[Fluffy]

I've been working on my page playing with pseudo-3d, for some stupid reason, google chrome on pc has had unfixed bugs since version 18 on this, but I've made some patches to try to solve them. Perhaps there are still some bugs around, so please tell me if something doesn't work.

My goal is to make it feel like you are at the table playing with whoever (on this 2 hands with myself in front, but on others famous opponents will show as well)

Click here to play hand 1


Click here to play hand 2

So please tell me how you feel about it.

[ahydra]

The interface and animation is good, but for some reason on hand 1 when I cashed the ♣AK and tried to continue a small club, it played the H5.

On the hands themselves:
- is the first one meant to show that somehow I should keep silent during the auction, so partner leads a diamond and then I underlead a club for the winning ruff? It'd take some clairvoyancy-and-a-half to see that at the table!

- on the second one, North's hand is MASSIVE. Two losers! I would never expect that much for 2NT and would start with X. Unfortunately the opps don't leave you much room to investigate whether South has anything useful or just a yarb, so North might have to punt, e.g.

1S-X-3S-p
p-4NT-p-5D
p-6D-all p

ahydra

[Fluffy]

What you have to do is overtake the club, cash the diamond ace and underlead for partners ♣10 or singleton since its the only way to defeat, you can see hearts are running so you need to score 2 clubs and 2 diamonds quickly or everything is gone. Partner´s ♦3 is a discouraging signal, but with so many diamonds in hand I hoped partner took it as suit preference as well (inquiry wrote a post about card signals regarding this last week)

On the real hand my partner didn´t bid, and it was much easier since ♣Jx lead is an unatractive lead on an unbid suit, nevermind, my partner also failed to find the killing defence.

On the second one my partner realiced that Q9xx should be worth at least 1 trick so deserved more than a sing off and bid 6♦ after 2NT+3NT+4♠ from me, this is what I was trying for I/A to realice, after passing over 2♠, and bidding only 4♦ over 3NT partner is not happy with game and tries for slam vul vs not, we owe partner something more than a singoff like if we had xxx xx in the minors.

the reason why I bid so slowly is precisely to gather some info, I made 3 forward going bids, if I started with 4NT I wouldn´t be able to learn anything. 2NT + cuebid commiting to game show slam interest with both minors, perhas I could had avoided the 3NT step, but also note that over a club preference I would drive to slam myself, if partner has ♦xx ♣J10x slam is great. AK10xxx is better as a side suit since you can ruff third round in dummy.


Just saw that the new lie out fails misserably on internet explorer 10, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE, I hate IE...

[Fluffy]

ahydra, on 2013-July-29, 05:56, said:

The interface and animation is good, but for some reason on hand 1 when I cashed the ♣AK and tried to continue a small club, it played the H5.

Since anything except ♦A led to 11 tricks at this point I went lazy and made it so that every card causes the same reaction, should had put a message advertising that it didn´t matter.

[TylerE]

Maybe tone down the colors a bit?

I honestly have a hard time working through these because everything is so busy/bright.

[Fluffy]

Thanks, I´ve heard that in the past, when I connect form different computers I see the colors differently, so maybe its an issue with my screen. I will give an alternative palette optionally, at least for the playing screen.

[ahydra]

Fluffy, on 2013-July-29, 07:13, said:

On the second one my partner realiced that Q9xx should be worth at least 1 trick so deserved more than a sing off and bid 6♦ after 2NT+3NT+4♠ from me, this is what I was trying for I/A to realice, after passing over 2♠, and bidding only 4♦ over 3NT partner is not happy with game and tries for slam vul vs not, we owe partner something more than a singoff like if we had xxx xx in the minors.

But I never got that far After "you" bid 3NT I passed! Do I really pull 3NT to 4D on a balanced 3-count (you could have 8 running minor tricks + a spade stop)? Edit: your point is still valid, but it does require that you make a forcing bid

ahydra

[TylerE]

Fluffy, on 2013-July-29, 10:11, said:

Thanks, I´ve heard that in the past, when I connect form different computers I see the colors differently, so maybe its an issue with my screen. I will give an alternative palette optionally, at least for the playing screen.

Might want to check your calibration. I'm working in a publishing house on reasonably high end display (Apple Cinema) with calibrated color.

[gszes]

hands worked well just have to get used to clicking on an opp to play the
next card when they win a trick.

[Fluffy]

it should be a click anywhere thing, not just opponents.

[gszes]

Fluffy, on 2013-July-29, 11:55, said:

it should be a click anywhere thing, not just opponents.

I tried that and it reset the whole thing I repeated what I did before and tried
clicking on an opp and it worked. of course I am using a windows browser
and who knows what that dinosaur will do:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[quiddity]

Bidding slam on 2 looks pretty far out after partner skips over 4♥ and we have nothing in hearts.

[Fluffy]

there is a problem with 4M bids on this context, they can be used for alternative strain suggestion with 0355

[quiddity]

Interesting; I didn't even consider that 4♥ could be natural on this auction. Seems like a strong 0355 would just double on the second round? To me the 3NT bid announces a very minor-suit-oriented hand such that 4♥ could not be an offer to play.

What if the overcaller had bid 4♥ on the second round instead of 3NT - what would that be?

[Fluffy]

yeah you are right, 4♥ after 3NT should be a cuebid for the lack of double, I missed that when the hand happened, I just didn't wanna risk a misunderstanding.

Anyway here is the explanation I made for that deal

[FM75]

UX - Not sure if you can google UX, but you need to understand it better.


1) The initial screen is confusing. Apparently my bidding box is between RHO and my partner. I have a reasonably high ape index, wing-span to height ratio, but at the computer, I am not expecting to need or use this. Nor would I live! LOL
2) It was not clear that it was my turn to bid - since the bidding box was "over there" and I did not even see the bidding. Why was is upper left AND just statically sitting there. I had just opened my hand and did not see or hear any bidding...
3) Advancing the play is awkward - you have to guess how to do it - as previously mentioned, even if a wider range of guesses might have worked.
4) At the end it felt like that 1970's game of Adventure (You are in a twisty little maze... Google it...)
5) Continued... Playing adventure, if you clicked E then you could return (normally) by clicking W, but at the end of the game, which we set, it did not even identify which score we got - unless I remembered the result
6) Then... you end up somewhere unrelated. Maybe when you set declarer - you get the boot from the club.

Clever programming - but too unexpected.

Principles:

• The user is not like me.
• The best UI does not ordinarily violate the principle of least surprise.

[Fluffy]

FM75, on 2013-July-29, 22:13, said:

UX - Not sure if you can google UX, but you need to understand it better.


1) The initial screen is confusing. Apparently my bidding box is between RHO and my partner. I have a reasonably high ape index, wing-span to height ratio, but at the computer, I am not expecting to need or use this. Nor would I live! LOL
2) It was not clear that it was my turn to bid - since the bidding box was "over there" and I did not even see the bidding. Why was is upper left AND just statically sitting there. I had just opened my hand and did not see or hear any bidding...
3) Advancing the play is awkward - you have to guess how to do it - as previously mentioned, even if a wider range of guesses might have worked.
4) At the end it felt like that 1970's game of Adventure (You are in a twisty little maze... Google it...)
5) Continued... Playing adventure, if you clicked E then you could return (normally) by clicking W, but at the end of the game, which we set, it did not even identify which score we got - unless I remembered the result
6) Then... you end up somewhere unrelated. Maybe when you set declarer - you get the boot from the club.

Clever programming - but too unexpected.

Principles:

• The user is not like me.
• The best UI does not ordinarily violate the principle of least surprise.

I suppose UX stands for user experience, my wife has a friend working on that, and he says that I need to fix things, but we never get to arrange an appointment, I think you summarized the important things anyway.

1) There are 2 bidding box sizes depending on your browser, the big one overlaps the screen over north and east, the small one sits in between them bu overlaps nothing, the same happens to bid diagrams, which one did you get?

2) Do you think 'flashing' (by flashing I mean changing background colors twice per second) background on your player would solve it?

3) don't know how to solve this apart from auto hiding the trick after some seconds. Also creating a FAQ, but this is undesirable as the UI has to stand alone without studying. any ideas are welcome. Also I think that since if you end up waiting forever, everyone ends up solving it, at least everyone has done it so far, some people sooner some people later, but clicking somewhere in the end. But anyway gotta solve it.

4) Precisely the idea behind the hands is to follow through like if you were in an old 'Choose your own adventure' book . I played some games like the one you refer in the 80s when I was young, figuring out which verb to use was tough. Now seriously, there is a results page that should pop up after you finish the board, but anyway I think you refer that a claiming window should also appear explaining the number of tricks, that goes into the to do list.


6) not sure what you mean here.



I've seen some programs that have a baby interface, full of tooltips explaining things at the start, but that you will eventually shut down after a couple of experiences, maybe this is the way to go?


Thanks a lot for your help.

[ahydra]

Good explanation - but I'm still not buying that one is meant to bid 4D over 3NT, sorry. 3NT really sounds like "I want to play 3NT" and 4D over 3NT sounds like "you won't make it partner, I've got a pile of rubbish". Here South can visualise 3NT making, e.g. ♠A ♥x ♦AKxxxx ♣AKxxx (it doesn't even have to be that good, since finesses rate to be on).

ahydra

[Fluffy]

ahydra, on 2013-July-30, 09:41, said:

Good explanation - but I'm still not buying that one is meant to bid 4D over 3NT, sorry. 3NT really sounds like "I want to play 3NT" and 4D over 3NT sounds like "you won't make it partner, I've got a pile of rubbish". Here South can visualise 3NT making, e.g. ♠A ♥x ♦AKxxxx ♣AKxxx (it doesn't even have to be that good, since finesses rate to be on).

ahydra

http://www.bridgebas...CJ%7Cmc%7C12%7C

I realize that 3NT might be confusing, but the real thing is... I did bid that!, and that's what my site is about, real people on real situations. My partner didn't take a second to make any of the right choices on the bidding, even though 3NT is confusing, and 4♠ as quiddity explained is not technically best, obviously he is my partner and knows me better.

There is no fun on missunderstandings, I should had disallowed the pass of 3NT and explained that it would not be expected. Will think better in the future.

[Fluffy]

TylerE, on 2013-July-29, 08:09, said:

Maybe tone down the colors a bit?

I honestly have a hard time working through these because everything is so busy/bright.

I have added a brightness option (options button at the bottom right of the playing page), please tell me if it fits your needs.