smerriman

Seems to be identical to your other one. Leading a low club is fine double dummy, but not single dummy. As mentioned there it's typical for basic GIB, but advanced GIB is meant to deal with this - maybe that part of the code has been turned off for some reason..

If everyone happens to be equal at declarer play and there isn't going to be much random variation in the results - which is unlikely - then you should be bidding a slam if it makes more than 50% of the time. The catch is as mikeh said; a finesse is not a 50% slam; there are virtually always other factors at play.

If you have poor declarer play where you're probably taking 11 tricks when 12 are available, bidding slam is probably not wise :) Now you're getting a 0 when at least you could have tied some of the equal other poor declarers in game.

Isn't it already? Anyone can view the list of kibitzers at any table, as Diana already mentioned above.

There's no such thing as an IMP Zenith. He's asking for one.

He may possibly be talking about daylong robot tournaments. These do run once a day; the time the tournament ends is shown when you start though.

Ouch. That one makes no sense at all. Could possibly be related to the more well-known one where GIB passes a game try. Something to do with thinking it's OK to pass without extras when in a known fit, even if that wasn't the fit you were meant to be in. Obviously a major bug.

Initially brought up by helene_t in the GIB forum, after having created a couple of bidding polls I have found myself a little stumped as to how these auctions should go. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?s=ST83HAKQ7DQ962CJ5&n=SJ74H962DA7CAQT93&d=s&a=1D1S2CP2HP2SP]400|300[/hv] A couple of people suggested rebidding a somewhat artificial 2♦ instead of 2♥, but the large majority continued with a forcing 2♥. Over 2♥, there seems to be no option but 2♠ (confirmed by a poll). Presumably North would also be forced to bid this with this shape and even less HCP (if not 2♠, then what)? So in this auction it seems 2♥ and 2♠ could both be a minimum hand. a) Now what? b) If South held a slightly stronger hand with spade stopper (say, a 3451 14-15 count), are they required to jump to 3NT on the third round, given 2NT would be non-forcing? This would seem to cause a nightmare if North was stronger and had slam interest in hearts, where they would have also bid 2♠. Or can South never bid 2♥ with a spade stopper? Or do you just play 2♠ as game-forcing and concede that you'll play in an occasional 12 vs 10? And what if opener were stronger - do they have to start with 2♠ on the previous round to avoid all this ambiguity? Continuations after 2♣ seem complex.

Well, the polls didn't help clarify anything for me at all. 100% of voters said 2♥ was forcing. Yet the vast majority of voters also voted 2♥ with your xxx-AKQx-Qxxx-Jx hand. And nearly everyone continued with a (surely game-forcing) 2♠ as responder with a minimum 3325.

Well, even in Bridge World Standard a 2 level freebid doesn't promise another bid - it only forces through to 2 of opener's suit. Unclear whether they play 2♥ as forcing though. It's quite a different situation to say, a SAYC 2/1 without interference, as your natural rebid there may be NT which could be taken away here without a stopper. And opener also has the new option of forcing with 2♠. I might poll to see how others play 2♥ as I don't know what's standard either. Probably forcing but some hands seem tricky.

https://www.advinbridge.com/this-week-in-bridge/342 appears to be how GIB is playing it.

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?n=SAJT96H7DT9CAKQJ2&s=SQ843HKQ2DAKQJC74&a=6SPPP&d=s]400|300[/hv] West leads a diamond, you win and lead the ♠Q, which holds. If you claim 13 tricks, it will be rejected as East having Kxx is a valid deal, even though ducking from such a holding is insane.

Having 2♥ non-forcing is fine, but the definition should definitely constrain it to being a minimum.

It works the same for everyone. The leaderboard is reset daily, but you have to play in a single session to retain your score. Note that if you're simply wanting to get a high score quickly, you shouldn't play 'normal bridge' - as you're guaranteed the best hand on each deal, you can pass out a lot of lower range opening hands so that you can prioritise ones where game/slam are on. There's no point spending a few minutes playing out a hand where all you're going to achieve is +100 on a part score, when you could have passed it out to get +620 on a vulnerable game next hand. With another format of the game - the paid Robot Reward games - the all-time best scores are over 10000 in just 15 minutes of play. This isn't quite the same as here (if robots become declarer there, they play the hand for you, much quicker than you can, while here you have to play), but it goes to show how quickly you can rack up points. Obviously, I'm not recommending you do this when new to bridge - best to concentrate on the bidding and play for each hand and forget the leaderboard. (If you're looking for a game where the leaderboard is more correlated with skill level, the duplicate games will be more appropriate.)

In real life bridge you must state a line of play when you claim. With GIB a claim will be accepted only if there exists a single dummy line that guarantees at least the number of tricks you claim against any defense. If a finesse works once but it is still technically possible that the trick was ducked (even if that would be awful bridge), then a claim relying on the finesse working again will always be rejected, whether the card was onside or not.

You simply must open 1♣ on this hand, whether playing with robots or humans. There is no chance it will be passed out (or at least so remote that it's a lesser risk than 2♣), so you can force to game the second time while getting a chance to show your hand. Having the first natural bid of 5♣ will never work well and GIB will always assume you are incredibly strong in terms of HCP.

Out of 500 deals, 343 were ties, 88 favored the spade, and 69 favored the heart. While small, that's still pretty significant. I tried using the same 500 deals, but swapping the 9 of spades with the 4 of spades. The spade was still favored. A lot of people have been mentioning they're leading the three card heart suit trying to hit partner's length. That makes sense at IMPs; setting up that 5 card suit is how you beat the contract. In this case, with the points heavily weighted to declarer and dummy entries likely limited (where leading into declarer's suit will give him an extra tempo vs having to cross to dummy to do it), MP will be more about not giving away a trick. Perhaps the fact your hearts are shorter increases the chance of *declarer* having length there, which makes it more dangerous. For example, 23 of the wins for spades were when declarer had a 5 card heart suit. But only 11 of the wins for hearts were due to declarer having a 5 card spade suit.

I would have expected a double dummy sim to match David's conclusion. Yet if I sim based on: West any balanced 20-21 East any 5-11 without a 4 card major (unless 4333) then a spade lead comes out on top (followed by heart, diamond, club). This surprises me. But I'm still leading a heart.

With SAYC East jumps to 3♠ (forcing) instead of 2♠, after which you should reach the same spot.

Playing 2/1: 1♠ - 2♦ 2♥ - 2♠ seems a reasonable start. West is going to be going to slam for any sequence from then on - whether a beginner bids a direct 4N, or you go through a lengthy control bidding sequence, you're going to eventually find you're missing the Q and stop at 6 in all cases.

The robots don't actually bid based on the descriptions of the bids at all (they're for humans only) - I expect that description comes from some generic rule about high level bids, but no followups to 5 level bids have been programmed in.

It's just one finesse since you only have 3 cards. In the specific hand you posted the trick lost in hearts gets replaced by the club as mentioned by others, but it's rare that giving up an entire heart trick is going to work out well whether it's a suit contract or not. (Just swap the A + Q of clubs and it now costs).

[edit]Oops, ignore bit about Rusinow, missed the part about a suit contract. The main reason is that later in the hand, you're more likely to want to switch to a doubleton honor. This is the same reason these leads don't apply when leading partner's suit.

The J lead denies the Q with standard leads. So win the Ace, and you can later finesse through East.

You know as well as I do that all doubles are takeout for GIB, and that 'book' doesn't mean human-approved, just a result of a rule. So not hard to see in the slightest.