[barmar]

queen of h, on 2012-August-28, 12:19, said:

Same question as above .. will this be added to the ACBL robot game as well?

Same answer as above.

[barmar]

uday, on 2012-August-28, 09:39, said:

Statistics on what the impact of this might be? Looking at some days of "best hand" race-style tourneys ( too lazy to look up robot dup hands ATM), I see that in Best-Hand-1$, at any rate, over about 300K boards, the declarer is: (ignoring passouts)

South: 51%
North: 29%
East: 10%
West: 9%

Not sure how useful those stats are, since people play race tourneys very differently from dups. They pass many hands that would ordinarily be opened, and good players try to arrange for the robot to declare as much as possible -- not because it's a good declarer, but because it's fast.

[Rain]

Mickyb your reported bug is fixed.

[Leo LaSota]

Thank you for adding this into the total points games. This will be highly advantageous for those of us that declarer faster than the robots

[wuudturner]

South: 51%
North: 29%
East: 10%
West: 9%

I knew the East bot was a hand hog. Now I have proof!

I wonder though, positionally, is there a reason why East might play more hands? In fact, this almost makes sense, if you assume the human sitting in the South seat is a bit more likely to balance.

[jjsiegel]

I agree with Andy L, we need more time if we play north hands. The robot plays so fast we can count on that. Increase the time by 5 minutes, at least.

[barmar]

Leo LaSota, on 2012-August-29, 16:29, said:

Thank you for adding this into the total points games. This will be highly advantageous for those of us that declarer faster than the robots

We're only adding it to the duplicate games.

[barmar]

jjsiegel, on 2012-August-29, 20:59, said:

I agree with Andy L, we need more time if we play north hands. The robot plays so fast we can count on that. Increase the time by 5 minutes, at least.

I usually finish with 5-10 minutes left on the clock. I can't believe I'll run out of time when I declare 1 or 2 more hands.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-August-30, 03:04, said:

I usually finish with 5-10 minutes left on the clock. I can't believe I'll run out of time when I declare 1 or 2 more hands.

It's nice to know that you play that quickly, but not everyone does. I've seen a few players (admittedly not many) who have run out of time on Board 8 since the change was implemented in the free games; I don't think I had ever seen that before the change.

[uday]

we're going to be activating this tomorrow morning (around 9 or so Eastern). We'll keep an eye on completion rates and add more time if needed.
U

[sam33]

Will declarer be able to claim?

[Leo LaSota]

uday, on 2012-August-28, 09:39, said:

"ACBL Games - have to make sure it is OK w/the ACBL, working on it.

Money Bridge games - yes, on the list, and we'll soon change that too.

Extra time? I don't think it is needed. If we're wrong, tho, we'll readdress...."

Barmar states, "We're only adding it to the duplicate games".


Seems to me like Barmar is contradicting what Uday stated about using the human declares for N/S applicable to total points games. BBO definitely should apply this to the total points games. This would result in a more skill based final result. A player would have to play more hands well and fast to win these tournaments.

[diana_eva]

I think he's talking about money bridge, not TP tourneys in the quote you gave.

Tweaked tourneys today will be:

Robot Duplicate MP
Robot Duplicate IMPs
Robot Rebate 55%

[uday]

Yes, i was talking about "true" money bridge tables, not Reward/Race tournaments.

There is definitely a case to be made for enabling this feature on the Reward/Race tournaments/

[uday]

Changes were enabled at 8:45 AM Eastern on Fri Aug 31, about 2 hours ago.

Robot Duplicate (IMP and MP)
Robot Rebate

now use 'Human must declare when dummy'

We're keeping an eye on these Ts - in particular, I am thinking to increase the time allocated to Rebate55 ( currently 30 mins), but more on that later.

[SimonFa]

A great innovation.

It was disconcerting and I reckon I was slower but I'm sure that will improve with practice.

Can we also have it when practicing with 3 Robots, please?

[barmar]

Leo LaSota, on 2012-August-30, 18:23, said:

Seems to me like Barmar is contradicting what Uday stated about using the human declares for N/S applicable to total points games. BBO definitely should apply this to the total points games. This would result in a more skill based final result. A player would have to play more hands well and fast to win these tournaments.

I wasn't contradicting anything, I was only talking about the changes we announced that we would be making today.

[barmar]

Bbradley62, on 2012-August-30, 07:07, said:

It's nice to know that you play that quickly, but not everyone does. I've seen a few players (admittedly not many) who have run out of time on Board 8 since the change was implemented in the free games; I don't think I had ever seen that before the change.

I played a Robot Rebate game this morning. Surprisingly, 7 out of the 12 hands were declared by North. I managed to finish with 3 minutes to spare. One player in the tourney didn't make it, he was on board 9 when time ran out.

But as Uday said, we'll keep an eye on the completion rates. If the pace is really too fast with this change, we can easily increase the time.

[Phil]

I just tried one of these.

Its one thing to watch GIB bid and then carve the play. There's a strange twinge when GIB makes a strange bid and then YOU get to play the mess lol. Today GIB had Txx QJxxx AKxx x 1♣ - (1♠) - x - p; 1N - (p) - 2♦(!!!!!) - all pass. I put down QJ9x KT xx AQJTx.

But then you realize that you might be able to make something out of it.

[cherdano]

I love the change. Now we can play bridge in the bidding, instead of playing the "make sure South declares" game. The results will be significantly more skill-based.