toastlots

Thank you for the response and noted. The bid explanation was still crazy.

I fully appreciate many posts have been made regarding GIB bidding, it would just take so long to go through them all. I just had a GIB tournament and a bid that was so wrong. I opened 1 spade and my GIB partner responded 1NT. At this point I would assume probably 6-10 points with a balanced hand maybe. Ops inter-bid with 2D after my partners 1NT to which my GIB partner responded with a double. I clicked on bid explanation and it read 1- spades with biddable diamonds. He actually had 3 spades to the king (the suit I opened with) and only 2 diamonds but he had 11 HCP. Sorry but that makes no sense whatsoever. I was always taught if I had 3 of my partners opening major suit I should support this straight away. Therefore even clicking on a bid explanation sometimes cannot be trusted.

As the title says, i am stuck on loading BBO. It just spins on loading for ages. Is there an issue with the site or is it my computer? Thanks

Agreed, I miss them too.

Hi Pete I have in the past experienced personal abuse yes, especially when I used to play a lot in the tournaments, and I did on a few occasions report the worst of those players. I now only play the all day long tournaments as it is with GIBS not humans. However, it is the other more common general rudeness of players that irritates me more. Not saying hello when I welcome a player to my table, never saying a word throughout the session, moaning about the pace of play, their partners bidding or playing, just general lack of any social manners at all. I have now been playing rubber only for some months and I have to say I have rarely come across a rude player. I think that is why when I attempted duplicate yesterday for just a few hands and we got a rude player almost immediately on my table it brought back those memories of previous duplicate bridge. It seems with some players than when they join someone else's table it becomes their table and they can act as they wish. I do not care how good a bridge player they are, there are general standards of human behaviour, respect for others etc that seems very lacking in some people. I will stick to Rubber for as long as I am able, it is far more relaxing which is why it still amazes me why it is not more popular, most seem to love the stress of duplicate, but why! Thank you for replying.

I started on the old BBO site years ago. I play on this newer version for tournaments now and then I play the majority on the older version as it still has rubber and for me thankfully that is still the case. I tried duplicate tonight on the old version and within 15 minutes i had to boot a player because they were so rude. I now remember the past years playing duplicate on both the old and this newer site and the days I got so fed up with rude players. Why does duplicate bridge attract so many nasty players?

Thank you for that. I should have responded well before now. I should have added at the time that these statistics were produced I had been playing in many gib tournaments where one almost always plays every hand which I believe skews those statistics rather a bit I have just played 15 boards on a gib table and only 3 hands were 12+ face card points This from memmory (rather than seen statistics) happens every session or seems to do so. This does get rather boring defending all the time, and I almost feel forced to pay for gib tournaments just to get a few attacking plays? This happens almost every session i start a gib table

Thank you both for those replies. Wow i didnt realise one can bring up hands I have played like that after they have been played and the table finished, amazing. Can I do that too? Sorry but I am not expert enough to study hands like this, I just play any hand to get as many tricks as I can in the best way I can. It just seemed daft not to make the assumption that the clubs were split 2-2, and even if 3-1 I know I can get back there to use all the remaining clubs to get the most tricks. In fact I forgot to mention that later in that contract my gib partner had to throw a card and threw one of the clubs away and in my opinion wasting a certain trick by doing so. The result where I believe we scored a minus seems to bear out my view on this particular hand.

Thank you both for those replies. Wow, I didnt know such a record of what I have played was possible to record and bring up. But now that you have, yes it does seem to bring a little perspective into things. I guess it always seems worse than it really is. I think i will try sitting north a little more often thoug

I have been using GIBS for quite some time. Whenever I start a new table I seem to get the first hand with sufficient points so I can bid, but then follows at least 9-10 hands (it might be more but i normally give up at this point and leave the table for a break) where I can neither open nor respond to my GIB partners bids. This does happen every single time. Is the system set up deliberately so that I seem to spend my entire time defending? There is nothing wrong with gaining experience in defending, but after a while it can get boring and soul destroying and to be honest any player needs to learn and experience both defending and attacking. Does anyone else experience this lack of attacking hands when playing with GIBs?

I have commented upon the issue of GIBs throwing tricks before, but it still amazes me that they still do it. We are sitting there in 3NT with 9 clubs between us with the ace in his hand and the king in mine. The other 4 clubs are fortunately (and uncharactoristickly)split 2-2. My GIB partner does not know this of course. He leads out a club from my dummy hand and then.......does not use his ace, but lays a low club so the trick is taken by ops with the queen!! Sorry, I am not an expert and might be missing something really clever here, but is that stupid or what? Even if the clubs were split say 3-1, he can always get the lead back again quickly so using both ace and king first to take out at least 2-3 clubs would in my view have been fine. We still got contract, but the entire room got 3+ 2 and we therefore got a -score, unbelievable!

Thank you all for your replies. Haha, yes agreed, if i make a mistake, my GIB partner never seems to moan at me.......teehee However, the 2 hands I referred to, the ruff would have worked. But, I accept some others might not. Oh, I honestly didnt know there were different levels of GIBS. I must have missed that, will check GIB hiring again. Ah right, I will also try duplicate, see if that is less frustrating. Thank you again, i will not give up just yet then:)

That's it I give up. Think I will take up Poker or something else or just stop using GIBS. Another hand, op gibs have contract. I have 2 diamonds (although ofc my gib partner does not know that) I lead diamonds and dummy has king with 2 others. My partner has ace and queen. He takes trick with ace over op king Does he lead back with queen? No he does not and leads another suit. Needless to say i never get the chance to use one of my pitiful low trumps to trump a diamond trick if only my partner had come back with queen of diamonds and then lead a 3rd diamond. sighs.

Sorry forgot to mention in last post. I threw a diamond on the club lead because my GIB partner had opened with 1 club (but I had nothing to respond with so I passed that)so I hoped he would be able to take the trick with ace or king.

Dear Uday Thank you for that reply and I apologise for not responding sooner. I always plays IMP pairs in non tournament play if that is helpful? Sorry, but yet another GIB madness today. Op GIBS had 2H contract. OP during hand leads a club. I have no clubs so i throw a diamond. I have 4 hearts, but all under 10, so if ops get to draw trumps they are pretty mch useless really. My GIB partner takes trick with Ace of clubs Does he lead back with a club? No he does not. Instead he leads with his King of spades (he has a couple more small spades to back this up with, but of course ops take it with their ace? Sorry, maybe I am not clever enough to have spotted the logic in this lead? Not only does my GIB partner not lead back a club so I can actually make good use of one of my small trumps, he throws his maybe only other chance himself of a trick by throwing the king of spades Neadless to say after acing his king op gibs draw all my tumps and we get at least 1 maybe 2 less tricks than we could have done I just dont get it!!

I have to start by saying that I have just spent 10 minutes drafting my thread and when I tried to use the spellchecker it wiped all my thread, thanks!! So i will try to repeat this as accurately as I did on my first draft and will apologise in advance for any spelling errors as I cannot trust to use the spellchecker again. I have been using the Gibs for some time now as they are useful practice and they are not rude, impolite, arrogant or unsociable, they are just computer players. That aside, I have moaned on the forums before about Gibs and their strange ways, but I have now seen too many hands when they have deliberately thrown tricks and ultimately contracts. I have wtinessed hands where it really is almost impossible to lose the contract, but my Gib partner has led the last card/suit one would ever imagine leading and has lost the trick and the contract. When checking the table scores, of course our table is at the bottom on its own with the worst score imaginable. This has happend too many times to be a fluke. Has anyone else experienced this before? Can anyone comfirm if maybe Gibs have been programmed deliberately to do this, perhaps to appear like us humans, fallable? After all, I pay real money to use the Gibs and would expect some level of proficiency. Thanks you (a slightly paranoid player!)

Thank you Bill, Bradley and Barmar for your replies. As I confessed at the start of this thread, although my game play has improved playing with the Gibs, my bidding has not, which is entirely of my own doing. Personally I avoid 1NT responses if I have a singleton. Ah yes, and one more moan, I have now noticed that my Gib partners on quite a few occassions fail to bid at all despite having 13-16 points in their hand just because the ops have opened. Now I have passed on bids with 13 points before so maybe I should not be moaning, but most occassions when my Gib partner does fail to bid with 13+, we get a terrible duplicate score. It is very hard to bid oneself if you assume your partners failure to bid (even with a Dbl in response to their opening bid) is because they have insufficient points. Having made all my various moans in this thread, I will still continie to play with the Gibs, and maybe one day I will get the hang of bidding as well as game play!!

Grrr, another irritating feature. Gibs often respond to an openning bid with 1NT if they have a certain range of points. This is regardless of their suit distribution. Time and time again I find they respond 1NT with a singleton, that really does not help! Ah well, I must now learn to treat their 1NT with caution.

Thank you for that suggestion Pigpenz, hmm, might give it a try if I can work out how to download the old version! I also find the Gibs useful because although they dont speak a word, at least you know its not personal, and they are never rude, impolite or down right unpleasant ;)

Thank you Billw55 for your comments, I will take that on board. Thank you also Gwnn :rolleyes:

Thank you for your reply ahydra :) It is indeed a relief to know I am not alone. I was starting to get a little paranoid thinking that the Gibs must really hate me! Fortunately I cannot recall a hand where an Ace and King was held and was not lead to scupper a 6NT bid by the ops, amazing, in fact totally hard to believe as even a complete beginner should realise what to do! Still, I will now just take the Gibs for what they are and try not to get too despondant. Peter

have been playing with the Gibs for some time now. I use these because I can play for a short periods of time without dissapointing friends because I may only play for 20 mins or 1/2 an hour at a time. I have to admit that my playing ability has improved because of this, although not my bidding. My irritation with the Gibs (and I know they are just computer players) is that for many reasons they seem to play like total idiots. I have always played bridge on the basis that when defending a hand I will almost always lead back what my partner has led. This is often more effective than not doing so. However, the vast majority of times I play with the Gibs, my Gib partner does NOT lead back the suit I led (almost never does). Strangly enough the Gib ops do lead back the same suit almost always. Why is this? it makes no sense? Often my Gib partner will lead out a King of a suit rather than holding it back in case it could be a winner and subsequently loses that trick and has no back up for the King for a later trick. I never see the op Gibs do this. Again, whis is this it makes no sense? Many times I have had a winning trick but because of a shortage in that suit my Gib partner who is the last to lay their card trumps it. What a waste of a trump card. It normally turns out that wasted trump would have won another trick and made our duplicate score much higher. I cant recall another occassion when the Gib ops have done this. Again why is this it makes no sense? I have also seen my Gib partner deliberately (i use this word with caution as I could never prove this anyway) lost a trick and lost the hand. As the dummy I have full view of all hands and can see that there was no reason whatsoever to lose that trick. Finally, and this is probably my lack of bidding ability (so this fault I will not necessarily blame on the Gibs)my Gib partner will more often than not refuse to accept my final game bid and choose their own over mine. Most times my bid turns out to have been the best duplicate score. Does anyone else play with the Gibs on a regular basis and do they experience the same numerous frustrations?