[hrothgar]

Here's what I would like to know:

What would be more profitable for BBO:

1. Building / maintaining its own BOT
2. Creating an interface such that third party developers could link their own engines into BBO and entering into a revenue sharing agreement?

Picture a world in which you enter a tournament and have a choice between playing with Jack or WBridge or what have you.

I understand that revenue sharing probably isn't one of BBO's top goals, however, from the sounds of things the company is spending real $$$ on GIB improvement and maintenance.

Personally, I'd rather do one project to build the API then have someone else responsible for maintaining the code.
Moreover, I suspect tat better quality Bots might help attract more tournament participants.

[zhasbeen]

I am a customer who uses BBO almost exlusively for its robot tournaments. I am currently averaging 3-4 rounds per day, and there was one point when 6 would have been a light day. The great majority of the time I play the ACBL 12-board matches.
I’ve contacted BBO’s first level of support several times; they have responded promptly and left me with the feeling they were doing their best to help. On some of those occasions they forwarded my questions and suggestions to robot programming department. I also filed a few bug reports, with comments and a civil tone each time. Not once did I receive a reply to forwarded messages or bug reports. Eventually I took main support’s advice and found this forum. I jokingly said to a support person, “there’s probably one guy in a room reading complaints and drinking coffee.”

It was no surprise to find some frustrated users here, but the level of frustration and "take it or leave it" attitude of GIB management was worse than I expected.
However, I will probably stick with the BBO robot tournaments until something better comes along. Bugs and all GIB is still pretty amazing, and I believe the tournaments are great for practicing card play and improving judgment. After more than 600 tournaments I still get excited about playing. I can play more challenging deals in a day than I can at the offline clubs in a week or 2. My perception is that the incidence of tricky hands (no pun…)is much higher than in normal offline play.
Add the video replays of every deal that you and your opponent’s bid and play, and you have an awesome resource for working on your game.
I’ve gradually migrated towards accepting GIB as is, and putting more energy into trying to understand how it thinks rather than waiting for any fixes. The forums have been very helpful in this respect.
………………………………………………………………
Getting back to the “until something better comes along” I think of my experience with phone, internet, and tv providers. I was loyal to my ISP for more than 10 years, including the last 3 when I knew there was something more than 3 x’ as fast for the same money. During those years I had also merged my phone and TV services into their package. I finally got tired of the promises for faster internet service and switched. Shortly after that I moved my phone and TV to the new provider.

If BBO continues to take its customers for granted they are not likely to keep them forever. Once the buzz starts it usually moves faster than I did…” Hey, did you hear about that new bridge web site? They are a lot like BBO but their robots are much better". Before you know it most of your customers are gone.

[helene_t]

jdonn, on 2017-November-22, 10:30, said:

robot report function

How does this work? Once upon a time there was a "send robot report" function but for the last five years I haven't been able to do anything other than posting a handviewer link on the forum.

[jdonn]

helene_t, on 2017-November-22, 23:57, said:

How does this work? Once upon a time there was a "send robot report" function but for the last five years I haven't been able to do anything other than posting a handviewer link on the forum.

I just went to play a hand so I could explain it properly. After playing a hand with GIB, under "My Results", make sure the hand in question is highlighted on the list of hands. On the menu at the bottom, click on "options", then mouse over "export deal", and click on "send robot report". Type a message and send away, and it will at least be looked at and considered.

[jdonn]

virgosrock, on 2017-November-22, 11:46, said:

Sadly, jdonn's post reflects arrogance - "I will not look at" "I will not tolerate" blah blah. I have been an EE Prof, experienced hardware and software engineer in very hi-tech industry. Instead of arrogance, you sift out the relevant and make your decisions about when/whether/how to fix which would be a professional attitude. How much more do you need to decide people are VERY frustrated with GIBidding and it seems normal they should vent. And this is exacerbated in MoneyBridge where money flows out and there is NO recourse or post-adjustment. This is like Verizon saying you gave us a rude review, we will not fix it. Nonsense. Be professional.

You should absolutely not use quotes for something the person didn't say. And the quotations you used (made up) are extremely different from what I actually said.

Otherwise, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see no reason to respond to insulting messages, and I don't think it's arrogant to expect to be treated respectfully. Of course people have a right to be frustrated, and to vent. But somehow, most people manage to express that without insulting anyone. Everyone has the opportunity to report issues respectfully. If they forgo that opportunity, then so be it, there is plenty more to work on and progress will still be made.

[helene_t]

jdonn, on 2017-November-23, 12:09, said:

I just went to play a hand so I could explain it properly.

Thanks!

[virgosrock]

jdonn, on 2017-November-23, 12:31, said:

You should absolutely not use quotes for something the person didn't say. And the quotations you used (made up) are extremely different from what I actually said.

Otherwise, we will just have to agree to disagree. I see no reason to respond to insulting messages, and I don't think it's arrogant to expect to be treated respectfully. Of course people have a right to be frustrated, and to vent. But somehow, most people manage to express that without insulting anyone. Everyone has the opportunity to report issues respectfully. If they forgo that opportunity, then so be it, there is plenty more to work on and progress will still be made.

Here are the verbatim quotes
"I was checking this more often, but I got sick of some of the rudeness frankly. I may not respond to threads with mocking like LOL or insults like calling GIB an idiot,"
"The report is very rude. I don't mind that someone is frustrated, but if it involves cursing and insults toward BBO, or me, or Fred, or whatever, I will ignore it immediately, without apology."

I'd rather bugs be fixed asap instead of time being wasted on purity of quotes.

I am VERY happy BBO is being heard from. Yuck!! ending in a preposition. The feedback provided is heartening.

thanks
vrock

[steve2005]

johnu, on 2017-November-21, 22:44, said:

I don't know anything about the GIB database, but if it was easy, I assume it would have been done already.

Converting database format is a very common process. no it isn't trivial.
The current format is compact and unreadable by humans.
Would be simple to take convert format to a new format that is essentially the same but spaced and listing the information and using headers to make it usable. You wouldn't even have to change the format or the way Gib accesses the information. a 1st year computer science student is capable of this.

You could make improvements in design if you want but it sounds like simply being able to read the database, make changes and ensure database information matched database descriptions of bids given to players is what is needed.

[helene_t]

steve2005, on 2017-November-21, 18:57, said:

Bidding database can be rewritten/converted fairly easily to a new format .

It's not like converting if from Access to MySQL or such. It's about the semantics of the data. Things like whether 2♦(transfer to hearts) and 2♥(transfer to spades) are two instantiations of the same flexible rule or whether it is two different rules. That was a fairly trivial example. You can imagine it gets more tricky when we talk about the rules for the forcing character of various 2nd round bids in contested auctions, whether a control bid promises extra values etc.

[steve2005]

helene_t, on 2017-November-23, 16:04, said:

It's not like converting if from Access to MySQL or such. It's about the semantics of the data. Things like whether 2♦(transfer to hearts) and 2♥(transfer to spades) are two instantiations of the same flexible rule or whether it is two different rules. That was a fairly trivial example. You can imagine it gets more tricky when we talk about the rules for the forcing character of various 2nd round bids in contested auctions, whether a control bid promises extra values etc.

I doubt the database list transfers as two instances of the same rule.
it will list the bids as 2 separate bids. If it does treat as related then you would follow the format of the old database.

Presumably there is entry in the database to say if forcing (though with Gibs bidding not sure it has that) or at least to show the strength. You wont have to determine if a bid is forcing when converting you merely translate the information on the bid that is already there. if gib hasn't already determined some bid is forcing why would you think you have to translating the database.

I'm not suggesting any changes be made to the meaning of the format. Merely that the format be made to be readable by humans. A program can be written to automate the process.

This is easy but not trivial a 1st year student could do it. I know we had an assignment to do something
similar in 1st year.

Databases are a mathematical construct and follow rules. Not all databases have easy rules but it must have rules or it wouldn't be usable by Gib.

[steve2005]

Biggest problem knowing if Gibs bidding database can be converted is we don't know what the database is?
If it isn't a database but a combination of AI rules and data then could be a problem and not as useful.

If Gib database is part of the program as was common bad programing practise back then to get program faster. This would increase difficulty greatly.

[smerriman]

steve2005, on 2017-November-24, 10:44, said:

Biggest problem knowing if Gibs bidding database can be converted is we don't know what the database is?

We know what it used to look like a long long time ago; I doubt the format has changed much since then.

[steve2005]

smerriman, on 2017-November-24, 13:29, said:

We know what it used to look like a long long time ago; I doubt the format has changed much since then.

hard to know for sure. don't know what format the data is in or means.
But the early items in English look more like AI rules than a database. if is a set of rules it's not a database but an AI program
Also there are many function calls which means it's a program not a database

[nige1]

smerriman, on 2017-November-24, 13:29, said:

We know what it used to look like a long long time ago; I doubt the format has changed much since then.

Wow! Fascinating!

[idahodon]

I wonder if we could number our attempted bug reports; I just started playing online robot games a few months ago, since my club had to close; I've noticed a few bid-announcements that didn't seem to match or describe the hand held by my robot partner.

I finally got around to sending feedback but ran into a few obstacles. Firstly, the help system description to report a robot bug didn't work as advertised which I reported to BBO-Support and it is referenced as [rt.bridgebase.com #932852].

Secondly I wanted to report a Lebensohl-reply to a take-out-double of a weak-2 bid and the robot's reply to the 3C forced response said the robot's 2J's and singleton was 10-12 HCP's which seems to bit overstated. I took images useing MicroSoft Paint to publish the problem in report [rt.bridgebase.com #933035].

I finally requested updates after a week of waiting for a reply. Some poor volunteer tried to give me a pat on the head answer "If you have made a report, our programmers see it and among other problems they have they continuously make updates. We don't receive feedback about them." Therefore I gather that there is no need to report robot problems.

However if the readers of this forum subject started organizing them, we might be able to persuade the bbo brass to raise the priority, especially if the list of several items were sent to them monthly (weekly ?). I don't know if anyone wants to go back very far, but an item posted in 2016 with date of post or even the rt.bridgebase.com # could seem effective.

[pilowsky]

Agree

[nige1]

pilowsky, on 2020-September-11, 21:47, said:

Perhaps the programmers could start an active post/blog in the Forum that only they could post to explaining in real time what issues are being worked on with priority. Just a suggestion.

IMO

• BBO has few programmers and they are busy full-time, coping with scaling up BBO to meet new demands and implementing revenue-enhancing schemes.
• Matt Ginsberg, a brilliant AI guru, wrote clever succinct C code that new programmers would find hard to understand, even if they tried.
• There's not much point in implementing 1-off kludges to fix specific faults. Gib's heuristics are broken.
• GIB's bidding problems seem structural: its bidding module probably needs a complete rewrite, based on FD (Full Disclosure) principles, but using a more intuitive format, such as that implemented, years ago, by Kungsgeten.
• Such an update would allow Gib to play the systems and conventions that its human partners prefer.
• Gib would also be able to understand opponents methods, if presented in the standard format.
• Probably, even better would be to replace GIB with a modern bot like WBridge5.
• Although that would result in more complaints because modern bots would dominate most BBO players, even on low settings.
• In the short term, BBO should nominate an employee to take personal responsibility for robots (as JDonn did in the past).
• The named person could monitor this forum and update players with progress, if there is any.

[pilowsky]

nige1, on 2020-September-12, 02:40, said:

IMO

• BBO has few programmers and they are busy full-time, coping with scaling up BBO to meet new demands and implementing revenue-enhancing schemes.
• Matt Ginsberg, a brilliant AI guru, wrote clever succinct C code that new programmers would find hard to understand, even if they tried.
• There's not much point in implementing 1-off kludges to fix specific faults. Its heuristics need revision.
• GIB's bidding problems seem structural, however: its bidding module probably needs a complete rewrite, based on FD principles, but using a more intuitive format, such as that proposed, years ago, by Kungsgeten.
• Such an update would allow Gib to play the systems and conventions that its human partners prefer.
• Gib would also be able to understand opponents methods, if presented in the standard format.
• Probably, even better would be to replace GIB with a modern bot like WBridge5.
• Although that would result in more complaints because modern bots would dominate most BBO players, even on low settings.
• In the short term, BBO should nominate an employee to take personal responsibility for robots (as JDonn did in the past).
• The named person could monitor this forum and update players with progress, if there is any.

Items 9 and 10 are what I'm getting at. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with BBO. I'm sure it'll become perfect in the summer when the heat arrives. Like a miracle.