Are Bridge Robots Ready For Prime Time?

I know that a lot of people have already written (even books) about playing against the GIB robots on BBO.  Frankly I wasn’t all that interested.  I play with people.  But lately Cora and I have used the robots to practice playing.

It can be hard to get a game where people stay for more than a couple of deals and we seemed to spend a lot of time waiting and then some times people can be quite rude, usually to their partner.  So robots seemed more efficient.  Your score is compared against other people playing against robots which makes the score quite artificial.  So I thought I would look at one of the boards from yesterday and see how the robots went wrong.  Would humans have done the same thing?  I rotated the deal to put the robots North-South.  We were vulnerable against not and the South robot was dealer.

North ♠ AKJ ♥ J8653 ♦ AK ♣ 964

South ♠ Q632 ♥ 109 ♦ Q106 ♣ AJ102

South passed. Cora passed and the Northern robot opened 1♥.  I think many humans would open the hand 1NT especially with the anemic heart suit.  One problem with opening 1♥ is you may not enjoy your rebid.  We were silent throughout and South bid 1S.  North bid 3♠ which seems the best of the possible rebids.  16 points is quite a bit for this bid but you can hardly jump with a three-card fit.  Now partner raised to 3♠and there was no question about going to game but I think every human I know would venture 3NT at this point.  The North robot bid 4♠ and there they were on the 4-3 with 3NT very likely to produce 9 tricks.  4♠is not a bad contract but it requires clubs to work and friendly splits.  the clubs were okay but the splits were not.  Here is the whole deal.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ AKJ ♥ J8653 ♦ AK ♣ 964
Cora ♠ 1084 ♥ AKQ72 ♦ J8742 ♣ –		Linda ♠ 975 ♥ 4 ♦ 953 ♣ KQ8753
	South ♠ Q632 ♥ 109 ♦ Q106 ♣ AJ102

First thing to notice is that many people would open Cora’s hand in second chair.  She is 5-5 with a decent ten count.  (With those nice hearts I would have opened 1♥ ).   If you open 1♥ then North will bid 1NT.  At this point I can’t imaging bidding on my hand.   When people played with three robots the robot bid 2♣ on my hand which lead to all sorts of trouble.  Big big numbers.  Moral don’t bid on a weak hand with a probable misfit.  Robots are you listening?  No robots reached the 3NT game even when North overcalled 1NT.  When East-West escaped to diamonds (which should still go for a big number) the robots ended in spades when South pulled? 2♦ doubled to 2♠ and North often reasonably raised.

My conclusion from this hand is that robots still have a lot to learn about bidding in contested auctions (and maybe in general).  Cora was the only West to pass by the way.   Even robots were enticed into opening her hand including both humans and robots.  I don’t think it is as clearcut as that but I do think that very few people (or robots) would pass.

What would you bid after your partner opened 1H and RHO doubled with

I think all humans would bid 4♥ .  Our robot bid 2♥ and then 4♥ at his next turn.  There are many problems with this approach although it didn’t work out badly this time.

I have a sense that the card play of the robots is better but I haven’t checked that out yet.  Still they do provide quite worthy practice.