Robot tournaments on Bridge Base

Types of tournaments
We have four main types of Robot tournaments. They are the Robot Duplicate, Robot Race, Robot Reward and Robot Rebate. Each table in a Robot Tournament consists of a single human player, sitting South, and three robot players sitting in the other three seats. In other words, if you play in one of our Robot Tournaments, your partner and your opponents will always be robots!

Best Hand
When you join a Robot tournament, the human player is usually dealt the "best hand" at the table, defined as the hand with the most high card points. Always having a good hand makes bridge more exciting and fun for most players! Robot tournaments that don't offer this "best hand" feature will be clearly marked.

Human Declares
This is a feature of some Robot games - the human player is switched into the North (Robot) seat whenever North is the declarer. The human player then declares the hand. When the hand is over, the human is switched back to his original seat. This variation means the human player will never have to be dummy. It also increases the skill level of the game because each player has to declare more often.

Robot Duplicate Tournaments
Robot duplicates are offered in MP or IMP versions, 8 boards, BB$0.25 each. You must finish all 8 boards in the alloted time to scratch. Those who do well win masterpoints from BBO.

Robot Race Tournaments
Robot races are BB$0.25, and your goal is to score as many total points as you can. Every table plays the exact same boards, and you can play as many boards as you want. The top scorers will win masterpoints from BBO.

Robot Reward Tournaments
Robot reward tournaments are either BB$1 or BB$5, and your goal as a player is to score as many total points as you can. Every table plays different boards, but you have the same time limit (25 minutes) to optimize your scores. The top scorers win both BB$ and masterpoints from BBO.

Robot Rebate Tournaments
Robot rebates are a more advanced version of robot duplicates. You play 12 boards, entry fee is BB$1, and if you finish with at least 55%, you will win BB$1.50 as well as masterpoints from BBO.

How do robots work?
The robots you are playing with are called GIB. Some players may find it frustrating if a particular GIB partner plays especially poorly (or if a particular GIB opponent plays especially well) on a given hand, but, these things will even themselves out over time. We think that GIB plays at least as well as the average BBO member. Some times the GIB does something totally crazy (don't we all). This is what the GIB does. Everyone has the same GIB as partner and opponent, so, everyone is on a level playing field. If your GIB does something crazy we want to know about it so we can see if it is fixable, but, we cannot, under any circumstances, offer a refund.

The GIBs that play in our Robot Tournaments play a relatively simple and natural bidding system. When you play in a Robot Tournament you can find out the meaning of any bid by clicking on that bid as it appears in the bidding diagram. Furthermore, when it is your turn to bid, moving your mouse over the buttons for the various possible bids will cause an explanation of the bid you are considering (as your GIB partner will understand it) to be displayed. These explanations can be somewhat cryptic, but reading them carefully before you bid will help you to avoid misunderstandings with your GIB partner.

You can find out more about GIB's system by clicking here.

General tips for robot tournaments
The following tips are generally agreed by top robot players to be true, and are useful for more experienced robot tournament players. BBO robots and strategies are discussed at length in our forums, so please browse forum for more tips.

If you are playing in a total points best hand robot game, pass out anything <16 points if you can. You are unlikely to make a game, so why bother declaring a part score or worse, defend?

Try to familiarize yourself with the GIB's system, which is 2/1 in general with a few quirks. When in doubt, always mouse over robot's bids and what you intend to bid to check for what GIB thinks your bid means. You don't want to end up with a rude shock.

GIB does not handle doubles very well. Try to avoid sequences with many doubles and redoubles.

GIB does not handle fancy things well. Try to avoid "master bids" and things like that.

GIB does not usually lead "4th best" like many humans do. Don't waste your time grumbling about this. Use this knowledge to your advantage.

Final words
Robots are robots, we understand the importance of improving them, and have full time staff tweaking our robots constantly. A typical year will see us pushing out 4-5 major robot upgrades. We believe in our robot tournaments and think this is the most enjoyable way to spend a fuss free hour. That being said, if you had a very bad experience, we want to hear about it - please email support@bridgebase.com with your username and the problem.

Where else can you find a partner who never bickers, usually has whatever hand he claims to have, yet lets you declare most of the time, right?