[johnu]

barmar, on 2012-July-28, 21:55, said:

Does anyone who declares worse than the robots really deserve to win?

Well, if all the players in the tournament declare worse than the robots, somebody has to win. "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

[barmar]

johnu, on 2012-July-31, 00:16, said:

Well, if all the players in the tournament declare worse than the robots, somebody has to win. "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

The context was winning against Leo, so it's a given that there's at least one player better than the bots.

[Stephen Tu]

I'm a bit confused on where to find these human-declare robot tourneys. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[Bbradley62]

They are the Free Robot Duplicate games, matchpoints at xx:25 and IMPs at xx:45. Of course, registration is 5 minutes before gametime and is only open for a few seconds before all 10 spots are taken.

[barmar]

They're the Free Robot Duplicates. They run once an hour at xx:15. Registration starts at xx:10, and they only allow 10 entries, so they fill up quickly.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-August-01, 13:42, said:

They're the Free Robot Duplicates. They run once an hour at xx:15. Registration starts at xx:10, and they only allow 10 entries, so they fill up quickly.

Not correct time information. As a staff member, you should check your facts before posting.

[Phil]

Having a free tournament is a poor way to evaluate whether or not a format is appealing to the players.

[Bbradley62]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 14:52, said:

Having a free tournament is a poor way to evaluate whether or not a format is appealing to the players.

That may depend on your definition of "the players".

[barmar]

Bbradley62, on 2012-August-01, 14:21, said:

Not correct time information. As a staff member, you should check your facts before posting.

I did, but I made a mistake. I was looking at the free robot race, not the free dupe.

Now I can't find where we have the timing for the free dupe configured. We have two ways of setting these things up, and I don't remember the file with the other way.

[barmar]

Phil, on 2012-August-01, 14:52, said:

Having a free tournament is a poor way to evaluate whether or not a format is appealing to the players.

The idea was to try it out first in the smallest tourney, to minimize the impact.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-August-01, 15:19, said:

Now I can't find where we have the timing for the free dupe configured. We have two ways of setting these things up, and I don't remember the file with the other way.

See post #24.

[barmar]

Bbradley62, on 2012-August-01, 15:27, said:

See post #24.

That doesn't say where on our servers the timing is configured. But I just found it.

[nathan2008]

haven't been here for a long time because of the poor connection i had before. hope everything is ok. I think if u put "human declarer", please remove "best hand"... I am not sure players prefer "best hands" or "human dec"... maybe u can put 2 kinds of games....

[Phil]

nathan2008, on 2012-August-02, 01:54, said:

haven't been here for a long time because of the poor connection i had before. hope everything is ok. I think if u put "human declarer", please remove "best hand"... I am not sure players prefer "best hands" or "human dec"... maybe u can put 2 kinds of games....

Disagree.

[FrancesHinden]

uday, on 2012-July-28, 10:34, said:

let's hear from you.

I asked a friend who plays a lot of money bridge & robot games (I don't). He's a very strong declarer. Specifically for the robot races, his immediate reaction was that it's a bad idea, because he thinks a good part of the skill in the races is manipulating the auction to get the robot to declare particularly game & slam hands. He says that usually declarer skill is less important than declarer speed, so you get more points if the robot plays the contract as they are very very fast. Therefore changing to 'human declares' reduces the skill of the event, hence it is a bad idea.

Obviously this is irrelevant for duplicates.

[Phil]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-August-03, 08:23, said:

I asked a friend who plays a lot of money bridge & robot games (I don't). He's a very strong declarer. Specifically for the robot races, his immediate reaction was that it's a bad idea, because he thinks a good part of the skill in the races is manipulating the auction to get the robot to declare particularly game & slam hands. He says that usually declarer skill is less important than declarer speed, so you get more points if the robot plays the contract as they are very very fast. Therefore changing to 'human declares' reduces the skill of the event, hence it is a bad idea.

Obviously this is irrelevant for duplicates.

I think the human declares is being proposed for robo-doops, not robo races.

[Bbradley62]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-August-03, 08:23, said:

Therefore changing to 'human declares' reduces the skill of the event, hence it is a bad idea.

I would suggest that changing to 'human declares' changes the skill of the event, not reduces it, since it's an exchange of your ability to manipulate an auction to your ability to quickly and effectively declare a contract.

Edit: This change would reduce overall scores in races, so no one would choose to use the 'human declares' option to play against opponents who don't, but I think it's absurd (at best) to say that changing to 'human declares' reduces the skill of the event.

[Bbradley62]

Having now played 20 "human declares" tournaments in the 8 days since they became available, I'm surprised to say that my overall response is "it's not a big deal". It does put a little more time pressure on the player since you don't get the occassional "fast hand" (I was averaging about 1.3 hands as dummy per 8-board tournament), and it does make tournaments last essentially the full 25 minutes. However, I was expecting to find that more players were not finishing, but that's not the case. (It actually appears that, in my admittedly small sample size, players have a slightly higher tournament completion rate than before.) It does mean that I more wholeheartedly set aside the 25 minutes for this one activity, rather than getting lunch, etc, etc, but maybe that's a good thing.

[diana_eva]

Geez how did you manage to play 20 lol. I only managed to register to ONE, and I've been chasing them since they were launched

[Bbradley62]

diana_eva, on 2012-August-03, 13:15, said:

Geez how did you manage to play 20 lol. I only managed to register to ONE, and I've been chasing them since they were launched

You really have to camp out on them. I've posted before that I think I get into about one-third of the Free Robot Dupes that I try to register for. I've played 38 in the past 30 days, which I guess makes me a semi-regular. There are several people who average 8-12 per day, day in and day out. I still think there should be a limit on the total number of free robot tournaments (dupes, race, bingo combined) someone can play -- something like 99 per 30 days?