[mfearth]

Any chance that bbo will be increasing the number of boards in the duplicate robot races? Speedball perhaps? 8 boards in 25 minutes is painfully slow, 16 would be a nice tempo, heck even rushing 24 would be better than the current 8.

[barmar]

The ACBL robot duplicates are 12 boards in 55 minutes. I usually finish in about a half hour, and then have to wait forever for the results. There almost always seems to be someone taking the full time, or someone who disconnected.

If you want to get lots of boards in, play Robot Rewards or Robot Race.

[jdonn]

Yes the slowness due to someone getting disconnected from the robot duplicates is a big problem, I'd say it costs 10-15 minutes most of the time. I've mentioned that it takes me less than half the time to finish, so if I see someone is disconnected and another tournament is starting I go play in the next one, then come back to see how I did.

[Jlall]

They should just make it easy to track how you've done. I got annoyed when this happened and I wanted to play another one but then couldn't go back and see how I finished up in the first one. Is there any way to see this easily, and if not could it be built in?

[cherdanno]

Jlall, on Oct 20 2009, 05:40 PM, said:

They should just make it easy to track how you've done. I got annoyed when this happened and I wanted to play another one but then couldn't go back and see how I finished up in the first one. Is there any way to see this easily, and if not could it be built in?

You will get a pop-up with the scores when the previous one is finished. You can also go to My BBO->Hands and results->... to look up previous tournament results (this is for the web client).

[Jlall]

cherdanno, on Oct 20 2009, 05:44 PM, said:

Jlall, on Oct 20 2009, 05:40 PM, said:

They should just make it easy to track how you've done. I got annoyed when this happened and I wanted to play another one but then couldn't go back and see how I finished up in the first one. Is there any way to see this easily, and if not could it be built in?

You will get a pop-up with the scores when the previous one is finished. You can also go to My BBO->Hands and results->... to look up previous tournament results (this is for the web client).

Thx simple enough. Uday has thought of it all obv

[JoAnneM]

Within a tournament do the robots "learn" how to play or defend a hand? I play quickly and then like to watch the slower players. I watch the robots do different leads and plays after exact auctions. In fact I have seen them make different bids at the same point in an identical auction.

[fred]

JoAnneM, on Oct 25 2009, 01:14 AM, said:

Within a tournament do the robots "learn" how to play or defend a hand?  I play quickly and then like to watch the slower players.  I watch the robots do different leads and plays after exact auctions.  In fact I have seen them make different bids at the same point in an identical auction.

The robots do not learn (except when we explicitly teach them).

There are some essentially random factors that can determine what bid a robot chooses to make or what card a robot chooses to play in a given situation. That is because robots make some of their decisions based on simulating possible layouts of the unseen cards. The nature of the random sample of deals that come out of a given simulation will sometimes have an impact on what bid or play looks best to a given robot.

From a practical point of view all this really means is that sometimes you will get lucky and sometimes you will get unlucky. However, all our robots are created equal and it doesn't take long for this luck to even out.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[JoAnneM]

BTW, if you do support these ACBL robot games please send a letter to Fred and/or your District Director. As a matter of interest I have talked to the owner of another site that has ACBL games and that person does not support the points with robots and has notified ACBL, so Fred really needs feedback.

[G_R__E_G]

JoAnneM, on Nov 6 2009, 01:40 PM, said:

BTW, if you do support these ACBL robot games please send a letter to Fred and/or your District Director.  As a matter of interest I have talked to the owner of another site that has ACBL games and that person does not support the points with robots and has notified ACBL, so Fred really needs feedback.

The owner of that site is obviously just jealous.

[JoAnneM]

Of course you are right, but that site also uses robots in ACBL tournies.

[triplepeel]

How can you watch the slower players?
And how can anyone possibly take half an hour to play 8 boards?

[JoAnneM]

The ACBL robot tournaments are 12 boards and the players are given 55 minutes, which is way too long for most.

To watch the slower players you just click on one of the tables still in play.

[barmar]

I've occasionally been in a tourney where everyone finished in 40-45 minutes, except there was a table with a red player holding up the results. I suggest that if the tourney gets down to all red players, the tourney should end when it's been 5 minutes since the last one disconnected.

[blackshoe]

Hm. the "f2f" guideline for amount of time per board is 7.5 minutes (that's ACBL, but I think other jurisdictions are pretty much the same). In a speedball, that's reduced to 5 minutes per board. Yet some people seem to think 4 minutes per board is too long online. Why is that? Is the game that much different?

[barmar]

I think the ACBL guideline is actually something like 6 minutes/board + 3 minutes/round. This allows time for players and boards to move, and time for slow players to get caught up. It also allows some elbow room if players have to go to the rest room during the game.

But in robot games, when there's only one human at the table, there are far fewer delays, and the game goes much faster than speedballs. For instance, you never have to wait for someone to type an explanation, and there's no post mortem discussion between hands. And when the human is dummy, the play often goes very quickly. About the only thing that slows the game down is that you can't claim, which may add about 20 seconds to some hands.

In Robot Rewards/Race tourneys, where playing as many hands as possible is the winning strategy, good players average about 1 minute/board, although that usually includes a bunch of pass-outs (total points scoring devalues part scores, so it's good strategy to only open hands that can accept invitations). There isn't any rush in Robot Duplicates, but I still average 2-3 minutes/board without even trying hard.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on Nov 10 2009, 06:38 PM, said:

I think the ACBL guideline is actually something like 6 minutes/board + 3 minutes/round.

If so, then they've changed it in the last year or so.

There's a discussion of the factors involved in Hallen, et. al., Movements: A Fair Approach. I don't recall all the details, but they suggested something like 7 or 7.5 minutes per board, plus a minute or so for "movement time" - scoring, getting to the next table, and so on. Interestingly, when the club directors around here decided to try to accommodate players' desire for "more boards", they did not lengthen the time for a session — typically three hours — so now we have 26 board sessions with 12 minutes for the round (6 per board) plus about 15 seconds "movement time" - which is just enough for players to realize they should be moving when they're told they should already be in the next round - unless you're playing where the director starts chivvying you to "be in your next round" a minute or two before the current round is officially over.

I hadn't considered the "robot" aspect of things. I can see how that would speed it up. IAC, thanks for the explanation.

[JoAnneM]

Yes, it is very different. The three GIBS bid almost instantly. When a GIB is declarer the first 4 or 5 tricks might take a few seconds each but then the rest of the hand flashes by in a blur of maybe 2 seconds. When the GIBS are defending they are very quick, maybe a 2 or 3 second delay. The only player taking any time at all is the human player.

I try to take as much time as I can and still have never finished with less than 20 minutes left, usually between 25 and 30.

[Mbodell]

barmar, on Nov 10 2009, 03:38 PM, said:

I think the ACBL guideline is actually something like 6 minutes/board + 3 minutes/round. This allows time for players and boards to move, and time for slow players to get caught up. It also allows some elbow room if players have to go to the rest room during the game.

I think it is 7 minutes/board + 3 minutes/round or 8 minutes/board - 2 minutes/round. Which works out to about 7.5 minutes a board.

I agree with others that the robot duplicate gives one tons of time. I only strated playing these because of the bbo forum thread on the NABC motion, but I already have found myself sometimes signing up for one that will start in the next 3-10 minutes, and then go do some activity that takes 5-20 minutes (chores, groceries, whatever), and only then coming back to play the tournament such that when I'm done there is only 6 players and 15 minutes left in the event.

[barmar]

The normal round times at ACBL f2f tournaments are 15 minutes for 2-board rounds, 21 minutes for 3-board rounds. That fits the 6/board+3/round formula, and it's been like this for as long as I can remember.