[manudude03]

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2D is described as a natural bid showing diamond length, and then the 4D rebid shows a singleton diamond? Something's not quite right there.

[iandayre]

manudude03, on 2016-March-16, 13:42, said:

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2D is described as a natural bid showing diamond length, and then the 4D rebid shows a singleton diamond? Something's not quite right there.

Must be a high splinter as it also shows a "partial stop in ♦".

[1eyedjack]

How ironic.

After a little bit of lead-up hype of expectations of things to come, we get the fanfare of version 35, described as "the 22nd upgrade since 2011", here

http://webutil.bridg...tch.php?id=3264

The 22nd upgrade since 2011 it may be; I have not checked, and am happy to accept it. Nevertheless it conveniently overlooks the fact that it is the only upgrade in the last 9 months, version 34 having been announced on 11 June 2015, here

http://tinyurl.com/zjekgmw

When I read the list of enhancements in version 35 I had a feeling of disconnection with this universe, as I did not recognise most of the itemised "fixes" as regular problems reported (nor personally experienced with noticeable frequency). I expect most of the problems are reported via the robot report feature in the software, but it would still be surprising if there were a big difference from the trends in forum reports. So therefore I place a huge amount of faith in the final listed non-specific enhancement "other various bug fixes and improvements".

Not one normally to feel the inclination to voice my criticisms in this area, I nevertheless, and with hindsight perhaps some regret, felt inclined to mention this in my post here

http://tinyurl.com/jbo47jp

Of all the possible enhancements that I was waiting for, the only one that I chose to mention by example in that post is fact that a take-out double of 1-suit opener can systemically be made on a wide variety of hands, given sufficient extra values (as most humans play it), but that the follow-up continuations are utterly incapable of accepting that doubler had anything other than the vanilla 3-suited hand short in opener's suit and modest opening values.

This is such a problem that in reality any human with experience of GIB playing in a robot tournament will go to unreasonable extremes to avoid making a take-out double of 1-suit opener unless fitting with the 3-suited variety.

How ironic, therefore that both of the first two forum posts in the Robot subforum since the release of version 35 present examples of just this shortcoming; this thread being one, and the other being

http://tinyurl.com/jrzugq5

I suppose that it is possible that with Eagles123's hand in that thread GIB might not have doubled, but that excuse does not hold water in this thread, as GIB was in fact the doubler here.

Oh well.

[iandayre]

I had the same feeling when reading the list of enhancements. The third listed - that after GIB's partner makes a jump advance of a takeout double, a subsequent 3NT call doesn't show massive strength, was the most mentioned and needed. The first - no more weak jump rebids of its own suit after say 1S - P - P ,(balancing action) is also good. The rest were pretty obscure. But what bothered me most is that they were all about how GIB would bid. There was nothing about improving the descriptions. BBO, you have got to start eliminating these "gotcha" auctions where a bid shows a wide range, including values where bidding game would be clear, but GIB is allowed to pass it. If a bid is non-forcing, fine, but the description must limit it to values where the bidder is willing to be passed out.