armantt2k

Any plans to update these since Flash ("retired") is no longer?

For Declarer play exercises, I recommend Take All Your Chances (Volumes 1 and 2) by Eddie Kantar. For card play as both Declarer and on Defense, I'm currently enjoying Card Play Technique, or How to Be Lucky, by Gardener and Mollo.

Larry Cohen, who mainly teaches Intermediate/Advancing levels, offers his ranking of the most 4, 8, 12, 16 important conventions to learn. His list can be found on his website (larryco.com) along with free articles teaching those conventions (and many others). He recommends limiting the # of conventions you use, and focusing on fully learning that limited set (i.e. accurate responses, rebids, etc.), before attempting to add any more conventions to your card. This Keep It Simple System (KISS) approach will reduce partnership mistakes, which will improve your overall outcomes more than adding yet another convention that you will use (or mis-use because you or your partner don't remember it) less than 1% of the time.

If BBO provided viewing of the Opponents Convention Card in History and Hand Records, it would be possible to recognize/confirm use of defensive signals during replay analysis. This would allow reviewing the Declarer's playing skill/ability to make use of that information. BTW, this would also support investigations & enforcement of the requirement that Convention Cards be available and complete. I have played against opponents with 'skeleton' convention cards - i.e. very little other than their names and some opening bid point ranges and lengths. This is a violation of both the rules and etiquette of bridge. Very often these same pairs also do not self-alert or respond to online questions, leading me to think they are either (a) noobs don't know how to fill out a convention card or use BBO, (b) obnoxious boors, or © cheaters.

A few days ago I was told to load a new version of BBO on my Samsung Tab A. After doing so, my Partner & I were playing a Casual Competitve game at Matchpoints against 2 bots. During play, we often go to History to see what others have done bidding/playing the hand. When I tried to view DDA, some (not all) cards were missing the DDA indicator. I found toggling "Previous Trick/Next Trick" sometimes would correct the error and fill in the missing info. But it also sometimes lost info that had been shown the first time. It's only happening on my Android since the new app version install, not on my Partner's Win10 PC - anyone else seeing this?

Currently, until their game starts, People who Registered and waiting to Play in an upcoming game are listed as being "Online". It would be very helpful when looking for a Partner to join a game that is starting soon to be able to see the status of People/Friends as already "Registered" rather than simply "Online". Often you waste time Inviting them, then waiting for them to accept, only to get a reply declining the invite because they are registered and waiting to play with another player. Worse, if they don't reply immediately (away from the keyboard), you wait in vain, miss the start of the game you could have entered with another Friend on the list.

If BBO intends to replace the GIBots with one of the other robots they own, then there is no point in us submitting robot reports or suggestions, is there?

By 'remember' I meant perfectly track all 52 cards, played and remaining to be played, a very easy task for a computer program, and beyond the ability of most humans. I frequently see GIBots discard an honor on trick 12, and win trick 13 in the same suit with a low pip card (e.g. 7 over a 6). A human wouldn't do that; it's too risky, and illogical. Why not just keep the honor and toss the pip card? Unless, of course, you're trying to win with the beer card! 😉

I doubt the GIBots play high to encourage. They simply play the highest of equals when intervening cards have been played. For example, holding Q97 the GIBot will play the Q from the remaining Q9 when the K is led after the first round was AJT7. This 'false carding' not only disguises the distribution (is he void?) but also makes their ability to 'remember' ALL the cards played a bigger advantage against most humans who fail to keep track of high pip cards.

Sorry, but it seems everyone has missed the point of my posted question. So I will simplify it: Do BBO robots look at human opponents' posted convention card? At the risk of confusing everyone again, here's an example: My partner and I play 1NT weak (12-14 hcp) - does GIB use this info to restrict the random hands it uses to analyze how to bid/play?if m

When I play with one of my regular partners, our convention card is loaded and available, even against two robots. Do the GIB robots assume we play GIB 2/1 and all other GIB card conventions?? Or do they check human opponents' card for exceptions to the usual conventions that give critical info useful in later play of the hand? I first thought only of UDCA or O/E during play, but being aware of basic alertable bids by the opponents such as opening 1NT weak or 1!C that "could be short" would certainly have an impact on the random hand generation algorithm GIB uses to chose competitive bids during the auction and later when choosing a lead or lines of play. Another example: checking which of the myriad 1NT overcall systems (DONT, Cappelletti, Meckwell, Landy, ...) the opponents play and using that info to restrict the suit distributions in the random hands under consideration.

Are you talking about the Advanced bots? My wife and I were practicing with a pair of basic robots and saw one of them toss a protected stopper for no good reason (not squeezed, not done to allow his partner an entry). I sent a robot report on the "weird" behavior.

Also, browser extensions are good only as long as you run a compatible browser. Firefox, Chrome, ... Do the extensions run on Android browsers? How about IOS browsers? There are lots of BBO users not running on Windows PCs. Will these extensions work with future releases of BBO? Finally, considering the age of a lot of bridge players, how many do we think are tech-savvy enough to install and configure browser extensions? All in all, it would seem much more user friendly for BBO to enable the above features, especially since they would basically be leveraging existing code that they are running safely and successfully elsewhere within their environment.

The Bidding Table lacks DDA. The Bidding Table lacks Export (Save Deal As). Both would be helpful, especially the Export,to save an interesting deal, so it can be discussed with others (perhaps a mentor/teacher) later, or posted to the forum for discussion.

Since I am not yet allowed to click a + to vote for this issue to be fixed, I am resorting to Replying that I am 100% in agreement that, as currently provided, the Undo is awkward and less than useful for the Teacher. In fact, my experience is that the Host of a Teaching Table (i.e. the Teacher) is unable to use the Undo at all - only the Invitee to the Teaching Table (i.e. the Student) has the ability to Undo, but not the Host! That is totally illogical! (BTW, this topic should be moved to the "Suggestions for Software" area of the forum)

Reply I got when asking this Question elsewhere in the Forum was to go to History, then My Table, find the last hand played and Export it to the Table. Of course this only works if you have complete the hand so it appears in your History. So not what exactly what either of us asked for.

Lots of comments re: the first issue (although it sounds like it is not resolved) No comments (or solution) given to your 2nd issue: The other quirk is that if I set up a teaching table to practice a different method and am seated, say North and South, the undo 'feature' doesn't work. It does work for anyone I'm practising with - but not for me. I don't know if this happens anywhere else. Yes, Richard, I see this (and get quite annoyed) every time I set up a teaching table so I can insert dealing scripts to get hands dealt for my partner and I to practice (e.g. 2/1 hands in the NS seats, 1NT openers, Weak 2's, etc). I find it silly that BBO calls this a Teaching Table when the "Teacher" (presumably the Host is doing the "teaching") cannot Undo, but the invited "Student" can! I am sure I submitted this issue to the Forum elsewhere (Suggestions for Software), but never saw a reply from BBO Support (although I haven't checked recently).

ty - got it

Is the same software used to deal the hands used for the Casual/Bidding/Teaching tables as for the BBO ACBL Instant & Daily games?

I play in 20-30 games per month in VACB & ACBL games for ACBL MPs. I have no problems with deals in those games. But I agree with you when it comes to BBO dealt hands. NOTE: I do not play in BBO point games. I am only reporting my experience when my partner and I practice with robots on Casual-Relaxed-MP tables. We have been playing 18-36 boards per day, almost daily since the pandemic started, against 2 basic robots at a BBO Casual table. In those 12,000+ hands, a conservative back-of-envelope estimate (20 hands x 25 days/mo x 24 mos) we all too often get 4-1 and 5-0 trump splits (way more than the expected 28% + 4% of the time). Missing honors are also offside much more than 50% of the time. I willingly concede that we are not expert players, not even close. But when we windup in the wrong contract (6-card trump suit, 19-hcp game bids), we are able to recognize it's our own damn fault. That is NOT the issue here. We have played entire sessions without a single 'normal' 3-2 break in trump or a runnable suit in NT, or a single finesse being onside. It has reached the point where we are genuinely surprised if "things goes right" (i.e. 'playing the odds' actually works) on more than 2 or 3 hands in a session. Like you, I'd be curious to hear from others - but even more, I'd actually like to hear from someone who has somehow captured all those deals and done the analysis. Until then, I can only say "Prove me wrong!"

It would be nice if BBO hamburger provided not just DDA but also Par score and the makeable bids by all seats, as found on Hand Record printouts provided by TCG and other dealing software.

I was told by a VACB TD to never logoff early on the last board because if a Robot is substituted for you, the Robot's name is reported to ACBL (not you) and you will not get credited for any MPs. This happened to my wife when she lost connection on board 18 of 18 and a robot was inserted to finish playing her hand on defense. Sure enough, I got MPs for the session but my partner (my wife) didn't. However, I don't see the need for inserting a robot into Dummy's seat, except if there's a bug in BBO that insists there be names (human or robot) attached to all 4 seats (including Dummy) for play to continue.

Doing what you say will result in final total matchpoints scores for each pair that are either whole or half (e.g. 63.00 or 62.50), no decimals other than x.00 or x.50. This is what matchpoint game scoring (using the ACBLscore software approved by the ACBL to run tournaments) is and is the basis for MP awards (*). This often results in pairs tied for a position in the final standings and sharing awarded MPs. Duplicate Bridge pairs are familiar with these ties and comfortable with sharing the MPs. BBO's scoring results in pairs tied with same matchpoints, but only one pair getting ALL the MPs, while the other pair feels cheated because even though they tied for the award position based on established, well-known, and time-honored ACBL scoring rules, they receive no MPs. (*) Yes, I am aware that TD rulings (giving Average +,=,- on disputed boards) can result in some odd decimal scores in ACBLscore, but those are relatively rare exceptions, and unrelated to the question of the validity of BBO's scoring methodology.

There may be some issues with some browsers. Also, I've had to turn off my VPN to log in - probably related to BBO trying to prevent cheating.

I agree with Jannagh that the display of bids in a long auction is poorly handled. (I am supporting their suggestion by this Reply since I am not yet trusted enough to vote +/- on any posts in BBOForum) Is it too much to ask for some user-friendly improvements from the tech team? Or at least a reply saying the BBO software team is aware of the issue, understands the request, and will put it on the list of planned future updates?