[pilowsky]

Yesterday, I saw someone complaining about 'cheating' on BBO because someone managed to get into a high-scoring spot for no apparent good reason. The hand can be found in 'Cure for Cheating'. Interestingly, If I had been dealt that hand I would have likely reached 6NT and possibly made it. here is the hand with my proposed bidding sequence. If you don't believe me, I include an actual hand that I played in the last super Sunday Tourney where I was the only person to make 7NT doubled and vulnerable against GIB. Why? Because GIB always makes a 4th down lead from the suit that was NOT bid by the opponents. If you can work your way into such a contract good luck. The first hand is the one that was complained about earlier. The second is 7NTX by me making 2490 100%. For the record, I have mentioned this approach a couple of times before 😀. I guess it does raise the interesting ethical question: how do you alert an artificial bid to GIB? I see many complaints about ambiguous explanations by GIB (to put it mildly!), but there is, of course, no way to advise GIB ops that I am doing something artificial. Do GIB have Electric Fora where they can whinge about us?

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There is a logic to this bidding: By opening with a void or a singleton, I am looking to see if partner has a stopper in the suit. LHO will not bid because they have the suit. Partner supports the bid and RHO passes on the belief that I will get a bad score. I bid 6NT in this case because I have a very strong hand, I hope partner has something else in the other suits (after all, opps did not bid) and now it's too hard for anyone to get in. GIB will always lead 4th down from another suit because I bid diamonds - in this case, most likely 5♠ which double-dummy gives 12 tricks.
Exactly the same thing happened yesterday but with a slightly more ridiculous bidding sequence. In this case, double-dummy says I should be -4, but once again, GIB does not know my heart holding and I'm able to make the contract. Here is the full link so that you can replay the hand and enjoy the GIB bidding explanations 7NTX vulnerable. Notice that as in the previous example, even though the OPS have good hearts they keep quiet, and they do not lead them - even when I reach 7NTX. The hand was played in less than 5 minutes so cheating would be very hard!

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[nige1]

No

[barmar]

pilowsky, on 2020-January-13, 05:33, said:

how do you alert an artificial bid to GIB?

You can't. GIB assumes you're playing its system.

Remember, you're only required to alert and explain agreements. Since the robot you're partnering with doesn't know that your bid means something different from its system, you don't have to explain it.

The first example won't happen. Since GIB uses inverted minor raises, 2♦ requires at least 4 diamonds and 11 HCP. However, a more realistic auction would be 1♦-1NT-6NT.

You've discovered that the robots can be fooled by psychic bidding. So can humans.

[TylerE]

Are you implying that this would be illegal if done against a human? Because it isn't.

[johnu]

pilowsky, on 2020-January-13, 05:33, said:

Exactly the same thing happened yesterday but with a slightly more ridiculous bidding sequence. In this case, double-dummy says I should be -4, but once again, GIB does not know my heart holding and I'm able to make the contract. Here is the full link so that you can replay the hand and enjoy the GIB bidding explanations 7NTX vulnerable. Notice that as in the previous example, even though the OPS have good hearts they keep quiet, and they do not lead them - even when I reach 7NTX. The hand was played in less than 5 minutes so cheating would be very hard!

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The bidding may have been ridiculous, but the defense was twice as ridiculous. Why would East unblock ♣K under South's ace??? I can't think of a single bridge reason for that play. Maybe East thought that declarer had ♥A based on the bidding Not unblocking results in down 4. I think I would probably lead ♥K as West which would lead to down 5.

[steve2005]

pilowsky, on 2020-January-13, 05:33, said:

Here is the full link so that you can replay the hand and enjoy the GIB bidding explanations 7NTX vulnerable.

For Gib to let 7NXX make is ludicrious.
Takes unblocking K♣ near end as final nail in coffin knowing declarer has Queen

[pilowsky]

Again, GIB doesn't 'know' anything - it's not a 'learning' machine. It doesn't matter how often you do the same thing to it the response is the same. That is what the Turing test means. That is why 2-year-olds learn to stop hitting their heads against walls, but some Bridge players apparently don't!

[smerriman]

pilowsky, on 2020-January-13, 16:12, said:

Again, GIB doesn't 'know' anything - it's not a 'learning' machine.

That doesn't make any sense; of course it "knows" things. The whole algorithm is based around dealing hands that fit the scenario; if every hand dealt has a certain card with a certain player, then it "knows" that player has that card and acts accordingly. And of course, if you break every single rule of bidding, it's going to make incorrect assumptions; it's not capable of detecting psyches like humans are.

I just don't really get why you'd bother playing like this.

[mythdoc]

pilowsky, on 2020-January-13, 05:33, said:

Yesterday, I saw someone complaining about 'cheating' on BBO because someone managed to get into a high-scoring spot for no apparent good reason. The hand can be found in 'Cure for Cheating'. Interestingly, If I had been dealt that hand I would have likely reached 6NT and possibly made it. here is the hand with my proposed bidding sequence. If you don't believe me, I include an actual hand that I played in the last super Sunday Tourney where I was the only person to make 7NT doubled and vulnerable against GIB. Why? Because GIB always makes a 4th down lead from the suit that was NOT bid by the opponents. If you can work your way into such a contract good luck. The first hand is the one that was complained about earlier. The second is 7NTX by me making 2490 100%. For the record, I have mentioned this approach a couple of times before ��. I guess it does raise the interesting ethical question: how do you alert an artificial bid to GIB? I see many complaints about ambiguous explanations by GIB (to put it mildly!), but there is, of course, no way to advise GIB ops that I am doing something artificial. Do GIB have Electric Fora where they can whinge about us?

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To clear the record, first of all, I was not “complaining” in that other thread, went out of my way (I thought) to stress that. I welcome anybody to click over and see it. I was observing that on the deal you show above, one auction went 1♥-1NT-7♣, while another competitor OPENED 6♥. Those are very different auctions and call into question very different processes than the idea of psyching or faking out GIB’s robot defenders. Those are auctions where one has to be able to see the lay of the cards in order to fly directly to a top score.

As for your poll, I answered “no.” Individual play with three robots is different from bridge insofar as the partner and opposition are givens, whatever their limitations or quirks. Tricking the bots seems fine but knowing that your partner just happens to have 6 clubs opposite your 3, and that they split 2-2, making this the only grand slam that works, is not a case of tricking the bots, it’s tricking the whole premise of the competition.

[hrothgar]

smerriman, on 2020-January-13, 16:29, said:

That doesn't make any sense; of course it "knows" things. The whole algorithm is based around dealing hands that fit the scenario; if every hand dealt has a certain card with a certain player, then it "knows" that player has that card and acts accordingly. And of course, if you break every single rule of bidding, it's going to make incorrect assumptions; it's not capable of detecting psyches like humans are.

I just don't really get why you'd bother playing like this.

de gustibus non disputandum est

Personally, I don't understand why one would restrict one's self to a limited submit of the set of legal bids because of aesthetics...

[mythdoc]

^^Then we’ll have to leave it to the court of public opinion to decide for themselves whether I “accused anyone” or “complained”. I say my words (that you quote) plainly acquit me. You say they convict. Ultimately, it’s beside the point, but...

In either case, in your thread starter you conflated my example with psyching, using a bidding sequence of your own invention, and then when I explained in detail how the ACTUAL bidding sequence had nothing to do with psyching, now you are saying it was maybe “misclicks.”

Again, I am content to leave it to the court of public opinion to decide for themselves if it was misclicks, a possible case of cheating, or if something else is the most likely explanation for it.

[nige1]

It's legal and ethical to psych, whether partnering a robot or a human. But off-topic ...

When a pair of humans, playing their own system, are pitted against a pair of GIB robots, then the game is unsatisfactory because ...

• GIB explains its calls quite well but
• GIB can't discover opponents' methods.

Although the humans might legitimately argue that ...

• The humans provide a system-card -- it's not their fault that GIB won't read it
• The humans are prepared to answer questions -- it's not their fault that GIB won't ask any.
• The humans can even alert and explain conventional bids -- but GIB won't notice.

Nevertheless, manifestly, this game is unbalanced and the humans have an unfair advantage.

Other robots (like WBridge5) can play different systems and understand their opponents' methods. BBO's full disclosure seemed a promising step in that direction but we're told it's been abandoned.

[Joe_Old]

Unfortunately, for players experienced in playing against robots, it isn't really bridge anymore. From experience they've learned to game the system, knowing that certain lies and deceptions tend to score well. In ACBL-land those deceptions would probably be viewed as systemic psyches and therefore illegal, but there aren't any cops in robot tournaments.

So, as long as there aren't any prohibitions against deception, feel free to confuse the computer, because after all it isn't bridge that you're playing.

[barmar]

Joe_Old, on 2020-January-14, 09:28, said:

Unfortunately, for players experienced in playing against robots, it isn't really bridge anymore. From experience they've learned to game the system, knowing that certain lies and deceptions tend to score well. In ACBL-land those deceptions would probably be viewed as systemic psyches and therefore illegal, but there aren't any cops in robot tournaments.

So, as long as there aren't any prohibitions against deception, feel free to confuse the computer, because after all it isn't bridge that you're playing.

While this is true to an extent, if you read the interviews with the players who have won the NABC Online Individuals, they mostly play normally, just stepping out occasionally. The only systemic adjustments they make are to take advantage of the "best hand" format. There are reasonable arguments that this also is "not real bridge", but since all the human players are aware of it, we believe it's still fair.