[msheald]

Hello! I've been surprised at times that GIB bids do not seem to match the robot's hand.

Today, I play ed a free round of 8 hands. I had 26 points and bid 2 clubs followed by 2 diamonds from robot and 2 hearts from me with a 5-card heart suit.

The robot bid 3 clubs. When I clicked on the hand, it showed cheaper minor with 11 HCP, 12 total points, forcing to 3 hearts.

Great!, I thought. Time for a Grand Slam, and that is where I ended up - 7 NT, since I typically lean towards NT rather than suits with slams.

When robot dummy came down, I was surprised to see 2 HCP (2 jacks), 4-card heart support, 2 clubs, and an overall 4-4-3-2 distribution. This seemd a far cry from 11 HCP and 12 total points

Did I miss something? Or do the GIB descriptions not match the hand at times?

It makes me leery about paying money to play with robots, especially a high-priced tournament like robot nationals. Best regards.

Mike

[smerriman]

You missed the minus sign that appeared after the numbers; meaning 11 *or less* HCP. Which could be 0.

Of course, that is still far too big a range; cheaper minor is meant to show a very bad hand.

In saying that, GIB has numerous bugs (eg sometimes it does bid cheaper minor with a good hand with clubs because it hasn't been programmed to know what else to do), and its description will not always match its hand. The flip side is that everyone else in the tournament is in the same position.

In this case though, the robot got the bid right.

[msheald]

Hello! Thank you for your note. I appreciate it. Best regards.

Mike

[pigpenz]

i have found that Gib is pretty accurate.
one way to check is put your hand in a simulator and put the specs in that gib gives, plus opps
bids and see what it cooks up.

[thepossum]

While the descriptions are mostly accurate, they are accurate much of the time because they are very broad, and not adjusted much during the auction

And if you try to use them to inform your own bids you could end up in anything from passed at the 2-level to grand

Occasionally(not often) I have found it will lie about its trumps and you end up in 2-4 or 3-4 fit and occasionally (mathematical quibble) it includes zero in even number of keycards (some would claim 0 to be even - but not in Blackwood)

For those who would use an argument that 0 is even because its remainder is 0 after division by two, the special thing about 0 is that it has 0 remainder when divided by anything. Its useless sometimes

[pigpenz]

Here is an example

4 hearts says 12-15 hcp and no AK diamonds or AK clubs

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so from this descripton one should pass as they are off AK Clubs.....so its up to you to decide should you try and fool robots.
about ten jumped to 6 Hearts and GIB didnt cash out. so in this case the information was correct about GIB your partner.