[Thranduil]

I've just gotten back into Bridge and BBO after several years of hiatus. Since my account is still new, robot tournaments are among the only ones I can sign up. While I actually found them quite fun at first, they got more and more frustrating with the robots bidding as if they are high. Some examples here:

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Contract went down 7 times. Why does North jump to 6♠ after my X instead of showing both minors? We make 7♦ here (or 6 if the ♣ finesse wasn't working). North could already have shown minors directly over the weak two, its hand is a lot stronger than 10 HCP suggest. Also, why does east not X the 6♠ with three to four trump tricks?
Even with a typical takeout distribution in South, there would only be a 4-3 fit in ♠, and with that wild distribution, it is unlikely that the missing spades are 3-3 with the opponents.

---

Contract went down twice. I bid X because I wanted to show a strong overcall in ♥ after partner's reply, but was forced to bid 3♣ first for Lebensohl. Why does the robot 1) go for a Lebensohl in the first place with two atrocious 4-card minors? Just bid 3♣ with that hand and pass partner's bid unless it's a forcing. Why does it not pass my 3♣ reply when clubs is their better suit? And, most importantly, why does it deny a ♥ fit after I had shown that my hand was not a typical takeout, but rather the super-strong overcall in ♥, and instead bid 4♣, again with an atrocious 4-card suit?

---

Again, I double to show a super-strong overcall. But due to the opponents' bidding I can't bid my suit at a lower level, so I have to bid 5♦, now with a preemptive character. Might have been better on my side to bid 2♦ directly. Anyways, somehow the robot in N thinks its hand is good enough to freely bid 3♥?! Yeah, I might have four hearts too for a fit, but that is not given. And the north hand is simply too weak, especially opposite a typical takeout hand with a 1444 or similar distribution and around 12 HCP. But what really must have come from the moon is the 5♥ bid. My 5♦ bid showed a strong one-suiter in that suit, too strong for a direct overcall. There is no ♥ fit... just let me play the 5♦X for two down, a better score than the opponents making their game...


In addition to these atrocities, there are lots of "milder" cases of obvious bidding bugs/errors with robots, such as passing a partner's transfer accept after an 1NT opening with 8 HCP and a good 6-card suit. Oh, and there is a whole other can of worms, that is defending. I have a feeling my signals are meaningless to these robots...

[pilowsky]

You'll be pleased to know that BBO takes the continuous quality improvement of the GIB robot very seriously and is constantly making improvements to its bidding and play in light of the valuable feedback from consumers.

[smerriman]

Sarcasm aside, BBO hasn't touched GIB in five and a half years. With all hope of improvements long gone, robot players have instead just learnt what you can and can't do with the robots.

Off-shape doubles are a 100% no-no; you'll virtually never get away with them. There are only a very limited number of sequences where GIB correctly resets the definition from standard takeout to strong one-suited hand; if the opponents interfere and eliminate these sequences, it will hold you to the original takeout definition no matter what you do.

All three hands are of course silly, but:

- in the first hand, 4NT is undefined opposite your double, so no, it couldn't show the minors. Its "book" bid is 5♦, but due to silliness of the descriptions it's only allowed to choose between 4♠, 5♣, 5♦, and 6♠, and doesn't rule out you having 5 spades either, so its simulations are all messed up.

- I don't understand your comments on the second one at all. Playing lebensohl, a direct 3♣ would show a much stronger hand; weak hands are forced to go through 2NT. If you have a strong offshape double, then you need to break the transfer immediately to show it (you can't afford to bid 3♣ as that's highly likely to be passed). GIB's logic doesn't take into account suit quality at all; it just prefers diamonds to clubs. But having denied the offshape double by accepting the transfer, 3♥ is entirely undefined, which you could foresee from the description (it denies 5 hearts), so that was never going to work out.

- And again, on the last one, if you had checked the description you would have seen that to GIB, 5♦ does not show a strong one-suiter; it showed nothing more than 4 diamonds. Just don't make off-shape doubles with GIB.

[msheald]

When I started to play with the robots, I received advice/comments from long-time robot players that they would NEVER play human bridge the way that they play robot bridge. That's the best guidance I've received about playing the robot games that helps me temper my expectations! Best regards.

Mike

[microcap]

Thranduil, on 2024-July-17, 04:01, said:

I've just gotten back into Bridge and BBO after several years of hiatus. Since my account is still new, robot tournaments are among the only ones I can sign up. While I actually found them quite fun at first, they got more and more frustrating with the robots bidding as if they are high. Some examples here:

---

Contract went down 7 times. Why does North jump to 6♠ after my X instead of showing both minors? We make 7♦ here (or 6 if the ♣ finesse wasn't working). North could already have shown minors directly over the weak two, its hand is a lot stronger than 10 HCP suggest. Also, why does east not X the 6♠ with three to four trump tricks?
Even with a typical takeout distribution in South, there would only be a 4-3 fit in ♠, and with that wild distribution, it is unlikely that the missing spades are 3-3 with the opponents.

---

Contract went down twice. I bid X because I wanted to show a strong overcall in ♥ after partner's reply, but was forced to bid 3♣ first for Lebensohl. Why does the robot 1) go for a Lebensohl in the first place with two atrocious 4-card minors? Just bid 3♣ with that hand and pass partner's bid unless it's a forcing. Why does it not pass my 3♣ reply when clubs is their better suit? And, most importantly, why does it deny a ♥ fit after I had shown that my hand was not a typical takeout, but rather the super-strong overcall in ♥, and instead bid 4♣, again with an atrocious 4-card suit?

---

Again, I double to show a super-strong overcall. But due to the opponents' bidding I can't bid my suit at a lower level, so I have to bid 5♦, now with a preemptive character. Might have been better on my side to bid 2♦ directly. Anyways, somehow the robot in N thinks its hand is good enough to freely bid 3♥?! Yeah, I might have four hearts too for a fit, but that is not given. And the north hand is simply too weak, especially opposite a typical takeout hand with a 1444 or similar distribution and around 12 HCP. But what really must have come from the moon is the 5♥ bid. My 5♦ bid showed a strong one-suiter in that suit, too strong for a direct overcall. There is no ♥ fit... just let me play the 5♦X for two down, a better score than the opponents making their game...


In addition to these atrocities, there are lots of "milder" cases of obvious bidding bugs/errors with robots, such as passing a partner's transfer accept after an 1NT opening with 8 HCP and a good 6-card suit. Oh, and there is a whole other can of worms, that is defending. I have a feeling my signals are meaningless to these robots...

Smerriman speaks great truth and wisdom that we all had to learn the hard way.

You must accept the fact that playing with robots is a form of "bridge" unto itself. You can't be good at it until then....

[spkcp111]

I think they've gotten much, much worse. I've noticed no one plays the Robot tourneys anymore. It used to be hundreds of people playing--now it seems a handful at best. WHY oh why? Well, the bidding is at best, ridiculous! Why PAY money for that?

And it seems to have gotten much worse since the COVID. Were their developers let go? Sure would appear so to my eyes. So many issues on BBO during the covid!

IMO, BBO is on the verge of losing their customers to other sites.

Hope they'll hire some good bidders and work on this. It could be a major cash cow for them!

[pilowsky]

spkcp111, on 2024-July-18, 06:45, said:

Well, the bidding is at best, ridiculous! Why PAY money for that?

Try playing in a club. At least the robots bid ridiculously consistently.

[thepossum]

pilowsky, on 2024-July-18, 16:04, said:

Try playing in a club. At least the robots bid ridiculously consistently.

And they do have a rather boring politeness about them too
EDIT don't get me wrong some of the bidding suggests a wicked sense of humour

[thepossum]

Quote

IMO, BBO is on the verge of losing their customers to other sites.

Care to list them

Quote

Hope they'll hire some good bidders and work on this. It could be a major cash cow for them!

I did once try to estimate the business model without any data
I don't know about you but there are a lot of people playing for nothing

[Thranduil]

In the first example, I did not know that 4NT as a response to a takeout X was not defined (which it should be, at least I'd ask my partner how we should define that 4NT bid); and I am still curious why the robot passed in the first place instead of immediately showing both minors. Even with undefined 4 NT, I don't understand why 6 ♠ even is an option in that case. If we wanted to go for slam, we should bid more slowly (although we don't have much bidding space left, so cuebids would be difficult) to not end up in a slam where we are missing two keycards.

smerriman, on 2024-July-17, 17:50, said:

- I don't understand your comments on the second one at all. Playing lebensohl, a direct 3♣ would show a much stronger hand; weak hands are forced to go through 2NT. If you have a strong offshape double, then you need to break the transfer immediately to show it (you can't afford to bid 3♣ as that's highly likely to be passed). GIB's logic doesn't take into account suit quality at all; it just prefers diamonds to clubs. But having denied the offshape double by accepting the transfer, 3♥ is entirely undefined, which you could foresee from the description (it denies 5 hearts), so that was never going to work out.

- And again, on the last one, if you had checked the description you would have seen that to GIB, 5♦ does not show a strong one-suiter; it showed nothing more than 4 diamonds. Just don't make off-shape doubles with GIB.

In the second example, for some reason I thought I need to bid 3 ♣ first, my bad.

In the third example, I did not check the description, because I did not even consider 5 ♦ in that situation being anything else than a strong one-suited hand.

[smerriman]

Thranduil, on 2024-July-21, 08:03, said:

and I am still curious why the robot passed in the first place instead of immediately showing both minors.

The only bid which shows both minors over 2♥ is 4NT. Forcing unilaterally to the 5 level in second seat with a 10 count seems a bit excessive. Obviously not as excessive as 6♠, but definitely not what I'd want GIB doing.

[Thranduil]

Another example for crazy robot bidding. This time I was holding the W hand, E was a robot and N/S were two human players (was a free automated fun tournament).

---

When I bid 3 ♥, I thought if the opponents don't have hearts, my partner might have it, but is too weak to bid over 2NT.

[smerriman]

The definition of 3♥ is terrible (game forcing with 6+ hearts), but that's mainly because a 3♥ bid doesn't even exist here, since if you felt you needed to show your hearts, you could have doubled the first time. Given you can see the definition of 3♥ before making it, I can't really assign any blame to the robot here.. even if it had some other definition somehow, 3♥x is down 6, so it was a very weird choice.

[Thranduil]

smerriman, on 2024-July-24, 21:10, said:

The definition of 3♥ is terrible (game forcing with 6+ hearts), but that's mainly because a 3♥ bid doesn't even exist here, since if you felt you needed to show your hearts, you could have doubled the first time. Given you can see the definition of 3♥ before making it, I can't really assign any blame to the robot here.. even if it had some other definition somehow, 3♥x is down 6, so it was a very weird choice.

Yeah, 3H would be a bad contract too (opps would likely bid over 3 ♥ anyways, just like how it happened in the game), but with the robot's hand we should be playing clubs. I can't assume it has such a nice 8-card suit with that bidding though. The robot should have repeated its clubs in the first place, or even de-valued the red queens and opened a 3rd or 4th level preempt. Also, it should know that its clubs are going to be worthless in a heart contract with just a singleton heart as the partner can never reach them after drawing trumps.

Doubling 1 ♠ immediately does not work, because that would show exactly 4 hearts and a stronger hand. Only at the later point, once the opponents had shown both spades and diamonds, I was confident we have a heart fit.

[smerriman]

Thranduil, on 2024-July-25, 01:21, said:

Doubling 1 ♠ immediately does not work, because that would show exactly 4 hearts and a stronger hand. Only at the later point, once the opponents had shown both spades and diamonds, I was confident we have a heart fit.

That's not quite correct; a negative double shows either exactly 4 hearts, or a hand with 5+ hearts that is too weak to bid 2♥ (but still able to handle partner's responses; you're right this hand is too weak to bid, but that's even more true later, which is why 3♥ shouldn't exist). If you get a chance to double and bid 2♥ at your second bid, it confirms the weaker hand.

See e.g. here or other resources on negative doubles.