hotShot

If you only look at the opening bid and not on the bidding as one object, the neural net will not be able to find some implications. Example 1: Historical Acol has strong 2 bids, to avoid the problem that partner and opps pass my opening bid. Just looking at the opening bid, there is no reason to open strong hands at the 2 level. Example 2: Preempts are not good for your side, but they can be really bad for your opponents. If opps where forced to be silent, you could design your system completely different.

You use the Windows client and have an automatic local copy of your hands ..... This will make me hang on to the windows client as long as possible.

If you don't worry to much about cheating in your small local club, sooner or later you will be able to replace the scoring devices with a smartphone app. If one player at each table has a iPhone or Android device. Perhaps one day everybody will bring his/her iPad equivalent to the club and the only needs to provide screens.

Thinking about ratings you should read about the Dunning–Kruger effect.

I claimed it to be any of 2 choices and gave an example how flawed reasoning could make someone think that 6♦ is a masterminding option.

That's not true at all, many people have. The first example in this thread is hotshot, and there were a number of others in the first thread. It boggles the mind but there are certainly those who believe it. This means that 6♦ is a sensible bid? Wow, I have to brush up my English .....

Justin, the 6♦ bid is not good bridge, but it is by far less crazy than you imply. The fact that a number of top player would not choose that bid, suggests that they have better bidding tools available or that the person in question is not a top player. If you assume that RHO has the ♠ values, than LHO and your partner share ♥KJ and ♦KJ. Slam is easy if partner has both kings. Since it is more likely that RHO does not have the red kings and partner is more likely to be to short in ♣ to ruff the 4th ♦, you need partner to have 4♦ cards (Xxxx) or ♦JTx +♣xxx. If you need partner to have 4♦ anyway, without a full analysis 6♦ looks attractive because you can ruff ♥ in dummy once you dropped dummies ♥ on ♣. You think that logic is flawed, well you won so obviously you are a better player.

Please note that the definitions allow a wide range of skills. Take a look at World Class and tell me that someone who represented e.g. USA or Italy has the same strength as someone who represented some unsuccessful participant. Look at local clubs. I know a club who's regular club game has 3 tables and another who has 100 tables. If that 3 table club is not the Former World Champions Club, being successful in that kind of club means nothing. If you join BBO and you feel that you are clearly better than the intermediates you met, what are you supposed to do?

If 2♦ is agreed to be weak 2, I'll do that (or any agreement that shows a ♦ weak 2). Otherwise I'll pass. I feel older already....

♦K

Exactly, I much prefer footie to politics and religion. I'd rather talk about photos of kittens, though.

The first season of B5 is mostly introducing the characters of the epic story told in season 2-5.

Hmm ,the diagram above says West is dealer, so we will assume a pass before 1♣.

5. Bajoran lightship 4. USS Defiant 3. Asgard Ships from Stargate 2. Wraith Hive Ship 1. Tardis

Please define "few".

And I always thought that the restrictions are responsible for the unfamiliarity and by that the cause of the randomness.

A strict rule to bid the longest suit would make GIB bid the 4 card suit of 4333 shapes, bid ♣ if you have 5♣ and 4♦ or bid a 6 card minor prior to a 5 card major. Are you sure you want that rule? I guess that GIB also has a rule that reverse bidding promises extra strength and perhaps it knows that AKQJT might be a better suit than 765432. If you ever tried to make a set of rules for bidding, you would have noticed that often rules overlap/conflict. We can assume that GIB is allowed to ignore (some) rules to resolve a conflict.

Doesn't "I'd like to add" suggest that I wanted to introduce/emphasize an aspect that was not already introduced by others? I'm impressed! I suppose you mean that after looking at opps CC at the beginning of the 2 board round, you can analyze opps system, develop a defense and explain it to partner before you take up the cards and still finish on time.

I'd like to add: Playing chess you can see everything there is to know on the board, and you can take as much of your time slot to react as you need. Playing bridge your time is much more limited and to understand all of the implications of the bid made, you also need informations about the bids that where not made. Each board you have about 4 minutes for the bidding and 4 minutes for the play. There is not enough time to understand an unfamiliar system.

I think that the focus is to much on "the bid" right now. Perhaps one should deal with abstract actions like "raise", "support", "pass", "preemptive raise", "limit raise", "strong raise", "game forcing", "slam forcing" .....

Go is solved by the computer for 5x5 fields, unfortunately beginners start at 9x9 and the real thing is 19x19. But the question is: Does the "complextity" grow or just the workload?

The inability of software developers to write a good poker program has nothing to do with the complexity of poker. It has to do with the limitations of computers and with limitations that you set to allow the software to make use of all available data. Professional payers can make use of visible physiological signals of their opponents. If you allow the programmers to make use of e.g. an infrared camera, they can extend the program to recognize minimal changes in the skin temperature. This would enhance the softwares ability to discover bluffs.

I would suggest to re-shuffle the 26 opponent cards a number of times and check the impact on the contracts.

You should call the TD! You are right about what he is likely to tell you, but at an event using screens player have an obligation to know their system. North could get a procedural penalty, if something like this happened before or if it happens again.

Thank you Aberlour, good idea, well done.