smerriman

This is one of the most commonly occurring bugs and is extremely annoying every time it occurs. It bids 3♣ as a double negative.. but also bids it when it has a natural club suit and some values. There's no way of knowing which :(

Sigh. It's called randomness. It has been covered to death that BBO is generating the hands randomly, and 'bad streaks' are completely normal and expected when dealing with true randomness. If you're not experiencing it in 'real bridge', then you're clearly not dealing the hands properly. (This was a very well known phenomena when bridge deals used to be hand-dealt, which resulted in a lot of bias - when switching, people thought the automatic dealing was at fault, when it was the opposite).

North should be bidding 4♥ here. South asked you to revalue your hand opposite spade shortness; you had an 11 count to start with, your KJ of spades is wasted, and you have no club help. Continuing after a splinter tells partner the hands *are* meshing well - shift those wasted values into your club suit, and you'd have a 4♦ bid, and want to be in slam. So South's bidding seems fine.

You would think wrong. For many years it used to be $1/week for basic robots, and $1/day for advanced robots. Still says that on some help pages on the site. It increased to $2 and $1.50 about 6 months ago, and now it's $3 and $2 as helene_t said. A 200% increase on basic robot rental in that timeframe.

There's lots of threads about this in the General BBO Discussion forum. BBO increased their rake considerably in many forms of the game (including killing off Robot Reward entirely).

Argine appears to have an extremely odd view of superaccepts after 2NT and a transfer.. e.g. after 3♥, 4♠ is 4+ spades and controls in every suit except trumps. Seems like the opposite of a superaccept to me. 4 of a different suit is a "fit jump" with 4+ of that suit and 4+ spades, so they don't help fill the gap much (and seem more helpful to the opposition than anyone else). And 3NT is to play :(

It's part of Bridge World Standard, and the last poll I saw, was a clear favorite for the preferred use of jumps to the 3 level, including recommendations from Larry Cohen, Eric Rodwell, etc. GIB may misuse it, but it's not the convention that's at fault.

I would say it's not even a rating system, and wasn't designed to be. It's more an indication of how much you've played, rather than how well you play.

Pretend for a minute you're not playing with GIB. In standard 2/1, if your partner opens the bidding and you have a weak hand with a long suit that you want to be trumps, you bid a forcing 1NT, then your suit at the lowest level over whatever partner does - virtually always a signoff saying you have no interest in game. Sometimes this sign-off is at the two level - eg 1♠ - 1N - 2♣ - 2♦, weak with long diamonds. But sometimes it has to be at the three level - eg 1♠ - 1N - 2♠ - 3♣, weak with long clubs, or 1♠ - 1N - 2♥ - 3♦, weak with long diamonds. If you have an invitational hand with a long minor, you therefore often have no way of showing it. You can't start with a game forcing 2 over 1, and if you start with 1NT you might be stuck when bidding the suit would show a weak hand (and you're certainly not going to jump to the 4 level when not strong enough to bid game). Therefore it's common to play invitational jump shifts, where jumping straight to the 3 level shows precisely that hand that's impossible to otherwise bid - invitational with a long minor. Opener can pass if a minimum, or bid on to game with extras. Extremely useful when playing with humans. GIB, of course, is a bean counter and has no idea how to properly evaluate hands, so it often makes an invitational bid when it should be forcing to game (it won't game force with 11 HCP even with enough distribution to make up for it). Nothing you can do about that.

It definitely seems as if Argine's bidding has absolutely zero relation to its bid descriptions, which is why it tries to bid natural NT bids which are described as Blackwood, etc. Or in this case, a natural diamond suit when it's described as a control with 4+ clubs. You can probably guess this didn't go well. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?sn=Argine&n=s3hj863da987542c2&a=1s(4+!s;%20HCP%2011-20;%20natural)p1N(HCP%206-9;%20balanced)P3C(3+!c;%205+!s;%20HCP%2017-20;%20jump%20two-suiter%20-%20Game%20forcing)P3N(HCP%206-9;%20to%20play)P4C(4-6!c;%205+!s;%20HCP%2017-20;%20natural%20-%20Forcing)P4D!(4-6!c;%20HCP%206-9;%20control%20in%20!d%20-%20Forcing)&d=s&v=b]320|200[/hv]

I'm afraid it's a case of the marbles :) East wins the first trick with the king, and the king of diamonds drops singleton. So East has 2 spades, 1 heart, 5 diamonds, and 3 clubs - that's 11 tricks.

'Minimum' is just a silly description here. 2N is a feature ask rather than strength ask, so it bids a new suit with a feature, 3N with AKQ of diamonds, and 3♦ with everything else. Why they described it as 'minimum', I have no idea. Why they chose AKQ as the 3N bid, no idea either.

Wrong forum again. Use the robot forum. Wired?! Of course, you must be joking; the robots fail with this type of bid *way* more than they succeed. They're just plain bad. For reference their rules about doubling for penalty and forcing passes are awful; the database tells them 4♦ will either be passed out, or that you'll make a silly 4♠ bid over the top it. So the simulation will give the atrocious result of bidding 4♦ every time here.

East doesn't know anything about clubs, other than the fact the K and J are missing, and you need at least 3 of those points to make up 15 high card points. So from East's perspective, click through to trick 10 to see all cards are the same double dummy. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=ZZ%7C%7Cpn%7Cpilowsky%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C4SKQ9HA87DK862CK96%2CS63HJDAQJ94CJT874%2CSAJ8752HQ2DT5CA52%2CST4HKT96543D73CQ3%7Csv%7CB%7Cah%7CBoard%2010%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C1N%7Can%7Cnotrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20%21C%3B%202-5%20%21D%3B%202-5%20%21H%3B%202-5%20%21S%3B%2015-17%20HCP%3B%2018-%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4H%21%7Can%7CTexas%20--%206%2B%20%21S%3B%2010%2B%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4S%7Can%7C2-5%20%21C%3B%202-5%20%21D%3B%202-5%20%21H%3B%202-5%20%21S%3B%2015-17%20HCP%3B%2018-%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CCK%7C]400|300[/hv]

It doesn't matter what it throws, because you're guaranteed the K for the 1NT bid, thus have all the tricks regardless.

Argine's definition of 2NT in that sequence is "5+♠; HCP 10-11; natural". The description shown is "Invitational to either game -- 5 ♠; 9 HCP".. which is GIB!!! Like at chess.com, where they had some cat robots which have been gradually taken over by the m3gan robot as a promotion for the movie, GIB appears to be trying to take over Argine.

Found the traveller and you're right; the robot acted differently in the same situation. I was meaning to test that myself sometime. That's a *serious* bug.

How do you know it didn't consider it equal :) The description of 4♥ doesn't match the hand either, so it doesn't know this is "closer to real bridge" than 4♦. It just generates a list of candidate bids for the next bid, and then calculates a score for each of them by extrapolating with the database. If two options give identical scores, I think it literally just picks the one that happened to be tested first. If you wanted logic like "why didn't it bid 4♥ when the simulation suggested that contract", you could perhaps break ties by "whichever bid resulted in a smaller number of extrapolated bids before the end of the auction". But if anything, in most cases you'd want the exact opposite; e.g. GIB typically blasts slam because its database can't extrapolate to grand, whereas if it had bid slowly you'd get there when it gets around to simulating with more information later. (Incidentally, there is a very weird issue which *did* result in it marginally preferring 4♦, so they weren't strictly tied, even though all led to a 4♥ contract. I noticed this months ago and have been trying to reverse engineer the logic, but haven't figured it out yet. Might be a straight out bug, but I'm not sure yet. But even if fixed it wouldn't impact this situation, since they'd still be tied.)

No, this sequence specifically shows 4-5, and GIB was aware of the 5-3 fit (see its logic above). Agree it makes no *bridge* sense, but it makes 100% logical sense based on the algorithm GIB uses.

The second case depends on whether 2♣ was game forcing or not. If it is, 2NT can show both the maximum and minimum hands, with strong hands raising 3NT to 4NT later on. If not, 2NT would have to show the minimum (since you have to bid something), with 3NT the maximum. But otherwise, the strength of no trump bids is typically the same as if there was no opposition bidding at all. Oren Lidor published an article and quiz on this on BBO very recently.

Wrong forum. But to answer your questions: - the bidding database tells North to bid 4♥ over 2♠. It's completely understandable, however, that a simulation of possible hands you might hold may tell it that 2NT may work out better, and in this case it did conclude that. - having chosen 2NT, the bidding database tells North to pass 3NT. Also understandable, and was the point of bidding 2NT in the first place. However, when GIB ran a second simulation over hands where you'd bid 3NT, it's also understandable that it might now conclude 4♥ is the correct contract, given this uses a completely different set of hands than the first simulation. The twist is that the bidding database also says that if it bids 4♦, you'll respond with 4♥ on every single possible hand you might hold. So it just treats this as another way of getting to 4♥, and it never sees it costing anything. In both cases, therefore, there was nothing wrong with the bid descriptions; GIB is allowed to pretend it has something that it doesn't if it concludes that following the bid descriptions from that point onwards will lead to a better final outcome. But obviously still a silly bid, just not one the robot can see could ever go wrong.

Yeah, this one is frustrating and comes up quite regularly. When they initially were collecting some feedback via email I sent one example to Uday where it rejected a claim when I had everything in top tricks. He confirmed it in the logs and was going to email the dev and find out what was going on. So I know they're aware of it at least [but that was Oct 29]. Wouldn't complain if they just passed the request to GiB instead..

I guess if it's too late for 4NT, you can still use 5NT to ask for aces. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=pn|South%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot|st||md|4SA964HQJ5DK84CQJ7%2CSQT82HD2CAKT86432%2CSK753HK9632DA76C9%2CSJHAT874DQJT953C5|sv|N|ah|Board%202|mb|P|mb|1N|an|2%2B!C%3B%202%2B!D%3B%202%2B!H%3B%202%2B!S%3B%20HCP%2012-14%3B%20balanced|mb|P|mb|2C!|an|HCP%204-23%3B%20Stayman.%20Invite%20or%20better%2C%20at%20least%20one%204-card%20major%20-%20Forcing|mb|2D|an|5%2B!D%3B%20HCP%206-11%3B%20natural|mb|2S!|an|2%2B!C%3B%202%2B!D%3B%202-3!H%3B%204!S%3B%20HCP%2012-14%3B%20exactly%204!S%20-%20Forcing|mb|P|mb|3S|an|4%2B!S%3B%20HCP%2010-12%3B%20fit%20and%20invitational%20hand|mb|4H|an|5%2B!D%3B%204%2B!H%3B%20HCP%206-11%3B%20natural|mb|P|mb|5C|an|6-7!C%3B%20HCP%2014-18%3B%20natural|mb|P|mb|5N!|an|2-4!C%3B%205-7!D%3B%204-6!H%3B%20HCP%206-11%3B%20Blackwood%20in%20!C%2C%20asks%20how%20many%20Aces%20-%20Forcing|mb|P|mb|6D!|an|6-7!C%3B%20HCP%2014-18%3B%201%20Ace(s)%20-%20Non%20forcing|mb|P|mb|P|mb|D|an|2%2B!C%3B%202%2B!D%3B%202-3!H%3B%204!S%3B%20HCP%2012-14%3B%20penalty|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|]400|300[/hv] One person managed to get them all the way to grand, though didn't score as well. This time, Argine forgot that introducing a suit the opponents have bid and raised isn't natural. And 4NT wasn't Blackwood, but 5NT was suddenly asking for kings. And how exactly is 4♣ asking for a stopper in hearts?! For anyone who thought that GIB was bad, Argine is on another level. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=pn%7CSouth%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C4SA964HQJ5DK84CQJ7%2CSQT82HD2CAKT86432%2CSK753HK9632DA76C9%2CSJHAT874DQJT953C5%7Csv%7CN%7Cah%7CBoard%202%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C1C%7Can%7C4%2B%21C%3B%20HCP%2011-23%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7C1H%7Can%7C5%2B%21H%3B%20HCP%208-17%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7C2D%7Can%7C5%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%208-11%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7C2H%7Can%7C3-4%21H%3B%20HCP%205-10%3B%20fit%20and%20minimum%7Cmb%7C3C%7Can%7C5%2B%21C%3B%20HCP%2011-15%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7CP%7Can%7C5-6%21H%3B%20HCP%208-14%3B%20minimum%7Cmb%7C3H%21%7Can%7C5%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%208-11%3B%20cue-bid%2C%20strong%2C%20or%20no%20natural%20bid%20available%20-%20Forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4C%21%7Can%7C5%2B%21C%3B%20HCP%2011-15%3B%20asks%20for%20stopper%20in%20%21H%20-%20Forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4N%21%7Can%7C5%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2011%3B%20quantitative%20invitation%20to%20slam%20-%20Non%20forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C5C%7Can%7C6%21C%3B%201%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2013-15%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C5N%21%7Can%7C5%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2011%3B%20Blackwood%2C%20asks%20how%20many%20Kings%20-%20Forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6D%21%7Can%7C6%21C%3B%201%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2013-15%3B%201%20King%28s%29%20-%20Non%20forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C3-4%21H%3B%20HCP%205-10%3B%20penalty%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6N%7Can%7C5%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2011%3B%20to%20play%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C3-4%21H%3B%20HCP%205-10%3B%20penalty%7Cmb%7C7C%7Can%7C6%21C%3B%201%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%2013-15%3B%20to%20play%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C5-6%21H%3B%20HCP%208-14%3B%20penalty%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CHQ%7C]400|300[/hv]

There's a big link to it at the bottom of the https://www.bridgebase.com homepage. Or just visit https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/ directly.

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|smerriman,~Mwest,~Mnorth,~Meast|md|4SAQT52HT6DKT4CKJ2,SK74H4DAJ98752C94,SJ986HKJ82DQCAT75,S3HAQ9753D63CQ863|sv|n|rh||ah|Board%202|mb|2H|an|6-7!H;%20HCP%204-10;%20weak%20hand|mb|2S|an|5+!S;%20HCP%2011-18;%20natural|mb|P|mb|4S|an|3+!S;%20HCP%205-15;%20fit|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|H4|pc|H2|pc|H7|pc|HT|pc|D4|pc|DA|pc|DQ|pc|D6|pc|C9|pc|C5|pc|C6|pc|CJ|pc|DT|pc|DJ|pc|S8|pc|D3|pc|SJ|pc|S3|pc|S2|pc|SK|pc|C4|pc|C7|pc|C8|pc|CK|pc|SA|pc|S4|pc|S6|pc|H3|pc|SQ|pc|S7|pc|S9|pc|H5|pc|ST|pc|D2|pc|H8|pc|H9|pc|DK|pc|D5|pc|HJ|pc|C3|mc|11|]400|300[/hv] Completely nonsensical play on trick 1 gifts me the contract.