[pigpenz]

barmar, on 2012-March-07, 15:46, said:

In the main bridge club, there can be quite a bit of variability in the robots. First, there are 3 kinds of robots:

1. Old BBO version. If you use the old, downloaded BBO, it runs the GIB program locally on your PC. The speed of your CPU is a factor, because GIB limits the amount of time it thinks on a hand, so slower computers will do less thinking. You can also configure the thinking settings.

2. New BBO, basic robots. These are the robots you get when rent for $1/week. They don't do any simulations during the auction, and use a less sophisticated play algorithm.

3. New BBO, advanced robots. These are the robots you get when you rent for $1/day. They simulate during the auction (when the bidding rules allow) and use a more advanced play algorithm after the first few tricks.

Also, the simulations used during bidding and play make use of randomly dealt hands, and the random numbers will be different at each table.

Things are less variable in robot tournaments. These all use advanced robots running on the BBO servers, and the same random hands in simulations (as long as the human bidding and play are identical).

maybe there could be a way when looking at results to see what kind of GIB
is playing.....
say
RED-old
GREEN-new
BLUE-advanced

I tend to rent GIB by the month and just look at results like playing in a club or open game where there is always an odd result or two.
When playing in ACBL bot games the play is more reliable, but the bots are more advanced.....but some times when I go over results I wonder
why GIB does the things he does at other tables.

[edward5958]

I tried to play a couple of robot tournaments during the last few days and my impression has been confirmed and fortified: playing with these robots is not worth the time, money or effort any longer. The guy who apparently tweaks or manipulates these things is enormously sensitive and defensive about any criticism of his work (see posts above), and I guess the sorry state of these machines reflects his considerable, misguided ego. In any event, IMO he bots used to be much better before all of this "improvement" got under way, and it seems to me that it is an example of fixing something which is not broken.

[barmar]

edward5958, on 2012-March-13, 21:16, said:

The guy who apparently tweaks or manipulates these things is enormously sensitive and defensive about any criticism of his work (see posts above), and I guess the sorry state of these machines reflects his considerable, misguided ego.

He hasn't posted in this thread at all, so what are you talking about? I think you're making assumptions about who does what at BBO.

Quote

fixing something which is not broken

Huh? Do you read the GIB forum? People report problems every single day. We're not supposed to fix them?

One of the tests we do before releasing a new version of GIB is to play a head-to-head match of the old version vs the new version, to ensure that the new version wins overall and analyze the types of hands where the old version wins, in case they reveal changes that are detrimental. We actually pulled out one of the changes in last week's v21 release because of this (in the auction 1Major-1NT(forcing)-2Major, we were going to change whether GIB jumps to game with an invitational 3-card raise, but it ended up missing too many good games).

This thread is not very constructive. You've made general complaints about the robot play, which aren't actionable. Post hands in the GIB forum, like others do, and we can potentially act on them. I can't promise that every complaint will be addressed, but without knowing what's wrong, how are we supposed to fix it? We're NOT going to just revert to the pre-August version of GIB.

[Bbradley62]

edward5958, on 2012-March-13, 21:16, said:

The guy who apparently tweaks or manipulates these things is enormously sensitive and defensive about any criticism of his work (see posts above), and I guess the sorry state of these machines reflects his considerable, misguided ego.

Too funny!!

[barmar]

USViking, on 2012-March-05, 16:42, said:

For 249 tournaments ending 2/15/12 I scored 51.48% in MP competition and +156.37 in IMP.

For 20 MP tournaments 2/16 through 2/26 the humiliating MP average was 45.77% with 16/20 below 50% and 17/20 below average in player score ranking. During the same stretch I played in 5 IMP tournaments with 3/5 negative results and 4/5 below average player rank.

There's two possible explanations for this: your robot partner is getting worse, or your robot opponents are getting BETTER.

Quote

PS-- now that I think about it I have noticed a few more than usual deals where GiB bids with 3hcp less than bidding box explanation (I wish it could be limited to a max 2hcp "lie"). That is not an excuse for the extent of my recent poor showing, though.

When simulating, it considers bids whose criteria are within 2 HCP of the hand at the 1-3 level, 3 HCP at the 4-5 level, and 4 HCP at 6-7. But sometimes what a bid shows is slightly different from the criteria for making it (e.g. raising responder's suit shows 4, but may sometimes be made with 3), so the combination of the "lie" and the adjustment for simulation can result in a larger deviation from the explanation. But theoretically, the hand should play about as well as if it had what it showed -- that's what the simulation is supposed to be discovering.

[edward5958]

barmar, on 2012-March-15, 10:14, said:

There's two possible explanations for this: your robot partner is getting worse, or your robot opponents are getting BETTER.

When simulating, it considers bids whose criteria are within 2 HCP of the hand at the 1-3 level, 3 HCP at the 4-5 level, and 4 HCP at 6-7. But sometimes what a bid shows is slightly different from the criteria for making it (e.g. raising responder's suit shows 4, but may sometimes be made with 3), so the combination of the "lie" and the adjustment for simulation can result in a larger deviation from the explanation. But theoretically, the hand should play about as well as if it had what it showed -- that's what the simulation is supposed to be discovering.

[edward5958]

I think it's pretty sad, not at all "funny," when a good product is tricked up and ruined as this one has been. In almost every game now it seems there are 2 or 3 boards in which the robots act out with some crazy bid or poor play or I'm put to an impossible guess or some such and my score is ruined. It never was that way before August; and while my play was/is certainly not well considered and/or careless at times, at least I was rewarded when I played well. But not anymore. And while I appreciate the suggestion to present specific hands, rather than taking the time to figure out how to do that and to actually go through it, I prefer to just direct my attention and time elsewhere. I've been reluctant to do that because I've really enjoyed my experience in these games until lately and it's hard to move on. But nothing good lasts forever, I suppose.

[barmar]

I think your memory must be playing tricks on you. GIB has done those kinds of things for years. Just go back through the GIB forum history and you'll see.

We haven't "tricked up" the program. Almost all the changes have been in direct response to complaints about bad bidding.

[edward5958]

barmar, on 2012-March-17, 10:01, said:

I think your memory must be playing tricks on you. GIB has done those kinds of things for years. Just go back through the GIB forum history and you'll see.

We haven't "tricked up" the program. Almost all the changes have been in direct response to complaints about bad bidding.

Nope, my memory is fine. I know how it used to be and how it is now. Strange results are the norm, and they usually work against me now. If you don't believe it, just compare my results from August through the present to those obtained before. I know you are sincere in your comments and trying to help, but for me that doesn't change anything or lessen the validity of what I have been saying.

[edward5958]

Alright, Barmar, if you're out there, I'm going to give you an example hand. It's from ACBL robot tourney 4492 played 3/23. I am rocking along at 60% in 3rd or 4th place and then board 12 comes up. If S chooses not to open 2 clubs (I don't think it's advisable when you have 4 losers, an unbalanced hand, with clubs as your putative trump suit), and opens 1 club instead, the bidding goes: 1c-1h-3d. Then what does N bid? With me it bid 4h, which I think is asinine. N is not strong enough to bid that with only 5 hearts to the QJ, not knowing anything about what hearts are in S's hand. It's a GF auction of course, but IMO 3 spades is N's only bid at this point, to show values in that suit for the purpose of playing 3NT. But bid 4 hearts it did. Not only that, look at the ridiculous way it played the hand. Down 4 for a result of 7.7%, dropping me like a stone into my 8th place finish when I have done nothing wrong that I can see. (Oh well, at least I didn't completely fall out of the money like I usually do.) As I have said on this board, this sort of thing -- and worse -- has been going on regularly for 6 months now.

[barmar]

---

Read the explanation of your bid. 3♦ is a splinter, showing heart support, a singleton or void in ♦, and game-forcing strength. Since North had a minimum, it made a fast-arrival jump to game.

If you wanted to make a bid showing ♣ and ♦, and a strong hand, you should have reversed into 2♦. This is standard bidding.

If this auction used to mean what you thought, it was wrong and we fixed it.

[Bbradley62]

Now we see the problem...

[edward5958]

Bbradley62, on 2012-March-23, 16:16, said:

Now we see the problem...

Your analysis is correct and the same thing occurred to me not long after I put up my last post. After S's 2D I suppose N would bid 2S. Is this FSF? And what is S's next bid? Probably 3H since still nothing is known about S's, and then, if N bids 4!H's the K would be the same rather than 3NT. N could rebid 2NT rather than 2S, or 3NT rather than 4H, but then the hand would be wrong sided. Also, there is still the problem of N's deficient play of 4H.

[barmar]

If you reverse, North will bid 2NT Lebensohl. Your correct bid then is 3♥ to show 3-card support, and North will bid 4♥. It doesn't make on this lie of the cards, but it's a decent contract just looking at the N/S cards.

Remember that when you're playing against the robots, you can hover over a bid before making it, to see what it would show to them.

[edward5958]

barmar, on 2012-March-25, 23:29, said:

If you reverse, North will bid 2NT Lebensohl. Your correct bid then is 3♥ to show 3-card support, and North will bid 4♥. It doesn't make on this lie of the cards, but it's a decent contract just looking at the N/S cards.

Remember that when you're playing against the robots, you can hover over a bid before making it, to see what it would show to them.

I didn't realize that they played Lebensohl over reverses. Anyway, the best contract is 3NT and the trick is getting there. It may be necessary to open 2 clubs but as I said many posts ago, I decided that this was not prudent on these cards -- the type of uncertain decision which must often be made against the bots.

[barmar]

edward5958, on 2012-March-26, 22:30, said:

I didn't realize that they played Lebensohl over reverses.

Yes, that's one of the improvements we made a few months ago. It was mentioned in the upgrade announcement. I hope you agree it was an improvement -- most advanced and expert bridge players use some variation of this, and the specific treatment that we use was recommended by Fred.

Quote

Anyway, the best contract is 3NT and the trick is getting there. It may be necessary to open 2 clubs but as I said many posts ago, I decided that this was not prudent on these cards -- the type of uncertain decision which must often be made against the bots.

Looks to me like 3NT also goes down -- the defenders can take 4 ♠ (if they play the suit properly) and ♥A.

I doubt many human bridge players would prefer NT over ♥ with these hands. I'll bet if the hands were given in Challenge the Champs, they'd get to either 3♥ or 4♥.

[edward5958]

barmar, on 2012-March-26, 23:19, said:

Yes, that's one of the improvements we made a few months ago. It was mentioned in the upgrade announcement. I hope you agree it was an improvement -- most advanced and expert bridge players use some variation of this, and the specific treatment that we use was recommended by Fred.

Looks to me like 3NT also goes down -- the defenders can take 4 ♠ (if they play the suit properly) and ♥A.

I doubt many human bridge players would prefer NT over ♥ with these hands. I'll bet if the hands were given in Challenge the Champs, they'd get to either 3♥ or 4♥.

Maybe so, but it looks like EW can't get 4 spade tricks unless W leads the K to start the suit. As for leading through S, E's only entry is the A spades and once that is gone, NS are assured of a S trick if EW try to clear the suit.

[barmar]

edward5958, on 2012-March-28, 00:33, said:

Maybe so, but it looks like EW can't get 4 spade tricks unless W leads the K to start the suit. As for leading through S, E's only entry is the A spades and once that is gone, NS are assured of a S trick if EW try to clear the suit.

If North is declaring, East leads its 4th best ♠ to West's K, then West plays the 10, trapping North's Q.

I'm not sure that the robots would find this defense (I could do a test, but I don't feel like it right now), and maybe humans wouldn't, either (except maybe champions).

But I still think that most players would much prefer to be in 4♥ than 3[NT] with those cards.