[smerriman]

I keep seeing 'The quest for the 100%' videos by Hanoi5 in BBO's newsfeed - but have never once clicked on one before, thinking it was just someone playing normal tournaments with a dream of one day scoring 100%.

I happened to click on one today.. and it's actually incredibly interesting. The idea is to play BBO's weekly free instant tournament over and over - thus knowing what the hands are, as the tournament only resets once per week (and you're compared against the same set of players who played in a real tournament some time in the past) - trying to achieve a perfect score of 100%.

So this is really nothing to do with bridge and more about figuring out ways to psyche + trick GIB into giving you extra tricks, or double an unbeatable contract - definitely up my alley. Some hands are trivial - e.g. just bid slam when it makes double dummy and nobody else bid it - but some are very tough, potentially impossible (the top score was 7NT, is there a way of trick GIB into doubling?)

So I'm definitely going to be giving this a go each week now. Posting this here in case others find this interesting too and wanted to join in.

[thepossum]

I reckon there are ways to get 100% without intentionally psyching the bot, just outthinking everyone else, or being very lucky

EDIT Had a look at one video. Knowing all the hands and tricking a bot doesn't appeal much to me. I guess being able to know how to best use that system (with a few small variations and flexible interpetations) to get the top reasonable score on every hand would appeal more. Out of all DD contracts which are the ones that can reasonably be reached. If they are all reasonable contracts then maybe. Each to their own

PPS I always found it amusing being able to play that tourney over and over again. What's the point

Anynone else use Double Dummy Solver where it says that you failed to get opps to 7NTXX-6. I imagine people berating their partners

[pilowsky]

It's a great series and very impressive.
Here's a link to his channel with the back catalogue.

[thepossum]

I have at least half given this a try, at least investigating candidate target contracts
On 4 hands I reckon just bidding slightly more ambitiously, and knowing the cards, would have achieved 4*100 - assuming the Bot plays the same
The other 4 were more difficult to work out

[helene_t]

Once I saw in the "other tables" that someone got 100% on a board by rightsiding a 4♥ contract, holding eight hearts. The trick was to open 1NT and pass the Texas transfer.

[smerriman]

helene_t, on 2022-December-18, 16:43, said:

Once I saw in the "other tables" that someone got 100% on a board by rightsiding a 4♥ contract, holding eight hearts. The trick was to open 1NT and pass the Texas transfer.

That's pretty insane, because the people in the other tables were playing a real tournament, where they had no idea what their partner held. Much easier to score 100% in the weekly free knowing the cards!

[thepossum]

Can I ask if two people in the same tourney score 100% does that count?

Regarding the quest for the 100% there do appear to be others playing the game though

[smerriman]

thepossum, on 2022-December-18, 21:26, said:

Can I ask if two people in the same tourney score 100% does that count?

Regarding the quest for the 100% there do appear to be others playing the game though

Instant tournaments take a fixed set of players from an old tournament, give you the same hands they had, and compare your scores against them as if you were one extra player in that tournament. The free weekly tournament is always the same tournament and the same players for the entire week. So you're not being compared against other people who are playing the free weekly tournament; the other scores are fixed in stone by players who didn't know what the hands were at the time.

So if you play the tournament multiple times and make the same bids / plays, you'll get the same score every time. But you're not inconveniencing anyone else by doing so, because your score won't show up if someone else plays it.

The only way you can achieve a 100% score is thus by doing *strictly better* than all of those players on every hand. Which is why in this challenge some 100%s are impossible (there were three hands where it was literally impossible to score 100% last week - like the hand where one of those older players made 7NT, so you could get only get a 100% by making 7NTx, and no matter what sequence you tried, there wasn't any situation where GIB doubles. The best you could do there was making 7NT too, and getting a score of 90something%.)

[thepossum]

Tried it once (enough) with 3x100 and 4x96.4 and 1*57% Who knows how to even beat the 57%

EDIT was slightly disappointed as I had earlier thought I could see 4 100s - on second viewing I have found it - whether I can bid it or not is another matter
EDIT again - yes I could bid it 4*100 and 4*96.4 That's enough time wasted

Was hoping for the bug I have occasionally observed with 2 players getting 100%

[smerriman]

My best scores for this week so far are:

Spoiler

3N+2 100%
6H= 100%
3N+2 96.4%
2Nx-1 100%
4C+1 82.1%
6C= 100%
7N= 100%
3N+2 96.4%

I'm sure game must be possible on board 5, just haven't found the right sequence to make it yet, as the defense so far only gives away the 11th trick if I don't bid it.

[thepossum]

Spoiler

I don't know if we are playing the same hands.
Looks like it though.
I scored 100% with one less trick on Hand 1 and managed to bid game with the bot playing the same on hand 5.
Didn't try double on hand 4 and didn't see the slam on hand 6
I'm not trying any more though. Game is definitely there

[smerriman]

Yes, the weekly free is the same for everyone for the whole week. Got board 5 now, so just 3 + 8 to go, though both look impossible to me.

[thepossum]

Still don't know how I missed hand 6 😂

[thepossum]

Dup deleted

[smerriman]

Scrub that, got 100% on board 3. Just board 8 to go now.

edit - Success! 100% on all boards Hooray.

[thepossum]

Congratulations. Maybe post your solution in another spoiler

[smerriman]

Spoiler

On board 3, I managed to get GIB to play 3♥x (by opening 1♣, rebidding 2♣, passing, then doubling), which we can beat by 2 tricks.
On board 8, similarly, by passing the first round, bidding 1♠ the second, and doubling, GIB ends up playing 2♥x which we can beat by 3 tricks.

[thepossum]

Thx. Who knows how you find those
Will be happy with 5 fairly natural 100s

[thepossum]

I wasn't even going to consider this thing again but looked at this week's and can't possibly see how to get any 100s other than the one the bot already donated to me

Much more challenging than last week's

Checked all the double dummies, all possible leads. I'm stuck

[smerriman]

I've made 5 of them so far with these contracts (which isn't necessarily much of a spoiler since the route to them + the play is all relevant):

Spoiler

1. 3H=
3. 4H=
5: 1H+3
7: 3N+2
8: 3N+2