smerriman, on 2021-March-19, 13:30, said:
.....that you believe that BBO are intentionally biasing the hand generator by not dealing random hands, but by throwing out 'flat hands' based on the scoring.
Ok, yes, I have been saying this. Whether we call these “deal pool” hands or not is subsidiary to this point. I don’t think the hands from one event to another are the same, or from one scoring type to another. My
hypothesis (hat tip to Hrothgar) is that hands that are flat for MP scoring occur less frequently than normal in an MP game, and hands that are flat for IMP scoring occur less frequently in an IMPs game.
[EDIT—note added] I am talking about individual robot games, which is what I have mainly played
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So let's continue based on that.
You then stated two things:
a) That it was "immediately obvious" with a "clear difference" solely by playing challenge hands.
Yes, the thing that really threw up some questions for me and my friends was when we played the series of challenges. “Why in these just declare challenges were the MP set of hands so, so different from each IMP set, if they were not put through a filter?” we kept asking ourselves. I tried to elucidate these differences above, but perhaps I was too unclear.
—The MP hands typically had multiple decisions per hand designed to test one’s technique and appetite for risk in pursuing overtricks, saving undertricks, ruffing losers, finesses and other cardplay devices, establishing side suits, etc. (NOTE: The MP hands compared each to another didn’t have the same decisions, and these decisions were
only occasionally influenced by distributions, splits and the like. All good bridge players know that the game is not as simple as distributions and splits.)
—The IMP hands were ridiculously simple by comparison.
Of course, my buddies and I playing was not a scientific process. But yes, seemingly time after time the MP hands just happened to have these MP-intensive decisions and the IMP hands didn’t. (I am not saying you could
never go for an overtrick in an IMP hand. Please don’t infer that.)
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b) If this is true, all you have to do is clearly quantify the factor that made it completely obvious to you. Then that can immediately be put to the test.
Yet when pressed to quantify it, you've moved towards statement b
Well then, do
you know of an easy way to state a specific, simple quantitative factor that one could use to test hands for a “preponderance of scoring-method-specific decisions to be made”? I don’t.
But one could certainly test the hypothesis of fewer flat hands. That’s where method B, as you put it, comes in. In order to do so, one would have to do a study along the likes of what I described above. Testing for fewer flatter hands would not be a comprehensive test of the ways and purposes that an algorithm might use to select or leave out hands, but it is ONE specific way to inquire, and perhaps the only way, since bridge is such a complicated card game that scoring results don’t come down to one or another specific quantitative factor.
I hope this is clearer. Thank you for allowing me to elucidate in answer to less contentious questions.