[silvr bull]

I played the Daylong (IMP) yesterday and bid to 6D with the hand below. The robot led a normal HA and that was the end of the hand. 6D making 6.

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Looking at the traveler today, I noticed one guy in 6D making an overtrick. That seemed strange, so I looked at his movie. Click next to see an unbelievable first trick. Yes, West played third hand deuce and the C5 in dummy won trick one!

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But wait! It gets worse!! After pulling trump in three rounds (With East pitching a small S and H) and then leading the SA & K to pitch the CJ and a H, he continued with the SQ to pitch a H. East "unblocked" the SJ so he could then play his remaining low S on the ten from dummy!!! That let North pitch all four of his Hs and take all the tricks. The East and West robots acted like they were well paid to throw this hand to the "lucky" winner.

Grotesque robot plays like these are an embarrassment to BBO. I hope BBO will soon offer Decision Point tournaments to eliminate robot problems, and to eliminate luck too, so Decision Point tournaments will be tests of skill: http://www.bridgebas...nt-tournaments/

[steve2005]

Unfortunately not the worst defensive play of all time. These inexplicable plays happen a lot.

[1eyedjack]

steve2005, on 2017-February-13, 15:24, said:

These inexplicable plays happen a lot.

You may be right but I am not convinced, not least because I have some personal experience on which to draw. What I believe is that they get REPORTED a lot when they happen. The routine events when GIB takes sensible actions do not get reported. So if you just focus on reports as a measure of "the problem" then you start from a distorted base. Despite allowing for the fact that only a small proportion of such incidents get reported at all, the shear volume of traffic through BBO is so vast that the reported incidents do not create a great statistical wave. Or rather, it is hard to draw meaningful statistical conclusions about the extent of the problem, from these reports, despite the natural human tendency to do so.

To provide an element of balance to the issue, we also regularly see reports of how GIB apparently "cheats" by making plays which inexplicably provide good results (for the robot) that no human would play.