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Beware the BBO robots!

BBO robots don't bid like you and me. At a recent club BBO session I unfortunately pushed the robots into a laydown slam which no-one else bid, hence scoring a complete bottom. The full hand was:

No human players bid the slam but at our table, as you can see, the robots bid to 6 spades directly, after we sacrificed over 4 spades!


I find their sequence incomprehensible. In the first place, North passed originally! This this inconceivable. If I have a hand with a 7 card spade suit which is too strong for 3 or 4 spades then surely it is worth 1 spade?


When South opened 1 club, with such a disparity between my hearts and my diamonds, I overcalled 2 hearts rather than using Michaels. I want a heart lead not a diamond if we lose the auction. North showed their spade suit, and my partner bid 3 hearts. This was a little conservative bearing in mind the vulnerability. A better bid would perhaps have been 4 hearts. Since I have announced a weak hand with 6 hearts, partner should bid to the limit of the known fit. Be that as it may, South then made a simple and direct 4 spade bid.


When I then bid 5 hearts I never considered that I might push the robots into a slam. North did not have an opening bid and South had shown no interest in a slam. I expected, of course, that they may bid on to 5 spades but never in my wildest dreams would I have expected them to bid six!


There is no lesson or moral here. I just had to publicise a gross injustice.




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