[TwoOneBEN]

A splinter disaster

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Now for GIB 4♣ is natural, but as it does not deny the 5-card ♥, I really don't get the Pass, but I assume it is because BEN never had been trained with that sequence.

[TwoOneBEN]

Annoying that BEN is not bidding the same each time

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23 players saw BEN bid the very strange 2♥

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One lucky player got the more natural 2♠ and scored 100%.

Also worth noting the failure to cover ♠9 at trick 7.

[TwoOneBEN]

Testing two different models from BEN in the wild I noticed this strange situation.

Just to clarify: I am using the Open Source version of BEN as participant in the BEN and Freinds daily, so there are 4 BEN's but one (south) is not controlled by BBO
e

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Down 1 and a fine score of 64%

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Using the new bidding model all was the same until trick 6, where BEN suddenly found a much better plan.

Making an overtrick and a score of 1.2%

Please remove the randomness in the BBO-BEN

[TwoOneBEN]

I am not sure anyone still read this thread :-)

But this is interesting, because BEN haven't been trained in the default GIB system

---

Explanation is correct, but BBO-BEN just passed.

And yes, the south hand is not good enough for 4♥, but I will discuss that with the open source version of BEN.

[bryanmacp]

pilowsky, on 2024-January-05, 15:39, said:

The end of the world is nigh.

It is refreshing not to have Best Hand deals. Closer to real bridge. Still needs some work though

[mstockyard]

Interested in playing w Ben in 8 board invite tourney.

[mcmouse22]

Post in the Ben on BBO BBO Forums thread to be added to the tournament

[TwoOneBEN]

mstockyard, on 2024-September-22, 08:30, said:

Interested in playing w Ben in 8 board invite tourney.

If you are interested in playing with the Open Source version of BEN (Not the BBO version) I might be able to set it up.

As a start feel free to challenge the Robot on BBO (Name is TwoOneBEN). In a challenge you will play 3 GIB-robots, and the compare with your opponent. Then you can get an impression of the strength and especially weaknesses of the robot.

[pilowsky]

Is this a bidding misunderstanding? https://tinyurl.com/ytepqw8f

[pilowsky]

Ben bids like a human: https://tinyurl.com/22oc5kvm

[johnu]

 pilowsky, on 2024-October-25, 00:38, said:

Ben bids like a human: https://tinyurl.com/22oc5kvm

Very unlucky hand where ♣A was in the wrong hand. And very unsporting of you to double.

[smerriman]

Auction seems to scream for a low club lead.

(I'm still trying to figure out how I scored more than 50% on this hand, though )

[smerriman]

pilowsky, on 2024-March-02, 20:37, said:

Ben breaking bad?
My board.

39 other boards!.

thorvald, on 2024-April-21, 16:34, said:

Interesting that 26 times North opened a 4th hand 2♦, and one time the Robot in West did not balance with 3♥

TwoOneBEN, on 2024-May-31, 09:31, said:

Inconsistent bidding.

TwoOneBEN, on 2024-June-04, 05:43, said:

South open 1N once, and 1♥ 38 times

TwoOneBEN, on 2024-June-26, 06:49, said:

As far as I can see we got two different defences but bidding and play was identical up the point

TwoOneBEN, on 2024-August-13, 07:56, said:

Annoying that BEN is not bidding the same each time

And a couple of days ago, a 1.7% board for me because the defense differed at my table only.

It seems Ben and lorserker have met the same fate as GIB and jdonn

[diana_eva]

Nope, we're still alive and following

[lorserker]

Updated the robot in Ben & Friends.
If you run into oddities, please raise them.

[kcostell]

I'm not sure if this is a Ben error or a BBO error, but I'm currently stuck on the first board of the Goulash with Ben Daily.

I've bid to what I assume will be the final contract, but instead of passing out the Ben sitting East hangs. After a bit the table closes with an "An error has occurred...GIB Ask Failed: ERROR(2): Robot Error" message. Reopening the table leads to the same issue.

[diana_eva]

 kcostell, on 2024-November-22, 02:01, said:

I'm not sure if this is a Ben error or a BBO error, but I'm currently stuck on the first board of the Goulash with Ben Daily.

I've bid to what I assume will be the final contract, but instead of passing out the Ben sitting East hangs. After a bit the table closes with an "An error has occurred...GIB Ask Failed: ERROR(2): Robot Error" message. Reopening the table leads to the same issue.

The goulash game was mis-configured, sorry about that. We removed it and we'll post it again tomorrow.

Thanks for letting us know.

[meto]

I am excited to try Ben out

[smerriman]

While Ben's improved scores in tournaments when playing with itself are impressive, has any work been put towards Ben playing with a human?

That is, as I believe I touched on in an early page of this thread, the most crucial aspect of a human playing with a robot is that it's consistent and understandable. Given it has learnt everything from neural networks and differs from GIB in some areas, I'm still no closer to figuring out when a bid for Ben means exactly what it does for GIB and when it doesn't, implications from when it leads a particular card (e.g. its choice from AKx), whether it signals, how it will interpret cards I play, etc.

[lorserker]

smerriman, on 2024-November-27, 22:00, said:

While Ben's improved scores in tournaments when playing with itself are impressive, has any work been put towards Ben playing with a human?

Just a little. The only thing i changed is that Ben will now consistently make the same move in identical situations. Because many people gave the feedback that it should do that.

I will try to do more in the future.
Defensive carding is an area which wasn't addressed at all yet.
Bidding system - it is identical to GIB, but different bids can be made in unclear situations (decisions). Rarely, a sequence can come up where it really doesn't know how to bid and makes up something (there are examples in this thread). I think that in the future Ben will have its own explanations instead of leaning on GIB to explain its bids.

About predictability and consistency I am a bit biased. I like a little randomness, because even when I am playing with my regular partner I am not 100% sure that he has what I think he has and that he would always do the same action. I think it is normal to take some reserve when you play. The robotic consistency which allows you to make inferences which are totally certain, are a bit unappealing to me.

Although I have some starting points how I may optimize Ben for humans, future directions will depend on feedback, because the whole topic is subjective and unclear what exactly the goal is.