challenge the champs

[han]

I think it would be nice to have a large database of interesting/difficult bidding hands that one could use in the partnership bidding room. One way to create these hands would be to enter all challenge the champs hands from the bridge world. However, nobody likes to do that, and besides, they might be copyrighted (?).

 

My idea was that only hands that are generated in the partnership bidding room should be allowed to enter the database. After bidding the hands, a pair that finds the hands really interesting may submit them for the database. I suggest that they are automatically submitted, but they may be rejected later.

 

Another pair that bids the hands and finds that they are really boring could suggest to reject them. Once hands are rejected by, say, 3 pairs they are thrown out forever.

 

How about the score? I suggest that instead of having people make up scores, the computer records all the final contracts (possibly all auctions, I have no idea how much space that would take up). When you bid these hands, you can judge yourself how well you did compared to the others.

 

Another option would be to show the full deal, and let a deep finesse tell you which contracts are made and which are not (and how many overtrics/undertricks). This would allow for IMPs and matchpoint bidding matches.

 

Clearly, many more options are possible. I know very little about computers, and I don't know what is feasible and what is not. I do think I would use it regularly if such a feature was available.

[awm]

One fairly simple thing to do might be to have deep finesse "solve" each hand and compute the highest scoring contract. Then you could be scored (on an imp scale say) for the contract you actually reached. Obviously all these scores would be negative, but you could see how close you come to the theoretical optimum (obviously unachievable without locating opponents cards).

 

In general comparing against other "random" pairs in bidding practice might not be all that useful (who knows what they are doing). But it'd be nice to be able to have some sort of par competition against another pair, or against deep finesse's "best" results.

[jillybean]

I like it.

 

Even the ‘boring’ deals could be saved for the use of Beginner/Intermediate players – unless I am using the partnership bidding table with an “expert” I often don’t know if I have reached the correct contract. To be able to bid a hand and then see what the correct contract is would be a great tool for BI’s.

 

The different bidding methods may cause confusion unless it is restricted to a specific system or results can be selected based on bidding system used.

 

jb

[Echognome]

The only problem with comparing results to deep finesse is that deep finesse will tell you that you should have been in the grand slam when all 3 finesses were working and only game when none of the finesses were working. What would be ideal is if the missing hands could be shuffled many times and then you had a diagram of how often certainly contracts were making. A lot more computing and a lot more information to generate, but much more useful in my opinion.

[kfgauss]

The only problem with comparing results to deep finesse is that deep finesse will tell you that you should have been in the grand slam when all 3 finesses were working and only game when none of the finesses were working.  What would be ideal is if the missing hands could be shuffled many times and then you had a diagram of how often certainly contracts were making.  A lot more computing and a lot more information to generate, but much more useful in my opinion.

I agree.

 

Too bad we don't yet have a quality single dummy hand evaluator (read: a solution to the play of the hand at bridge :P), though. All this DF analysis will lead us to make our bidding systems treat A10x opposite KJx as 3 tricks. (Yeah, yeah, it's a very small effect -- I'm mostly joking.)

 

Andy

[helene_t]

The only problem with comparing results to deep finesse is that deep finesse will tell you that you should have been in the grand slam when all 3 finesses were working and only game when none of the finesses were working. What would be ideal is if the missing hands could be shuffled many times and then you had a diagram of how often certainly contracts were making. A lot more computing and a lot more information to generate, but much more useful in my opinion.

This is basically how GIB works, I suppose. So the computing task is not undoable.