BBO Movie: Electric Sheep

[inquiry]

Link to free BBO Movie: Electric Sheep

 

These authors are well known bridge players, and authors. This movie is a takeoff on at least two of their books about chthonic, a computer playing program that is the self-professed worlds greatest bridge player. If you liked their two books on this subject: "The Principle of Restricted Talent" and "Human Bridge Errors, volume 1 to infinity" you will no doubt like this movie as well.

 

The movie itself covers two deals (out of four, deals 1 and 3 are not shown) played between four players. The hands themselves were well selected and educational. The first hand for an interesting way to deal with trumps, the second for the complexity of the various endings that can arise on the correct line of play. There is a lot of character development through dialogue so the movie takes a while to get through. In fact, I think it would take 20 minutes or more to view this movie in normal fashion -- so make sure you have the time to finish it before you start. As for the presentation, there is no voice track, and no quizzes, so it reads like a PDF file that you can turn one card at a time. After the declarer misplays the hand, the hand is re-illustrated and the correct way to play it is explained. So it doesn't take full use of the features available in the BBO movie format. Also, if you are not familiar with the Chthonic character, you might want to start with another movie by these same authors entitled "the antisocial network" before watching this movie (look for the review of that one in this same forum).

 

I myself am a big fan of the Chthonic books, so I found this quite enjoyable.

[SimonFa]

Thanks for the introduction to Chthonic.

 

I've really enjoyed the what I've read so far as they appeal to my sense of humour; my wife reckons she hasn't heard me laugh so much for a long time, especially when I was reading Principle of Restricted Talent.

 

I also feel I learned a lot as the authors Chthonic puts over his points very well, especially in Volume 1/infinity of Human Bridge Errors and not once did I feel out of my depth.

 

Anyone with only the slightest interest in improving their game and a modicum of a dry sense of humour will really enjoy these books, although I recommend reading Principle of Restricted Talent first to fully understand Chthonic's mindset.

 

 

 

Simon