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But the Patient Died

#1 User is offline   uva72uva72 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 09:14

My link

Matchpoints, ACBL robot individual

Several of BBO's most glaring weaknesses on display here.

In 4th seat I was pleased to see that the system notes showed 2 to be the perfect bid to describe my hand, and one that should allow me to play the hand at a safe level or force the opponents dangerously high. Unfortunately, I failed to notice the skull and crossbones next to the definition. Yes, you guessed it, BBO's ridiculous implementation of Bergen's Curse (aka Bergen's Plague) strikes again. Despite having a perfect description of my hand, and with no sign of life from the opponents, the North robot entered zombie mode and took us to 4 despite the vulnerability and holding an aceless wonder. In my human partnerships, a weak two bid in 4th seat says "don't even think about bidding game." But the robot reserves the right to commit atrocities no matter what the position or vulnerability.

Okay, so all the robots bid and play the same under the same circumstances, and everyone who started with 2 suffered the same fate, -100. Hard to complain about that. The problem is that a number of those who chose to start with 1 and then to raise 3 to 4 (talk about falling in love with your own monster) got the robot's patented let-me-help-you defense and were given the contract. So, you make a bid that that fits the BBO definition perfectly and would be the winning action the vast majority of the time against human opponents; but the robots take over and deliver you 30% of the matchpoints. Meanwhile, people who willingly bid the contract that you specifically tried to avoid (the whole point of the weak 2 bid) are handed the contract. No wonder so many people psyche.
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#2 User is offline   steve2005 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 10:29

cant EW make 3N or 4? good sacrifice lol.
Sarcasm is a state of mind
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#3 User is offline   manudude03 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 10:30

I think complaining about the 4H bid here is a bit harsh. Make your spades Kx and clubs xxx instead and 4H is an excellent contract. As for the defense allowing game through after 1H-3H-4H (btw I think 4H is automatic and would consider pass to be a poor call), I can pretty much guarantee that in a reasonably large average field, there will be at least some people letting it through (CA lead, and now if the defence doesn't cash 2 spades, one will go on the king of clubs. Having said that, a spade switch is likely on this layout).
Wayne Somerville
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#4 User is offline   Bbradley62 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 11:22

I fully agree that bidding 4 over 2 is bad, particularly at this vulnerability...

However, it appears to me that there were more variables in the auction/play than you've specified, so I thought it might be interesting to analyze (not that there's anything that can/will be done about how GIB defends).

At the 16 tables, there were 3 different auctions:
  • 1-3-P
  • 1-3-4
  • 2-4

Auctions 1 and 3 show weaker Souths than auction 2. Several people opened 1 and were held to 9 tricks as you were; West does or doesn't find the necessary spade switch depending on the play of the first few tricks in combination with the auction. 2 openers are presumed to hold QJT, since West can see AK, although this is not true for the 1 openers. Several cashed the second diamond before switching. (You were the only declarer who switched to clubs rather than hearts, but this doesn't appear to be relevant.) West tries to determine how likely it is (based on the auction and beginning of play) that East holds two spade tricks. The variables seem to be:

  • Is South weak or strong?
  • Is South known to hold 3HCP in hearts?
  • What diamond HCP does South reveal before West gets back on lead?

The bottom line is that, although you got hosed, the defense appears to be internally consistent.
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#5 User is offline   iandayre 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 13:05

Good discussion, I would say only that I disagree that any weaknesses reflected here are among the most egregious. Nothing is ridiculous, just moderately poor judgment at worst. If only GIB never or even rarely did anything worse than this!
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#6 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2014-November-25, 16:03

Probably the definition of 4th seat 2h opening should be adjusted; I think 12 HCP is too high. I think it should be more around 9-11 HCP, 10-12 total points.

I don't think raising to 4h is at all ridiculous, easily you could have SK instead of CK as manudude suggested, or a hand like xx AQTxxx Ax xxx, trading in your CK & DQ for the HA. It probably shouldn't auto-raise to 4 based on "the LAW" if the hand was balanced, but holding 4 cds and a stiff it's reasonable, it works similarly as often as raising 1H to 4 with 5cds and a stiff. Yes sometimes such bids go one down and the opps would have let you buy it lower, but a sufficient # of these will make despite low point count (or the opps would have found 3S or whatever), that you are likely to show profit.
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