[thomas c]

maybe it is just me but lately when i play robot games it seems like 2 of 3 hands have bad splits or all finesses wrong. this is not fun at all. i dont mind some but when ive bid to the correct contract i expect to make it sometimes.

[1eyedjack]

thomas c, on 2016-October-22, 15:33, said:

maybe it is just me but lately when i play robot games it seems like 2 of 3 hands have bad splits or all finesses wrong. this is not fun at all. i dont mind some but when ive bid to the correct contract i expect to make it sometimes.

Sadly (for some purposes), one of the changes to BBO a year or so back, under pressure from ACBL, was the denial of general public access to the BBO "MyHand" robot tourney records of individuals other than those of the interrogator (and other competitors specified in the named tourney). I accept assurances that the resulting security improvements provide sufficient overall benefits as to justify the move, but it does render threads such as this frustrating.

I personally don't share your experience, and it would be helpful if you download a set of hands that you have played against robots, covering a significant period (say 2 months), and upload them somewhere public so that your statistical claims can be independently verified without relying on various psychological biases. If you use Double Dummy Solver by Bridge Captain, that would be ideal, with the hands saved in SQL.

You are not the first to make the point. If you are right (and I don't accept that repetition here reinforces the case), at least you can take some comfort from the fact that all the other human players in your seat at other tables run into the same problem. In that respect it cannot be "just you". It is interesting that you qualify the OP with "lately", implying that there has been a recent unannounced change in the dealing process. I think that unlikely. But most of those who like you think that there is a dealing bias would say that it has always been thus.

I should be interested to know whether you think that this phenomenon is restricted to robot events. If it is, it would require that BBO apply a different dealing algorithm in robot events than in human events. That really requires a "conspiracy theory" mind-set.

[wank]

lol

[broze]

1eyedjack, on 2016-October-22, 16:28, said:

I personally don't share your experience, and it would be a complete waste of time if you download a set of hands that you have played against robots, covering a significant period (say 2 months), and upload them somewhere public so that your statistical claims can be independently verified without relying on various psychological biases. If you use Double Dummy Solver by Bridge Captain, that would be ideal, with the hands saved in SQL.

FYP

[Stefan_O]

1eyedjack, on 2016-October-22, 16:28, said:

... one of the changes to BBO a year or so back, under pressure from ACBL, was the denial of general public access to the BBO "MyHand" robot tourney records of individuals other than those of the interrogator (and other competitors specified in the named tourney). I accept assurances that the resulting security improvements provide sufficient overall benefits as to justify the move...

I have actually been wondering abt this...

Provided that a deal has already been completed at all tables where it should be played, how can it be a security concern at all, to let anyone see the records?

And why Robot-tourneys specifically?

[1eyedjack]

The move was driven by pressure from ACBL to preserve confidence in their masterpoints, so applies to masterpointed events. I am not sure why it was extended to non-ACBL masterpointed events. Perhaps for simplicity. Perhaps BBO agreed with ACBL once the security concerns were raised.

Completed robot tourneys remain protected because they form the bank of hands used in Instant tourneys, which also rank for masterpoints

[jdonn]

The hands are dealt randomly. This complaint comes to me in one form or another about 3-4 times a month, and it is wrong every time. Sorry about the bad breaks folks!

[johnu]

Stefan_O, on 2016-October-23, 14:01, said:

I have actually been wondering abt this...

Provided that a deal has already been completed at all tables where it should be played, how can it be a security concern at all, to let anyone see the records?

And why Robot-tourneys specifically?

My guess is that this is due to the instant ACBL games which replay previously played ACBL robot tournaments. In theory (and probably not that much theory), somebody could go through the ACBL robot tournament hand records for other players and then based on the first hand dealt, search a database to find the tournament that BBO is using for that instant game. The cheaters could then bid and play every hand double dummy.

[johnu]

thomas c, on 2016-October-22, 15:33, said:

maybe it is just me but lately when i play robot games it seems like 2 of 3 hands have bad splits or all finesses wrong. this is not fun at all. i dont mind some but when ive bid to the correct contract i expect to make it sometimes.

If you pay for the Super Deluxe robots, every suit of the opponents breaks as evenly as possible and finesses work 75% of the time.