Money bridge vs online poker

[Canuckstan]

I know there's a discussion of BBO's new Money Bridge capability in the context of the expertise (or lack thereof) of the robots. I'm starting this thread because I think this is a fascinating development for bridge generally and especially online bridge.

 

I've always played here just for fun. Just as well, because I'm just a lowly intermediate. But playing for money adds a whole new dimension. I know many feel that in regular bridge the act of adding a little money to the mix makes for better bridge: there are fewer stink bids, one tends to focus and remember more, etc. Alan Sontag's entertaining book, The Bridge Bum, has some interesting tales of playing "in person" bridge for money but as far as I know this was not previously possible in online bridge. Or is it?

 

My perception is that online poker is bigger than online bridge because of two things: it makes for easier television and because of the big money stakes.

 

But now we can play online bridge for money, how does this change the culture here, or at OKB or The Zone or any of the other major duplicate sites?

 

What kind of protections will average users have? We've all witnessed cheating even in casual for fun games: I gather the GIBs will prevent this but is this a step to playing for money among 4 humans? If that happens, is there potential for rich gullible players to really lose their shirts?

 

BBO has taken a giant step here and I congratulate Fred and the team for the constant improvements. I just think the community should be looking at this from more than just the robot angle.

 

I ask these questions not just as a BBO player and participant in these forums but as a journalist and blogger. I've sent uday a formal email on this as well but anyone -- especially experts -- interested in providing on-the-record comment please email me at jchevreau@nationalpost.com.

[hrothgar]

From my perspective, the single biggest difference between bridge and poker is the complexity of the game.

 

The current Poker boom is associated with an extremely simplisitc form of the game.

Texas Hold'Em features many fewer decision nodes than seven card stud or even 5 card draw. In turn, this tends to de-emphasize technical skills relative to "soft"l skills life bluffing and detecting telling. (Please note: I am not trying to say that technical skills aren't important, but rather the range of technical skills necessary is quite small)

 

In conparision, bridge is an extremely complicated game. The strategy space is much large than any form of poker. Accordingly, barriers to entry are much higher and the potential audience for televised play is much smaller.

[jdonn]

I said it before and I'll say it again. Unless it becomes possible to play with four actual real people players instead of with GIBs, this will never ever become popular. I understand there are major issues involved, particularly regarding the possibilities of cheating and collusion, but the bottom line it will never catch on in this form.

[CarlRitner]

I'm not ready to agree with that. If the bots were more consistent and predictable, that would solve a large part of the problem.

 

Better still, if there were a way to describe your particular bidding system (like you do with FD) and let GIB use that file in the bidding routine, then you can essentially tailor the bot to your style, and have some sort of bot disclosure method that actually makes sense. The current GIB explanations are inadequate for both sides.

 

Unfortunately, GIB is not currently configured to permit outside bidding scripts. It is theoretically possible to do this and not lose proprietary information, but it is not a trivial change.

 

Cheers,

Carl

 

ACBL Library Bridge Books & Magazines

[inquiry]

But now we can play online bridge for money, how does this change the culture here, or at OKB or The Zone or any of the other major duplicate sites?

In the for what it is worth department, the zone no longer support bridge.

 

As far as bridge for money with robots, it is an easy way for experts to take money from people who only think they are experts. And the great thing about it, the poor players who think they are good will remember the few times the robots cost them money and not remmeber the similar time the robots screwed up their opponents, so they will blame their poor results on the robots and keep coming back waiting for the odds of the bad robots to average out.

 

I suspect the better players will tap the poor ones. What I would hate to see is better players coming up with five or ten new nicknames to fleece (is that the right word, well. beat) the same poor players over and over again.

 

When I play, I play as inquiry... that should not scare you, but if for some reason it does, you can easily avoid me. I will not play as any other name.

 

Ben

[Flame]

After playing alot of money bridge today, i can say its a big success. The game is great the gibs are great, yes gib made few mistakes but on the other hand it also made some very good plays, i got to a point on which i was happy it was gib playing and not me, especially on complex games were the trump break 5-0 against us.

I think money bridge will bring lots of money to BBO, this will be very good for BBO staff but also for the rest of us.

 

Well done guys, i think this is the biggest revolution since online bridge came to air.

[luke warm]

i haven't played yet (i live in louisiana, and fred said that was one of the states that weren't allowed), so i can't speak about the gib factor... i do seem to recall that bridge baron allowed system building, and would bid the hands according to the system chosen (and this was probably 4 years ago)

[Canuckstan]

The blog entry on this can be found here:

 

www.nationalpost.com/chevreau

[CarlRitner]

i do seem to recall that bridge baron allowed system building, and would bid the hands according to the system chosen (and this was probably 4 years ago)

There's a program called Bridge Buff that lets you do this, among other programs available, but Bridge Baron was never configured to do this (at least not commercially).

 

Bridge Buff claims that you can define your own system to the degree that you'd like (which is always incomplete) and then let the internal database handle the "holes". While I have not done more than fooled around with this, it sounds promising. It also sounds time consuming...

 

In the meantime, it would seem that spending a few hours with GIB and learning the quirks could pay off if you are going to spend a lot of time betting "for keeps".

[luke warm]

you're absolutely right, it was bridge buff... thanks... i still have the program on the other puter, and to best of my memory it worked pretty well

[junyi_zhu]

I know there's a discussion of BBO's new Money Bridge capability in the context of the expertise (or lack thereof) of the robots. I'm starting this thread because I think this is a fascinating development for bridge generally and especially online bridge.

 

I've always played here just for fun. Just as well, because I'm just a lowly intermediate. But playing for money adds a whole new dimension. I know many feel that in regular bridge the act of adding a little money to the mix makes for better bridge: there are fewer stink bids, one tends to focus and remember more, etc. Alan Sontag's entertaining book, The Bridge Bum, has some interesting tales of playing "in person" bridge for money but as far as I know this was not previously possible in online bridge. Or is it?

 

My perception is that online poker is bigger than online bridge because of two things: it makes for easier television and because of the big money stakes.

 

But now we can play online bridge for money, how does this change the culture here, or at OKB or The Zone or any of the other major duplicate sites?

 

What kind of protections will average users have? We've all witnessed cheating even in casual for fun games: I gather the GIBs will prevent this but is this a step to playing for money among 4 humans? If that happens, is there potential for rich gullible players to really lose their shirts?

 

BBO has taken a giant step here and I congratulate Fred and the team for the constant improvements. I just think the community should be looking at this from more than just the robot angle.

 

I ask these questions not just as a BBO player and participant in these forums but as a journalist and blogger. I've sent uday a formal email on this as well but anyone -- especially experts -- interested in providing on-the-record comment please email me at jchevreau@nationalpost.com.

I think gib is better than average club players and I don't mind partnering with them. Honestly, I feel less tortured partnering with gib. The only thing is that I need to adjust my game strategy. If gib screw up somebody, it's not that gib sucks, but that somebody should try to adjust their games I believe. Anyway, it's a creative idea to introduce gib into on line bridge gambling.

[jchiu]

I just spent a five hours this evening playing money bridge. I rode a roller-coaster from $80 to $55 to $135 and back to $120. And during the whole ride, regardless of whether things were going well, I noticed the biggest correlation between my stack and anything else was the link between it and the number of high cards that I received in the short run. Even at twenty-odd hands per hour, the skill factor takes a long time to play out. I believe this is because the GiBs rarely make play errors, and each human player bids very straight-up to avoid confusing his robot partner. I would even contend that the luck here is greater, in the short run, than minilimit poker, say at 25c/50c limit or 10c/20c nolimit.

 

Which brings me to the point that .... the stakes are far too low. The rake eats you alive playing in the microlimit (1/10 and quarter cent games). Even for the penny game, the most that I achieved per hour is about $40. This is a rarity, since GiB and I bid and made two grand slams in the following auctions during that hour ;) ...

 

1♣-1♥; 2♥-6NT; 7♥-P

1♥-2♣; 3♥-6♥; 7♥-P

 

I would be a much more regular customer if i could play the penny game during "breaks from work" (if there were more people willing to play this) and a new 3-cent game for the usual kicks.

 

Furthermore, does anyone know why we cannot see the tables currently in progress? At an online poker site, it is possible to see the players at full tables.

[hrothgar]

This is a rarity, since GiB and I bid and made two grand slams in the following auctions during that hour :) ...

 

1♣-1♥; 2♥-6NT; 7♥-P

1♥-2♣; 3♥-6♥; 7♥-P

 

I would be a much more regular customer if i could play the penny game during "breaks from work" (if there were more people willing to play this) and a new 3-cent game for the usual kicks.

 

Furthermore, does anyone know why we cannot see the tables currently in progress?  At an online poker site, it is possible to see the players at full tables.

>I just spent a five hours this evening playing money bridge. I rode a

>roller-coaster from $80 to $55 to $135 and back to $120. And during the

>whole ride, regardless of whether things were going well, I noticed the

>biggest correlation between my stack and anything else was the link

>between it and the number of high cards that I received in the short run.

>Even at twenty-odd hands per hour, the skill factor takes a long time to play

>out. I believe this is because the GiBs rarely make play errors, and each

>human player bids very straight-up to avoid confusing his robot partner.

>I would even contend that the luck here is greater, in the short run, than

>minilimit poker, say at 25c/50c limit or 10c/20c nolimit.

 

The "efficient market" hypothesis is one of the basic tenets of Finance. Efficient markets holds that the price of a stock should reflect all relevent information regarding its true value. Accordingly, investment performance is best modelled as a random walk. This explains all those famous experiments where individuals select investment portfolios by throwing darts at the S+P 500 or some such.

 

In a similar fashion, if we assume that individuals are playing "money bridge" as a gambling proposition then they aren't going to play if they expect to lose money. needless to say, there are some folks out there who aren't as good as they think. You probably have a few well heeled individuals who might enjoy the more formal games at the money bridge tables. However, by and large if folks are winning or losing consistently it suggests that someone is behaving irrationally.

 

For what its worth, its certainly possible to design some statistical tests that would could correlate earning versus HCPs. Equally significant, its also possible to test the dealing algoithms to ensure that East or North or whatever doesn't get abnormal numbers of HCPs. (Personally, if I were running an online game of chance I'd want to have this kind of information available to ensure that I was exercising a reasonable standard of care)

 

>Which brings me to the point that .... the stakes are far too low. The rake

>eats you alive playing in the microlimit (1/10 and quarter cent games).

>Even for the penny game, the most that I achieved per hour is about $40.

 

Designing an optimal pricing scheme for the rake is actually an interesting problem. As I noted in the past, I'm a strong believe in fixed table fees. However, price discrimination could increase revenue for BBO. Hard to make a reasonable decision about whats best withut having a better idea regarding the capacity constraints on the hardware.

[AceOfHeart]

Not sure if econmics applies here , I mean everyone who steps into a casino, plays poker or any form of gambling know it is either against the odds or the game is not zero sum, the casino is the only sure winner in the long run.

 

I think it is more on partner management. I played the fun bridge section and is winning consistently even facing more skilled opps. Mainly i have experimented with gib b4 and know many of its tricks and how gib bid. Example, I often understates points as gib will overbid frequently.

 

I wont dbl for lead as gib is sure to NOT lead my suit, and sometimes end up playing a redbled final contract when gib with 3 pts decide it is a good idea and think i have pts when i dbled for lead.

 

I think the rake is too much ( one of the reasons i didnt deposit yet, another i still trying to figure out the gib system totally). Like it will bid 4minor instead of 3nt after a prempt if it holds 6 of that minor and 19+ pts.

 

Maybe we have a rake discount day to encourage playing, much like the free gib day on first of every month?

 

I still havent figured out the lead and signals, it seems sometimes it plays udca sometimes normal.

[uday]

Currently, cheapest rake is the half cent game - 2 cents per hand.

[Stephen Tu]

In a similar fashion, if we assume that individuals are playing "money bridge" as a gambling proposition then they aren't going to play if they expect to lose money. ... However, by and large if folks are winning or losing consistently it suggests that someone is behaving irrationally.

 

Judging by the people I play poker against, there are a ton of irrational people out there. Bridge players are probably more rational as a group, but there are bound to be many people in the gambling bridge player subgroup who would continue to play despite losing, rationalizing it as cost of entertainment (if they aren't losing that much), or thinking it's just luck & they are due for a win streak.

 

I mean everyone who steps into a casino, plays poker or any form of gambling know it is either against the odds or the game is not zero sum, the casino is the only sure winner in the long run.

 

I doubt everyone believes this, I'm sure there are those who think they have some system that can beat the odds. As for poker, if your skill edge over your opponents is sufficiently high, you will also be a sure winner in the long run. Just has to be big enough to overcome the rake. The same would apply to money bridge. Rake is key though. If it's too high compared to skill edges attainable, even the best players would lose. It also would chew up the "fish" too quickly. Low rakes keep everyone in the game a lot longer. Of course BBO, the house, wants rake as a high as possible without the player base revolting, if it is trying to get major profits from this.