stephenpag

I have been playing the robot tournaments (ACBL) since June, I play 4-6 games a day. My goal is 550 points. I have earned 360 points thus far. At which time I will become a Silver Life Master. At 70, I don't think I will have a chance to get another 100 colored points for the next level unless the physical games open up and I can go to regionals. I watch the score like a hawk. When playing IMPs I can make up the score if doing poorly or make a big mistake. I find that IMPs are the easiest to win. The key to the robots is to get to decent contract and hope that you play the cards well. And oh, I deceive the robots often and make them change their strategy. MY FINDINGS: If I open a weak 2, the robots will almost always pass. Don't open 1NT fourth seat; I find the robot devalues your points. I have seen it pass with 8 points and a good 4-card spade suit: Game was cold. UGH: I can't figure out how to get robots to bid those long minor suits. They always go for majors even with a strong rebiddable minor or even the other major???? Which hints here please would be welcome. Don't raise from 2 c to 5 c or 3c to 5c, the robot will almost always bid 1 higher. I am finding that double for take out is a mistake. If the robot bids Hearts for example, it will think that's the suit for ever an eternity. Even if I bid and rebid and rebid my long minor, he takes me to 7 Hearts with just 5 hearts!!! This happens to be about once in 10 sessions. I agree if the robot opens say 1 Spades and I have 3 Spades and 12 points, I am now jumping to game. I find that the ACE of the opponents is always to the left of the shorter part of the suit, say Q10987 vs K2, lead towards the KING and the ACE is almost always to the left. I find robots don't often declare well except for NT hands. I am working on taking that privilege away from the robots.

My partner and I had a horrible experience today with BBO. We wanted to play in a 499r tournament. We gave our information to the Director a week in advance. He said we were in (I have email). I also have the email of the information I gave him to sign up for this tournament. And when we went to invite our partner, one of our long-term partners with a long-term ACBL number didn't show up. Someone screwed up here. Either the information was entered or wrong or the BBO system failed to confirm the record with the ACBL database in advance. Come on guys, you need to be nice to those wanting something to do during the coronavirus problem. I don't like BBO in general because it's not user friendly and now with this fiasco, I am definitely not pleased with the program. Yes, thousands might be but this is a terrible screw up. What I want to see, a direct line to someone who can fix problems in short order because we find out just 20 minutes before the game that we have a problem with a number, which by the way is accurate according to ACBL.org. My only guess is that the Gods who entered the number made a mistake or something like that. Please let's not make this a future mistakes for anyone like me. I love bridge. I use Bridge Baron 7 days a week for at least 2 hours daily. I have done this for the past 30 years. They don't have issues like this. Fix this please.