Reviewing hands

[kenberg]

I have been a long time useer of BBO and it is simply a great asset. Plarase take the following within that context.

 

I have used the old downloadable version "fprever". From time to time I try the online version but I find it confusing, But I figured I reall gotta get with it. So.

 

On the old version, I can go to "Review hands played on BBO" and enter my nale, or anyone's name, and a range of dates. For example, I can enter kenberg, Jan 6, and ask for a 5 day interval going backward, and I get a list of the hands I played from Jan 2 through Jan 6. I see who my opponents were, and who my partner was, on each of these hands. Or perhaps I was kibbing and I want to go back and look. If I remember who I was watching, I enter his/her name. Perhaps I would just like to see what Bob Hammon has done. Or Justin Lall. (They recently played a few hands together on BBO.) If I know their handle, I can check it out.

 

If I go to the new version, I find "Hands and Result" and then "Recent Hands". This gives me a list of hands I have played recently. It does not list my partner, nor my opponents,and as near as i can tell there is no option for stipulating dates. Nor do I see how to find hands played by others.

 

So:

I have a question: What am I doing wrong?

or a suggestion: Make this feature more like it was in the old version.

 

Newer is sometimes better, but not always. In the 1940s, my father had a three and a half hp outboard for fishing, made by Champion. Motto: "If we don't have it, it can't break". Not the dumbest idea I ever heard.

[billw55]

The hand records link near the top of the main BBO site offers all these features.

[kenberg]

The hand records link near the top of the main BBO site offers all these features.

 

 

Not on mine, as near as I can see.

[barmar]

You go to www.bridgebase.com, click on "Hand Records" right below the logo, and it doesn't go to the same site?

 

You can also just bookmark http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php

[broze]

I am not familiar with the desktop client but if this feature is directly available through that then I agree it is a mistake not to have it accessible via the browser client. As it is it is essentially impossible to find unless you already know about it. This is the case with a lot of the features available through www.bridgebase.com but not immediately visible on the client.

[barmar]

This is a case of each version having something that the other doesn't. The web version has a very nice interface for reviewing your own recent results. The download version has links to the web pages for searching all hands and tournaments.

[kenberg]

You go to www.bridgebase.com, click on "Hand Records" right below the logo, and it doesn't go to the same site?

 

You can also just bookmark http://www.bridgebas...hands/index.php

 

Got it, thanks. I was in the wrong place.

I find this feature very useful so I hope that it sticks around.

I had misunderstood Bill's post. I thought I was to actually bring up the online version and then seek out the link, but it occurs on the bbo site, before clicking Play Bridge Now. That's what Bill said, but I just misunderstood.

 

As broze says, it's a nice feature. Please keep it. It's true that the export feature of the online version looks to be (I have only used it a bit) useful. Since I sometimes post hands for discussion, it would be good if I could use the export to place a hand directly into a forum post, as I am writing the post. If that is possible, I have not yet figured it out. But the hand editor on the forum os very nice, so it's no big deal.

[billw55]

Since I sometimes post hands for discussion, it would be good if I could use the export to place a hand directly into a forum post, as I am writing the post. If that is possible, I have not yet figured it out. But the hand editor on the forum os very nice, so it's no big deal.

Agree it would be a very handy feature. To me it would make more sense as an import function in the hand editor, rather than export from myhands, but either way would work. I asked about this feature before, it doesn't exist (yet?) but there is a workaround. There are a couple of pinned threads in the general BBO subforum where inquiry explains this.

[inquiry]

If you serious about reviewing your past hands there are two ways to go. The way outlined above is good for just looking at what you did last night, where you mght have played 30 hands or so, and might have preempted twice and had one two club auction. If you are REALLY serious about reviewing your bridge, you might want to review stuff in a more inclusive context. For instance, how well are all your preempts working (or which ones work best for you), are there holes in your bidding system that don't show up on review of 30 random hands, etc.

 

 

This is the way I go about reviewing my hands playe on bbo now....

1. I use bridge captain's double dummy solver (DDS.exe) to download all the hands I have played the last month (or 7 days, or 24 hours). Basically I download all hands i play this way.
2. I open the PBN file the pbn file DDS created with netbridgevu, which creates a lin file with the same name
3. I open the lin file so created with word, and deleted the header stuff (vg, mp, board numbers, etc) (CREATE A MACRO FOR STEPS 3-8)
4. I replace find and replace all ^p with nothing
5. I do the find and replace all ^p with nothing again (don't ask)
6. i find all |pn| and replace with |^ppn|
7. I find all |mn| and replace with |^p^pmn| (the two ^p's help line up the hands with the vugraphs if you copy them from myhands)
8. i select all text and copy it
9. I then paste the copied text it into an excel spreadsheet

 

This gives you one column where each cell containing the full auction and play for each hand in lin file format. You can do a lot with this. For instance, if you cut and paste your vugraph results from the myhands download, you can line up the hands with the actual vugraph result (including matchpoints, link to traveller, partners and opponents names, contract, etc) (i ADD a column that calculates and displays the date the hand was played on the same row,as well as one that automatically displays my partner's name). Then if you want, you can extract pretty much any infomation you want from the lin string in the cell you copy and posted from word. For instance, specifically how my hcp you held, what the opening bid was (in fact the entire auction if you like), the opening lead, if you or the opponents overcalled, etc. Rather you or your opponents opened, if the final contract was doubled or redoubled, which side declared, the level of the final contract, etc. I have large spreadsheets that do a variety of this. Now I can call up all the hands I opened 1NT, or 2NT, or 1♠. Or the hands I used a two suited overcall, or hands where I opened light in third seat (or in first or second seat) to see how well I am doing being aggressive.

 

The good thing about doing it this way, you can save all your hands played on BBO in a format that is easy to search (use a column for opening bid, another column if your side opened or they opened), another column for opener's hcp, another for ... well you get the idea. After your get a few thousand hands, you had best have a computer with a lot of memory if you are extracting everything, or you can use visual basic to create specialized string searches for the text.

 

When you use a filters to pull up all the hands, say that you opened 2NT, over the past several years, you can copy the cells with the lin file in them, and paste them in a text file (save with lin file extension) for immediate use in something like bridge composer. If you wanted to review them in DDS, you wlll have to first paste them in a new excel spreadsheet, then use the concatenate function to add qx|o#| to the beginning of the string, where # is a sequential number (for me starting at 1), or you will get an error message from DDS.

 

This works well to allow you to study your success (and failures), to review (in DDS) your play to see what you overlooked, to check how well your partner and your defensive carding agrees with your carding agreement, etc.

 

Think of this as a free (assuming you have word or equivalent and of course excel), poor man's bridgebrowser. I can do quite amazing stuff with excel, filters, and occassional pivot tables. When messing with auctions, I have gotten to the point where I am in need of a better laptop to deal with the volume of data now. I might move it to access to help with such manipulations.

[JLOGIC]

damn ben droppin secret knowledge all over this thread

[FM75]

I just want to know what Ben would do if we took away his PC and gave him a Mac.

 

Hey, I could have been meaner and just given him a Google Chrome "appliance".

 

:)

[Antrax]

Oh wow. +1 inquiry.

[kenberg]

I may, accent on may, take up Ben's approach. Not for the first time I see that Ben is far more inclined than I am to go the whole hog. Nonetheless, I expect to find much that is useful in his post.

 

I very much believe in reviewing hands, mine and others, but I am more inclined to the "Hey, that's interesting, I wonder what others think" viewpoint, applied to a single hand or a small number of hands. For example, recently there was an auction I was kibbing where the auction went 2♥-X-Pass. Fourth hand had a natural 2NT available, and used it. It seemed to me that those playing Leb had a somewhat borderline choice about whether to bid 3♦, strong but not forcing, or to go for it all in NT so I posted it on the I/A forum. There were a number of interesting responses, including from posters who have also responded here. Kibbing some quite advanced players in a team match, there was a 1♥-Pass-? auction where third hand bid 1♠ at one table and a wjs 2♠ at the other table. Another borderline action with a border line result. 4♠ could be made but with normal play would not be. Again I was interested in the views of others. Another hand that I might post for the same sort of reasons involved a multi-2♦ opening. Second hand had a decent six card spade suit and modest values. My inclination would have been to say an inward thanks for the multi opening, click pass, and then bid 2♠ on the next round. I would play the immediate 2♠ as a stronger hand. (This was not destined to go as expected, because third hand bid 3NT. Oops.) I am definitely NOT trying to start a discussion here on any of these points, that discussion belongs elsewhere, rather I am describing the way in which I have found the hand history to be useful. And why I hope the older app stays available. Maybe I will go for a full throttle study along Ben's lines, but rather I think I will look carefully at what he says and adapt it to my needs.

 

But first things first, thank you for showing me where I find the old hand record app on the online version of BBO

[inquiry]

I very much believe in reviewing hands, mine and others, but I am more inclined to the "Hey, that's interesting, I wonder what others think" viewpoint, applied to a single hand or a small number of hands. For example, recently there was an auction I was kibbing where the auction went 2♥-X-Pass. Fourth hand had a natural 2NT available, and used it. It seemed to me that those playing Leb had a somewhat borderline choice about whether to bid 3♦, strong but not forcing, or to go for it all in NT so I posted it on the I/A forum. There were a number of interesting responses, including from posters who have also responded here. Kibbing some quite advanced players in a team match, there was a 1♥-Pass-? auction where third hand bid 1♠ at one table and a wjs 2♠ at the other table. Another borderline action with a border line result. 4♠ could be made but with normal play would not be. Again I was interested in the views of others. Another hand that I might post for the same sort of reasons involved a multi-2♦ opening. Second hand had a decent six card spade suit and modest values. My inclination would have been to say an inward thanks for the multi opening, click pass, and then bid 2♠ on the next round. I would play the immediate 2♠ as a stronger hand. (This was not destined to go as expected, because third hand bid 3NT. Oops.) I am definitely NOT trying to start a discussion here on any of these points, that discussion belongs elsewhere, rather I am describing the way in which I have found the hand history to be useful. And why I hope the older app stays available. Maybe I will go for a full throttle study along Ben's lines, but rather I think I will look carefully at what he says and adapt it to my needs.

 

But first things first, thank you for showing me where I find the old hand record app on the online version of BBO

 

The what did everyone do on a single hand is slighly more complicated. The main reason is that the myhand site has hyperlinks that reference the hands of interest by time stamp, etc. There are probably easier ways, but what I describe works for me fairly quickly.

 

Call up the traveller for the hand of interest.

copy the Source file (in IE under the view menu the option view source)

select all and paste into word

Create a macro that auctomatically does the following

• Find and replace all %7C with |
• Find and replace all %20 with a "space" (not the word space)
• Find and replace all %2C with a comma (there are some others you can replace to make alerts look clean but this is enough to get it to work)
• Find and replace ');this.style.color='red'; (the stuff in bold) with ^p
• Find and replace "javascript:hv_popuplin('pn| with ^ppn|
• select all and copy to clipboard

Now go to an excel spreadsheet, and paste the clipboard

Use excel's fliter function to find cells that begin with pn|

copy those cells and paste into a spreadsheet where you have copied the original myhands so that the first pn| cell lines up with the first hand played. .

 

From here you can probe things just as if you had only your hands... but the hands are all the same. One. As an example, I ran this on board 4 from today's 5pm ACBL Speedball (link board 4 traveller)

 

As you see there are 49 hands on this traveller and this was "the hand" (choosen at random, names deleted)

 

[hv=lin=pn|South,West,North,East%7Cmd%7C2S589KAH249D89KC7K%2CS34JH67QDTAC2469T%2CS6TQHJD2567JQC3QA%2C%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%204%7Csv%7Cb%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C1D%7Cmb%7C1H%7Cmb%7C1S%7Cmb%7C2H%7Cmb%7C2S%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C4S%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cmc%7C12%7C]400|300|[/hv]

 

On this hand, North or East opened all 49 times. When East opened, it was always with 2♥ (

 

Using either a pivot table or filters you can find that North opened 1♦ 40 times, and 2♦ 5 times. That means than north passed 4 times, which btw, was always opened 2♥ by East.

 

NORTH OPENING BID  1 Diamond (EAST OVERCALLS) 
        
              1H        11 times     0.634490909 MP
              2H      29 times    0.474148276 MP

NORTH OPENING BID  2 Diamonds (EAST OVERCALLS) 

              2H         5 times       0.18958 MP

EAST OPENS 2H, SOUTH overcalls 
              2S      4 times       0.70575

 

Of course you probably want to take a look at individual auctions, or indvidual defensive concepts, which of course can also be probed directly. The data in the table above is from pivot table for the auction focusing on scores. To look at individual treatments, you can use the filters to pull out hands by combination of treatments. Show all who opened 1♦ an dopponent overcalled 2♥ (which had an below average by NS), to see what followups by South were most effective.For what it is worth, of the 29 pairs who overcalled 2♥, 26 of the South's bid 2♠. Advancer (west), bid 3♥ 14 times, and passed 12 times,,, you can pull them all out. Below are the 12 hand where the auction started p-1d-2h-2s-3h

 

11   3/14/2013 17:16    faydugas       donnat        corgidog       wlyjyc          4♠S+1      650      61.46%
16   3/14/2013 17:18    rdw62253       beebs295      antonio37      ufander         4♠S+1      650      61.46%
18   3/14/2013 17:17    gudenuf        shirttail     rmath116       Baronscarp      4♠S+1      650      61.46%
19   3/14/2013 17:18    micheleB       IL RUVIDO     judgeD         Marfie          4♠S+1      650      61.46%
22   3/14/2013 17:20    Poaannua       JBoxem        papagoose      ziggy81         4♠S+1      650      61.46%
24   3/14/2013 17:18    alleyne        velhogarra    minkin2        mjts            4♠S+1      650      61.46%
31   3/14/2013 17:17    plino42        macry         malcolmxpj     RuishengS       4♠S+1      650      61.46%
33   3/14/2013 17:17    aniko2         dc324         Blindbate      Stacol          4♠S+1      650      61.46%
36   3/14/2013 17:17    bridgitt       musigny       doc k          shakun          4♠S=       620      23.96%
37   3/14/2013 17:17    psl471         GBR9940       swerve         Jean Anne       4♠S=       620      23.96%
38   3/14/2013 17:17    kathdi         pdn268        HEAYDS         hj611           4♠S=       620      23.96%
40   3/14/2013 17:16    malisi         madleeo       rebad          squaty bod      5♦N=       600      18.75%

Note, all this examination, from who bid what, to what opening lead (not shown), etc, was done without ever opening a single bridge hand. Also, there was a single auction that began p-1d-2h-dbl... you could find that one without ever opening a hand either.

.