[lakshmanok]

I like the fact that the robot tourneys make the human always declare now. But actually switching seats to make declarer at the bottom of the screen is confusing.

At the table, one remembers that LHO preempted, for example and when you switch the seats around, it is disorienting. Can you retain seat positions?

If you don't switch declarer's position, will one tend to forget which hand is "closed" and which one the opponents can see? I suggest that you change the look of dummy's hand, for example by using a slightly different color as the background for dummy ...
In fact, changing the look of the dummy might be a good design idea anyway and could be carried throughout the software, regardless of whether it is a robot tournament or not.

[barmar]

I think it would be more confusing if we did what you suggest, because players are used to always being at the bottom when they're declaring.

[Stephen Tu]

 barmar, on 2012-August-20, 14:00, said:

I think it would be more confusing if we did what you suggest, because players are used to always being at the bottom when they're declaring.

But they aren't used to declaring partner's hand yet? I think it depends what you are used to. GIB's standalone PC release, and some other PC bridge programs like wbridge5 don't do the position switch, they just clearly mark which hand is dummy. I think best would be an option, if it's feasible. I agree it helps keep the bidding sequence stable in the mind to not switch.

I see certain educational advantages in declaring with dummy on bottom. Some beginning players have a tough time being flexible in their thinking, always counting declarer's losers and trying to ruff them in dummy, even though on some hands it's better to do the reverse. Forcing them to deal with a rotated board and ruffing in the hand closest to the bottom more often perhaps would promote flexibility in how they think about how to play hands.

[Bbradley62]

 lakshmanok, on 2012-August-20, 13:25, said:

At the table, one remembers that LHO preempted, for example and when you switch the seats around, it is disorienting.

I do find myself looking back-and-forth at the bidding a lot, to be sure I get it right as to which opponent bid what...

[barmar]

I do admit that flipping around the bidding is confusing. I'm just not sure which is more confusing -- declarer on top, or the flipped bidding.

I was kibitzing the JEC match this afternoon using the windows version, and I decided to try the option to always put decarer on the bottom when kibitzing. I did have trouble relating the bidding to the hand when it moved around.