Bridge hands are not balanced

[Jks47]

Our foursome plays three times a week. One set gets great cards and the other set get hand of less than ten points all 18 hands. It happens day after day. We have changed who sets the table and position and nothing changes. It is frustating and not fun for sure. Is there something in the algorithum or the way the hands are distributed that could cause this. Any input welcomed. WE would like to see balanced hands or at least an opener once in awhile..

[hrothgar]

Our foursome plays three times a week. One set gets great cards and the other set get hand of less than ten points all 18 hands. It happens day after day. We have changed who sets the table and position and nothing changes. It is frustating and not fun for sure. Is there something in the algorithm or the way the hands are distributed that could cause this. Any input welcomed. WE would like to see balanced hands or at least an opener once in awhile..

 

Hi Jks47

I'm one of the BBO developers.

 

Sadly for you, your father was extremely rude to my mother back in the mid 1970s.

 

And, as a result, I have rigged the BBO program to deliberately give you / your partner bad hands. If / when you father issues an appropriate apology for what he did, you'll start getting better boards.

 

Until then, sucks to be you!

Edited July 4, 2020 by Gerardo
Richard is NOT one of the BBO developers

[Gerardo]

While anyone who spent some amount of time is these Forums can tell, Richard is not a BBO developer.

 

However, the OP is new to these Forums.

 

Don't want anyone to think that answer is an official one.

[Chas_P]

Our foursome plays three times a week. One set gets great cards and the other set get hand of less than ten points all 18 hands. It happens day after day. We have changed who sets the table and position and nothing changes. It is frustating and not fun for sure. Is there something in the algorithum or the way the hands are distributed that could cause this. Any input welcomed. WE would like to see balanced hands or at least an opener once in awhile..

I assume (but don't know) BBO's deal generator is engineered to deal random hands. I am confident it is not engineered to deal you lousy hands repeatedly. There are

53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 possibilities. Just keep playing. You'll eventually get a hand you like. :)

[Gerardo]

Our foursome plays three times a week. One set gets great cards and the other set get hand of less than ten points all 18 hands. It happens day after day. We have changed who sets the table and position and nothing changes. It is frustating and not fun for sure. Is there something in the algorithum or the way the hands are distributed that could cause this. Any input welcomed. WE would like to see balanced hands or at least an opener once in awhile..

 

Are you using a different username? This one played 2 days in April and 4 in May.

 

It is quite a small sample to say "day after day"

 

This are the frequencies for distribution and points:

 

+--------------+----------+    +--------+----------+
| distribution | # boards |    | points | # boards |
+--------------+----------+    +--------+----------+
| 4-3-3-3      |        4 |    |      3 |        1 |
| 4-4-3-2      |   	20 |    |      4 |        5 |
| 4-4-4-1      |        2 |    |      5 |        5 |
| 5-3-3-2      |   	11 |    |      6 |        6 |
| 5-4-2-2      |   	11 |    |      7 |        3 |
| 5-4-3-1      |   	14 |    |      8 |        8 |
| 5-4-4-0      |        2 |    |      9 |        8 |
| 5-5-2-1      |        4 |    | 	10 |        7 |
| 6-3-2-2      |        6 |    | 	11 |        8 |
| 6-3-3-1      |        4 |    | 	12 |        9 |
| 6-4-2-1      |        4 |    | 	13 |        7 |
| 6-5-1-1      |        3 |    | 	14 |        8 |
| 6-5-2-0      |        2 |    | 	15 |        3 |
| 7-2-2-2      |        1 |    | 	16 |        4 |
| 7-3-2-1      |        3 |    | 	17 |        3 |
| 8-2-2-1      |        1 |    | 	18 |        1 |
| 8-3-2-0      |        1 |    | 	19 |        1 |
+--------------+----------+    | 	21 |        1 |
                      		+--------+----------+

 

They look fairly normal to me, but I have no background in statistics.

[hrothgar]

The dataset in question has a mean of 10.54545 and a standard deviation of 3.950583

 

We would expect to see a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of about 4.13

 

If anything, the OP is getting dealt stronger than average hands

 

Neither the mean nor the standard deviation is remotely surprising

[Jks47]

Are you using a different username? This one played 2 days in April and 4 in May.

 

It is quite a small sample to say "day after day"

 

This are the frequencies for distribution and points:

 

+--------------+----------+    +--------+----------+
| distribution | # boards |    | points | # boards |
+--------------+----------+    +--------+----------+
| 4-3-3-3      |        4 |    |      3 |        1 |
| 4-4-3-2      |   	20 |    |      4 |        5 |
| 4-4-4-1      |        2 |    |      5 |        5 |
| 5-3-3-2      |   	11 |    |      6 |        6 |
| 5-4-2-2      |   	11 |    |      7 |        3 |
| 5-4-3-1      |   	14 |    |      8 |        8 |i




| 5-4-4-0      |        2 |    |      9 |        8 |
| 5-5-2-1      |        4 |    | 	10 |        7 |
| 6-3-2-2      |        6 |    | 	11 |        8 |
| 6-3-3-1      |        4 |    | 	12 |        9 |
| 6-4-2-1      |        4 |    | 	13 |        7 |
| 6-5-1-1      |        3 |    | 	14 |        8 |
| 6-5-2-0      |        2 |    | 	15 |        3 |
| 7-2-2-2      |        1 |    | 	16 |        4 |
| 7-3-2-1      |        3 |    | 	17 |        3 |
| 8-2-2-1      |        1 |    | 	18 |        1 |
| 8-3-2-0      |        1 |    | 	19 |        1 |
+--------------+----------+    | 	21 |        1 |
                      		+--------+----------+

 

They look fairly normal to me, but I have no background in statistics.

 

 

 

I play three times a week and have since May. We have consistently gotten below average hands. Perhaps it is just bad luck..

[smerriman]

I play three times a week and have since May. We have consistently gotten below average hands. Perhaps it is just bad luck..

Where exactly are you playing? As Gerardo mentioned, your username doesn't appear to have played at all on BBO since May 18. See hand records.. http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php?&from_login=0

[Chas_P]

Where exactly are you playing? As Gerardo mentioned, your username doesn't appear to have played at all on BBO since May 18. See hand records.. http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php?&from_login=0

She must be playing total point scoring. Those results never show up in the hand records.

[Gerardo]

She must be playing total point scoring. Those results never show up in the hand records.

 

That is possible. Then they switched from earlier sessions.

 

 

[pilowsky]

Or if you are the sort of person that prefers pictures it looks like this. Unless you are playing Goulash or Best Hand tournaments where you could get really strange hands. That's a "blue moon" on the right - they come up less than .02% of the time. The data comes from the ACBL and from 'playbridge' I would be very surprised if other sources were any different. Except for the different colours and shapes, Bridge is basically a sudoku problem combined with the four colour theorem.

[hrothgar]

Or if you are the sort of person that prefers pictures it looks like this. Unless you are playing Goulash or Best Hand tournaments where you could get really strange hands. That's a "blue moon" on the right - they come up less than .02% of the time. The data comes from the ACBL and from 'playbridge' I would be very surprised if other sources were any different. Except for the different colours and shapes, Bridge is basically a sudoku problem combined with the four colour theorem.

 

Can you provide more information about the source of your data?

 

How many hands are you looking at?

Where are you getting the information from?

How are you collecting it?