[smerriman]

This occurred in the free daylong MP tournament, after which I've replicated at a bidding table.

With N/S vulnerable, GIB alerts 4NT as Blackwood here. Yet if you check the responses, none of them are Blackwood responses.



Yet when I switch to North's seat, and try to bid myself, 4NT is natural (and GIB responds to it as Blackwood).



It appears someone has updated GIB, but not updated the version of GIB that is used to generate descriptions of human bids (via the REST API).

I assume 3♥ shows support with newGIB but not restGIB. Why that would be a good update, I have no clue. Interestingly, it showed support with veryveryOldGIB, so maybe we're taking steps backwards.

So yeah, this kinda needs fixing ASAP. With almost as high a priority as the bug where it still calculates dummy double scores wrongly in 3 card endings

[johnu]

smerriman, on 2024-February-09, 13:41, said:

So yeah, this kinda needs fixing ASAP. With almost as high a priority as the bug where it still calculates dummy double scores wrongly in 3 card endings

There's no money in the budget to make GIB fixes. BBO will have to double robot game prices to be able to do anything, and users should demand to pay more to use GIB to make this happen.

[lorserker]

Hi, I'm quite sure that we didn't update.
Will check just in case.

[smerriman]

lorserker, on 2024-February-10, 01:22, said:

Hi, I'm quite sure that we didn't update.
Will check just in case.

Perhaps it was the same mysterious person who definitely didn't update the forum database

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-February-10, 01:42, said:

Perhaps it was the same mysterious person who definitely didn't update the forum database

And definitely didn't worry about gratuitously nuking the tricks function in Dealer

[tsankaR]

https://www.bridgeba...DJ%7Cmc%7C13%7C

2nt passed!!

[pescetom]

tsankaR, on 2024-February-12, 10:15, said:

https://www.bridgeba...DJ%7Cmc%7C13%7C

2nt passed!!

I think that is worth a thread of its own

The system notes say that Stayman promises at least one 4-card major, which might be part of the explanation as it seems to have no way of either finding the hearts fit or showing the clubs.

Or maybe this was not GiB but Ben, and you are in the wrong thread?
Unfortunately BBO have still not got round to naming the robots.

[lorserker]

tsankaR, on 2024-February-12, 10:15, said:

https://www.bridgeba...DJ%7Cmc%7C13%7C

2nt passed!!

hi, thanks for raising.
yes, i am aware of this bug.
the cause is that gib doesn't have a bidding rule for what to bid in this situation. when there is no rule, basic gib will pass.

we are going to fix it.

another example of the same: https://www.bridgeba...=web&v3v=6.14.5

[smerriman]

This seems a very weird one to want to fix, since these types of extreme hands are often better suited to bidding by simulation than bidding by predefined rules.

That is, adding a rule likely won't improve advanced GIB much if at all, and there are lots of other situations where adding a rule has the potential to make it worse than better.

If the aim was to provide a better experience for nonpaying customers, it would be far more logical to simply re-enable simulations for them instead..

[johnu]

tsankaR, on 2024-February-12, 10:15, said:

https://www.bridgeba...DJ%7Cmc%7C13%7C

2nt passed!!

Not a big problem. A lesser robot would have bid out of turn.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-February-12, 12:38, said:

That is, adding a rule likely won't improve advanced GIB much if at all, and there are lots of other situations where adding a rule has the potential to make it worse than better.

Am I right in thinking that it does not realise that it can bid a slammish 6 card minor through Stayman even though not holding a 4 card major? If so, does that not require a rule or two to fix?

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2024-February-13, 07:11, said:

Am I right in thinking that it does not realise that it can bid a slammish 6 card minor through Stayman even though not holding a 4 card major? If so, does that not require a rule or two to fix?

Advanced GIB does realise it can bid Stayman, and does, so no, it doesn't require a rule to fix. Unless you're solely wanting to fix it for non-paying customers as mentioned (in which case, it's illogical to want to intentionally provide them a much weaker robot, while at the same time not wanting them to have a weaker robot).

I mean, yes, it is literally a 2 minute fix and I could write the rule right now trivially, but it's rather pointless; there are so many other situations where a free bot will make a dumb decision which can't ( and often shouldn't) be fixed by rules, and that's specifically why the bot was designed to simulate; the database was never intended to be used standalone.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-February-13, 13:09, said:

Advanced GIB does realise it can bid Stayman, and does, so no, it doesn't require a rule to fix.

Good, thanks.
So it's only the GiB system description that needs fixing ("Stayman (promises at least one 4-card major)").

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2024-February-14, 15:52, said:

Good, thanks.
So it's only the GiB system description that needs fixing ("Stayman (promises at least one 4-card major)").

Where are you seeing that? 3♣ over 2NT is described as solely "Stayman -- 5+ total points". Nothing needs fixing at all.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-February-14, 16:24, said:

Where are you seeing that? 3♣ over 2NT is described as solely "Stayman -- 5+ total points". Nothing needs fixing at all.

Here.

[smerriman]

Ah.. OK, sure, you could delete that if you like, but that really misses the point.. the point is less that it was a 100% intentional part of the system, but more that when it comes to these types of extreme hands that weren't part of the notes, it's able to handle them anyway. Unless you're using the intentionally crippled version.

In this case giving it specific rules to handle them doesn't improve the end product one bit.. so if it's a choice between spending resources "fixing" this, and {virtually anything else to do with GIB}, this should be the lowest priority.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2024-February-14, 16:39, said:

Ah.. OK, sure, you could delete that if you like, but that really misses the point.. the point is less that it was a 100% intentional part of the system, but more that when it comes to these types of extreme hands that weren't part of the notes, it's able to handle them anyway. Unless you're using the intentionally crippled version.

It's comforting to know the robot gets it right, thanks. But the System Notes should correspond of course. BBO has a duty to provide and maintain them, deletion is not an option. How else should a human learn this rather eccentric system?

[smerriman]

We're still on totally unrelated pages here, but I concede I'd rather a bot that plays better and comes up with the right bids, vs one that sticks to a strict set of notes and plays much worse as a result, noting that a vast majority of robot play is solitaire, even if that isn't lawful. You learn by experience. But I guess YMMV.

FYI the notes are correct; GIBs system tells it to only bid 3♣ with a 4 card major. It just appends "or any hand where the system as written would give a far worse result than making this bid" to the definition of all bids.