sequence 1H - 1S - 2H the rollover for the last bid says 6+ H.

The rollover description for a 1nt opener says "Could have 5M." The text version of GIB's convention card says a 1nt opener denies a 5-card major. I recall an announcement a while back that GIB was changed to permit 5M for 1nt, so I assume it is the CC that requires correction. Would be nice to get some clarity on how GIB chooses between 1nt and 1M.

If that's what North was thinking, North was giving West too much credit, because West went down at the tables where North pitched the lower card. I suppose it's possible, though, that North played through some such scenario in its random deals and that's how it came to make this play, which I attributed to a simple desire to make a falsecard. BTW, this deal is from playing robots on fast setting where they don't think as deeply as in tournament play.

Interesting. I have an earlier version of GIB's convention card (text description, printed about a year ago) which explicitly states, in the overview, "Gib does falsecard." Checking the current version I see that this statement has been removed. I'm pretty sure GIB still falsecards fairly often, but I'll pay closer attention now to see if some of the plays that looked to me like falsecards were actually signals or strategic plays.

My link GIB fairly often discards a clear winner as a falsecard, as on the second trick of this deal. These occurrences happen in situations where there is no plausible scenario where the discard could be a helpful unblocking play. I can't help wondering if there's a way to adjust GIB's logic to eliminate these plays or at least make them less frequent. Here's my guess as to what's going on. GIB checks to see whether a falsecard is potentially harmful by creating a number of random deals. If the falsecard doesn't lose a trick in any of those random deals, GIB will falsecard -- or perhaps will randomly select between the normal play and the falsecard. If this is correct, you'll get a result like the one above whenever all (or most?) of the random deals place the next highest card (♣J) in partner's hand, making it appear safe for GIB to discard the ♣Q. It seems to me there should be an override that prevents GIB from making these discards solely as a falsecard -- in other words, it shouldn't throw a card that would be the highest outstanding card in the suit unless it discovers the need for an unblocking play. In other words, it has to discover a situation where it takes more tricks by throwing the high card, not merely a situation where it takes as many tricks by throwing a high card.

I'm not sure it this is a problem with GIB or I'm confused about help suit slam tries. I've run into this when I was trying to reach slam, but in this deal we're looking at two GIBs bidding with each other. My link My understanding is that the 3♠ bid by West says "tell me (by bidding 4♠) if you can fill in the gaps in my spade suit, because that would give us a shot at slam," but rather than bid 4♠, holding ♠AJxx in the suit East responds 4♥, which appears to be a sign-off.

My link No complaint about the bid, but the rollover description is completely wrong. Have observed the same in spades.

My link Poor judgment on my part, I suppose, bidding hearts instead of diamonds, but it can't possibly be correct for North to pass.

I like that sequence. Elsewhere, on the GIB board, there's a thread called something like "is this too much to ask" discussing whether GIB has in its repertoire the cue bid of opponents' implied suit (the 3♥ bid) and, if not, should it be added. This is another example of GIB not making that bid when it would be handy.

My link Not sure if I messed up or GIB did. When North bids 4♠ I figure we have a play for slam if partner has a ♥ control. I assume this isn't a good hand for Blackwood because I'm okay with missing a control in ♦ but not in ♥. I start a cue bidding sequence with 5♣, GIB shows the A♦, and then I'm stuck. A bid of 5♥ would incorrectly show the ace, and any other bid besides 5♠ takes me beyond the highest level where I'm safe without knowing we have a ♥ control. So I bid 5♠ with the thought that partner will continue the bidding when holding a ♥ control because at this point that's the only thing we could be missing, and there's no reason I would have initiated a cue bidding sequence if I was going to play in 5♠ with controls in all the side suits. As you see, GIB passed and I missed an easy slam. Is there some other way I could have bid this to find out if we had a ♥ control? Should I have just taken the risk of a 6♠ bid without knowing I had a ♥ control, as some others did?