IAC Forums
Organised Chaos! => IAC Matters => Topic started by: ian84 on April 06, 2018, 11:26:47 PM
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Hi,
As its quite the thing these days to enter a tourney with a Robot partner, I've created the BBO-ID Robert_Bot so that the IAC Admin can allocate Monsterpoints to Robot partners going forward. I tried Ro_Bott but unfortunately BBO had it covered. This all depends, of course, on Grant Griffin approving him as a new IAC member. NO BBO logins, no hand records...its not looking too good for the poor chap.
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Welcome Robert_Bot. I knew your grandfather from the comic books of the 1940s.
See
http://www.toonopedia.com/robotmn1.htm
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I knew his other Grandfather, who I thought was known as Robbie the Robot from Lost in Space, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Space)
;D ;D ;D
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With so many players having Mr Robert for p, they'd soon lead Hall of Fame for Monster Points.
So, ty - but no TY ;) Mr Robert has been rejected from IAC!
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Its not often that Robbie does well in these events so, I really don't see him earning worryingly large numbers of points. Also I believe we can restrict him to the lowest Monster point division
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The pain of rejection.
Otoh, I do see the point. I imagine the bot will survive.
I play a fair amount in the BBO robot tournaments. There are three bots and me at the table, the competition is against others who are doing the same at other tables. I have found this enjoyable. I wondered a bit about playing with a bot when other tables have four humans, but eventually I decided that if the tourney is set up to allow bots then why not do it?
All in all, I prefer the company of humans. The problem is that online, in both IAC and more generally on BBO, there are no agreed upon meanings for even the most basic bidding sequences and this gets a little (or more than a little) frustrating. The Gib system is at http://www.bridgebase.com/doc/gib_system_notes.php (a decent if incomplete write up) and however good it is or isn't, at least bot and I are on the same page. Well, most of the time.
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As a one-time professional computer programmer, I've always had some sympathy for them, and always make a point of talking to them...eg, wpp and ntp. I'm convinced they respond to my chat by playing better :)
I'm forever being asked, when you're playing in one of my tournies 'Surely Ken wants a real partner......put me in'. I can almost feel the funny looks I get when I gently explain to them that you've been playing with a Robot partner for a while, and perhaps you like it like that.
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With so many players having Mr Robert for p, they'd soon lead Hall of Fame for Monster Points.
So, ty - but no TY ;) Mr Robert has been rejected from IAC!
Did you not take into account that I am recommending him to the club as my friend?
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As a one-time professional computer programmer, I've always had some sympathy for them, and always make a point of talking to them...eg, wpp and ntp. I'm convinced they respond to my chat by playing better :)
I'm forever being asked, when you're playing in one of my tournies 'Surely Ken wants a real partner......put me in'. I can almost feel the funny looks I get when I gently explain to them that you've been playing with a Robot partner for a while, and perhaps you like it like that.
My fascination with playing with bots is recent and probably temporary. far and away the best thing about playing with the bots is that we are both playing the same system. This is both pleasant and educational. When something goes wrong, instead of arguing with partner about whose bid meant what I sit down and try to see how I might have done better. Of course some bad results are due to an unlucky lie of the cards, just as some good results are due to a lucky lie of the cards. But more often than not, judgment determines the result. Or at least that's so if you and partner are on the same page about what bids mean.
I'll probably return to the human fold in the not too distant future. As Anita says in West Side Story "Stick to your own kind".
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There's a good justification there for everyone to familiarise themselves with the GIB Card and perhaps adopting it with partners that know it too. I've also only recently come across the IAC standard card developed by Joe Garcia which also seems like a very good idea.
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I am sure Mr Roboot wont be slightly disturbed by IAC rejection. And let me be frank, my BEST friend in bridge world is JACK, the bridge software. I love bots, they do own thing, bear with my mistakes and never yell back.
Yet, joke aside, as you'll hear from Pam when she is back, and in no few words ( 8)), we wont encourage parding bots. Just coz BBO does it, and creates dozens of bot venues as bingos, bots this and that, etc, they r all commercial, their need to survive so they can let rest of us play with humans that err, which we hate and love.
So, for time being, as Ian says, we strongly recommend use of Joe's "IAC standard card" https://tinyurl.com/y9jgnhpm , or, very soon to come BWS which Todd (Masse24) is working on now. I'll post link when available.
Bye bye Robert_Bot.
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An important point about Bridge World Standard, the bot write-up, and Joe's write-up is that they are not in complete agreement. That's no surprise of course but worth noting.
The simple auction 1NT - 2 !C - 2 !D - 2 !H will illustrate my point.
BWS treats this as weak with both majors.
The bots treat this as as invitational strength with 5 hearts and 4 spades
Joe says invit, but notes that he thinks weak is better.
All three treat 1NT - 2 !C - 2 !D - 2 !S as invitational.
There are other cases where the split is more dramatic. 1m - 2M, whatsit? Many on BBO would say a weak jump shift. The bots treat it as a Soloway jump shift (strong, with specific rules about follow-up). BWS? "A jump-shift to the two-level is limited with majors if two of a major (five-plus spades, four-plus hearts, game-invitational if two spades, weaker than game-invitational if two hearts)".
How about after a 2 !C opening? BWS plays 2 !D as waiting (that is also my preference). I could not find 2 !C - 2 !D in the Gib write-up (the write-up is definitely incomplete) but I can tell you from experience that the bots treat it as waiting. Joe treats it as showing at least a K. DaveG uses this "at least a K" approach and in one of his lessons he noted the following. 2 !C - 2 !D - 2NT should now be forcing. Opener has a big hand, responder has at least a K, so treat 2NT as forcing. Since I prefer a waiting 2 !D I had never given that any thought, but it makes sense. It has consequences. (This is now me, don't blame Dave) For example, the auction 2 !C - 2 !D - 2NT - 3NT - 4NT is now a possibility. Since 2NT is forcing, opener is in no danger of being passed. Responder raises 2NT to 3NT and opener, with a truly huge NT hand, invites 6 by bidding 4NT. How huge is "truly huge"? Those who play 2 !D as a positive response might want to discuss that. Assuming that they agree with Dave that 2 !C - 2 !D - 2NT is unconditionally forcing.
Anyway, there are a variety of ways of playing some pretty basic sequences. This who think that whatever way they play a sequence is "standard" should re-think that view. I learned bridge by reading Goren. Everyone played Goren. The world has moved on since then. Good or bad, it has moved on.
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Ken did you ever see anyone that play Solomon strong jumpshifts except the bots? I have not.
The 3 systems definately differ, and big time. But if we keep pointing to both Joe's sheet, and sheet that Todd will make, it will be so easy for our members to agree on system and carding, if they happen to pard in trny, match or at simple table.
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I play strong jump shifts with my f2f partner, he prefers them. Since he likes strong jump shifts (I have no strong feelings one way or the other) I have tried to interest him in going all the way on this and playing Soloway (not Solomon, despite his wisdom) jump shifts but no luck so far, he likes to keep it simple.We got a decent board the other day after 1 !C - 2 !H - 3 !H. Not everyone found the !H slam. I think that I have seen Soloway jump shifts while watching vugraph, I am not positive. What I have not seen in action is the BWS way of playing 1m-2M.
Did Todd really commit to putting all of BWS on a sheet? It would be quite an effort. I have seen what he did with the auctions that begin with 1NT or 2NT, it's a very nice format. The bids are no different though (and shouldn't be, it's BWS), so there is no need to wait if people want to go that route.
The critical part is for people to decide if they want to do it. So far I have not seen much enthusiasm. I understand a lack of enthusiasm for bridge. My wife Becky once thought maybe she might want to learn. She spent a couple of hours reading the BBO "Learn to play Bridge" notes and decided against it. She enjoys hiking, she teaches and takes yoga, she is the organizer of a book club, she has a number of interests but she looked over the bridge notes and decided no. Maybe later. The maybe later was about ten years ago. She plays other games online, just not bridge. So I understand if someone says no. But we can hope that some will say yes.
Getting back to Soloway jump shifts for a moment I recall Mike Lawrence saying some nice things about them. He was comparing 1 !C - 2 !H with what happens after 1 !C - 1 !H - 1 !S. He pointed out that you then have to bid 2 !D, after which you have to convince partner that you do have hearts, you don't have diamonds, you have very good hearts not just some five card suit, you have much more than a minimal game force, and you are interested in a heart slam. 1 !C - 2 !H gets all of that, or at least most of that, said at once. Of course Soloway and Lawrence were both part of the Dallas Aces so they may have had a common way of thinking.
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Ken - is there a way to access what Todd has already done on BWS? I would love to see it. Thanks!
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Ken - is there a way to access what Todd has already done on BWS? I would love to see it. Thanks!
I will send a link to you on your bbo mail.
Imo it is in fine shape right now but Todd was hoping I would proofread it and I have been lazy. He might not want it up in public yet, at any rate that's his choice. But I feel confident he would be happy to have another pair of eyes look it over. So I will send you the link. I think you will like it. The idea of holding off on general publication until he gets some private checking and response is understandable.
PS Time for me to get my act, together.. I will look it over with care tomorrow, and then I expect very soon we could encourage Todd to put the link up for everyone. In many ways, putting up the NT auctions, already a substantial amount but less than the whole monster, might be exactly right. People could look at it, I think they would say "Yeah, I can do that" and then if that works well for them they could think of trying the whole gulp. Maybe not the 1m-2M thing. I really never heard of that before.
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The Wily Coyote is currently proof-reading Todd's first document and it will probably be released soon. I think more docs are due to follow.
As far as putting it all into a spreadsheet, that will probably take some considerable work and time. I think Todd feels that its doable, but it will require some skilful Excel programming. I have offered to help him, though my own Excel skills will probably need to be upgraded to be of much use to him.
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The 1m-2M thing is called 'Umjoomo" - Unusual Major Jump Over One Minor Opening (Reverse Flannery responses). Some play it just over a diamond opening in which case it is dubbed "Umjoodo". I play it with one partner - invitational hands.
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The 1m-2M thing is called 'Umjoomo" - Unusual Major Jump Over One Minor Opening (Reverse Flannery responses). Some play it just over a diamond opening in which case it is dubbed "Umjoodo". I play it with one partner - invitational hands.
Consider the auctions
Auction A:
1 !C - 2 !H
Auction B:
1 !C - 2 !S
At least in BWS these both show 5+ spades and 4+ hearts, so one of them needs to be stronger than the other.
BWS Section H: "A jump-shift to the two-level is limited with majors if two of a major (five-plus spades, four-plus hearts, game-invitational if two spades, weaker than game-invitational if two hearts), strong [see section G, above, for requirements] if two diamonds."
So B is invit, A is weaker than invit. I take this to mean that opener should pass.correct or, if needed because of extreme shape, he could rebid his minor. He should only rarely raise hearts even if he has four. Presumably sometimes he would do so.
Of course we also have
Auction C:
1 !C - 1 !S
2 !C - 2 !H
The meaning is covered in Section I: "(b) a third-suit non-reverse at the two-level is forcing for one round, and responder may pass if opener bids two of responder's first suit or three of opener's suit;"
Yes, may pass. But maybe not often. Bids that cannot be passed are potentially stronger than bids that cannot be passed. Here a pass is possible in both A and B, but not in C.
Auction A allows us to play in 2 !H: 1 !C - 2 !H - Pass. Neither auction B nor auction C allows us to play in 2 !H since in B we are already at 2 !S and in C the 2 !H is forcing for one round. But both B and C allow us to play in 2 !S.
But. Since C is forcing for one round, responder can use this route when he is strong, even very strong as long as we are on the same page that C is absolutely forcing for one round. This does not mean that C always will be very strong, but it could be.
So what I get from BWS is that B is invit, A is basically pass/correct but raise maybe sometimes, and C is forcing and thus potentially quite strong.
The work in writing up something for BWS is not just the work of a spreadsheet. There is the preliminary work of understanding what they are saying. It's not exactly that they aren't clear, it's more that there are a lot of things going on so it just inherently requires effort. No way around that.
This post illustrates a view of mine. I play bridge a decent amount. maybe an indecent amount, but I have no thought of someday playing in the Reisinger. Not beyond the first round or two anyway. In practice this means I am up for trying to at least partially understand and adopt a fairly extensively documented system such as BWS, but creating a system from scratch is more than I want to do. A bridge too far, I guess you could say. I enjoy the game, I sometimes enjoy hammering out agreements, but I have a strong tendency to look to a standard write-up, one that has been around for a while and worked over, and just say "Let's do that".
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As an ex computer programmer, I'm very much in favour of clear and extensive documentation, something I saw very rarely saw in my professional career :(. So I'm looking forward very much to seeing what Todd comes up with. If you know Fazzoola, you might be interested to see the documentation of his home developed system, known as Galwood. I think his website is www.galwood.com. I was good friends with him in the BIL and he asked me to join his team to iron out the wrinkles of the system about 3 years ago. I was too busy to devote much time to it, so declined and subsequently Lioncub took the lead position. Both Alan (lioncub) and Fazz's partner died soon afterwards and I've only recently seen Fazz being active again.
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I don't know fazoola. Or at least I didn't, and I have not yet played it.
Do I think it is good. Or bad? I can see how using 1 !C - 2 !H in that way could be useful. But I can also see why weak jump shifts are useful, why Soloway jump shifts are useful and so on. In my ideal world, people who have not played together would, when plating in a tourney, say "BWS pard?" " Ok." What actually happens is they say "2/1 pard?" "ok" and then they each play 2/1 as they understand it, often they have different, maybe very different, understandings. If, after "BWS pard?" " Ok. ", they start to play together with any regularity, one or the other might say "I really prefer Soloway jump shits to fazoola, what do you say we change it?" and then they do or don't change it. But until they have this conversation, the meaning of 1 !C - 2 !H, and a good many other bids, has been set by the simple interchange "BWS pard?" " Ok."
So now, having read this approach to 1 !C - 2 !H, I am prepared for this aspect of BWS. It really doesn't matter all that much to me whether that is the optimal use for the sequence. Just so we have pretty much the same idea of the meaning.
But it did take a little pondering to sort out exactly what was being advocated for various sequences when responder has five spades and four hearts.
To push my point just a bit more. I think 90 % or so of my bad results are due to making a bad choice. At most 10% are due to not playing some super system. So my thought is to play something reasonable that someone else has largely debugged (nothing is perfect but there certainly are degrees of imperfection) and then try to concentrate on making good choices. BWS seems like a candidate. I have never played it to any large degree, but it was designed to accommodate people who wish to fairly quickly get some substantial agreement and then to start playing the cards. Sounds right.
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The 1m-2M thing is called 'Umjoomo" - Unusual Major Jump Over One Minor Opening (Reverse Flannery responses). Some play it just over a diamond opening in which case it is dubbed "Umjoodo". I play it with one partner - invitational hands.
I woke up in the middle of the night with the thought: How does this impact agreements after 1m-1 !S -1NT? I think that it would have a substantial effect.
BWS is not very explicit about the strength of the 1m-2 !H and 1m - 2 !S responses but net browsing suggests that with 5=4 the 1m-2 !H is about 6-10 hcps and 1m - 2 !S about 11-12. This would mean that after 1m - 1 !S -1NT responder does not have five spades and four hearts unless he also has game forcing values, since with less the auction would have begun 1m-2M. Surely that has an effect on how we proceed over 1m - 1 !S - 1NT .
For example: 1 !D - 1 !S - 1NT - 2 !H. The absolutely standard meaning is the responder has five spades, four hearts, and a modest han opener should pass/correct, only very rarely raise hearts. But if responder has five spades, four hearts and a modest hand why did he not bid 2 !H over 1 !D? So there appears to be something undiscussed going on in this simple auction.
A hope I have for BWS, or any published system, is that the people who wrote it up have thought through the various interactions of the conventions that they recommend. Given the stature of Bridge World I would expect them to have done this. I am getting a little skeptical but I am cautious about drawing too many conclusions.
Added: I raised this issue on the BBO Forum
http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/78539-bridge-world-standard-2017/page__gopid__949355#entry949355
Phil Clayton gave a useful response. There might well be others.