[benellis58]

West, North, and East are all GIB robots. This explains South's strange bidding. He makes an atypical "weak" (ha, ha!) jump overcall in spades and later commits the cardinal sin of bidding AGAIN with 3S. As he commits these actions, he is well aware of his sins, but he has the firm and long-held opinion that GIB robots are extremely weak at bridge, an opinion that is reinforced by what he sees every time he plays with or against GIB robots. Because of his strong opinion about the abilities of the GIB robots (be they his partner or his opponents), he will often take liberties that he would never dream of taking in a game with decent human players. His experience has shown him that his "stepping out" or "operating" in games with GIB robots will occasionally be costly but will more often pay dividends.

On this board, South buys the contract in 3S. This should easily go down two (via two top clubs with dummy's king in front of East's ace, two top hearts, the diamond ace, and an inescapable trump loser). Down two would be minus 200 for NS, but declarer miraculously gets out for down "only" down one. He ends up minus 100 and scores mildly above average on the board with 57.1 %. He achieves this "miracle" PURELY because of horrendously inept defending by the EW GIB robots. West led the club queen but when it held he foolishly, pointlessly, and inexplicably shifted - and to a diamond of all things. EW could STILL have taken their five basically TOP tricks, but the absolute ROT of their defensive plays continued and declarer never lost a second club! This was a TRULY dismal defensive performance by the EW GIB robots, not to mention that West might well have doubled the final contract.

South was heard to mutter "And THIS hand is a perfect illustration of why I am so often happy to 'step out' in the bidding when playing against...GIB ROB07S."

https://tinyurl.brid...se.com/bdfm26dr

[benellis58]

The GIB robot sitting West doubles 3S. His double is defined as "4+ hearts; 2+ spades; 12+ HCP; 13+ total points, forcing".

As is often the case, the GIB robot sitting West has made a call that does not match the definition. He does not have "2+ spades" - he has a stiff ace. He does not have "12+ HCP" - he has a mere NINE - a full three points fewer than the bare MINIMUM of 12 promised by the definition!

And by the way, is his double REALLY "forcing", as the definition states? What if his partner wanted to convert the double for penalties by PASSING?

EW end up in 4H and go down one, for minus 100 and a lowly EW score of 17.9 % on the board. Perhaps the GIB robots might consider that the philosophy "honesty is the best policy" actually has merit!

https://tinyurl.brid...se.com/bpdh2upp

[benellis58]

The GIB robots are deserving of our sympathy. Why? Because the poor souls are hampered by (among many other issues) their very poor (and often antiquated) GIB system, their frequently awful GIB definitions, and their apparent lack of a desire to signal while defending. Consequently, and not at all surprisingly, they tend to be extremely bad at many facets of bridge - bidding, leads, defending, and even declarer play (which is the best part of their game, but which still cannot be called "good"). One of the numerous reasons that they are so weak at defending is their apparent and totally illogical love for returning whatever suit their opposing DECLARER plays. For example, in the hand linked below, notice that the GIB robot sitting East wins his club king at trick three...and then at trick four returns his remaining club (the jack). Never mind just this particular hand, where a club play at this point rather than the normal and obvious spade play seems bizarre: it's their usual tendency to do this silly type of stuff that is one of the many characteristics causing them to be such hopeless and wretched defenders on a frequent basis.

https://tinyurl.brid...se.com/2p85xa2v

[benellis58]

From the limited number of times I have seen GIBBO in action so far, my impression is that the leads have greatly improved and are no longer as repulsively horrendous as they used to be. Assuming that my first impressions are correct, this is a very positive step towards eventually making the GIBBO robots at least moderately competent.

I think the credit for this long-needed improvement in leads should go primarily to Lorserker and secondarily to the various people who were honest enough to frequently expose some of the massive weaknesses of the GIB robots.

Now it would be great if Lorserker could again work his magic and correct some of the other huge problems with the GIB robots (such as, to name but a few examples, the wretched system handcuffing robot auctions, the extremely poor GIB definitions, and the absence of any intelligent system of defensive signaling).

Lorserker has seemingly performed one miracle, and now - like Sisyphus - he has many more awaiting him. It will be a Herculean task to fix all the other gross and offensive GIB weaknesses, but I have faith in Lorserker. Well done, Sir!

[benellis58]

According to BBO's announcement of the long-awaited and hugely necessary upgrade from GIB to GIBBO, "One of the most exciting improvements comes during card play. In situations where DD analysis concludes that 'it does not matter' which card to play, GIBBO will opt for the common-sense choice, based on typical bridge patterns (e.g., 2nd-hand-low, third-hand-high)."

To this, I say "Bravo", while at the same time asking "Why the Hell wasn't COMMON SENSE (!!!) used before?" I am undoubtedly not the only BBO player who was astounded by the frequency with which the inept GIB robots would stupidly squander tricks left, right, and centre because of their perverse and totally illogical habit of frequently playing second hand high and third hand low. Yes, both second hand high and third hand low can indeed sometimes be the right play, but much more often they are not, so the random card-tossing of the GIB robots was on far too many occasions completely lacking in common sense.

Assuming that Lorserker has indeed remedied this previous ridiculous situation, then he is deserving of even more praise.

[benellis58]

Despite Lorserker's great achievements in correcting some of the most heinous habits of GIB, there is clearly still a lot of work to be done. For example:

The definition of North's 2C is "Free bid - 5+ clubs; 11- HCP; 11-12 total points; forcing".

As is annoyingly so often the case with GIB definitions, the beginning ("Free bid") is entirely unnecessary. I'm calling the definition "GIB" because I think it would be unfair to tarnish GIBBO with the blame, since the huge problem with GIB definitions has not yet been addressed with an upgrade. Thus, I consider GIBBO innocent so far.

A more important criticism, however, is that the GIB definition foolishly states that 2C is "forcing". This is obviously silly and incorrect. North is a passed hand, South opened in third seat, and the GIB definition itself correctly states that North has "11- HCP", so it would make absolutely no sense for this natural bid of 2C to be forcing here. The human South realized this (as did 18 other human Souths) and had a shared top of 83.02% for wisely IGNORING the incorrect GIB definition and passing the supposedly "forcing" 2C, making 8 tricks for plus 90. Fourteen other human Souths also wisely passed, but failed to make the contract. Twenty human Souths, perhaps led astray by the egregious GIB definition, bid over 2C and instantly had no prayer of doing well on the board. One human had passed in third seat and scored 64.15% when the hand was passed out, so he did not have to suffer from reading the misleading GIB definition.

https://www.bridgeba...CD6%7Cmc%7C8%7C

[benellis58]

Here's an example of how Lorserker has succeeded in bringing some SANITY to the robot leads. I have had similar auctions to the one here many times in the past, and the GIB robots used to LOVE leading the suit in which their LHO (their OPPONENT!) had opened a weak two. In those days, I would have expected the GIB robot sitting West to make the ridiculous lead of his stiff 10 of spades. Now, though, with the dramatically improved GIBBO leads, that monumental stupidity seems to be a thing of the past. Here, West quite reasonably leads a club. Once again I salute Lorserker for this huge improvement.

https://www.bridgeba...HQ%7Cpc%7CHT%7C