[kirmeg]

I understand the need for robots; I am not happy that they play together. If for ease of the Board movement it is advsable to recruit robots, could there not be a human reserve who is willing to play with one ?

People play Bridge to compete against other humans,not against machines
People play Bridge to collect various Points.
people play Bridge and pay money for the privilege.
People play Bridge...... and make mistakes....... robots are programmed NOT not to do so !!
Am I alone in feeling unhappy about this ?

[pescetom]

kirmeg, on 2022-November-17, 15:36, said:

I understand the need for robots; I am not happy that they play together. If for ease of the Board movement it is advsable to recruit robots, could there not be a human reserve who is willing to play with one ?

People play Bridge to compete against other humans,not against machines
People play Bridge to collect various Points.
people play Bridge and pay money for the privilege.
People play Bridge...... and make mistakes....... robots are programmed NOT not to do so !!
Am I alone in feeling unhappy about this ?

That the robots here do not make mistakes is an overbid, see the appropriate forum.
But they have their place, and one of the better aspects of robots is that they eliminate the need for human reserves.
A human entering as as reserve to entertain a robot would be downright perverse IMO.
In any case, I suggest you consider the occasional pair of robot opponents as useful lubrication for your tournament: they bid predictably and not very well, they make no attempt to understand your agreements, they play quickly and will never call the Director

[stelios_t]

kirmeg, on 2022-November-17, 15:36, said:

People play Bridge...... and make mistakes....... robots are programmed NOT not to do so !!

Actually, robots make a tremendous amount of mistakes. They are extremely bad in competitive auctions especially at the four-level or higher. They have very poor judgement in evaluating hands- --,xx,AKQJ10xxx,xxx, Kx, xx, AKxxxxx,xx and x,Qxx,KJxxxx,QJx are all 3D "invites" over a 1S opening to them. And they often make gross mistakes in the early stages of defense, they rarely duck Aces and almost never duck Kings, they tend to cover an honor with an honor too readily. They are quite competent declarers though, and they are excellent defenders once the distribution is rather obvious. They also make a lot of interesting falsecards, and their habit of discarding top-down from equals and leading second highest (after the opening lead) with all types of holdings can be confusing if you are not used to counting the hand.

I like winning masterpoints, and I play a lot against the robots as it's one of the fastest ways to do so. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper than playing in FTF games--and you don't risk COVID. You need to get used to how they play, you need to read the explanations of what their bids mean almost *every* time as they often do not conform with what a standard or 2/1 player would expect, especially in competitive auctions. And you need to learn to take the good with the bad--you will get fixed by them, but they will fix themselves even more often if you let them.

[Moffcat]

To say the robots never make mistakes is completely incorrect.
Their bidding on occasion is atrocious but worst is their lead against a NT contract - they tend to lead a card from a 3 card suit
( usually any card ) I suppose it balances out because sometimes you are declarer other times your defensive partner - I have been playing bridge for a very long time and if one thing would make give up the game is the frustration of playing with robots e.g. in a daylong tournament.

[fuzzyquack]

https://tinyurl.com/2lhmgo2x

[barmar]

Robots make judgement mistakes, but they don't make simple mistakes like miscounting or forgetting what spots have been played. I think that's what the OP meant.

As for whether to use Robot+Robot partnerships to fill in for a missing pair, that's entirely up to the tourney organizer. None of the tourneys run by BBO allow it, but other tourney hosts can decide for themselves. If you frequently play in a game that does this, you should complain to that host.

[Aceotto]

Robots do not see previous limiting bids 1dia 1spd 2 clubs 2 spds 3clubs 3 spds 4clubs 4 spds 7 dia Pass 1 club pass 1 sp pass 2 spds pass pass me 3 hits pass 6 hits

[harikannan]

Appropos the issue, when we send a 'robot report' about a quirky bid / play and bbo finds it worthy of fix, do we get a message?