[pescetom]

My link

Opponent rightly complained about this explanation - what strength does it show, does it promise a stop etc.

There are many other examples where the explanation is tautological or little more than the name of a convention, even though precisely codified between robot and partner.

[pilowsky]

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[LBengtsson]

Gee whizz! The opponent complained? Oh shucks! I agree the explanation sucks but everyone must know what 1NT means here. Surely?

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2023-March-02, 15:22, said:

even though precisely codified between robot and partner.

I suspect there are very few humans who know the exact conditions that result in a robot making a bid, and while alerting it as a 1NT overcall is silly, there probably isn't a single example of a bid where the displayed definition outlines it precisely. There are thousands of conditions that need to be checked to exclude alternative bids / prioritise others.

What would you prefer instead? Simplest solution here is if the human explains their understanding of the robot bid, since that's all that really matters, even if it's inaccurate.

[smerriman]

If you wanted (10 year old) GIB to describe its actual logic of when it would bid 1NT over 1C, it would be along the lines of:

- doesn't match 13 different rules with various conditions about having values for slam
- doesn't match a rule with various conditions that tells it to pass
- doesn't match another rule that tells it to bid an unusual 2NT
- doesn't match 5 different rules that are various situations when it can double

and then, either of these two rules match:

- it has 15-18 HCP, its longest suit is 4 cards or a 5 card club suit, its shortest suit is 2 or 3 cards, and it has "stopper quality" = 4 (length + HCP in suit at least 8)

OR

- it has 16-18 HCP, its longest suit is 4 cards or a 5 card club suit, its shortest suit is 2 or 3 cards, and it has "stopper quality" at least 2 (2 = Kx or Qxx, 3 = A, QJx, or 5 HCP in the suit)

But that doesn't really fit in the alert box

Of course, some of the rules about slam would never overlap with the 1NT definition, but some of the doubles might, so you can't narrow it down to any hand which matches those last two rules. And it's not the same definition for overcalling a major.

And that's actually a very simple scenario, if you wanted to know what a double meant here, it's not just the 5 possible rules alluded to above, but 3 others that come later after it rules out 1NT, Michaels, and 4 level bids, then another rule that it only looks at if it fails to match 25 other rules for suit overcalls..

[thepossum]

And I wonder why I am anxious about playing "serious" duplicate

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2023-March-02, 16:56, said:

What would you prefer instead?

BAL 15-18, stop in clubs
?

[smerriman]

Right, but that's not how GIB plays it. Agree it's closer than the current description, but descriptions are all generated according to strict rules. Don't think it's really possible to generate such a description based on the database format.

[pescetom]

LBengtsson, on 2023-March-02, 16:42, said:

Gee whizz! The opponent complained? Oh shucks! I agree the explanation sucks but everyone must know what 1NT means here. Surely?

Many of the robot's conventions are unfamiliar to an Italian intermediate, so it's no surprise that opponent was suspicious of an overcall with an incomprehensible explanation.