[cloa513]

Is there an online play demonstator where the computer chooses a random optimum double dummy card to play from each hand to show one possible play solution? Sometimes it is so hard to visualize how the double dummy play is optimum. It would be even better if it could show suboptimum option of play- it is only needed to choose a random card from the possible worst cards to play. Failing that is there a free play viewer with double dummy calculaor so you can step though a hand to see how the double dummy solution works?

[smerriman]

cloa513, on 2023-October-03, 17:03, said:

Failing that is there a free play viewer with double dummy calculaor so you can step though a hand to see how the double dummy solution works?

That's exactly what you get when you use the hand diagram tool that you called a pain in the other thread, and/or export any hand from BBO to get a handviewer URL. The Play button lets you step through any cards you like, and the GIB button tells you the double dummy scores of all options.

[cloa513]

smerriman, on 2023-October-03, 17:39, said:

That's exactly what you get when you use the hand diagram tool that you called a pain in the other thread, and/or export any hand from BBO to get a handviewer URL. The Play button lets you step through any cards you like, and the GIB button tells you the double dummy scores of all options.

It is pain because a stupid useless feature whereby clicking one playing hides all others permanently also other broken features and also it fails in allowing you to enter cards properly and can't set x as card- no one care about 4,3,2 of a suit.

I just broke it. I selected shuffle and selected dealer and then couldn't enter a bid.

You doN't get that with hand diagram "tool"- the hand diagram can only set a certain play of cards not explore all plays of cards.

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I couldn't see the cards in hands that I entered into.

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[smerriman]

It works fine for me and others; you mentioned last time you were having issues when you clicked a player a couple of times to hide other cards while the cards still hadn't been dealt, and that was indeed a bug. The simple solution is to stop clicking players while dealing out the cards (or to click again to reveal if you did so accidentally). In fact, you never need to move your mouse anywhere near a player to accidentally click them; just click the cards on the left until they're all gone.

If tapping the cards is proving difficult, you can type the URL string manually, which is usually even easier. Just look at an existing handviewer URL or this; just needs the a, d, and three of n/s/e/w parameters (leaving one out can be useful for quick edits of the URL to swap cards to the 4th hand), plus v to show vulnerability if needed.

And yes, if you want a double dummy solver, it needs to know what the xs are (and the auction of course). If they're unimportant, tap an x at random.

Your last hand with dealer set to West and a meaningless auction applied:

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As you can see now the Play and GIB buttons are active; click Play and lead any cards you like to any tricks for all four hands, clicking GIB to see the result at any point.

And the direct handviewer URL can be used outside of the forum too. I use this all the time for checking lines and it's very quick and easy.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2023-October-03, 23:51, said:

It works fine for me and others; you mentioned last time you were having issues when you clicked a player a couple of times to hide other cards while the cards still hadn't been dealt, and that was indeed a bug. The simple solution is to stop clicking players while dealing out the cards (or to click again to reveal if you did so accidentally). In fact, you never need to move your mouse anywhere near a player to accidentally click them; just click the cards on the left until they're all gone.

If tapping the cards is proving difficult, you can type the URL string manually, which is usually even easier. Just look at an existing handviewer URL or this; just needs the a, d, and three of n/s/e/w parameters (leaving one out can be useful for quick edits of the URL to swap cards to the 4th hand), plus v to show vulnerability if needed.

And yes, if you want a double dummy solver, it needs to know what the xs are (and the auction of course). If they're unimportant, tap an x at random.

Your last hand with dealer set to West and a meaningless auction applied:

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As you can see now the Play and GIB buttons are active; click Play and lead any cards you like to any tricks for all four hands, clicking GIB to see the result at any point.

And the direct handviewer URL can be used outside of the forum too. I use this all the time for checking lines and it's very quick and easy.

Yes, but he's right about the bug that hands often disappear and it's not limited to dealing out the cards.
In your example, just click on 'North' and the cards of all three other hands disappear.
As often happens when reading the forum (at least on a phone).
If you play the cards manually sometimes "only" one hand disappears.

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2023-October-04, 15:53, said:

Yes, but he's right about the bug that hands often disappear.
In your example, just click on the North player and the cards of West disappear.
Often when reading the forum (at least on a phone) an inappropriate click can make three hands disappear.

That's intentional, not a bug - it's for when you want to view a hand diagram from a player's perspective, which can be useful from a teaching perspective (same thing is used commonly at teaching tables so you can show / hide hands when you like; here if you've included the full play with the diagram, you can step through the play with Next and have cards come from the hidden hands, then reveal them all later). The bug is that this feature is still enabled during the process of using the hand editor, and if you have happened to hide players before you get to the point of entering bidding, it breaks. But as above, this is easily avoidable by just not doing that, or if you did by mistake, revealing them before dealing the last card.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2023-October-04, 15:55, said:

That's intentional, not a bug - it's for when you want to view a hand diagram from a player's perspective, which can be useful from a teaching perspective (same thing is used commonly at teaching tables so you can show / hide hands when you like; here if you've included the full play with the diagram, you can step through the play with Next and have cards come from the hidden hands, then reveal them all later). The bug is that this feature is still enabled during the process of using the hand editor, and if you have happened to hide players before you get to the point of entering bidding, it breaks. But as above, this is easily avoidable by just not doing that, or if you did by mistake, revealing them before dealing the last card.

Finally got it, and thanks
So that's why for years I had to refresh forum threads to see the hands that mysteriously disappeared.
What I was doing (I imagine) was to click on the name of the player to see the profile and instead it hides three hands.
And if you click on a disappeared hand (the obvious refresh action) nothing happens - what I should have done is click on the name of the player again.

In many ways an intentional but non-intuitive feature is worse than a bug, in particular that the software provider finds it hard to understand the dissatisfaction of users and that he is less motivated to "fix" things. The unconventional (and disastrous) mechanism for dismissal/repetition of "Explain" requests that BBO has obstinately refused to change comes to mind.