[W Kovacs]

So I'm playing standard with a pickup partner, and on the second hand I get this:

Scoring: IMP

---

Partner opens the bidding with 1♦. I probably could have bid my club suit, but the chances of finding a fit there looked remote, the suit just plain sucks and I hate bidding at the 2 level with less than 10 points. So I bid 1♥.

Partner decides to bounce straight to 4NT. I think "Surely he knows 1♥ can be as few as 6 hcp, right?" So I answer a truthful 5♦, and partner places me in 6♥, which promptly gets doubled.

As soon as the opening lead is made, he leaves the table. Thanks. He had a 19 count, flat hand with three hearts to the AQ. I worked my butt off to hold it to down 1.

So I look at the traveller, and most tables were in 3NT making. I expected the normal sequence to go something like 1♦-1♥; 2NT-3NT or 1♦-1♥; 3NT.

Turns out most pairs went 1♦-2♣; 3NT. I can respect that, even if I wouldn't bid it. But there were oddballs that opened 1NT with the south hand. And one South even opened 3NT with that 19 count!

How am I supposed to trust a pickup partner again, when there seem to be so many wackos out there that can't even open a hand the right way? This goes beyond misunderstanding a convention. This is basic bidding, something that everyone should have a handle on.

As a postscript, my regular partner showed up, and we proceded to have the worst session we've had on BBO to date. I keep track of what went wrong on every hand in the post mortem, and most often it's either 1) Other Tables didn't bid game/slam or 2) Other tables bid too high and went down. I'd say 80% of our negative scores are like that. It's just plain frustrating.

/End Rant

[bucky]

I think what you went through is about average/expected on BBO. Each hand is only scored across 16 tables out of a huge (tens of thousands of players) field, what is the chance that even one table would have gotten the bidding right?

"How am I supposed to trust a pickup partner again"? The answer is, you are not supposed to. Assume nothing until you've played several hands together.

[olegru]

W Kovacs, on Sep 29 2010, 02:42 PM, said:

How am I supposed to trust a pickup partner again, when there seem to be so many wackos out there that can't even open a hand the right way? This goes beyond misunderstanding a convention. This is basic bidding, something that everyone should have a handle on.

No sure how useful is my advice, but you can always go to http://www.bridgebas...hands/index.php, type your current pickup partner name, interval to retrieve 1 month and see IMP total and IMP average on the bottom of the page.
If pickup partner played this month about 400 boards and lost in average 0.7 imps per board - probably it is good ideas do not trust him too much.

[W Kovacs]

olegru, on Sep 29 2010, 03:42 PM, said:

Not sure how useful is my advice, but you can always go to http://www.bridgebas...hands/index.php, type your current pickup partner name, interval to retrieve 1 month and see IMP total and IMP average on the bottom of the page.
If pickup partner played this month about 400 boards and lost in average 0.7 imps per board - probably it is good ideas do not trust him too much. 

The problem with that is I only get an hour to play a day, so looking up histories on every pickup partner cuts into that time severely. Getting up from the table is also a waste of precious time.

It's not an issue when my regular partner shows up. I know what to expect out of him...most of the time.

And I didn't realize that the boards were scored on a random sampling of only 16 tables. That explains a lot. It also means that the IMP scores don't mean much, unless we play in the tourneys.

More than anything I just wanted to vent. I feel uncomfortable enough playing standard anything (partner and I play Precision), and then poor bidders shake my confidence even more.

One last thing. I checked this particular partner's last 6 days worth of hands. He lost 40 IMPs over ~70 hands, for an average loss of 0.58 IMPS per hand. I'm not surprised. Even with today's fiasco my partner and I are averaging 0.5 IMPs per hand. With pickup partners I average 0.44 IMPs per hand. Yes, I am a statistics geek. And I'm probably a better player than I give myself credit for.

[gwnn]

what are you people? on dope?

[vuroth]

W Kovacs, on Sep 29 2010, 02:42 PM, said:

I keep track of what went wrong on every hand in the post mortem, and most often it's either 1) Other Tables didn't bid game/slam or 2) Other tables bid too high and went down. I'd say 80% of our negative scores are like that. It's just plain frustrating.

Frustrating? It's fantastic!

If that's really the case, you're going to do very, very well in the long term.

[bucky]

I can fully understand that BBO is open to all levels of players and that randomness is inevitable. But I am puzzled at why the sample size for each hand is just 16 tables. This is online game, and I presume modern computer programs can handle cross-scoring with virtually any field size. Maybe Fred will see this post and chime in.

[babalu1997]

playing with randoms not a good thing to do with the half hour you have to spare

you are better off playing in the main club and moving from table to table

too many loonies in the tournaments

[fred]

bucky, on Sep 29 2010, 10:52 PM, said:

I can fully understand that BBO is open to all levels of players and that randomness is inevitable. But I am puzzled at why the sample size for each hand is just 16 tables. This is online game, and I presume modern computer programs can handle cross-scoring with virtually any field size. Maybe Fred will see this post and chime in. 

It was a very early (and admittedly questionable) design decision by me that would be difficult to change now due to some less than stellar programming by me in the BBO Windows client (and in the original BBO server too, but Uday has long since rewritten the relevant parts of that program).

At the time I thought it was smart to keep the # of comparisons small because of problems that existed on another online bridge site that were an indirect consequence of the large number # of comparisons that were being used. That resulted in boards remaining in play over an extended period of time. That resulted in various issues that I wanted to try to avoid on BBO.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Bsae Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[bucky]

Thanks for the explanation Fred. It appears that this is also an indirect result of the success of BBO over years (16 tables per hand may make more sense in the earlier time than now).

[kgr]

W Kovacs, on Sep 29 2010, 11:47 PM, said:

olegru, on Sep 29 2010, 03:42 PM, said:

Not sure how useful is my advice, but you can always go to http://www.bridgebas...hands/index.php, type your current pickup partner name, interval to retrieve 1 month and see IMP total and IMP average on the bottom of the page.
If pickup partner played this month about 400 boards and lost in average 0.7 imps per board - probably it is good ideas do not trust him too much. 

The problem with that is I only get an hour to play a day, so looking up histories on every pickup partner cuts into that time severely. Getting up from the table is also a waste of precious time.
....

I think that people who are against a rating system should try this.
Log in on BBO, start playing asap for 1 hour and then stop.
Do that for one week and you see that a rating system could also have advantages.
(I used to play a lot like that on BBO, but now I almost never play anymore)

[mike777]

W Kovacs, on Sep 29 2010, 04:47 PM, said:

olegru, on Sep 29 2010, 03:42 PM, said:

Not sure how useful is my advice, but you can always go to http://www.bridgebas...hands/index.php, type your current pickup partner name, interval to retrieve 1 month and see IMP total and IMP average on the bottom of the page.
If pickup partner played this month about 400 boards and lost in average 0.7 imps per board - probably it is good ideas do not trust him too much. 

The problem with that is I only get an hour to play a day, so looking up histories on every pickup partner cuts into that time severely. Getting up from the table is also a waste of precious time.

It's not an issue when my regular partner shows up. I know what to expect out of him...most of the time.

And I didn't realize that the boards were scored on a random sampling of only 16 tables. That explains a lot. It also means that the IMP scores don't mean much, unless we play in the tourneys.

More than anything I just wanted to vent. I feel uncomfortable enough playing standard anything (partner and I play Precision), and then poor bidders shake my confidence even more.

One last thing. I checked this particular partner's last 6 days worth of hands. He lost 40 IMPs over ~70 hands, for an average loss of 0.58 IMPS per hand. I'm not surprised. Even with today's fiasco my partner and I are averaging 0.5 IMPs per hand. With pickup partners I average 0.44 IMPs per hand. Yes, I am a statistics geek. And I'm probably a better player than I give myself credit for.

thanks for letting me know about this stuff on my hands.

I see only playing late night with p/u one of me is playing about 1.5-2 imps/bd better than the other me the last month.

[kenberg]

OK, I'll try an experiment. I will play exactly six hands using "Take me to a game" and report back. I realize it is not always great, but I have not found it so bad, We shall see.

Time: 8:33 Eastern, Sep 29.

OK, + 7.4 imps edit Checking back, it now says 12.4 but I guess that I mistakenly played seven hands.


Typical hand to appear

---

Righty deals and passes and the uncontested auction goes 1C-2S-3S-4S.

What's 2S? Who knows, but his profile says SAYC and SAYC, contrary to popular belief, says 2S is strong.




The hands:

---

Not exactly the jump shift SAYC has in mind but so what?
The defense begins with AK of hearts by W and a club shift. Up w the ace, draw trump in three rounds. Now he can claim ten tricks but instead he goes to the board with a D, leads a heart to ruff. E, holding no more hearts, but he was dealt four Ds, pitches a D. +620.




It this is too upsetting then you need to play with only your regular partners, and for that matter against known opponents who will make you pay for your errors.

Obviously I am sometimes on the losing end of this randomness. I see it as harnessing chaos. Sort of fun. For a while.

[2Macchiato]

You want a Rant - here goes - some random partners actions:

(from some time ago in BBO)

1 no oppos bidding...
2c me - 2h - 2n - partner PASSES having made a positive!!! - 4h cold

2 no oppos bidding...
1C-1D-2N-6N ..

just the 13 count for partner's 2n - so clearly my 16 count wasn't enough - 2 down (can be more)

3 Partner in 4H...
1S - 2H - 2S - 4H.. is cold for 1 off.. so opps take top spade, play trump
then..ak club (yes - great!).. now what? ruff your clubs high, play trump (and 3rd trump if 3-1) to ace and claim perhaps?
No.. he plays a Diamond... and quietly concedes down 1

then...

4
how about (self as dealer):
1s 2c p 2d
p 2n p 3d
p 4d 4h!!!! (wtf!!) 5d
x (seems sensible AJS h to lead.. ♦KTxx Kx c) p 5h!!!!!!!

someone doubled i didnt wait to see the carnage

and what's this 4H-5H on you ask?

xxx
QTxxxx
void
Jxxx


5
or..

1h p p 1s
p 2s p 3s
p 4s..

just the 16 pts opposite my 11..
making an absolute hash of the 2 hands, locking himself in hand, it's totally cold - or it was!!!!!

6
partner leads 9 from QJ9.. any sensible lead from any other suit beats 4h.. makes up 2


7
this one might take some surpassing..

2h weak.. p (just)3h 5c

p p 5h!!!!!!!!! (vulnerable) p
p 5s x 6c
p p x

totally cold
11 imps given away with gay abandon

[bucky]

2Macchiato, on Sep 29 2010, 08:15 PM, said:

You want a Rant - here goes - some random partners actions:

If all these boards came from the same partner, I would think he is below BBO-average level. But this is not too unexpected: although your expected value is BBO-average, there is variance in random processing, which means at least some portion of time you will get below-average partner.

[straube]

Even playing SAYC, a 2C response on that hand is insane.

[NickRW]

straube, on Sep 30 2010, 02:03 AM, said:

Even playing SAYC, a 2C response on that hand is insane.

its on the dubious side playing Acol!

[helene_t]

Yeah, in SAYC you don't bid 2♣ bypassing a 4-card major unless you have GF strength. But even without the 4-card major, 2♣ needs to show a hand close to GF strength since it is autoforcing. 1♦-2♣-2♦ can't be passed.

Even in Acol, "dubious" is an underbid. Playing weak NT, you make a 2/1 response if you want to be in game opposite a balanced 15/16-count.

[billw55]

Kovacs which hour each day do you play?

[NickRW]

helene_t, on Sep 30 2010, 09:03 AM, said:

...Even in Acol, "dubious" is an underbid...

Aw, Helene, I was being kind