[lackeman]

Hi all!
This have been a "mystery" for me for a long time (20 years or so).For about 25 years ago (when I was around 20 years old) I played some chess (I was Ok but not as good that I wanted and further what I had expected to be. I started around 17 age and trained and played wery much (every day many ours) for about 2-3 years.. I noticed a fast improvment say for about 6-12 month but after that i dont think i developed much if not att all. Also I didnt like the game so much i know understand and when I were playing "match for ex 2 hour per player" i had problem to concentrate thinking It was wery boring.. So after about 2-3 years i compleatly quit with chessgame. Whith bridge it was different, I started learning the game playing with mother, grandmother and sister... We were sitting often to 4 am playing and I realy enjoyed that.. Then we didnt playing competitions and playing wery simple and (there was in principal nothing we couldd about "theory" playing teknik situation, further the bidding was strong two and the only unnatural bid was gerber and after some years stayman. All 2 were strong. Playing say from I was 7 to 15, then We stopped for some reason. After quit chess when about 20 years I met a friend that tellinng me about bridge, he played in a club. Then I were "restart" bridgeplay. Learning "normal bridge". It was much to study and understand, reading bridgebooks. I liked that. for ex "solving" problems etc... Here I noticed after some years that I still develloped and that this we can call it "curve for learning" stil were following uppwards. This was for me a mystery, I had my "experience" of "chess", and also i did "athletics" and here I stopped develloped( at leaste it were obvious that it was a "stagnation" for me)... So if I worked hard for a long time in those areas/"games" it would not leading to any progress or only a little..
After I played for about 8 years (getting better all the time) some personal things changed (were moving, family, the work more alkohol; and I also wanted a "better" partner) i stoped playing. for about 10 years i didnt play, having much other thing to do. Got in the end depressed and finally "broke down".
Now since about 3-4 years i have started again plaing more and more and love the game.. This time I will not quit w bridge!!I love this game!!
Well about computer then.. I have played much last 2 years against computer (around 25-30 k hands) and I feel i have un advantage and they do often misstakes that ii think we can call "beginnnermisstakes"... In some situation and for some aspects they do well for example in endgaming in defence they seldom misses unblocking killing squeezes and having count at cards and some other strong caracteristics for the machines.. (i have only played little at BBO GIB computer but they seames to be not as good as they a play against.. I play mostley at "funbridge" there every human allways play w 3 computers and the results (the boards) are compered individually giving a u can say "rating" a skill levell as individual player.. I think this is a extreamley exact way to meassure the skill.. But there is differences comparing to "normal play".. No "dummy" for example playing all declerer play.. Further the avarage hand is better than "statistical" so that approxamatley 2/3 of the bord is declearer play and abauuot 1/3 is defence.. So it is more "decision/hand", and further it is MP so most things matters and also there is often possible to find a little better playingideas...After a time i think moast player will notice som weakness at the computer.. For example their carding is wery stereotyped(they only discard for length, standard carding)... For ex If i decleare and have Axx on hand and KQTx at "table"... If i play K and A and when leading towards the KT if computer to the left carding high, low and now he play a third h (ie he has 3 or 4) and thhe computer to right also has disc high low then a finesse with the T is 100% sure to work.. and if they play low, high both then it is 100 % sure they have 3-3.. I think they have to do this kind of play (whitch is wery bad for their scores) to give themselfes information they needed for their defenceplay..there are more of things like this they do that leads to mor tricks very often for the human.. For ex if they have Q in a suit and we got A,K,J,T,9 and some xes... When playing the J they cover w the Q if they have it.(allmoast allways). Then this leads to finding the Q or for ex we can play for Qx in some situations... So on... Then and this thing i think that u all have "suspected" is that they have "inferior common sense in the bidding", Lackinng of judgement in many situations leading to bad contracts some time.. and they cant be aware of some situations this situations specific caracteristics and take advantage of them.. The human way of for exampel think in a bidding situations can be influenced of many factors and isolated they may not be a reason to anything "out of system, of the book" but when they are present and in combined they may be a good reason to do somethin that is out of normal bidding/playing..When human does something onorthodox one have to take in to that that the computer dont understand our way to think and therfore it will missunderstand/do misstake in cardvalue and play analysis so on..
In some way a human can understand better how the computer "think" than a computer can understand our way of thinking. And this is a very important factor for sucess in the game of cauuse...
Well there is much more to say to describe the computer (and much that i dont know get or may never know or can putting "wordds at"..
When playing for 20 years ago I had a "teacher"/"mentor for our team" and i asked him why computer is so bad in bridge... For me there seamed then bridge was so extreamly more simple... For example it was often "obvious how to play a problem hand best way" atleaste after u got the solution... If compare w chess for ex is it best to play king pawn 2 step in first move in chess... Situations like this whitch i didnt find in bridge.. But he said that for him this wasnt so strange but i couldnt understand that or his argument.. This was when computer beat "worldchamp kasparov" and this was at that timme when computer was "primitive" as u all know compare w today for example... Faster better att other ways, develloping tecnology.

annyway for mabye 6 month ago i sort of got un understanding and un explanation of this.. In chess u can jump in say in move 30 and IT DOESENT MATTER WHAT HAPPENED ERLIER in the game... Say u jump in in a board after 5 cards have been played (ie there has been observation, information has been given).. As u know this is very important to correctley "observe" what has happened and out of that we can build for ex a playplan/un idea of how to play...And we can also have very good guesses on for the lie of the cards based on our analysis of that information given... Now comes the problem for the computer can not take in this in this and use this information... Value it... Priority... Cant have som muce use of it that human brain can...This i mean is beacauuse the "structure on computer, ie the athoms, mollecules DIFFER FROM BRAIN STRUKTURE... Our brain has evolve to MASTER that we "observe in nature" and use this information (whitch is comming in to brain via the senses, eye, ear, feeling)... We are we can say more "adopted" to things that happened around us than a computer and also (and that has evolved for millions of years) we react perfect on that "stimuli" so we "value"/can judge and also take consideration to "everything" and let those seperate information influence our theorys/idees so that the thought that is "the endproduct" is WAY billlions more advanced and complex than a computer now and for all future...
If compare w chess in a "position" it doesnt matter and the "right play, move has in principle nothing to to with what has happened erlier in the game"..It is a analysis based on some "algoritmlike procedures",, That means it is a "fantasy of probabilitys and different possibilitys and rules"...
Thx for me, would be interesting to hear your experiences and thoughts about this..

[jogs]

http://www.whatgames...eterminism.html

Chess is a deterministic game. Bridge is a non-deterministic game.
No luck in chess.

[Zelandakh]

jogs, on 2015-March-27, 07:53, said:

Chess is a deterministic game. Bridge is a non-deterministic game.

What is more important is that chess is a game of perfect information. I suspect this is really what you mean here. More than that, the investment in producing chess computers dwarfs that of bridge completely - the involvement of Kasparov, for example, allowed huge leaps forward to be made in positional evaluation. With enough investment I suspect it would easily be possible to create a computer that could play bridge at a world class standard. The economics of it do not make that likely to happen any time soon though.

[WesleyC]

Are you also a computer? Please respond 1 for yes and 0 for no.

[helene_t]

Zelandakh, on 2015-March-27, 08:40, said:

With enough investment I suspect it would easily be possible to create a computer that could play bridge at a world class standard. The economics of it do not make that likely to happen any time soon though.

Jack already plays at a level very close to World class. Some ten years ago, Jack played team matches against several Dutch top pairs and over-all roughly broke even.

It's a bit difficult to compare the performance because of issues with getting the computer to understand the disclosure of its human opps.

I think this is quite remarkable given how difficult it must be for a computer to play bridge. A big part of the game is to exploit opps' weakness. While in chess you can probably come a long way assuming that opps don't make mistakes (within a certain planning horizon), I would think that it is essential, even at elite level, to anticipate errors by opps and by partner.

But maybe I am wrong about this.

[NickRW]

lackeman, on 2015-March-27, 05:26, said:

..there are more of things like this they do that leads to mor tricks very often for the human.. For ex if they have Q in a suit and we got A,K,J,T,9 and some xes... When playing the J they cover w the Q if they have it.(allmoast allways). Then this leads to finding the Q

This is a flaw in the way the computer reasons. The computer defender "knows" that declarer will finesse because the defender knows that the finesse is going to work - or at least is what the double dummy analysis shows. Of course, from the point of view of the declarer, it is not known that the finesse will work, but the idiot computer defender has found the Q for declarer anyway on the off chance that partner has the 10.

It is worse than that. Dummy may have AKJx and declarer's RHO has Qx. The defender "knows" that declarer will play for the drop offside, so, when on lead, sees nothing wrong with leading the suit!

The remedy is to do the DD analysis for declarer's actions from the point of view of declarer, given only what declarer knows, not what the defender knows. I don't think GIB does that. Not sure about the other robots out there.

Nick

[Dinarius]

I've used Jack as a sparring partner for a number of years and it's fantastic. It's very strong.

Also, input the most difficult double squeeze, double dummy problem you can find and it will provide the solution in literally a blink of an eye. My point is that it will tell you how you should have defended/declared any hand you give it.

In short, it's vastly stronger than me and just about anyone else I play with/against.

As implied above in the point about the openness of chess, Bridge is a game of inference - who must have what based on what they've bid or played.

Inference is something that computers don't do well. But, they count flawlessly. ��

D.

[blackshoe]

WesleyC, on 2015-March-27, 09:37, said:

Are you also a computer? Please respond 1 for yes and 0 for no.

Would you like to play… a game?

[Fluffy]

NickRW, on 2015-March-27, 09:56, said:

This is a flaw in the way the computer reasons. The computer defender "knows" that declarer will finesse because the defender knows that the finesse is going to work - or at least is what the double dummy analysis shows. Of course, from the point of view of the declarer, it is not known that the finesse will work, but the idiot computer defender has found the Q for declarer anyway on the off chance that partner has the 10.

It is worse than that. Dummy may have AKJx and declarer's RHO has Qx. The defender "knows" that declarer will play for the drop offside, so, when on lead, sees nothing wrong with leading the suit!

The remedy is to do the DD analysis for declarer's actions from the point of view of declarer, given only what declarer knows, not what the defender knows. I don't think GIB does that. Not sure about the other robots out there.

Nick

Yes but you have to do it for every trick, not just current and next. If you do single dummy analysis for every player you will get to perfect card play, if you can involve defender's signals. However single dummy analysis requires a lot more computation.

[Fluffy]

Zelandakh, on 2015-March-27, 08:40, said:

What is more important is that chess is a game of perfect information. I suspect this is really what you mean here. More than that, the investment in producing chess computers dwarfs that of bridge completely - the involvement of Kasparov, for example, allowed huge leaps forward to be made in positional evaluation. With enough investment I suspect it would easily be possible to create a computer that could play bridge at a world class standard. The economics of it do not make that likely to happen any time soon though.

Bridge has one advantage over chess though: It has a definite ending. Chess doesn't.

[Dinarius]

Fluffy, on 2015-March-28, 03:40, said:

Bridge has one advantage over chess though: It has a definite ending. Chess doesn't.

I played chess for years before I took up bridge.

In chess, you can be defending (and hoping) a lost position for two hours, and still lose.

In bridge, if you make a total %^&*& of a hand, another comes along in 5-10 minutes.

That is bridge's huge appeal over chess, for me.

D.

[jogs]

Fluffy, on 2015-March-28, 03:40, said:

Bridge has one advantage over chess though: It has a definite ending. Chess doesn't.

It's actually the other way around. Chess is a deterministic game. That means either 1) white always wins, 2) black always wins, or 3) it is always a draw. Bridge is a probabilistic game. In a 7 board match lucky beginners can beat world champions.

Chess does have a time period. Chess uses the clock. Each player must make x number of moves within a certain time period.

Bridge has been reluctant to penalize slow players. And when there are questions, which side should be charged the time?

[Zelandakh]

jogs, on 2015-March-28, 11:51, said:

It's actually the other way around.

You misunderstand. Gonzalo is making the point that bridge has a maximum number of "moves" whereas a chess game can be of almost any length. It is effectively limited only by the 50 move rule.

[lackeman]

The most important things that matters here is that chess is analysed from the actual position and WHAT HAPPENED earlier in the game dos not matter and dont influence what "the best move is". Say you had to decide what to do in ex move 40, IF u played spainish opening or ex IF u open d4-d6,sf3 or what ever that doesnt matter and isnt affekt or is a what so ever "reason"/"argument" for the move we will do (ie the best move we can find).
In bridge we have a "history" of things happened and that "history" shall be consider and more or less be grund/reason of what we do(what card,what Idea, our cardreading..or our bidding). That information (observations) is important to react on in a adeqate Way and this Will lead to the bid/play we Will then do.
To "take in information and "evaluate" it, that is the brain capabör to do. And "registrate" everything that happened, give it "priority" and then decide the right to do.
The computer cant do this there is no logaritm for that, this capacity lies in our "human structure". Our brain structures(atoms,mollecules, cellorder, neutrons etc).
So eaven that IT is Way not as many "possibillitys" in bridge the game is dependent at human qualitys such as "senses" and "judgement".
In bridge IT is Way less such factors that influence our thinking, and that is the reason and IT also points out how complicated our thinking is and also how superior human brain is compared with the computer!
In "irrelevant" activitys we are thus "protected" to use our brain "wrongly", that we can understand not what "someone else say to us" or eaven what we "want to understand" but what we need to understand for "feal good,for continuate to exist and develloped as a speacis". IT is confermed by the fact that we exist and that is a goal also in our "structure". To respond/react at the environment is a "abillity" that must be mastered by brain.
Respons "adeqate" at what happened around us that means. IT is autistic not to be "aware" and take in and "value" what we take in Witherspoon our senses.
IF we follow "rules" "guidelines" then whe are machines locking at a stereotyped Way and the brain is not used practically att all.

[Zelandakh]

lackeman, on 2015-March-31, 01:07, said:

<some rubbish>

So you put up the question only to share your 'insight' with us? When the computer was invented it could do only one thing - there was no "logaritm" for anything else.

Another example, back in the day when Europeans were discovering other civilisations they tried to assess their intelligence. One way they did this was to construct a memory game using ordinary everyday objects. The scientists observed that Western control subjects performed better and concluded that they were therefore more intelligent. Some time later, another group repeated the experiment but added a second one using everyday objects from the other culture. The results for the household objects were identical but those for the new experiment gave the reverse result. The "higher intelligence" turned out to be only familiarity.

The same was once true of chess computers. It was doubted that a computer could ever match the "superior" human brain. You have to be very careful with assigning "superiority". Bridge is at a similar point. Noone can really say whether humans or computers will prove "superior" after the necessary research has been done. I would not like to bet against the computers over the long term though.

[PhantomSac]

Zelandakh, on 2015-March-31, 01:58, said:

Noone can really say whether humans or computers will prove "superior" after the necessary research has been done. I would not like to bet against the computers over the long term though.

Maybe it can't be proven but it seems like just using common sense it is impossible to imagine that computers could not pass humans in bridge. It seems inevitable. I agree with the poster (you?) who said the main reason this has not happened yet is because there are not economic incentives/resources being used to try and do this. Look at what happened in some forms of poker and in chess when resources were dedicated, same could definitely happen in bridge.

[lackeman]

What to be member is not anyone else to decide. So a crature that are destignated to preform well on demand on that is more computerlike since it is directing of a goal separate from its own best.
That goal is for me stupid and to preform bad is then intelligent.
A computer cant be "aware" of whats happened in the "past" like a human can that have experienced that and can make conclusions of it.
This "information" is a LOT and all of this Will be combined by the brain leading to a "thought"/"playplan" etc like life it self. To react at the environment "learn""remember""value" of what has happened, that algoritm is incoorporated in our "brain". Also the "goal", mening is "inbuilt" in our brain so we produce some goals (that follow from nature laws).
The more like a adeqate goal our brain task is, the better the brain are compared with computer. The Way brain is used in bridge is far more like the real work for brain ("to live","feal well","devellopment""survival for speeces"). Therfore brain have no capacity to "solve" fantasy problems like chess but are react at reality ie that happened and can understand that happened (in nature,observe it). Since this abillity is Way more important in bridge than in chess we free more brainpower and brain can "produce" much more advanced/complicated tasks!
IT is like u demand something of something that it is not designed to do like demand a human to fly, or u demand a dog to read a text or a 95 yrar old to rum 100 meter.

[PhantomSac]

Incredible post!

[lackeman]

Perhaps it is your whishes that the computer will beat u (and all humans), any reason for your prediction can I not se in your comments!
"The devellopment, that the computer Will be better and better at the tasks we decide for them" this is in some way obvious for all. I know that but still i say what i say.
So u say it is because there isnt a economical reason for it! Ie that no serios efforts have been made yet! Are u sure of that? As i remember bridge computer existed for more than 25 years and i think more humans play against them than vs chesscomputers. What do you think? And Why if so? Because human preforms better comparired w Computers!
IF so it is fact supporting me not u!

[lackeman]

The subject was compairing chesscomputers skill relative human with bridgecomputer skill relative human.
I claimed that chesscomputer win this by far. Further that the ones i played are weaker than me. Also that chesscomputers for wery long time have beat the best humans. Almoast before the PC were produced. I understand that the computerforce, teknologi and experience of computerbridge has increased (improved program, learning mm, making the product better/stronger.etc
I am not sure It will never be stronger than the best humans, It depends on how "big part" of the bridgegame consists of "tasks" that computer are better than human relative the importance of those skills (aspekts) of the game human do better.
But the interesting (for me atleaste) is to "explain" the fact i claimed in top of this post!
I think I have done that and understand now (atleaste partly) what was earlier a "mystery" for me. I dont have much knolidge of computers for example and there may be more to say about it having that skill!
Then i am not convinced whith explanation "not enough efforts compair chess"
Well the future will show!
Bye all, relax and enjoy!