thepossum

Hi Thankyou. I have played all of them up to advanced a few times. I'm finding the tournaments provide quite good discipline. My averages are improving and I'm getting fewer hands that are totally wrong bid/play regards D

Dear all I'm curious about GIB defence to NT. Occasionally you can be brought unstuck by being the only hand where GIB selected different defence to all other tables. I have tried to identify how deterministic it's choice of leads can be. It obviously varies somewhat depending on intermediate bids in the auction. However in a case with identical bidding is it quite deterministic, or based upon statistical algorithms with uncertainty and some variation and on its choice. In this case you could be one of the unlucky outliers sometimes. I can't put it all down to GIB of course as a beginner but sometimes the lead makes all the difference as with a human. To be honest I don't think I would want entirely predictable and deterministic leads even from a robot. Then you would just be playing an optimisation machine. Just curious from a semi-professional point of view. I have started reading up on Bridge robots and AI and the complexity of Bridge because of the need to explain decisions, and not just make optimal decision without explanation Regards P

Hi Helene Thanks for the advice. As I said I couldn't remember the hand. Maybe it was two doubletons or 3 and 1 so it actually only had 11 total points Maybe I need to learn to count to 13 before progressing any further in bridge. Maybe it explains why I am often going down 1 on a forgotten trump :) Best P

Hi Stephen Many thanks for the tips. I used to play many years ago but my play is very rusty so I regard myself as an experienced beginner trying to relearn my play. My brain isnt what it used to be. Somedays I play really well and other times I let myself down with really bad strategy, especially as declarer. I nearly went to 4S above. It was quite interesting that one other table ended up in 3S+4. They were an advanced and epxert pair who missed the 4S bid via a 3D jump shift which is one of the bids I was considering. Would a splinter or 2D bid be appropriate as responder there or is the hand not strong enough. To me I would have forced/encouraged to game. Thanks again for the advice thanks P

Hi all Just playing a few robot IMP hands and was dealt this http://tinyurl.com/ycgcl2yb Even though I had 3 aces and 14 points I didn't like my trump suit much. The robot jumped to 3S and I should at least have bid 4S which is what almost everyone else did. And most of them made all 13 tricks, but that was due to the wrong lead by the robot. C lead clearly stops slam. There are really only 11 safe tricks I think. My play was bad and I only made 10 but thats a different matter. If I had that hand by the robot I think I would have bid something stronger than a 3S limit because of the good trumps, the long diamonds and the two short suits. Anyway, I would be interested for any thoughts on this hand. Seemingly nobody else saw the slam to bid it so its probably too risky to bid because of the C losers. I need to improve bidding and lay to avoid missing this but I think the response could have been stronger too regards P

Hi all I hope there are some more advanced players occasionally read this forum. I am trying to improve both bidding and card play as a two pronged strategy by comparing my bids and play with other tables. I'm finding that in general my bidding gets close to the right contract most of the time. However I often find myself a few tricks below better players. Sometimes as much as getting part-score vs 1-3 overtricks. I am analysing my worst hands in the hope that this is the right way to fix my game. Also playing match point tournaments which I read is more based on quality of card play with IMPs being more of a bidders game. I know both need good bidding and play but the extra tricks in MPs are what differentiates different levels. Doe any experienced players have any tips please. I would say I'm getting close to calling myself intermediate but I still make too many occasional bad bids or bad plays. Maybe 1-2 tables in a tournament of 8. If I can reduce my frequancy below 1 on average I think I could call myself intermediate regards P

Hi Sadly I have lost the hand but cant show it. I am a returning bridge player, trying to relearn the game, and used to play 4 card majors in ACOL. Now I'm learning 2/1 5-card majors. Recently I was playing IMPs. We were not vulnerable but EW were vulnerable. I picked up what looked like a very nice but weak hand which was close to an opening 1S S AQJ10x H Qxxx C x D xx That only comes to 9 HCP and 12 Total points. My rather aggressive/preemptive side came out and I bid 1S which ended up ok. I was hoping to end up in a max of 2S but the robot pushed to 4S. We only went down 1 trick worth only 0.2 IMPs against us so not a bad result, but risky. What I would like to ask people, especially 2/1 players is if you regard my opening bid as acceptable. In appropriate situations I like to push point count on good weak hand even at the one level sinec the 1S is essentially a 1-level preempt regards P

Dear all Not sure which is the best forum to ask this in. I was playing robot duplicate and on one hand GIB doubled me into a bottom. 4S was the correct contract by EW and I had no way to escape from the double. I wasn't sure what type of double it was at the 4 level and why. The only difference between my bidding and other players was that I bid 1NT on the first round rather than show my hearts, which is what I thought o f doing. This seemingly affected the robot's decision. Was my 1NT an incorrect bid. It fits convention quite well, gives a point count but no indication that we can bring down a long spade suit http://tinyurl.com/yd4nq9dj Any tips or discussion welcome. P

Hi Thanks Steve Cheers

Hi all Ive been playing quite a few instant tournaments recently and my own scores have gradually been improving towards 40-50%. I still have a way to go. However, , my most recent tournament was rather frustrating since felt rather let down by GIB not bidding according to the descriptions. One it left me in 4C when it needed to be raised to 4H. Admittedly I could have bid 4H immediately as many players did but the description was support for game, 4+ H, 6+C, describing my hand and my point count. I wasn't the only player caught by this. One advanced player was also caught out and it scored a 0%. I'm sure people will argue what I should have done but I don 't understand why GIB didn't honour the descriptions and bid to 4H http://tinyurl.com/yam38xez thanks Possum

Hi Thanks. I will double check hat if I can find the hand. It must have thought it suit was the agreed suit. But I'm fairly sure that when I hovered over my 4NT it was my suit. I always check that. Maybe my problems were in some earlier hands. I am still getting used to GIB after a few weeks. Starting to get used to it but its let me down on a few tournament hands. Start another thread on that. Sorry I probably cant find the Blackwood one. It probably was my error as you point out. Thanks regards Possum

I'm still struggling to get my brain back into gear. So even though I can bid reasonably well most of the time, my card play needs to improve, and I used to bid more natural systems compared to all the addons to systems that many people play. I will keep myself as Beginner for a while sine I've seen some quite good beginners I will probably put my first name in my profile if its better. I dont really want people to know my full name, well until I know people better

Hi thanks Yes, will stick to beginner for a while. My play is still rusty and I still have the occasional big losing hand. Getting better though. But I will stick to beginner until my card lay is improved regards Possum

Hi all I've been playing GIB for several weeks. On a number of occasions there have been misunderstanding on what the Trump suit is when I thought it had been clearly determined. This has led on two occasions when the robot has bit 0 or 3 key cards when only two were outstanding. Of course this leads to missing small and grand slams. Anyone else had problems with GIB and Blackwood. Thanks P

hi thankyou regards P

Hi all I am having problems defining my level. I have played for many years but only restarted recently learning new system. I would generally define myself as beginner-intermediate based on my experience and knowledge of bidding and play. Howwever my play is a bit rusty so I have defined myself as beginner. There are very few beginner tables and when I start a table it is hard to get players. I have also watched many games and seemingly many people who define themselves as intermediate can be quite ordinary at bidding and play. How people define their level doesnt seem to match play necessarily. I dont want to overestimate my level but dont want to underestimate it either and miss out on games. It also seems quite hard to get to truly relaxed and casual games, even in the relaxed bridge club. People there take it seriously. I'm assuming scores in the relaxed club don't affect rankings. But some of the players take it aa bi too seriously when bids or play go wrong. So where can quite an experienced beginner-intermediate get a good relaxing game thanks Possum

Thankyou for your response. I'm finding after more and more play that while some of the difference may have been robot type, my initial sample may have been too small. I am noticing some interesting behaviours but without knowing much about GIB yet and how it works I can't really infer much pattern. As you say, competition effects outcomes significantly and robots seem almost as vulnerable to unpredictable/flexible defensive bids as humans. I don't know how to post hands but one table a simple defensive takeout changed EW from clear 5C+1 to 4C bid. I can't claim credit for my intention to disrupt but it seems they can be psyched Cheers Possum (I'm very new here so sorry for any duplication)

Dear all For the last three days I have been renting an advanced robot and playing on a three robot table. I have noticed, more than could be chance, that with identical bidding my me and North, the EW robot is much more aggressive at games and slams and plays different defence. This has led to a few massive IMP losses compared to most users. Note that I am comparing like with like. Same bidding by NS and contracts played by N with me as dummy. Defensive leads are consistently different. Is this about the advanced robot. Do most people rent the basic robot. I don't mind being beaten by better robots which bid and defend better but I do get very bad scores compared to other 3-robot users even when I'm not playing the hands Would love other people's experiences and thoughts. One BBO support person said they didn't think there was much difference in play. For me most of my worst scores are when EW bids slams rather than games and/or defends better when the robot is playing N I have probably played 150 hands over the three days so it's not a small sample Regards possum