How the bots work
Many apps get the same complaint — the computer players are useless — and nobody says how theirs work. Here is ours, what it does and what it does not do yet.
AI version 1.7; the bots are versioned separately from the app.
The bots are the hardest part of this app, and they play a fair game now. They bid what a hand can afford to lose, help a partner, set a thin bid, and the sharp one thinks ahead. They still get things wrong, and the log below says what has changed as they get better.
They can't see your bones. A bot is never handed your hand — only its own seven and the record of what has been played. And they run on your own device: no account, nothing sent anywhere. The relay that carries an online table is a separate thing, and all it does is check that a move is legal.
There are three of them, and they play like three kinds of player.
Easy is the family player. It bids from a rough feel for its own seven bones and only ever opens at the minimum, never raising anyone. It never sets out to pull trumps, so the opponents keep theirs and use them on its count. It leads its biggest bone because big feels safe, and when it cannot win a trick it throws its biggest bone there too, count and all. It gives count to a partner only when it is playing last and can see the trick is won. It does not watch what has been played. Nearly half the time it plays the first legal bone that comes to hand without thinking. Beat this one first.
Standard is the club player. It bids by what a hand can afford to lose, one trick and one count at a time, and it bids most hands. It leads the double before the off it covers, keeps a trump back, gives count to a partner who cannot lose the trick, pounces on a bidder's off when it is void, throws away to make voids, and strips a bidder it has the trumps against. It plays its own hand well and does not read yours.
Sharp is the tournament player. It does all of that and reads the table: the suits you have shown void in, what your bid says about your hand, what the auction was worth. From the third trick it thinks ahead, imagining the rest of the hand many ways before it plays. It will bid a thin 30 on the strength of its partner, and it will spend a winner on the one trick that sets you.
We plan to open up the code so the people who play can read it and make it better. And this app is built for simplicity and privacy first — it is meant to stand in for the kitchen table when there aren't enough folks, or they're in different places — so things like ranked play are not on the roadmap for now.
If a bot does something no real player would, let us know.
What it does not do yet
- It plays its own hand and what is on the table. It does not read your face, and it does not yet read a partner's silence or a failed bid for what they say about a hand.
- It does not bluff. No low trump led to look like an off, no small trump given up to look trump-poor.
- Sharp's thinking-ahead starts at the third trick. The first two tricks are played by rule, and that is where it is most often wrong.
- Easy is meant to be beaten. It is not a weaker Sharp; it is a different player.
What has changed
- 1.2 to 1.7 · 8–9 September — Bidding and play, rebuilt. Standard and Sharp bid by what a hand can lose, in points, and bid most hands; nobody outbids a partner without a real hand, and only the last bidder stretches a rung. As the bidder: lead the covering double before its off, keep a trump back, flush low when short of the top trump, lead nothing that calls count when the trumps are against you. As the partner: give count on a trick that cannot be lost. As a setter: pounce when void and ahead of your partner, throw singletons to make voids, lead the double that calls count, strip a bidder you hold the trumps against. An all-tricks hand is played as one, and defended by keeping the doubles and pairs that set it. Sharp reads the voids the table has shown and the shape a bid implies, spends a winner on the trick that sets, bids the thin 30 that counts on a partner, and never hands count to a trick the other side is winning. A Nello bidder loses on purpose at every level. A hand is priced with doubles as trumps too.
- 1.0 to 1.1 · 14 August — Three players, and one that thinks. Three levels that play like three kinds of player; an evaluator that counts the bones that lose tricks rather than the ones that win them; Sharp indicating to its partner; and from the third trick Sharp imagining the rest of the hand many ways and playing what came out best.
CC BY 4.0, with credit.
Back