smerriman

I've followed along with the discussions, the announcements, the reactions to the announcements, and experienced the server crashes. You can wait for the same answer officially if you want (or look up the previous discussions). My point was simply that you can't have both at the same time, so restoring MP/IMP on the days they were replaced is equivalent to getting rid of Just Declare. It isn't getting priority. Just Declare is two days a week; IMP is two days a week; MP (preferred by most) is 3 days a week. Either you're asking for multiple free tournaments on the same day (ruled out for reasons mentioned above), or for the 2 days of Just Declare to be removed, which would be completely unfair. Which is it?

To answer your question: I'm not affiliated with BBO in any way, but based on all the evidence over time, the number of free daylongs was reduced as they were putting too much load on the server given the number of registrants. That is the reason one has to replace the other, and you can't have both. Based on the numbers of people I saw (and continue to see) registering, Just Declare is just as popular as the other formats. So it would more unfair to get rid of it just for the minority of people who are annoyed by it.

But surely the simulations are based on hands where GIB east would bid 4♥, whatever shapes they may be, vs basing them on the human descriptions? In which case the process should be flawless. Clearly some major bug in there somewhere.

Incidentally, neither the IMP nor MP versions are even close to resembling "real bridge" either, both in terms of rules (always being dealt the best hand), and scoring (being compared to people who played different hands). But they're fun, and different people enjoy different things. Appreciate what you have :) Besides, given the limit on 3 free tournaments a week, you're still able to play exactly the same number of non-just-declare tournaments a week as before.

My guess is that 4♦ was never considered to have a natural meaning, and there is a rule that says jumps to the 4 level, unless defined otherwise, are splinters. Not too hard to see how/why a program might have that rule. You could change that to 'a splinter unless you've bid the suit naturally', but adding that rule in itself would be entirely pointless without defining what the jump actually means. (Ie, saying it's a splinter is no more helpful/unhelpful than saying nothing at all, like most other descriptions of "impossible jumps"). So the question really is, what should the description of 4♦ be? 7-4 distribution or something like that? It's a pretty rare one.

I'm not going to do big complex seeding formulas, so it's not important on that end.

derppp has just beaten zupey 40-19: http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:b79429dc.7301.11e8.ab4e.0cc47a39aeb4-1529331184&u=derppp which finalises the qualifiers in Group C. The only remaining important challenge is mine vs kuhchung, with basically the winner (given a 4.5 IMP headstart for him) taking the last spot. I haven't seen Chris online in the last week or so, so he may be away. Feel free to start round 2 in the meantime - same rules; one 16 board best hand IMP challenge against the 8 qualifiers you haven't yet played.

Nothing is messed up. Round 2 has not started. Read the rules in the first post, and/or the replies to the post where you said exactly the same thing a few days ago.

Did you bid + play the full hand? If, for example, someone made an opening bid / pass then left the table, I think the hand doesn't count as "yours" (at least, I know when you look at the results on the right afterwards, the original username shows up.)

I tried a few of them - everyone who scores >= 55% gets $1.50 back (for a $1 entry fee). Looks like Robot Reward is definitely the way to make $BB though - doubled my money in a day :)

Neither, but GIB doesn't have a way of doing so. As above, that may be something worth changing, but given the definitions you have to work with, 6♣ like a good result of simulations.

If you haven't already realised, johnu finds the time to make a sarcastic response to every topic in this forum.

I was referring to these earlier posts where you blamed everything on simulations: Regardless of what GIB plays 4♣ as, as mentioned above, simulation based bidding is *guaranteed* to lead to a better result, barring the two exceptions above (the first of which isn't relevant here, and the second of which isn't either since this hand actually demonstrates the simulation worked beautifully). There is no logical argument against it, ever. This is a fact, not an opinion. If 4♣ would have led to a better result, then simulations would have caused it to make that bid. And if simulations weren't in play, basic GIB would bid 5♣, which is terrible.

Seriously, back to this again? After your last tirade about simulation bidding, you eventually concluded your argument had no merit. That's still the case. GIB plays 4NT as quantitative, so that is not an option. Whether or not it should be RKC is completely unrelated to simulation based bidding. The *only* downsides of GIB's simulations are: - it takes some bids too literally (not an argument against simulation bidding *at all*, just that bidding definitions need tweaking) - it sometimes doesn't run enough simulations (which can only have a minor impact on results). By definition, everything else is guaranteed to lead to a better result on average than if it weren't used. This case is no different.

Oops, my apologies. Misread Natali_s message and thought that was yours, not ArtKs. Ignore the above, that's all fine.

broze, that's two lapsed challenges - I would prefer not to assign penalties, but it's also unfair on the other players. Given past history I'm going to assume for the time being there is a valid reason, but please be more careful in accepting (or autoaccepting) challenges if there is a chance you can't complete them.

Basically, no.

Cool, thanks! I've played a number of free robot races and win about 99% of the time, so I expect Robot Reward is the way to go. The better I do, the more I can keep playing :) Competition will be much tougher, of course. (But still managed to win on the first attempt, by only 10 points after 2nd place gave me a scare with a vulnerable game in the last seconds..)

So, I won BB$10 for making a slam, and then writing a story about it. I haven't used $BB in the past (I'm pretty frugal spender). What are people's recommendations on how I should best use this?

I thought about having longer matches in the second round robin, but it gets a bit complicated - for those you've already played with, are you having two independent 16 board VP results, or trying to combine the two in a 32 board VP result - neither really gives an accurate/fair result. And given you've already had a match against someone, it seems wrong to scrub it out entirely. (You could argue the same for the semi/final, but thought at that point 1v4 and 2v3 was enough advantage.) As it stands, the 12 people in round 2 will end up playing one challenge against everyone else. Whether you got unlucky/lucky in that challenge doesn't really change if you played it earlier or played it now. Plus, I didn't want to overload everyone with challenges - personally I'm all for making them longer, but 26x16 boards for the two finalists seemed on par with earlier events. So will stick as is for now, but happy to take suggestions for the next event (which will be MP, so changes things a lot).

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:c166d7cd.6dc5.11e8.ab4e.0cc47a39aeb4-1528755675&u=smerriman smerriman 38 - 35 tim_ucin

The weird thing is, if you get a 3♥ response to the game try then bid 4♥ anyway, it "corrects" the description to 21+ points. I assumed this was like GOSH takeout doubles, where it starts with the standard definition then corrects it. But apparently not.

If I recall correctly, I think we figured out a while back that it was more of a glitch with the way Money Bridge handviewer links are provided by BBO, because it worked fine for him for non-money-bridge hands.

Firstly, it is not unjust, because if you had made exactly the same plays, you would have gotten the same result. Secondly, it is a good play by GIB (and indeed by declarer), not illogical. If GIB throws the ♥Q, declarer makes 10 tricks (by playing a heart). If GIB throws a ♦, declarer makes 10 tricks (by playing diamonds). If GIB throws the ♥A, declarer makes: - 9 tricks if east has the heart king - 10 tricks if east has the heart ten not but king - 11 tricks otherwise. Assuming all 10 layouts of the remaining 5 hearts are equally likely, that's 40% for 9 tricks, 30% for 10 tricks, 30% for 11 tricks - thus a better play.

True, but that's not relevant to GDPR (anyone can post anyone else's info on any forum / comment system anywhere, that doesn't put you at fault), and if that was the real reason regardless of GDPR, that seems a bit of an over-reaction compared to the benefits.