Leonardo's Robot by Foxymoron

 

Robot is drawn from an old Church Slavonic word, robota, for “servitude,” “forced labor” or “drudgery.” 1995 was the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's Robot, which was rather impressive for the time, in that it could sit up, wave its arms, and maybe even respond to Stayman. 25 years ago, bridge robots had not made that much progress, passing forcing bids and the like. Even now they do some odd things. Robot West's interpretation of Cappelletti on the following hand was systemically correct, but quaint:

In a robot tournament, West thought it was only worth one call, and chose 2S, showing spades and a minor. What else?

They are getting better though. In today's Woodberry Pairs, they came second with a solid 56%, over 10% ahead of your author. This was the first Thursday afternoon Woodberry Pairs and the event got off to a reasonable start, but we could do with some more tables, so why not give it a try? It is every Thursday at 3 pm and there is always a human host. Stefanie and I are happy to play with anyone who does not have a partner. 

Robot East played this hand far too well today:

I led a normal spade, and Robot East won the trick and finessed the queen of hearts, the right percentage line in the suit. I guess it knows all those by now. It then finessed the diamond, and ran the jack of hearts, pinning North's ten. It now repeated the diamond finesse, cashed the nine of hearts, the ace of diamonds, the remaining hearts and the two other spades ending in dummy. North was squeezed in clubs and diamonds, and did her best by discarding a club, playing me for the jack, but to no avail. I suspect it just played off its winners and stumbled into the squeeze. No doubt, when the Robots learn self-kibitizing, they will be even stronger, bidding and making 6NT with an overtrick. Of course a leading Italian World Champion would find the opening club lead to break up the club-diamond squeeze and get a top for conceding only 6NT=. Different game nowadays ...