[Hrotha]

Question: Does BBO ever cause players to receive non-random card distributions? Can it cause some players to get better than average card distributions, and other players to receive worse than average card distributions (in terms of high card points?) If so, is there any way to tell, directly, whether this is happening to you?

(Remember, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you!)

[smerriman]

No. No. Yes; you can do a statistical analysis of your hand records. Or you can look at posts in the past where people had similar suspicions, and statistical analyses were done, and proved in all cases that they were wrong.

It's a common assertion, but that's what you expect from true randomness - only people who have experienced a poor run of hands notice it and post in the forum about it, but in the long run it turns out to be nothing unexpected.

[pilowsky]

Hrotha, GReat question.
Only in Goulash tournaments where they are designed to be bananas, and in all the Best Hand tourneys where you know that all the other hands are less than or equal to yours (HCP only).


In addition to the randomness of the deals, if playing against robots, you can also be assured of random bidding by your partner and the other two robots.
BBO goes to extraordinary lengths to provide excellent service.

[johnu]

@Hrotha - Absolutely players get non-random cards. The reason is BBO's Premium Super Gold Latinum Club where members are guaranteed to get many more HCP than average and to get more even splits when declaring hands. In order to balance the overall odds, nonmembers have to get fewer HCP than average, and to get many more bad splits than expected. I only started to enjoy BBO when I became a Premium Super Gold Latinum Club member. Sometimes I feel sorry for nonmembers, but then I remember that anybody can join if they know the right people and have enough money to join.

[nige1]

A wonderful BBO exception is Fred Gitelman's brilliant BridgeMaster teaching system that comprises graded sets of deals to hone your declarer play
Each time that you depart from a recommended line, the program adjusts the layout of defenders' cards, to ensure that you fail
Fred's expert post-mortem analysis explains, card by card: where you went wrong; and why the correct line is more likely to succeed

[hrothgar]

Few quick notes:


1. There are multiple occasions in which the hands that BBO assigns to you will be biased in some ways

A. BBO runs a lot of best hand tournaments in which a player is competing against three bots and the player is assured of having at least as many HCP as the best bot hand.

B. People who are running tournaments can upload their own sets of deals and bias them in whatever what they see fit

C. Player who are doing practice bidding can choose to bias their hands based on desired constraints

2. By default / unless someone is messing with stuff the deals should be random

[pescetom]

hrothgar, on 2021-October-22, 16:25, said:

B. People who are running tournaments can upload their own sets of deals and bias them in whatever what they see fit

But in this case you will be aware (either you get a message 'this tournament uses pre-dealt hands', or the tournament disintegrates on liftoff).