[pilowsky]

I just finished playing an ACBL IMPs tournament 5452
On Board 1 North was Declarer in 2D - I flexed my mouse finger. The robot started playing!!!
Can this be fixed please is this a single tournament problem?

[shyams]

pilowsky, on 2020-August-27, 03:25, said:

I just finished playing an ACBL IMPs tournament 5452
On Board 1 North was Declarer in 2D - I flexed my mouse finger. The robot started playing!!!
Can this be fixed please is this a single tournament problem?

It's a feature of some ACBL tournaments. These are called "Classic" and the tournament description includes the warning "NO HUMAN DECLARE". It seems you joined the tourney unaware of such an archaic feature.

I believe some people still prefer this "classic" format although I don't understand why!

[pilowsky]

Thank you - you are right. I was completely unaware. Professor Dunning and Mr Kruger win that round.
I tanked it because I thought there was an error - oh well - learn something new every day.
IMHO that is not a test of skill.

[johnu]

shyams, on 2020-August-27, 03:41, said:

I believe some people still prefer this "classic" format although I don't understand why!

When robot individuals were first started, whoever was supposed to be declarer declared the hand as in face to face bridge. So if your GIB partner opened 1NT and you raised to 6NT, GIB would play the hand. This had the effect of reducing required skill and increasing volatility, because every robot would basically play the hand the same way (with some variations if the bidding was different). So instead of 8 or 12 board matches, you had the equivalent of 6 or 9 board matches depending on how many boards GIB declared, because on the hands GIB declared at the same level and denomination you would get average results overall. There was nothing more frustrating than bidding to a great slam and then having GIB make a nullo play to go down.

When BBO added the human declares games several years ago, they kept the old style games and relabeled them as "Classic".

[mycroft]

Ah, but that also involves skill - learning how to open NT before robot partner, learning to bid 6♥ instead of 6NT because it will score better (with you playing it), ...

What? It's the same kind of things people do with "best hand" and "human declares" - they're just strategies to win the game presented, which may not be the game people want, or "bridge".

</s, in case it's not obvious>

[johnu]

mycroft, on 2020-August-28, 16:07, said:

Ah, but that also involves skill - learning how to open NT before robot partner, learning to bid 6♥ instead of 6NT because it will score better (with you playing it), ...

What? It's the same kind of things people do with "best hand" and "human declares" - they're just strategies to win the game presented, which may not be the game people want, or "bridge".

</s, in case it's not obvious>

LOL, sometimes you can, sometimes it is impossible. And just because you may be able to "steal" the contract away from GIB doesn't mean you will get to a good contract.

[pilowsky]

Where's vampyr?