[Wkkellogg]

Play on this site a lot with family members. I've never seen so many bad hands
In one night, and its not so great, all night if one side continually gets the best cards. Also have seen hands with 8 or 9 of one suit more than might likely happen in real play. It seems whomever wrote the program, somehow might get it more competitive on both sides of the table. I don't mind losing, just opening count more than once a night would be nice.

[smerriman]

Sigh. It's called randomness. It has been covered to death that BBO is generating the hands randomly, and 'bad streaks' are completely normal and expected when dealing with true randomness.

If you're not experiencing it in 'real bridge', then you're clearly not dealing the hands properly. (This was a very well known phenomena when bridge deals used to be hand-dealt, which resulted in a lot of bias - when switching, people thought the automatic dealing was at fault, when it was the opposite).

[johnu]

When runs of bad cards happen, rotate your chair 90 degrees which usually solves the problem 50% of the time. If you are using a device plugged into an electrical outlet, rotate the cord 90 degrees which also works about 50% of the time. A more effective method is to turn your display upside down, but many people have trouble getting used to the upside down image.

[pilowsky]

johnu, on 2023-January-21, 03:00, said:

When runs of bad cards happen, rotate your chair 90 degrees which usually solves the problem 50% of the time. If you are using a device plugged into an electrical outlet, rotate the cord 90 degrees which also works about 50% of the time. A more effective method is to turn your display upside down, but many people have trouble getting used to the upside down image.

Clockwise or counterclockwise?

[AdrianKing]

Select IMPS rather than total points when setting up the game. Your results are scored against other people playing the same hands so you get an indication of which side has played "best"

[undoubling]

pilowsky, on 2023-January-21, 03:47, said:

Clockwise or counterclockwise?

Better to invert the reversion sequence!!

[dottied]

try getting bad hands and bad seats for 18 years. i have been playing in here since 2005 and have continually gotten bad hands. the only thing good about it is my defence has improved dramatically.it is extremely frustrating to get bad hands all the time. i think the computers can be instructed to mix the hands more so that both sides get decent cards. i have written many letters to ACBL with no improvement.

[smerriman]

dottied, on 2023-January-21, 15:27, said:

try getting bad hands and bad seats for 18 years. i have been playing in here since 2005 and have continually gotten bad hands. the only thing good about it is my defence has improved dramatically.it is extremely frustrating to get bad hands all the time. i think the computers can be instructed to mix the hands more so that both sides get decent cards. i have written many letters to ACBL with no improvement.

You know your hand records are publicly available online right?

https://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/

So if, for example, someone checked your last month of records, and found that you had played 301 boards, and:

- averaged 9.87 points per hand - very close to the expected 10
- declared 85 times (28.2% - considerably more than a quarter, despite two passouts)

Or if they looked at the month before that, where you played 789 hands:

- averaging 9.97 points
- declaring on 192 occasions (24.3%)

or the month before that, where you played another 531 boards, with an above-average 10.07 points, and declared 23.55% of the time..

Well, if anyone actually spent time doing that, your statements would look a bit silly

[dottied]

maybe because im an aggressive player and have been making calls that are atypical for me. it still would be nice to receive the cards once in a while that the opps get most of the time.

[smerriman]

How do your calls change the fact you average 10 points per hand, just like each of your 3 opponents have?

Perhaps you think you're getting a lot of 10 and 11 point hands, and never get to open the bidding? The theoretical probability you get at least 12 HCP is 34.82%. Over those three months, you've had at least 12 HCP on 375 of those 1074 deals, 34.9%. So it's not that.

Perhaps you don't get strong hands - say, >= 18 HCP? The theoretical probability is 4.09%. You've had >= 18 points on 46/1074 deals = 4.28%.

Nope, I'm clearly missing something.

[pescetom]

dottied, on 2023-January-21, 15:58, said:

maybe because im an aggressive player and have been making calls that are atypical for me. it still would be nice to receive the cards once in a while that the opps get most of the time.

I can take people making unlikely and unsubstantiated claims, but when confuted by fact I do expect them to apologize rather than insist.
Probably just old fashioned.

[mycroft]

Ah, but I'm quite certain that "APAD", the convention that only appears on my card, not my partners', is completely accurate.

APAD: Always Pass as Dealer.

And yes, of course I know it's confirmation bias. Leave me my little conceits.

[barmar]

pescetom, on 2023-January-21, 16:12, said:

I can take people making unlikely and unsubstantiated claims, but when confuted by fact I do expect them to apologize rather than insist.
Probably just old fashioned.

We've been in a post-fact, post-science era for much of the past decade. Apologies are so 20th century.

[jillybean]

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was my partner posting about my declarer play.

Forums has recently been promoted and new contributors are joining the site. This was obviously a question from a person who is not familiar with how hands are generated on BBO. Sarcasm is not needed, ever rarely. If you disagree with the question, can't be bothered giving a helpful answer, why not just stay out of the discussion?

Kindness goes a long way, I bet the OP won't be back.

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2023-January-28, 13:40, said:

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was my partner posting about my declarer play.

Forums has recently been promoted and new contributors are joining the site. This was obviously a question from a person who is not familiar with how hands are generated on BBO. Sarcasm is not needed, ever rarely. If you disagree with the question, can't be bothered giving a helpful answer, why not just stay out of the discussion?

Kindness goes a long way, I bet the OP won't be back.

I re-read the thread and think you are right to some extent.
The guy who caught and deserved real criticism was not the OP and did not seem interested in what had been said, even though it confuted him.
OP did not make any comment and probably deserved better treatment, at least a welcome to the forum.
Partly our fault, but BBO run the thing and could have chipped in too.

[AL78]

Welcome to my world, although a couple of weeks ago at the local club I for once was aligned with the hand bias (my average HCP was 12.62) and partner and I between us declared 15/21 boards.

Clustering is a feature of randomness and if someone tries to create a random sequence themself and it is compared to a genuine random sequence, it is possible to tell which is which because the human generated random sequence will have far less clustering.

I have tried in the past analysing my average HCP and frequency of declaring/defending and over a large number of sessions, my average HCP is very close to 10 but there are clusters of below average HCP sessions, which at the time makes it look like a bias in the dealing. It is only my defending frequency that is well in excess of what would be expected and I am still working on why that is the case.

[thepossum]

Look on the brightside. Somewhere in the Bridge universe at some period of time (past or future) there could be someone who never has a good hand their whole life

In the good old days I would occasionally have to resort to another pack of cards

[croquetfan]

strange... I only get good hands!

[pilowsky]

croquetfan, on 2023-February-13, 00:27, said:

strange... I only get good hands!

Now we know who to blame.