[msheald]

Hello! I'm confused by robot taking me out of my club bid. It has 4 diamonds to the jack. Why take me out of my club bid when it has 4 clubs and passed initially?

I like playing aggressive sacrifices. They work well in human games, but I don't know how to interpret robot's responses, so I have difficulty playing with robot in these situations. If I knew more about how it might respond to such bids, I could bid better during such hands.

In this hand, I'm gambling on a club fit for down 1. I know that may be aggressive for a lot of folks, especially vulnerable. So, I'm not asking whether other folks would bid so, but rather, how I might anticipate robot's responses so that I can bid in concordance with the partnership.

Thank you for you assistance and best regards.

Mike

https://tinyurl.com/2y73ou7s

[helene_t]

If you look at how the 3♣ bid is explained, you see that it just shows 2-5 clubs just like your 1NT bid already showed. So from the robots point of view, it has no particular reason to prefer clubs to diamonds. Why it prefers diamonds I don't know. Maybe because it has ♦J?

This surprises me a bit since I frequently rebid a suit voluntarily after having opened 1NT, and the robot generally gets that more or less right. Maybe it is different for 1NT overcalls.

The general problem is that the robot doesn't use "common sense" to infer the meaning of a bid, like a human does. If the 3♣ bid is not described in its system then it uses some ad hoc rule to establish it meaning, which often means that the bid means nothing, as in this case. Similarly, you will see a lot of doubles which mean nothing (i.e. no difference between dbl and pass in many situations).

The lessons to learn from this is:
- Before making a bid, if you are not sure how the robot will interpret it, hover over it to see what the bid means
- If it turns out that the bid means nothing, or if it has an impossible meaning (some bids actually promise 15 cards!), try not to make the bid, as the robot may respond irrationally to it

[steve2005]

It's ludicrous that 3♣ is defined as 2-5 clubs. Clear that all possible bids do not have reasonable explanations in the database.
Even bidding 3♣ on 5 clubs is pretty silly. I would think to bid 3♣ would mean you opened 1NT on 6 clubs which isn't even considered as a possibility.
As for 3♦ it is equally ludicrous. The bid is looking for game with 8+ points. Even counting distribution when your looking for a 3NT game you are not close to having enough to look for game.

[smerriman]

steve2005, on 2024-August-12, 19:58, said:

It's ludicrous that 3♣ is defined as 2-5 clubs. Clear that all possible bids do not have reasonable explanations in the database.

It's not "defined as 2-5 clubs". It's simply not defined, fullstop, so it shows nothing, in the same way that bidding 7♥ here also shows nothing and thus gives the same description. All descriptions are formed by taking the previous description, and limiting it based on the definition of the current bid.

This appears to be an advanced robot so passing 3♣ and bidding 3♦ is basically on a coin flip based on which suit plays better opposite a random 1NT opener. It's not looking for game, it's bidding it as a signoff.

[msheald]

Thank you, all, for your insights. I appreciate them. Best regards.

Mike