[micsfyuen]

I started playing in the daylong reward tournaments last week. They are match point tournaments with 1 player+3 advanced robots at each table. I keep getting only 48%-55% scores and do not seem to find any way to break through and get better scores.

I review the 16 boards every time, I could find possible improvements to score up to ~57%, but nowhere near getting the top scores.

I saw some players exploit the robot behaviour to score high, e.g. NV overcall 4N over 1N opening to sacrifice when robots would not X. Are there any skills or tricks that could help me play better in robot tournaments?

[smerriman]

One thing worth noting is that 'getting near the top scores' and 'playing better' aren't necessarily the same thing.

Even if you played every board you receive perfectly, you still may not be able to get anywhere near the top scores in a 16 board tournament, because to make it harder to cheat, not everybody plays the same hands. So you may well receive a bunch of flat hands (where it's impossible to score much more than 50% no matter what you do), while the top scorers received a lot of swingy hands.

And of course, if you look at the boards of the top scorers in a specific tournament, you'll see a lot of unusual bids and plays which, when they work, may get a top, but when they fail, may get a bottom - and you're just seeing the ones that got lucky. While making crazy bids does tend to make the robots play equally crazily and can work - and there are definitely some unusual strategies which have a higher than average expectation - most high scorers in the NABC tournaments (where you play far more boards, so random swings tend to average themselves out better) - have tended to say they play generally down the line for the most part.

But obviously, the more you get to know GIB's quirks in bidding and play, the more you can start to learn how to work around them and avoid some disasters.

There are lots of articles around from these types of players if you search for robot strategies - eg some are linked to in the early comments in this thread.

[dsLawsd]

Concentrate on playing your hands well and not making speculative leads unless the bidding has revealed a likely flaw. Expect hands to be very distributional when the robots seem to make a miraculous lead.
Cater to the weird mistakes robots make when you wind up in a poor contract.
Practice. practice, practice especially on defense where you can often make a bundle of matchpoints by properly timing the leads between you and robot- they do not pay much attention to count and attitude unless you clearly hit
the weakness early. You may want to underbid any time the two hands have lots of high cards but no very good fit, especially in part score hands.
Remember if given a choice plus scores are most important, but consider taking a dangerous finesse when it just feels right as other players will do the same.

Of course, know the way tournaments are scored: you get half a point for each player you tie and 1 point for each you beat and that gets turned into a percentage of the possible points you could have made.

Expect to have rounds where it seems everything goes wrong and you get a pour score: go back and pull the hand records and see if you can find a logically better line.

"As we say in my law Office, some days you are the statue and some days you are the pigeon."

[johnu]

micsfyuen, on 2022-October-10, 19:19, said:

I review the 16 boards every time, I could find possible improvements to score up to ~57%, but nowhere near getting the top scores.

It's impossible to believe that your "best" possible score on every tournament is 57%. Maybe for a very rare tournament, but consistently 57%???

Sure, there are some hands where basically everybody gets 50%, e.g. 28 HCP and a 9 or 10 card major fit, no voids and missing 2 aces where every declarer takes 11 tricks. And then there are hands where you get to a very hard to bid 95% slam that goes down because you ran into that 5% chance where slam doesn't make and get a zero. And to some extent, it depends on who else is playing in your tournament, totally random players, or a bunch of advanced+ players. And even if you are playing perfectly, there are hands where GIB goes completely berserk and who knows what you score will be.

TBH, I expect that bidding and making a routine 3NT or 4 of a major hand will score around 60-70%. There will be players that inexplicably stop in a part score, get to the wrong denomination, get too high, or just misplay the hand and make fewer tricks than they should. I expect bidding and making a slam will be in the 80+% range (sure, there are the 35-36 HCP hands missing an ace that everybody bids to 6NT so you get closer to an average). And on part score hands, particularly with competition, or on defense, you might expect to get 65+% for getting to the right level, and taking all your tricks.

My guesstimate for a session bidding and playing perfectly with normal to good luck is around 70+%

[smerriman]

johnu, on 2022-October-11, 15:02, said:

TBH, I expect that bidding and making a routine 3NT or 4 of a major hand will score around 60-70%. There will be players that inexplicably stop in a part score, get to the wrong denomination, get too high, or just misplay the hand and make fewer tricks than they should. I expect bidding and making a slam will be in the 80+% range (sure, there are the 35-36 HCP hands missing an ace that everybody bids to 6NT so you get closer to an average). And on part score hands, particularly with competition, or on defense, you might expect to get 65+% for getting to the right level, and taking all your tricks.

My guesstimate for a session bidding and playing perfectly with normal to good luck is around 70+%

Have you actually played in the daylong reward tournament being talked about, as opposed to other daylongs? These are a very different beast, being non-best-hand and a better class of players - in the last one I played, only 4 of the 1170 players scored over 70%. I find your numbers very hard to believe.

In a best-hand daylong, where you defend rarely and games are slams are common, sure, but averaging over 70% on defensive hands seems impossible to me. Unless by 'best' you're not talking about making the best plays, but making double dummy decisions.

[johnu]

smerriman, on 2022-October-11, 15:55, said:

Have you actually played in the daylong reward tournament being talked about, as opposed to other daylongs? These are a very different beast, being non-best-hand and a better class of players - in the last one I played, only 4 of the 1170 players scored over 70%. I find your numbers very hard to believe.

In a best-hand daylong, where you defend rarely and games are slams are common, sure, but averaging over 70% on defensive hands seems impossible to me. Unless by 'best' you're not talking about making the best plays, but making double dummy decisions.

The operative word was "perfectly". Bidding and playing perfectly. Sure, some of that "perfect" blurs into double dummy decisions and getting on the lucky side of things, including getting and capitalizing on gifts from GIB. I've heard some legitimate world class players describe it as being in the zone. For the record, I don't remember ever being "perfect" over an extended number of hands.

[smerriman]

johnu, on 2022-October-11, 16:20, said:

The operative word was "perfectly". Bidding and playing perfectly. Sure, some of that "perfect" blurs into double dummy decisions and getting on the lucky side of things, including getting and capitalizing on gifts from GIB. I've heard some legitimate world class players describe it as being in the zone. For the record, I don't remember ever being "perfect" over an extended number of hands.

OK. The part of the OP that you quoted was him getting 57% if he eliminated mistakes, so I think he's talking about 'optimal' play - taking the best percentage line - rather than 'perfect' play - ie what cheaters could achieve by creating multiple accounts to know the hands in advance.

Adding the highest score a player achieve on each individual board from my last tournament gives an average of 90%, so while those would go down a bit if I equalled them all, I would expect 70% is a considerable underestimate for 'perfect' play, especially when that hasn't even taken into account some of those scores may not be the top theoretical result. But definitely too high for consistently achievable results.

[johnu]

smerriman, on 2022-October-11, 18:11, said:

OK. The part of the OP that you quoted was him getting 57% if he eliminated mistakes, so I think he's talking about 'optimal' play - taking the best percentage line - rather than 'perfect' play - ie what cheaters could achieve by creating multiple accounts to know the hands in advance.

Adding the highest score a player achieve on each individual board from my last tournament gives an average of 90%, so while those would go down a bit if I equalled them all, I would expect 70% is a considerable underestimate for 'perfect' play, especially when that hasn't even taken into account some of those scores may not be the top theoretical result. But definitely too high for consistently achievable results.

I'm not talking about cheating, like avoiding a 90% game with plenty of points for no reason, or making 10% plays because you know the hands.

As to the luck factor, suppose you have a couple of great auctions (or maybe not so great) and get to a couple of small slams that nobody else gets to. Each are basically on a finesse, so ~50%. Suppose everybody else is in game or the 5 level making 6. If both slams make, you get 100% on both boards and if a slam goes down you get a zero. Over the assumed 16 boards stated by OP, that increases the score for a 50% player to 56.25%. On a bad day, both slams go down and and that 50% player is now at 43.75%.

And yes, sometimes your "luck" is awful. I have a friend who was playing in a tough club game who normally scores over 50% who had a game in the high 20's, IIRC 28%, when he's never scored in the 30's. I asked him about how he scored in the 20's and he said they were a little unlucky to not break 30%

[micsfyuen]

johnu, on 2022-October-11, 18:52, said:

I'm not talking about cheating, like avoiding a 90% game with plenty of points for no reason, or making 10% plays because you know the hands.

As to the luck factor, suppose you have a couple of great auctions (or maybe not so great) and get to a couple of small slams that nobody else gets to. Each are basically on a finesse, so ~50%. Suppose everybody else is in game or the 5 level making 6. If both slams make, you get 100% on both boards and if a slam goes down you get a zero. Over the assumed 16 boards stated by OP, that increases the score for a 50% player to 56.25%. On a bad day, both slams go down and and that 50% player is now at 43.75%.

And yes, sometimes your "luck" is awful. I have a friend who was playing in a tough club game who normally scores over 50% who had a game in the high 20's, IIRC 28%, when he's never scored in the 30's. I asked him about how he scored in the 20's and he said they were a little unlucky to not break 30%

Would u mind to review some of my tournament results?

By 57% I meant making single dummy optimal decisions, not any cheating or double dummy play.

I often find it hard to understand how the robots behave differently, 57% could be due to me not understanding robots enough to identify the changes needed.

[smerriman]

micsfyuen, on 2022-October-11, 19:37, said:

Would u mind to review some of my tournament results?

I'm sure if you post a link to the hands, you'll get comments.

[micsfyuen]

smerriman, on 2022-October-11, 21:00, said:

I'm sure if you post a link to the hands, you'll get comments.

My last one:

https://webutil.brid...rname=micsfyuen

[thepossum]

I wouldn't aim at gaming bots or a particularly strange type of massive best hand tourney format where the sections are all mixed up and weirdly engineered - thats just my view

Play real bridge or smaller bot tourneys. 48-55% sounds quite decent to me statistically speaking (in daylongs) - anything can happen in a few hands

There are people who do seem to be able to consistently score in the 60-70% plus bracket - a combination of knowing the bot and being quite good players I imagine

I'm embarrassed to say, I occasionally drop into some lower ranked tourneys. It makes me feel better for a little while

I avoid the rewards. Who knows how you win one of them

I imagine there is some very serious game-playing going on

Looking at the 16 hands you put up, and I am very mid-ranking kind of player, what I tried to do was concentrate on the bad scores bringing me down, not on the tops
There was also obviously a lot of luck. I would not have passed one of those hands where pass was a good top - sometimes you need some luck and throw in a bit of error. Occasionally in a group of only 16 hands it may work. The first hand is a clear 1NT overcall - maybe try to bid the system you are playing - be preemptive too. Show the strength of your hand sometimes. I'm not good enough to really critique your hands but your bids are fairly modal with too high a percentage of errors or missed opportunities

Possum's attempt at being a better player
1. Try to be fairly disciplined but not overly so
2. Be prepared to psych a little and be ambitious from time to time
3. Other times try to not overreach and go for a part score when everyone else may go down in game
4. Try to make as many tricks a possible - work out why you didn't
5. I take advice from better players - not me
6. Overtime become better at judging hands and how to bid better
7. Maybe look at the standout plays - why did just one person make that overtrick etc

People seem to take those tourneys very seriously. Do they think they make a living from Reward tourneys? - maybe betting on them
EDIT Have just played one to see what they are like - now back to simpler hands for me - unfamiliar terrain for me

EDIT 2. Can't really comment further but as an experiment I played in a Zenith reward. Didn't do well, around 45% but if I had bid and played better on almost every hand I (a better player) could easily have been in the 70-80% bracket in my 16 hands. Tough competitive bidding though. But the returns arent great even if you get 80%. I'm so used to playing best hand with the bot its a shock to come up against such competitive bidding in such a complex system. I have given it one more go. I don't know what it is about those hands but I won't be wasting any money on them again. Maybe they have been deliberately setup to highlight the stupidity of the system or partner's bidding. Its too much of a lottery by a long way. Maybe I am in a minority but Bridge should be fun and bidding should be fun - not some kind of painful torturous exercise. Even at just a dollar a time the odds are not worth it. If you can find your way through 16 contrived mazes and not make errors along the way you make a dollar back
Apparently someone on Bridgewinners has a very similar view to me and apparently is a much more accomplished player
A don't like having to decide between a ridiculously doubled game and minus 3 or 4 doubled
I could analyse every single hand and see where I could have done better. Then again life is too short
I did microanalyse my 43% or whatever. I managed one top out of 16 and several flats. When looking at the players who managed most of the tops I don't feel so bad getting only one out of 16.Being in the crowd only scores around 40 something %. I did badly the seconnd time too - apparently so but not really. In that crowd its hard to be at the top. The best I am are going to do most of the time is fairly flat. I don't feel too bad doing badly
A bit of basic maths and stats possum style. Every hand appears to be around 13-15 other people, the majority of whom seem quite good. Somehow you have to average 70% across 16 hands. VEey small probability of it happening by chance. Maybe I will do the math and find out my chance of averaging 70% Sorry for rambling on but this thread managed to intrigue me

[wuudturner]

Careful play is important. I'd suggest playing the hands slowly. After all, do you care if your bot partner gets bored with the hand? Look carefully at all of your options in the bidding and in the play. Make sure you are not missing inferences you can use, based on the best hand rule, where South gets the best hand at the table. These are often hugely valuable.

Here is a hand I had today, at matchpoints. I was playing a challenge match with 4 friends. We do that at least once a week. I'll write up every hand I play, then send out mail showing what I did on the boards. I'll also compare what everyone did on all boards, so it is interesting for all.

I'm sitting South of course, and I hold

---

West deals, nobody is vulnerable.

West opens 1♢ in first seat. Partner overcalls 1♡. 1♠ seems spot on by me, but the bidding dies immediately in 1♠. UGH. Here I was drooling at the thought of making game, yet I'll be playing it at the 1 level.

Against my 1♠ contract, West leads the club ace, East playing the 5.

---

Who has what? I'll guess West has the stiif ace of clubs, or mybe Ax. As well, West seems likely to have the diamond queen. West might have rebid 2♢ with a 6 card suit. So possible hand shapes for West might be 4441, or 4351, or 3451, as perhaps the most likely.

How many points does West have? He opened the bidding, but I have a 12 count. So West has no more than 12 since this is a bot game with South having the best and at the table. If I give West 6 points in the minors, then West has 6 points, and no more, in the majors. So East has at least one of the major suit aces.

When I play low in clubs at trick 1, West continues a second round of clubs. Ok, so West had a near certain doubleton. (KNOW HOW THE BOTS PLAY! They do sometimes lead the ace from Ax, when no other lead seems better.) This means West will be getting a club ruff later on if I am not careful. I want to guess which major suit ace West has, but maybe it does not matter. West may have one of them, and East the other.

East pops up with the club jack at trick 2, so I win the king. Now I exit with a low spade towards the queen. West plays low, and it wins. So West has the spade ace. With the club ace, and the presumed diamond queen, that adds up to 10. But I know West has no more than 2 more points, unless he does not have the diamond queen. And that means if West has the diamond queen, then East has both the AK in hearts. But then West would have opened the bidding on exactly 10 points, IF he does have the diamond queen. The bots generally won't do that. Strange. I think my initial perception, that West has the diamond queen must be wrong.

I recount my points again, then recount West's points. Interesting, I'm beginning to be pretty sure that East has the diamond queen, and so West has one of the heart honors, either the ace of the king. Potential hands for West are looking like this:

Axxx
Kxx
xxxx
Ax

but then West will not open the bidding. The bots require 12 points when they are flat, and I doubt that will qualify. So this next hand makes some sense, and fits with everything I know so far. Maybe swap the major suit lengths around. But I'm now sure that West has the three missing aces, and no more.

Axxx
Axx
xxxx
Ax

Another possibility is this hand:

Axxx
Axxx
xxx
Ax

where West had to open the bidding in a crappy 3 card suit. But then East might have decided to raise to 2♢. So I'm going to bet on a 4342 or 3442 shape as the most likely shapes for West. It will be interesting to see how close I came at the end of this hand.

But if East does have Qxx or longer in diamonds, I might have a hard time picking the suit up. One idea might be to lead the diamond jack from dummy, finessing East, then finesse West for the 10 later on. Hmm! That sounds interesting. Are the conclusions I've drawn so far good ones? I think so, and since I need to get back to my hand anyway, I lead the diamond jack. East COVERS with the queen. Win the ace now.

I need to draw trumps still, so I lead the 10. West ducks, as I discard a low heart from dummy. The 10 wins the trick. Now I lead another high spade, West wins the ace, then switches to a low heart. East wins, then finally is able to lead a third club, as West ruffs with the 9. At the end, I do finesse West for the diamond 10, so I make 9 tricks.

I'm quite happy to have gotten the diamond queen right as well as the 10. West had 4252 shape, one I did not really consider, but quite close to the 4342 shape I was considering.

On this board, one person in our group tied me, making 9 tricks also, but it is easy to just play automatically and take the diamond finesse on a hand like this.

---

In the end, it usually just comes down to playing good solid bridge, where you watch everything that happens and remember the cards as they fell. I have a several friends who are capable of playing quite well when playing in games where they care, but when playing against the bots, they consistently seem to score in the 45% range. Mainly, they are just clicking on the cards, not focused on the game. Click, click, click, next board.

[paulg]

If you watch some of Steve's Bean Cup videos at https://www.youtube...._c8eYJHw/videos you'll get some idea of how to handle the robots and what they are likely to do in certain scenarios.

[thepossum]

This site is very dangerous

Out of curiosity I thought I would have a look at the Zeniths

After a slow start I am close to winning my stakes back

[lcsmw]

I've played a lot of the 8 board daily MP. I played a lot of live bridge in the past and just played in the Reno Regional. I play the daily MP because they are fast so do not require much of a time commitment. They are the equivalent of eating junk food. I'll go through periods of good scores and bad scores.

The GIB play their hands very well. Their bidding can be illogical. When I believe a previous bid limits the strength of my hand the GIB thinks I have 25 points on a subsequent bid. A person must be diligent about clicking on your bid and the GIB bid to see what it actually means. The programmers are constantly tinkering with the bidding and sometimes I feel like a lab rat.

The quality of the ACBL play in the tournaments I play in is not extremely high. The GIB don't defend like a live opponent. There are a lot of tricks when GIB is defending particularly in NT contracts. When I hold up against a damaging lead, the GIB frequently shifts to another suit. They also like to hold up when defending and a person can steal some tricks. There is a lot more for me to discover.

Playing good bridge and playing results are not the same.

[wuudturner]

In an attempt to show people that you CAN play well against the bots, if you but take your time and think about what they have, what they are showing by their leads and play. So I'll post another hand from a recent game I played. We are playing in a bot game, but as a challenge match with 3 good friends from my past when we would play face to face. This set is IMP scoring.

North deals, nobody is vulnerable.

---

There are two passes to me, and I have a nice 14 count. 1NT would show 15-17, but in my book, a very good rule is to always at least consider upgrading a 14 point hand when I see one. I'll also consider if a 17 point hand as too good to show as 1NT. I am very close to an upgrade to 1NT here. In my eyes, this hand is probably near the line. 14 points, but a decent 5 card suit. Some may open 1NT, some may choose to open 1♣. A problem is though, if I open 1♣ and partner responds in 1 of a suit, do I have a convenient rebid? In this case a 1NT rebid, which while it would show 11-14, will not really show a hand that was very close to a 1NT opener. And I dislike rebidding 2♣ on a 5 card suit. I'd rather make a small lie on my first bid, and just call this a 15 point hand.

Since 1NT also has preemptive value against them getting into the bidding, it is 1NT for me. I would probably do the same with a human partner and human opps, but there it would be more dangerous, since West would then be unlimited in strength. The bot game changes things, since I know West cannot be TOO strong here. So 1NT carries slightly less risk against the bots. Of course, 1NT could go really badly, but I use the Alfred E. Neumann excuse - What, me worry?

Over 1NT, partner blasts into 3NT. So I may have some worries, since partner has at most 11 points as a passed hand.

West leads the heart jack. I see we are in 3NT at IMPs, with a combined 24 points, so not a terrible 3NT at IMPs. If I can find the club queen it will have chances.

---

What does West have? The bots can lead the jack against 3NT away from the AJTx(x). But this might also be a lead from say JT9(x), or even from shortness. I am hoping West has led away from the ace. In that case I wil have two heart stoppers, as long as I win the heart queen in my hand. I cannot gain by going up with the king in second seat, since I have only a doubleton queen in my hand, so I duck from dummy.

But it is East who makes me stop and think, when he plays the 10. The bots play standard attitude at trick 1. So the 10 is either a stiff heart, or it indicates that East likes the lead. Can the 10 be a short card? If so, then West led the Jack from AJ98743? That would be impossible. So the jack lead is surely from shortness, and the bots do that when they lack a better lead. In turn, that means East has something like AT9xxx in hearts. But East has already passed in the bidding. East did not make a weak two bid when he had the chance in second seat.

So now I need to consider what hand East has to have passed on a decent 6 card heart suit. I know he had the ace of hearts. And West would not likely lead the jack from a broken holding in hearts, like J8x. West would surely have chosen some other lad then. Was the jack a singleton? That is less likely than a doubleton. As well, then East would have not preempted with a nice 7 card heart suit. So I am pretty certain East has 6 hearts. But still, East passed. There are several scenarios where East would not have bid. With 11 points or more and a decent suit, the bots will open on 12 total points, but only 11 high card points. And I already know East had a decent suit. So East has no more than 10 points. But East may have just too weak of a hand to open a weak 2. Or East may have 4 spades. I think I've seen the bots pass up a weak 2 on hands where they were 6-5, with a void too. Anyway, the hands I am considering that East MAY hold look something like these:

Hand 1
xxx
AT98xx
xx
xx

Hand 2
Kxxx
AT98xx
xx
x

Hand 3
xx
AT98xx
Axx
Qxx

Hand 1 is too weak to open a weak 2. Hand 2 has a 4 card spade suit, so the bot might choose not to open 2♡. And hand 3 might be just good enough to not open the bidding but also not open a weak 2. I doubt the bots have the judgment to make that last call.

My guess is hands 1 or 2 are most likely. But if I think West is likely to have a second heart and the ace of diamonds, I cannot make the contract by winning the queen at trick 1. Even if I can find the club queen, I'll take one heart, 5 clubs, and the spade ace. Then I'll need to break the diamonds and West will get in and lead a heart through the king.

That means I need to duck the first trick. This will work if West has the diamond ace, but fail if East has the diamond ace. Since my judgement is that hand type 3 was less likely, then I need to play for West to have the ace. The logic seems good. Once I decide the most probable hands for my opponents to hold, then I need to find a way to play the hands to make on that distribution if possible. And I very much need to make this contract, since it is possible that others may not be in game on this hand. I did stretch to open 1NT, if you recall. So other tables are likely going to go plus on part scores.

Anyway, standing with the courage of my convictions, I duck the heart completely, not taking the queen. With the jack winning, West continues a second heart, the 4, as East flies up with the ace. But East does not play a third heart, but switches instead to a spade - the deuce. This is a telling thing. If East has a sure entry, they would clear the hearts out. Give East the ace of diamonds, and I would see him continue with a third heart to the king. Not doing so tells me I was correct in my assessment. East does have a weak hand. That does not rule out a spare queen of course, since East may still have 4 spades. And the switch to a spade itself might be a clue there.

I duck the spade to West's queen, knowing that West cannot continue a heart. But now West switches to a club, duck that to the queen from East, and my king. Now I am cold for 9 tricks. Exit with a high diamond, as West has the ace, so I claim 9 tricks.

I was correct that East had 6 hearts, but a hand that he did not wish to open a weak 2 on, so weak hand with also 4 spades. To make this contract required working out what the East and West hands were, based on seeing only the jack and ten of hearts at trick 1.

---

At the other tables, my friends who were playing this hand surprisingly also were upgrading this hand to 1NT. But then they won trick 1 with the heart queen. They all went down after that start.

The trick to playing well against the bots is simple. Look at what your bids mean to the bots, and how the bot describes their hand. Always mouse over their bid, as it does tell you what the bots THINK that are showing. Take your time. Work out what the bot has from the bidding and the play. Watch the cards as they come down. The bots don't just play random cards, even though sometimes it feels that way. Then find a line to make your contract, and overtricks where possible. Overtricks can be useful even at IMP scoring. Don't just throw away those +1 scores, as they can add up.

[diana_eva]

You can watch some of the videos of players who replay the Weekly Free Instant Tournament -- if you search for this on youtube you'll find a lot of hits. Some of them are pro players, some are just amateurs, but it's fun to see how others reason, what works and what doesn't, then try it yourself.

BBO also features a live video stream on vugraph, with Rob Barrington and Gavin Wolpert on every Wednesday morning (USA time), where they play and discuss an 8 board robot game. It's a good show to watch, and you can also ask them questions in chat.

[bobade]

diana_eva, on 2022-November-07, 16:51, said:

You can watch some of the videos of players who replay the Weekly Free Instant Tournament -- if you search for this on youtube you'll find a lot of hits. Some of them are pro players, some are just amateurs, but it's fun to see how others reason, what works and what doesn't, then try it yourself.

BBO also features a live video stream on vugraph, with Rob Barrington and Gavin Wolpert on every Wednesday morning (USA time), where they play and discuss an 8 board robot game. It's a good show to watch, and you can also ask them questions in chat.

Thanks for the good ideas, Diana