[cloa513]

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Second hand in a recent Solitaire tournament but GIB couldn't open the hand as 3S. Any ideas?

[smerriman]

It's a known gap in GIB's database. It used to open this 3♠, but BBO changed the logic for preempts in 2017 to be "much more in line with what most bridge players would expect" [sic ]

In doing so, they introduced a gap where it won't bid 3♠ here due to it having 10 HCP, but also independently fails its original rules for opening at the 1 level which require more total points (it thinks it has 11, since it adds one for the diamond doubleton only; it requires 13 to open a 10 HCP hand 1♠).

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2023-March-04, 14:12, said:

It's a known gap in GIB's database. It used to open this 3♠, but BBO changed the logic for preempts in 2017 to be "much more in line with what most bridge players would expect" [sic ]

In doing so, they introduced a gap where it won't bid 3♠ here due to it having 10 HCP, but also independently fails its original rules for opening at the 1 level which require more total points (it thinks it has 11, since it adds one for the diamond doubleton only; it requires 13 to open a 10 HCP hand 1♠).

J "done and gone" ?

[smerriman]

Not 100% sure what you mean, if you're asking about the value of Jx, its formula for total points is HCP + 1 per doubleton, 2 per singleton, 3 per void, minus 1 for each short suit containing an honor. So you can say it adds an extra point for Jx and Kx, but subtracts them both off again.

[pescetom]

I was thinking about Jdonn, who I understood was responsible for the 2016-17 "improvement" of GiB (my apologies to him if not).