[pigpenz]

Patapon, on May 7 2006, 06:58 PM, said:

It would be cool if GIB was never the declarer- in MTB's and MB-

yes that would make it more likely for the Human Player to control their own destiny.
The commercial version of GIB makes you play the hands when GIB is your partner and supposed to be the delcarer.

[fred]

Most likely we will offer options in this area at some point. There are 4 possibilities:

1) declarer always declares
2) human always declares
3) robot always declarers
4) human decides who declares

1 is what we have now. I am guessing that you will see 2 and maybe 4 before too long. I doubt there will be much interest in 3 so we probably won't offer this option.

Presumably MB table hosts will be able to select one of the options.

Presumably we will run at least some MBTs with each of these options. If some options prove more popular we will run more MBTs using those options.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[han]

I think that it is certainly in my interest to have the robot declare. I've played in 3 money bridge tournaments now and my record is appalling.

[pigpenz]

Hannie, on May 8 2006, 01:19 PM, said:

I think that it is certainly in my interest to have the robot declare. I've played in 3 money bridge tournaments now and my record is appalling.

welcome to the world of GIB....with the commercial version playing hands from previous blue ribbon pairs i always get my butt kicked.

I would like to see all the hand records from a tourney in the free mbt to see what really happens at the other tables??? cause what looks like pretty flat hands somehow someone always seems to crank up a large score, so would like to see what the strategy is

[ccccwwww]

I human 7 GIBs play team duplicate, IMP score, the bad side is cost too much resources

[MickyB]

Hannie, on May 8 2006, 06:19 PM, said:

I think that it is certainly in my interest to have the robot declare. I've played in 3 money bridge tournaments now and my record is appalling.

Me too, Han. I've played half a dozen and only finished positive once. Maybe 18 hands in 25 minutes isn't a good idea after all...

[asdfg2k]

I wouldn't beat yourself up too much, as there is a tremendous amount of luck. Theoretically it will even out, but that doesn't provide much immediate gratification when being beaten.

I think of it like a matchpoint game. In any given matchpoint event, I usually consider the highest score I'm able to achieve, assuming perfect play, as the score I'm dealt. Sometimes (most of the time?) I boot back a lot of what I'm dealt, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a score I can aspire to, assuming perfect play.

The same thing goes in these tournaments. I have played 25 minutes and found myself deep in the hole and others well out of the hole. I think anything less than 10 or so is not a terribly good sampling.

Have you played 10?

Until you have managed a 1/2 way decent score and approached the 5 minute mark in contention, you are unfamiliar with the best part of these tournaments. The exhiliration is quite remarkable as you are simultaneously bidding and watching the leader board. When the clock does run out and, if you are lucky enough to have beaten the others playing, you find yourself in first place, it is quite a rush.

I think these things are destined for great success, no matter how they end up being tweaked by Fred/Uday and Co. They are just a spectacular idea.

[Rain]

Although hands average out after some time, 25 min tourney doesn't allow many hands to be played. However, I prefer the randomness of the tourney. (I mean the luck factor)

Even now, I find myself shying away from MBT when fred signs up. Hey its real money! If skill plays a bigger factor, I'm not going to be willing to compete with players I know are a lot better than I am.

[pokerbids]

To be honest I just thought this Money Tourney thing would be just another gizmo and perhaps wasnt for me. Curious fella that I am I decided to try it out just for kicks having already mentally condemed it!!!! Boy was I wrong - It gave me such a rush......I thought I was a fast player did I come down to Earth in a hurry....Besides anything else I tell u one of the unforseen benefits in this is to get the human to improve his speed (at least in my case).

As an additional tip set the options to autoplay singletons (one can do with all the help one gets to step up the pace and that helps!!!!)...Am dying to get another crack at it so I will sign off - Ooops one more thing these GIBs are aggressive I sacrificed 4 spades in one hand and without a pause the GIB partner of mine bid 6 spades (I could have throttled it!!!!!!)...Wife did think I had lost my marbles when she heard me cussing at my monitor but then she hasnt had to make a slam with a combined point count of 15!!!!!!

cheers poker

[barmar]

pigpenz, on May 8 2006, 04:22 PM, said:

I would like to see all the hand records from a tourney in the free mbt to see what really happens at the other tables??? cause what looks like pretty flat hands somehow someone always seems to crank up a large score, so would like to see what the strategy is

MBT is not duplicate bridge, you're not playing the same hands as the other tables. So the concept of "flat hands" doesn't really apply. It's more like rubber bridge -- you win if you get good cards and make the best use of them.

If someone at another table makes two slams, they're on their way to winning. And if GIB makes a couple of slams against you, you're probably never going to catch up.

[barmar]

pokerbids, on May 9 2006, 12:06 AM, said:

Ooops one more thing these GIBs are aggressive I sacrificed 4 spades in one hand and without a pause the GIB partner of mine bid 6 spades (I could have throttled it!!!!!!)...Wife did think I had lost my marbles when she heard me cussing at my monitor but then she hasnt had to make a slam with a combined point count of 15!!!!!!

yes, they definitely can be aggressive. Here's something that happened to me. GIB opened 1♦ (I don't remember the seat), I bid a major, GIB rebid 2♦, I passed, LHO reopened in the unbid major, and I balanced with 3♣. GIB jumped to 6♣!

It turned out not to be a totally ridiculous contract, requiring a trumps to be 3-2 with the Q in the slot. But LHO had Qxx, so it was unmakeable.

Oh, and there was also one time when GIB bid a two-card suit twice. I'm not sure what it was thinking that time.

[fred]

Rain, on May 9 2006, 05:03 AM, said:

Although hands average out after some time, 25 min tourney doesn't allow many hands to be played. However, I prefer the randomness of the tourney. (I mean the luck factor)

Even now, I find myself shying away from MBT when fred signs up. Hey its real money! If skill plays a bigger factor, I'm not going to be willing to compete with players I know are a lot better than I am.

If you have seen my scores in recent MBTs you would not be shying away (but shy away from Sheri)

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[zenko]

I live in MD so playing for real money is not an option, but I would like to try no-money tourney just for fun. Is there a way to do it?

Zenko

[uday]

There is no reason to block the free mbts, I will remove this restriction.

[jocdelevat]

My opinions about mbt:
1.It is great
2.seems to me that the robot plays most of the contracts of our side
3.seems to me the robot do not make finnese when is a must
4.luck is a major factor(sometime i got most of the hands our side won the contract other times I was looking at opss(the 2GIBS) playing.
5.from these options:1) declarer always declares
2) human always declares
3) robot always declarers
4) human decides who declares

I choose 4 even I will prefer number 2 (whats the fun to let the robot play?) but time and money push you to be a manager. I prefer to play most of the hands but that wil result in a few boards so I will play just interesting once and let the robot play the boring ones plus all the hands reamaining if time run too fast and i played too slow.

[zenko]

I just tried it and I like it very much but I can see why a lot of players would not. I have two easy proposals: a) make human declare (rotate hands of course), let me claim 0 tricks, i.e. let me give up rest of the tricks, it would speed up the play a lot on blah hands

Zenko