IntoBridge and Coach Luc

IntoBridge now offers an AI coach. It's name is Luc, probably reminding of one of the founders of this server. Luc does coach the bidding and the play. After the play, you get a long, friendly text describing the first bid that the robot would have done differently with an exact explanation of the reasoning. Moreover, you get hints on each inaccurate, lazy or unlucky card play.

I believe that this is the right way to teach now. A teacher is simply not available for beginners all the time, and it is rarely an expert. However, you always need to take any advice from AI with a grain of salt and do your own thinking. As an example, let me demonstrate the problems with the hand above.

After the game, I was advices by Luc that the bidding of 1♦ does not accurately describe my hand, being too weak. This is true, and Luc correctly points out that I may mislead my partner. But I have two suits for my partner and a useful distribution. Nothing bad will happen when we play in either minor.

I think, the actual problem of this opening is not the weakness. It is the fact that I have no spades and might awaken the opponents in spades. There is the rule of 15 which says that you need 15 in points plus spade length to open in fourth hand with 10-11 points. And that is exactly what happened. The opponents came back and found their spade fit. This problem is not pointed out by Luc.

The analysis tells me that we can make 3♥, and they can make only 2♠. In the end, the overbid of North spoiled the result. Thus, Luc might be right to say that North is misled by my opening. But North should also consider that I denied his game try by passing 3♠. So I might be minimum and vulnerability is not favorable. 

The facts on the table showed that most players passed as suggested. I went down twice by a mistake that was pointed out by the coach. Instead of drawing trump, he says, I should have established the clubs, after ruffing both spades and making the successful finesse in trumps. In the end, East would have to concede another trump ruff for me. The result of -200 is worse than -140 due to 3♠ making. 

We see from this example, that Bridge is often a much closer game and relies on good luck than we wished. 

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