[diana_eva]

The Argine team is aware of this thread, and we routinely send other feedback and bug reports their way. However, I don't think they'll come post here on what is being done.

[pilowsky]

There are some rather unusual explanations in the bidding.
After opening 1H and West passing North bid 1S described as forcing.
East passed and when I hovered over 'pass' an explanation appeared saying 'that bid is not allowed'!
I passed and West bid 2D.
Obviously annoyed by my refusal to cooperate, North bid 3S - 'natural'.

On the next hand North opened 1NT - 12-14 balanced.
I hovered over 4C and then over 4D - both bids apparently have the same meaning - two-suited in H and S.
Is this another quirk of Acol bidding I'm unaware of?

[helene_t]

(1!s)-p-(p)-x
(p)-2♣-(p)-2NT
was explained as 14-16, sounds a bit low to me. Maybe 15-18 is standard, although I would personally prefer a tad sounder.

[smerriman]

pilowsky, on 2023-January-09, 02:54, said:

There are some rather unusual explanations in the bidding.
After opening 1H and West passing North bid 1S described as forcing.
East passed and when I hovered over 'pass' an explanation appeared saying 'that bid is not allowed'!
I passed and West bid 2D.
Obviously annoyed by my refusal to cooperate, North bid 3S - 'natural'.

What is unusual about this?

pilowsky, on 2023-January-09, 02:54, said:

On the next hand North opened 1NT - 12-14 balanced.
I hovered over 4C and then over 4D - both bids apparently have the same meaning - two-suited in H and S.
Is this another quirk of Acol bidding I'm unaware of?

Yeah, I discovered this the hard way a few weeks ago after finding out that 1N - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♥ showed slam interest, and you had to start with 4♣ / 4♦ to just show game values. They're not the same definition; one shows 5-6 hearts with 5 spades and one 5-6 spades with 5 hearts. But I have no idea what the convention is.

[pilowsky]

smerriman, on 2023-January-09, 15:33, said:

What is unusual about this?

The 'unusual' thing about it is the wording.
Telling me that a bid is 'not allowed' is bizarre.

What next? "That bid is utterly ridiculous" or "That bid will farnarkle the whole game don't be silly."
As I understand it bid descriptors are meant to describe what your partner will think about your hand - 'not allowed' - doesn't do that.

[smerriman]

Seems perfect to me. The definition of 'forcing' is 'partner is not allowed to pass your bid'. I think they should have *more* of that description, since there's no better way of describing what a pass of a 100% forcing bid should mean.

[pescetom]

pilowsky, on 2023-January-09, 15:49, said:

As I understand it bid descriptors are meant to describe what your partner will think about your hand - 'not allowed' - doesn't do that.[/size]

Bid descriptors describe your systemic agreement.
"Excluded by system" might be more diplomatic than "not allowed".

[pilowsky]

Whoever is responsible for this 100% brilliancy deserves a medal:

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[pescetom]

There is so much wrong here that it would be simpler to just list what makes any sense

[smerriman]

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Completely nonsensical play on trick 1 gifts me the contract.

[pilowsky]

smerriman, on 2023-January-11, 21:38, said:

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Completely nonsensical play on trick 1 gifts me the contract.

Which is exactly the same as the play in the bananas example above where East leads SA and another spade to dummies Q and West with the K cunningly avoids the opportunity to defeat the contract.
Perhaps Argine is just being polite?.

[helene_t]

1♠-2♣
2♥*
and similar rebids are explained as 4+ spades and 4-6 hearts. This should show 5+ spades. There might be an exception for
1red-1black
2minor
which can be a 4441 shape in some styles. But you never open 1♠ with a 4441 shape.
By the way,
1♠-2♣
2♥-2♠
3♦*
is explained as 11-12 points so apparently nonforcing. Whether this is FSF or paterning out, I believe it should be forcing or at least encouraging. Probably F1 after a 2-level response and encouraging after a 1-level response.

[helene_t]

1♠-2♣
2♥*
and similar rebids are explained as 4+ spades and 4-6 hearts. This should show 5+ spades. There might be an exception for
1red-1/2black
2minor
which can be a 4441 shape in some styles. But you never open 1♠ with a 4441 shape.
By the way,
1♠-2♣
2♥-2♠
3♦*
is explained as 11-12 points so apparently nonforcing. Whether this is FSF or paterning out, I believe it should be forcing or at least encouraging. Probably F1 after a 2-level response and encouraging after a 1-level response. (Of course if it is FSF it is forcing. Playing it as FSF may seem weird to non-Brits but is quite common in UK).

[smerriman]

I guess if it's too late for 4NT, you can still use 5NT to ask for aces.

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One person managed to get them all the way to grand, though didn't score as well. This time, Argine forgot that introducing a suit the opponents have bid and raised isn't natural. And 4NT wasn't Blackwood, but 5NT was suddenly asking for kings. And how exactly is 4♣ asking for a stopper in hearts?! For anyone who thought that GIB was bad, Argine is on another level.

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[helene_t]

2♣-2♦
3♦-3NT
4♦-pass
Not only did it pass a GF bid, it even held a huge hand itself, with AJxx of hearts, xxx of diamonds and a doubleton clubs. So it shouldn't be a surprise that 7♦ was cold.

Something else: Argine often rejects obvious claims, I have sent a few reports.

[smerriman]

helene_t, on 2023-January-13, 03:26, said:

Something else: Argine often rejects obvious claims, I have sent a few reports.

Yeah, this one is frustrating and comes up quite regularly. When they initially were collecting some feedback via email I sent one example to Uday where it rejected a claim when I had everything in top tricks. He confirmed it in the logs and was going to email the dev and find out what was going on. So I know they're aware of it at least [but that was Oct 29].

Wouldn't complain if they just passed the request to GiB instead..

[thepossum]

Strange glitch
All tables except one passed 2S

Correction I didn't check

Half (EDIT 75%) passed and half (25%) didnt - seems cruel

2NT described as 9 points. Pass described as less than 10 points

Correction again - I was right first time. A few percent didn't pass - would love to know more about how it all works

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I appreciate with computer Bridge it is an interesting discussion point regarding the role of artificially introduced variance
It would also appear to be an efficiency consideration - how many sims are genuinely needed in any auction

1443 players * 8 hands * approx 8(??) bids = more than it needs to be - sorry didn't adjust for sections - approx 100 reps of each hand

[thepossum]

Dup

[smerriman]

Found the traveller and you're right; the robot acted differently in the same situation. I was meaning to test that myself sometime. That's a *serious* bug.

[thepossum]

Sorry for all the edits. I kept misreading the traveller