[bjacobs]

I had two human-robot partnerships today, and the software placed them both E/W, two tables apart.

People don't much like playing against robots, and now I had a whole heap of N/S pairs who got them twice. And this was in a 22 table field!

Please, PLEASE, BBO, distribute robot partnerships evenly across the two directions, and when there are greater than two of them, spread them well apart in the table list.

[smerriman]

If people in your tournament don't like playing with robots, why not just disable them? If they're allowed, biasing the tables doesn't seem right.

[gordontd]

 smerriman, on 2020-August-05, 23:41, said:

If people in your tournament don't like playing with robots, why not just disable them? If they're allowed, biasing the tables doesn't seem right.

It's not a case of biasing the tables but of spreading them out, in the same way as seeding starting positions would spread out the strong pairs. I think it's a good idea. It's not unusual for people to be prepared to play against robots but not to want to do it too much. Occasionally we have had people play against them four or five times in a six-round game and they think they should be spread out better.

[bjacobs]

I allow Robots because they serve a useful purpose for singles who can't find partners.

As Gordon says, I just want them spaced out, and preferably spread in directions as well. I don't buy the concept that this somehow stuffs up the seeding.

[smerriman]

Yes, sorry, I misunderstood and thought that spreading them out would mean singles with robots could never play other singles with robots (which was probably unfair one way or the other), but that wouldn't be the case in opposite directions anyway.