Oops, I forgot to post! August 28, 2010
Posted by justinlall in Blog, The Bet.add a comment
Hey guys, it’s been a while! By now, my few regular readers are accustomed to these haituses, but I have to say that I outdid myself with an almost one and a half year break this time.
I do feel bad that y’all (yes, I say y’all, get over it) got no closure regarding what happened in the bet with Josh. For a refresher on the bet go here.
No doubt you have figured out that if I had won I would have been happy to update, so I must have lost. It came down to the wire, and despite winning 2 of my last 5 and having a 3rd and a 4th, I lost the bet because Josh had 4 seconds and a first. What can I say, he was clutch.
Overall, Josh averaged 1.8 more hands (some of this can be attributed to him passing out more often than I do, but mainly he just played faster), and 100 points per tourney more than I did(4,460 to 4,360). If these numbers seem low to you, they were, but this was also before BBO updated GIB and made it much faster. Nowadays, scores are much higher.
For full stats, go here.
If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t play on a laptop and I’d play with a mouse. This would probably make me a little bit faster. I was probably a little bit arrogant to think that a skill edge could make up for playing that many fewer hands on average per tourney though, but I think that the bet was fairly even and could have gone either way.
Since then I have retired from Robot Races and found a new addiction, Robot Duplicates. These are matchpoint tourneys where you play with 3 robots, and all the humans have the same cards. There is a very high level of skill because you are faced with many of the same situations as your counterparts, so if you have an edge it is amplified. Maybe we will see a Robot Duplicate bet in the future, I promise to update the results of it within 2 years!
20 Down, 30 To Go! April 14, 2009
Posted by justinlall in The Bet.4 comments
Apparently Josh and I both suck, we are averaging just under 4,000 points per tournament. I consider part of this to be negative variance, and have backed that by betting a third party that I will average at least 4,500 in the next 30. Another part of it is sometimes swinging when completely out of it to maximize my chance of making money while hurting my average score. That only happened twice though.
Probably the biggest part of it is not playing that well, and doing things like chatting and playing on a laptop. If I want to win I have to tighten up. Yesterday I made one huge error in a vul game. My trump suit was:
QT9
AJ75432
I was in 5
and had lost two tricks. RHO had overcalled 2
. I led the queen of diamonds from dummy, and GIB played small. I should have realized that GIB would always cover with Kx, much like a human but even worse, and would play its spots randomly from K86. This makes it about 2:1 to go for the drop, and the bidding inference that RHO probably has the K is weighed against the fact that LHO would probably have bid with a void.
Of course when you’re playing 20 hands every 25 minutes it’s hard to analyze that fast, but this is clearly a situation I should have taken 5 seconds on since a lot of points were riding on it.
I did take down the first tournament we went first and second in, and in pretty dramatic fashion. Josh with about 1 minute left didn’t stall out and take his good but not winning score when the opps were making a NV game, he played it out and went for the win. He got a vul game on the last board and went into the lead, barely ahead of second. However, I managed to play a NV game in about 30 seconds to go ahead right at the end and win. This seemed like vindication from losing one earlier by 20 points at the very end.
Down by $1.70 but I still have faith. Wanna raise the stakes Josh?
Venting April 12, 2009
Posted by justinlall in The Bet.Tags: Declarer Play, Intermediate
6 comments
Josh and I put a lot of hours in today for the bet, playing 8 tourneys in all. Since we are sick, we both also played more tourneys when the other person wanted a break.
My results today were pretty terrible. I definitely didn’t play great, but the bad luck I was getting on slam hands was just insane. Here is an example:
Kxx
K
AQ9xx
Txxx
AJ
Axx
Jx
AJ9xxx
You do quite well to bid 6 after opening 1N, and receive a heart lead. How do you play?
The best idea here is to strip out the major suits, and go ace and a club. True, you lose to KQx onside now if the DK was onside all along, but you pick up Hx of clubs with the DK on your right, a much more likely combination. So win the heart in dummy and lead a club (maybe they split), then strip the majors and exit a club. Unfortunately it was KQx onside, so your good play is not rewarded.
Note that on a spade lead you have a pitch for your diamond so could safety play the trumps. This is not horrible luck, but if stuff like this happens to you 5 times in a row you can get a little frustrated.
Anyways, luckily Josh didn’t have a great day either so I’m still very much in this. When the luck turns I have little doubt that I wll start crushing 
Upping the Ante April 12, 2009
Posted by justinlall in The Bet.5 comments
After 6 hands of the bet, Josh has offered to up the stakes to $500. He is feeling confident because he is consistently playing more hands than I am.
I still feel I have an edge and will win. Honestly I make very few mistakes single dummy, and so far have been running well below par. Josh may play more hands, but I think his play suffers as a result. It will be a good fight.
We have a link up that shows the results so far. I am down 2 dollars, and am averaging about 500 points less per tourney.
The reason I only played 13 hands in the first tournament is that I got disconnected for several minutes. It looks like Josh will average 24 hands a tournament while I will only average 20, so I will need to play very well!
The Bet April 11, 2009
Posted by justinlall in The Bet.add a comment
Josh Donn has achieved a remarkable feat. From just $3 on BBO, he has made $900 playing nothing but $1 and $5 money bridge tournaments. To understand how incredible this is, consider that the max profit that can be made in the $1 tournaments is often 3 dollars or less, and the 5 dollar tournaments often have only 3 to 5 people.
The money bridge tournaments have an unusual format. For starters, you play with and against GIB robots. Secondly, they are just total points, and you get 25 minutes to play as many hands as possible. That is Josh’s biggest edge. He can play 20 hands plus passouts per tournament most of the time. Obviously in a total points format he is going to crush people who are playing 8 boards a tournament.
Naturally Josh considers himself the king of these tournaments as he is almost definitely the most successful at them. However, I feel like I am better than him, despite my inability to play as many hands. I understand the GIB robots very well, and I think my play does not suffer at all playing so fast.
I asked Josh to put his money where his mouth is. A bet. We play the same 50 tournaments, and the person with the most profit at the end wins. Josh, not one to back down from a challenge, accepted.
This challenge will probably take about a month to finish, and the winner will get their winnings, an extra $350, and most importantly the bragging rights.
I will keep running tabs on this blog. We will be tracking money won, hands played, and what position we are in each tournament. I will also write some about the best strategies for these tournaments.
Game on!
