[Gerben42]

Tried out "real money" bridge yesterday. Is it me or has GIB gone worse? On first 3 hands it seemed to violate its own system files.

Hand 1:
GIB opens 1♥, his partner raises to 2. After 2 passes I balance with a double, GIB's partner redoubles. My partner passes and instead of sitting for it GIB now bids 2♠! and ends up down 1 in 3♥.

Hand 2: Gib holds ♠AK96 ♥84 ♦KJ63 ♣QJ6 and opens 1♦. I as partner bid 1NT and he now bids 2♣! At least the alert says 12 - 18, 4+4+ minors...

Hand 3: Gib holds ♠AJ964 ♥86 ♦6 ♣ AT543 and opens 1♠. Partner responds 2♠ and now he bids 2NT (unspecified short suit game try), apparently evaluating to 17-18 HCP.

What's going on?

This is btw in no way sour grapes (2 of the 3 boards described here went well for me) but I just think that it would be more enjoyable if at least GIB follows normal bidding rules

[CarlRitner]

What system is currently being used? This was debated but I don't remember seeing an announcement -- of course there might be a whole new forum for this topic and I wouldn't know.

The GIB explanations are generic text and are limited to simple lines; this is "full disclosure" at its' worst. Not stated to sling arrows, it's just the nature of the situation. GIB has a very wide range of overlap between bids and simulation can exaggerate this.

GIB is not getting worse, it's just luck of the draw as to what sort of deals will arise. Some of the auctions get to be humorous. That's worth something in the big picture, I would imagine.

Cheers,

Carl

[Gerben42]

I can understand hands like #1 where GIB was just puzzled by the auction, but hands 2 and 3 I really can't understand. These should be "book" bids so partner should be able to count on something.

[han]

Gerben, did you have GIB at its lowest speed? This makes a significant different in my experience.

[hrothgar]

Hannie, on Mar 25 2006, 07:37 PM, said:

Gerben, did you have GIB at its lowest speed? This makes a significant different in my experience.

Playing Money Bridge GIB executes on BBO's servers...
thought time is hard coded

[uday]

Time varies based on speed settings. Current settings are:

Fast: use book bidding, take approx 30 secs per hand
Medium: take approx 60 secs per hand
Slow: take approx 120 secs per hand


My take on this:

- you are fighting the human not the robot.

- I don't think this robot will ever bid like a human. Maybe someday we'll find one that does. Is there one out there that bids any better?

- if you are better at managing your bot than your opp, you will gain an edge

- practice in the fun room or rent a gib or whatever to learn more

- would a web page that asked gib what it would do given a hand and a preceding auction help ?

[CarlRitner]

1) What system approach are the GIBs set to use?

2) Are the human players supposed to (or required to) bid within the expected confines of the system? e.g. can I open 1NT on a different range than what the card says? I'm curious about that because GIB does at times.

3) What might help a lot of folks is a mini version of system notes for GIB. The convention card just barely scratches the surface of what guides GIB in the auction. This auction can be frustrating after the first few times...

GIB - oppo - Human - oppo

1NT - (pass) - 3NT - (pass)
4NT - (pass) - ???


Cheers,

Carl

[uday]

1) This is what we know about GIBs system

http://online.bridge...ystem_notes.php


2) You're playing for your own money; you can open 1N with 3 HCP if you wish. Of course, your robot partner is also playing with your money. There are no alerts, no need to answer questions about your own bids. Time will tell whether it is smarter to pitch, catch, play down the middle, try to hose the opps robot, whatever.

3) It would be nice to know what GIB thinks your bid means before you make it. If it is feasible, i'll try to construct a FD card for it.


I will reiterate. This is not Meckstroth. It is a robot. Use it to beat up upon your human opponent. Don't get hung up on whether it sucks, is crazy, whatever. If you do, dont play it for real money, or you might be frustrated. If you like it, use it. If you do not like it, do not use it.

[AceOfHeart]

I think most people would nt expect gib to bid like an expert, but no one will expect it to bid/play like an idiot(not meant to offend anyone) like it does at times.

I will think even at fastest speed it shouldnt like mess up simple auctions like
1♦1NT2♣ or 1nt 3nt. Yet when i tried playing with gib even at slowest speed it sometimes make illogical bids and play.

didnt play with a gib for REAL money yet, did a few times for fun money and the results is horrifying at times. + i just have -60 imps in a few boards playing with gib vs 2 RL opps.

well the compansating factor is that my opps suffer from the same horrors too, however it seems that gib only screws up when i have the points. guess it hates me.

[JohnnyH7]

The 2C bid over 1N is not as ridiculous as it seems btw. Assuming the 1N bid denies a 4 card major, the only time you will not have a minor suit fit is if partner is 3334. In all other cases you will have an 8 card minor suit fit and just xx of hearts opposite 2-3 hearts with partner, a suit they may easily run. Also gibs hand was very suit oriented, and if he ended in 2C in a 4-3 he was fine with that. I would not be shocked if 2C was a long term winning bid.

Making a game try with the 9 count gib had is also not hopeless, albeit most likely a long term loser. Especially if you have 4 spades, gibs hand is very bid, and even if you have only 3 spades some hands that you can have make game. While it is probably an inferior bid, I've seen much worse.

As for gib pulling to 2S in front of the redoubler, if he had a shortness somewhere and was not willing to sit for a double in that suit 2S may well be a good bid. Sort of a "delayed" game try, if partner has the magic fit in spades game now be on.

Keep an open mind. One of the great things about the bids gib makes is they do not come with any biases that humans have. Like uday implied, you both have to play with a bot. These things will average out in the long term, and if you learn how to handle the bot you will have a huge edge. Knowing how to handle partner is always a critical skill.

[CarlRitner]

Thank you, Uday, for answering my questions.

Cheers,
Carl

[Gerben42]

Maybe it just needs getting used to. I usually don't play with "clients" as I am a Ph.D. student and not a bridge professional (I don't even know if there would be a market here for people paying me to play with them or if I would like to).

Thanks for the responses, btw I am still in favour of the human declaring all hands. This is good to increase the edge of the stronger player which means you can win more relative to the rake.

[cherdano]

Hmm.
1) Yeah, I have also seen silly bidding after a redouble.
2) Maybe he was kibitzing ritong too much
3) The hand looks suit oriented, and 2C has an excellent chance of being an 8-card fit. I don't think it is that silly.

Arend

[Gerben42]

3) The hand looks suit oriented, and 2C has an excellent chance of being an 8-card fit. I don't think it is that silly.

What happened is that opponents now competed to 2♥ and as partner I had to choose a minor at the 3-level on 2344 and got it wrong. Now ♣ were 3-3 anyway and although 3♣ was making it was down in the middle of the hand but in the end I got +110 anyway. Exciting stuff!

Hand 1 my balancing double was probably not that good. But knowing how GIB likes to mess up I made it anyway, that worked out nicely.

Hand 2 was the bad one for me. I raised to 4♠ and got doubled. This apparently made GIB nervous and he went two off instead of one.

[barmar]

Gerben42, on Mar 27 2006, 07:15 AM, said:

3) The hand looks suit oriented, and 2C has an excellent chance of being an 8-card fit. I don't think it is that silly.

What happened is that opponents now competed to 2♥ and as partner I had to choose a minor at the 3-level on 2344 and got it wrong. Now ♣ were 3-3 anyway and although 3♣ was making it was down in the middle of the hand but in the end I got +110 anyway. Exciting stuff!

If he'd passed your 1NT the opponents probably still would have competed. I'm not sure how you got it wrong -- you generally expect the first bid suit to be at least as long as the second suit, so 3♦ seems like the obvious bid. I'm not sure what GIB's opening style is when it has a minimum opener with 4♦ 5♣ -- does it open 1♦ to avoid having to bid an off-shape 1NT?

[awm]

A few comments about GIB:

(1) GIB does a lot of hand evaluation things via simulation. If the time is set too fast, GIB will generate too few random hands to have an accurate sample, and may do things that are a bit "off." The game try on the 5-5 nine-count is a typical example of this. While it'd be nice if GIB could think long enough to avoid this problem, I don't think the occasional pushy game try is that big of a deal when both players will see it from their GIB partner.

(2) The more pressing concern is that GIB often has big issues interpreting doubles and redoubles. I suspect that many of these do not mean (to GIB) what they mean to the rest of us. I remember having auctions against GIB where one pair would freely bid to 4♠ in a slow auction, the other side would double (for penalty), partner would pull to 5♥ which the first side then doubles for penalty, after which the spade-bidding side pulls to 5♠.... all in all GIB can have a lot of trouble leaving penalty doubles in.

[CarlRitner]

It's possible GIB doesn't make any doubles that are purely for penalty. It seems to me they are almost all cooperative, in that partner will always evaluate the pros and cons of sitting or pulling, and GIB does like to bid.

Carl

[Rain]

http://bridgebase04.bridgebase.com:81/mb/m...391-93-~~M7-6-6

[Gerben42]

I tried again and found that I must've had bad luck in a way (hands not fit for GIB) or my opponent chose wrong setting for GIB the first time I played Real Money Bridge...

[inquiry]

If you are playing with you money you don't want to play with GIB set to FAST... you can see the GIB setting before joining the table.