[mink]

I tested the money thing this moring. When I logged in I was alone, but short time after mrdct joined me and we played a few boards, with default settings. This was the second one (mrdct west and I south):

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

- 1♥ Pass 2♣
2♦ 3♣ 3♠ Dbl
Pass Pass 6♦ Dbl
Pass Pass Pass

S4 S2 SJ S3
H8 HA H3 H2
C9 CT C3 C2
H7 HK HJ ST
D5 D2 DQ DK
HQ H5 DJ DA
CJ C8 D9 C4
D7 S5 D3 DT
HT H6 C6 D4
S6 C7 S7 SQ
CK D6 C5 S8
S9 H4 SK SA
CQ D8 CA H9


Result: -5 and 1400 for NS

Maybe no surprise that mrdct cursed his GIB partner with open chat when he saw the dummy.

Maybe instead of doing this total points, there could be a second table with GIB players in all seats and IMPs computed by comparing the results of the 2 tables. However, this would not prevent an incident like this one.

Karl

[david_c]

uday, on Mar 4 2006, 06:05 AM, said:

The way we expect to handle cases of missing/disconnected players:

if a player is unresponsive or missing, the hand is settled ( by 4 robots finished out the hand to establish a score).

That doesn't seem quite fair on the remaining player, as they might easily have done better than the GIB which takes their place. How about instead giving them the option to either

(i) scratch the hand; or

(ii) play it out against two GIBs.

[ng:)]

Nice new feature, thanks.

Might be better to play Russian Scoring instead of Total Points (or Host have an option).

There are 3 advantages if players are always declarer.

1. Less complaints.
2. More play as declarer.
3. Your skill as declarer would be the deciding factor.

Gabor

[DenisO]

mink, on Mar 4 2006, 12:08 PM, said:

Maybe no surprise that mrdct cursed his GIB partner with open chat when he saw the dummy.

Karl

I notice that this post has ben edited and the reference to gambling removed.

I think it was a fair comment as I don't think the current BBO GIB is a good enough bidder to play for money with.

I tried the same haned with my retail GIB and the bidding went the same way except that my GIB passed the 3SX (ie did not bid) 6D!

My GIB was playing standard + gadgets which is the bidding system that Matt Ginsberg (and all the GIB beta testers) spent a huge amount of time working on and is GIB's strongest system.

I believe if GIB is going to be used to play for real money, that some work needs to be done to allow the BBO GIB to use Matt's preferred system.

[fred]

DenisO, on Mar 4 2006, 12:38 PM, said:

mink, on Mar 4 2006, 12:08 PM, said:

Maybe no surprise that mrdct cursed his GIB partner with open chat when he saw the dummy.

Karl

I notice that this post has ben edited and the reference to gambling removed.

I think it was a fair comment as I don't think the current BBO GIB is a good enough bidder to play for money with.

I tried the same haned with my retail GIB and the bidding went the same way except that my GIB passed the 3SX (ie did not bid) 6D!

My GIB was playing standard + gadgets which is the bidding system that Matt Ginsberg (and all the GIB beta testers) spent a huge amount of time working on and is GIB's strongest system.

I believe if GIB is going to be used to play for real money, that some work needs to be done to allow the BBO GIB to use Matt's preferred system.

It would not be difficult (I think!) to change the bidding system that GIB uses on BBO. I believe you that GIB's implementation of "standard with gadgets" is better than the system we have GIB playing now, but I will talk to Matt about this in a few days to make sure (he is currently on vacation).

It should also be noted that the speed settings for GIB have a clear effect on the quality of GIB's play. It is far from clear that the settings we are using for "slow", "medium", and "fast" are optimal. We will likely play around with these settings as we receive more feedback.

Regardless of the system GIB plays and regardless of the speed setting, GIB will still make some really bad bids or plays from time to time (just like people). Hopefully most of the people who play money bridge on BBO will understand that this factor, like holding good cards when playing for money, is something that will even out over time.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[CarlRitner]

DenisO, on Mar 4 2006, 08:38 AM, said:

My GIB was playing standard + gadgets which is the bidding system that Matt Ginsberg (and all the GIB beta testers) spent a huge amount of time working on and is GIB's strongest system.

I believe if GIB is going to be used to play for real money, that some work needs to be done to allow the BBO GIB to use Matt's preferred system.

I'd be very curious to see how the GIB 2/1 bidding database was constructed. You can't just tweak the strength ranges and change a few bids from invitational to forcing, but there's areas of the bidding in GIB that make me think shortcuts like this were taken.

Now, it's possible that I have things backwards; perhaps 2/1 was initially developed and then it morphed into SA + Gadgets. In either case, it's been a very long time since a thorough walk through the database was conducted.

I believe GIB covers the holes in the biding database by using simulation/DDA. This is a workable approach if you are using a very natural bidding system. 2/1 (and SA+G) incorporates enough artificial calls that just aren't compatible with this technique, and the user inevitably draws inferences from GIBs non-systemic bidding that get you into trouble.

GIB's mission was never to be a consistent, compatible partner; Matt built this to beat the other programs, and ultimately Zia. It's also a work in progress that experienced an abrupt halt to debugging and is likely to have a few quirks that would be termed humorous, unless it's your money on the line.

Cheers,
Carl

[Kaapo]

mrdct, on Mar 4 2006, 02:06 AM, said:

A little tip to make it a bit easier to switch between money-BBO and traditional-BBO:

In your c:/bridge base online directory, have two "bbover.ini" files called bbover money.ini and bbover normal.ini

You then just delete the word "money" or "normal" from the version you want to play and then when you want to switch, rename the files.  Still a bit of mucking around, but easier than editing the file in notepad everytime.

Gets even easier, if you also create a batch file to do the renaming (or copying) for you. In Notepad, open a new file and type in:

copy "bbover money.ini" bbover.ini
netbridgevu
copy "bbover normal.ini" bbover.ini

and save this as money.bat in your BBO folder. Now if you create a shortcut icon pointing to this batch file on your desktop, you can access Money BBO via it and normal BBO via your previous icons. But note that since the batch file restores bbover.ini to normal only after you close BBO, you cannot have two BBO instances (connected to different servers) running at the same time.

[uday]

I have instructed the money gibs to "always make the book bid" -- I think this will reduce the number of actions that gib considers reasonable but that humans consider nutty.

FWIW, about the hand where gib jumped to 6D: it opined that interfering with 2D when the auction had started 1M-p-2C showed a very strong hand. Still, running the hand again with "book bidding" enabled made it pass the second time around.

[Gerben42]

I got the following auction:

GIB Me
1♣ 1♠
2♠ 4♠
5♥ 5♠
Pass

GIB had 14 balanced with AJTx in ♥. Probably a slam try but now 5 was in danger... Maybe with book bids this won't happen?

[Fluffy]

Will it matter if your human opponent is LHO or RHO?, maybe switching positions every few deals would be a bit mroe fair.

[uday]

Quote

Are higher stakes than 1 cent going to be offered originally?

If there is any interest, sure

[Sigi_BC84]

Kaapo, on Mar 4 2006, 08:27 PM, said:

Gets even easier, if you also create a batch file to do the renaming (or copying) for you. In Notepad, open a new file and type in:

copy "bbover money.ini" bbover.ini
netbridgevu
copy "bbover normal.ini" bbover.ini

Gets still easier:

Make a copy of your BBO directory, change the .ini files therein and drag a shortcut for the BBO client in the copied directory somwhere...

--Sigi

[Sigi_BC84]

uday, on Mar 3 2006, 11:56 PM, said:

The GIBs are not exploitable except in the sense that if you know their peculiarities you might be able to take advantage of them.

Hi,

running the risk of sounding like a total croaker.

The idea of realising money bridge by putting computer partners in front of people is charming, but mark my words: you'll be soon enough either

• drowned by complaints from frustrated players or
  
• simply having not many customers in this area

GIB is a brilliant piece of work but the thought of partnering GIB to play for money scares me witless.

--Sigi

[fred]

Sigi_BC84, on Mar 5 2006, 02:20 AM, said:

uday, on Mar 3 2006, 11:56 PM, said:

The GIBs are not exploitable except in the sense that if you know their peculiarities you might be able to take advantage of them.

Hi,

running the risk of sounding like a total croaker.

The idea of realising money bridge by putting computer partners in front of people is charming, but mark my words: you'll be soon enough either

• drowned by complaints from frustrated players or
  
• simply having not many customers in this area

GIB is a brilliant piece of work but the thought of partnering GIB to play for money scares me witless.

--Sigi

Have you ever played in a rubber bridge club?

I don't do a lot of this nowadays, but over the years I have played in maybe 7 different clubs in various cities around the world.

There are some truly great rubber bridge players out there who you likely never heard of, but most rubber bridge players do not play as well as GIB. For that matter, most Main Bridge Club regulars probably do not play as well as GIB either.

Besides that, most people will hopefully understand that having the same GIB partner as your opponent does not put a player at a disadvantage (in fact, it is extremely fair).

Besides that, some people enjoy the "action" of playing for money and this is more important to them than who is playing in their game.

Besides that, strong players rate to be able to supplement their incomes by playing in these games. These people won't care who is in their game as long as it is worth their while to spend time playing.

Besides that, if only 1% of the, say, 5000 people online, enjoy playing Money Bridge, that still represents 25 tables in play.

I agree with you that Money Bridge on BBO will not be for everyone, but I suspect that plenty of people will play this game.

I suppose we will be finding out before too long

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Gerben42]

I agree with Fred that this is a very fair way of playing money bridge. Also it safe against cheaters.

See my suggestions in the "suggestions for the software" thread about declarer: I think the human should be declarer in all the boards. This is also to increase the edge of the stronger human player.

* drowned by complaints from frustrated players

Partner makes a mistake - so what? You are sure that your partner is exactly the same strength as your opponent's partner!

* simply having not many customers in this area

If no one uses it, too bad. But if only 1% of the players use it, that's 25 tables, more than in most offline clubs.

As Justin mentioned before, the price per board should be considered carefully. Too low, and you don't make any money. Too high, and people will not win and stop playing.

[fred]

About the price per board:

Suppose you are playing for 1 cent a point (ie if your opponents go down 1 vulnerable for 100 points then you win $1).

Uday has suggested a price of 10 cents per player per board for such a game.

If you are able to play 10 hands per hour (and 6 minutes per board is pretty fast bridge) you will end up paying $1 per hour.

If you play for 5 hours you will pay $5 in fees.

Most real life rubber bridge clubs charge a "per session fee" in which a session is defined as, for example, the whole afternoon (which is roughly 5 hours). This fee is a typically a function of the stake that you are playing for.

The $5 that you would pay on BBO is less than the fee that most rubber bridge clubs would charge for an afternoon of play in a 1 cent game.

We have also done some comparisons with the fees charged on online poker and backgammon sites.

Bottom line is that I think 10 points per hand is more than reasonable.

However, I could easily be wrong about this. Of course we want to make the price fair and our policies in this area are still very much undefined. Feedback is certainly welcome.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com