[xxhong]

Now it is getting more and more frequently that human players quit when our side holds a strong hand. Last night, two players quit in the middle against me. In one hand, my gib opened 2C and I bid 2D as waiting. In the other hand, I declared a vul game. A few weeks ago, a player, xxxxxxx, "proudly" told me that he takes advantage of this quitting in the middle and it is an "art" to know when to quit in the middle(I don't really think bbo should continue the service to players like him). The basic idea is simple. In many situations, gib may make declaring mistakes based on the wrong bidding information provided by the human opps. In those cases, quitting in the middle is very profitable, because if you don't quit, your human opp declarer don't make such kind of silly mistakes. Also, if your human opp is a stronger declarer than gib, you should almost always quit when he declares and your hand is weak and not involved much in defensive decisions.
There is a very very simple fix of this problem. If one player is disconnected, a gib should be summoned to replace his seat until he returns or until the end of this hand (Of course, some waiting time can be issued when one player is disconnected before a gib is summoned to make it better to those who don't have very stable internet connections but can return in one or two minutes after the disconnection). This would guarantee nobody can take unfair advantage of the gib arbitrage, which is so obvious a bad treatment if your opp intentionally quits and you always obey the rule to stay.

This post has been edited by inquiry: 2011-May-31, 21:23
Reason for edit: remove player id

[Bbradley62]

xxhong, on 2011-May-31, 12:02, said:

A few weeks ago, a player, (name removed by Bb), "proudly" told me that he takes advantage of this quitting in the middle and it is an "art" to know when to quit in the middle(I don't really think bbo should continue the service to players like him).

But BBO should continue to provide service to people who break the Terms of Service by making posts like yours?

[diana_eva]

Money bridge issues should be reported to accounting@bridgebase.com.

If there's a GIB bug, you can report it here, but what you are saying is not GIB related at all.

[xxhong]

We certainly live in different worlds. The whole post talks about gib weakness due to wrong constraints from the bidding and the abuse of this problem by quitting. BBO should at least provide some comments on this issue. Otherwise, there will be more players doing that in money bridge, which would just ruin the whole game. I am a frequent money bridge player and the frequency of opp's quitting when I declare a vul game and slam, or even in the gf bidding process has been increasing in my observation. This is very annoying and I seriously suggest some actions against this kind of cheating behaviors.

diana_eva, on 2011-June-01, 10:00, said:

Money bridge issues should be reported to accounting@bridgebase.com.

If there's a GIB bug, you can report it here, but what you are saying is not GIB related at all.

[barmar]

It's not clear what you're complaining about -- people quitting, or GIB's bidding/play being so bad that people need to quit to avoid losing money because of it?

[diana_eva]

xxhong, on 2011-June-01, 14:34, said:

We certainly live in different worlds. The whole post talks about gib weakness due to wrong constraints from the bidding and the abuse of this problem by quitting. BBO should at least provide some comments on this issue. Otherwise, there will be more players doing that in money bridge, which would just ruin the whole game. I am a frequent money bridge player and the frequency of opp's quitting when I declare a vul game and slam, or even in the gf bidding process has been increasing in my observation. This is very annoying and I seriously suggest some actions against this kind of cheating behaviors.

The way I understand your post,. you are talking about abusive behaviour in money bridge games. Such abuse issues - when money bridge is involved - should be reported to Accounting. My reply is meant to help you solve the problem and bring it to the attention of people who can actually do something about it (i.e. track frequent quitters, investigate if games are influenced by their quitting and how, if there is damage etc.)

This Forum here is dedicated to GIB bugs, so it is possible that Accounting will not read your post. If you meant to report bad play by GIB, it would be useful to provide a link, or show a hand where there might be a bug to correct.

The Forums are not a good place to discuss abuse issues in general, unless you are suggesting software improvements. In that case, you might consider posting a suggestion in the Suggestions for the Software forum.

[xxhong]

Suppose you know opp is likely to make a contract that gib would often go down, do you quit in the middle of the hand? In a perfect world, gib would make it. However, in real world, gib may go down in many makable contracts due to the early bidding distortions, which gives gib the wrong constraints to do the simulations.

barmar, on 2011-June-01, 15:36, said:

It's not clear what you're complaining about -- people quitting, or GIB's bidding/play being so bad that people need to quit to avoid losing money because of it?

[xxhong]

No, I am talking about software improvements. I think this is the right place to post because it is closely related with gib weakness and money bridge. Of course, if you think suggestions for the software is more appropriate, you can transfer the post there.

diana_eva, on 2011-June-01, 15:45, said:

The way I understand your post,. you are talking about abusive behaviour in money bridge games. Such abuse issues - when money bridge is involved - should be reported to Accounting. My reply is meant to help you solve the problem and bring it to the attention of people who can actually do something about it (i.e. track frequent quitters, investigate if games are influenced by their quitting and how, if there is damage etc.)

This Forum here is dedicated to GIB bugs, so it is possible that Accounting will not read your post. If you meant to report bad play by GIB, it would be useful to provide a link, or show a hand where there might be a bug to correct.

The Forums are not a good place to discuss abuse issues in general, unless you are suggesting software improvements. In that case, you might consider posting a suggestion in the Suggestions for the Software forum.

[barmar]

xxhong, on 2011-June-01, 15:48, said:

Suppose you know opp is likely to make a contract that gib would often go down, do you quit in the middle of the hand? In a perfect world, gib would make it. However, in real world, gib may go down in many makable contracts due to the early bidding distortions, which gives gib the wrong constraints to do the simulations.

I've never played BBO Money Bridge, although I play lots of robot tourneys - Robot Rewards, Bingo, Robot Duplicate.

Yes, GIB does lots of stupid things, but so do lots of human partners; I occasionally play in Express tourneys, and I see bidding and play as bad as anything GIB has done. People who can't deal with GIB's problems shouldn't play MB games. Quitting is just poor sportsmanship, although I suppose anything goes when money is on the line.

It does seem like a misfeature in the MB software that a player can quit in the middle of a disaster hand, so that he won't have to pay out.