Finesse in Robot Bridge

[pfatseas]

I have been playing Robot Bridge,four deals for scores for a LONG time.

I am getting frustrated because of the losing finesses. Now a finesse has a 50% chance of winning. But after playing this game so many times, I startimg to realize that my finesses were losing in over 75% of the cases. I mean over at least a year that I noticed.

So I put it to the programmers that playing these robot games is not fair. Try it yourself if you don't believe it. I have started to keep track of how many times a finesse will lose. Upwards of 75% of the time over a year!!

Why play online here if statistically they are not fair?

[smerriman]

We have put it to the test. Many people claim this, and each time a proper analysis is done - rather than what you 'feel' is true, which is always heavily biased - everything works out at perfectly 50%.

 

The fact people keep claiming it is unsurprising, since studies have shown humans are very poor at recalling this type of information correctly, remembering the failing cases far more than the successful cases.

 

It is, of course, possible that you are taking poor finesses. For example, from the opening lead, if the robot leads a suit and you have AQ in dummy, the finesse will almost surely lose - because the robot almost never leads away from a king. This doesn't mean finesses fail more than 50% of the time.

[johnu]

Finesses only lose 75% of the time? Actually that's quite good for users that aren't members of the Super Latinum Platinum Select Members Club. It used to be that finesses lost 90% but there were so many complaints that I guess BBO dialed it back to 75%.

 

For the record, member of the Super Latinum Platinum Select Members Club average 85% successful finesses, and never get 4-1 or 4-0/5-0 trump splits, and opening leader never has a singleton to lead. Membership has its privileges!

[thepossum]

One thing I noticed recently is that the Advanced Robot loses or tries fewer losing finesses than the Basic one. Just a small sample

 

One of the biggest myths in Bridge is that finesses are 50%

 

It's not like Schrödinger's Cat :)

 

Or maybe it is. You don't know until you do it

 

Or wait until the end of the hand to find out

[AL78]

Finesses win when you have underbid and missed a game. Finesses lose when you have bid aggressively to a tight game or overbid to a bad game.

 

If you believe your finesses are always losing, look out for elimination and endplays or squeezes instead. Making on a simple finesse is boring, anyone can do that. The expert play is to go down on an attempted strip squeese instead.

[pescetom]

Finesses win when you have underbid and missed a game. Finesses lose when you have bid aggressively to a tight game or overbid to a bad game.

 

If you believe your finesses are always losing, look out for elimination and endplays or squeezes instead. Making on a simple finesse is boring, anyone can do that. The expert play is to go down on an attempted strip squeese instead.

 

And then there are hands where you have the cards and need the tricks, but don't even have a finesse available in the first place.

At least they should trigger your imagination.