[Quantumcat]

Will there at least be a choice? I would rather play all the hands in matchpoint duplicate, but in robot races part of the strategy is manipulating GIB. If you don't let GIB declare then robot races will suddenly become boring.

[barmar]

We enable and disable this option by the type of tourney (more specifically, a particular series of tourney -- free MP dups, free IMP dups, $0.25 dups are different from each other). We don't currently have a way of giving the player the choice. So if we decide to make robot race use human declarers, it will apply to everyone playing in robot race.

The results of the survey will probably be the biggest determinant in how we expand this. My guess is that race/rewards will probably be unchanged.

[Heron]

Bbradley62, on 2012-August-03, 12:07, said:

Having now played 20 "human declares" tournaments in the 8 days since they became available, I'm surprised to say that my overall response is "it's not a big deal". It does put a little more time pressure on the player since you don't get the occassional "fast hand" (I was averaging about 1.3 hands as dummy per 8-board tournament), and it does make tournaments last essentially the full 25 minutes.

This turns out to be my biggest complaint. With the new "human declares" format combined with "best hand south", I'm doing declarer play for just about every hand, and if more than a couple require serious thought and I'm actually paying attention and want to give it that thought, I'll get timed out instead of finishing. (I just played one, for example, in which I passed out a rather unspired flat 14-count. In other circumstances I absolutely would have opened it and gone down 1-2 along with everyone else. Kind of annoying way to get a top!)

One might argue that my declarer play should be faster, but it's also certainly the cast that BBO has decreased the average amount of time available per hand-played-as-declarer in these. I don't think I'd want to pay money for that format without having correspondingly more time available.

[Phil]

Heron, on 2012-August-13, 12:57, said:

If more than a couple require serious thought and I'm actually paying attention and want to give it that thought, I'll get timed out instead of finishing.

So the new format requires that the human put more effort into it, and is thus a better measurement of skill.

Gotcha.

[Phil]

barmar, on 2012-August-05, 19:44, said:

We enable and disable this option by the type of tourney (more specifically, a particular series of tourney -- free MP dups, free IMP dups, $0.25 dups are different from each other). We don't currently have a way of giving the player the choice. So if we decide to make robot race use human declarers, it will apply to everyone playing in robot race.

The results of the survey will probably be the biggest determinant in how we expand this. My guess is that race/rewards will probably be unchanged.

The ACBL's biggest beef is that robots are playing in place of players. If BBO can reduce the robot element by the greatest extent possible, shouldn't that be an objective of setting the format?

[semeai]

Heron, on 2012-August-13, 12:57, said:

[I]f more than a couple require serious thought and I'm actually paying attention and want to give it that thought, I'll get timed out instead of finishing.

Phil, on 2012-August-13, 13:33, said:

So the new format requires that the human put more effort into it, and is thus a better measurement of skill.

Gotcha.

Seems like Heron's just pointing out that a slightly longer time limit may be good for the human declares games. It will still be more skill based with another 5 minutes on the clock.

A 10 minute time limit would require a lot of skill, but it wouldn't exactly be pleasant.

[Phil]

semeai, on 2012-August-13, 13:54, said:

Seems like Heron's just pointing out that a slightly longer time limit may be good for the human declares games. It will still be more skill based with another 5 minutes on the clock.

That seems reasonable.

[Bbradley62]

Note that the $0.25 (and free) Dupe games are 8 boards in 25 minutes, whereas the $1 ACBL games are 12 boards in 55 minutes, so it's not clear that the ACBL games would need more time.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-August-05, 19:44, said:

The results of the survey will probably be the biggest determinant in how we expand this.

Are there any reportable results of the survey?

[Jyrki_63]

Since I voted "other", it behooves me to scribble down an explanation. Basically this is a good idea - for the reasons repeated many times over. I very much like it in the 25 cent games as well as the $1 55% target MPs - given the extra time.

I have given up on the Robot Races, but it does seem to me that it might be nice to have GIB declare its share of hands in that format. It's a well known RR gambit to steer GIB to declare, when you absolutely need the points, and time is running out. I would suggest that you poll more RR players for their opinions.

Other than this minor reservation: Thumbs up!