[oldboltoni]

Apologies if this has already been done, but I didn't find it

In the light of the success of high speed chess, I would like to be able to play high speed bridge. Not practical with cards, but works great on computer bridge.

Each player has a time limit for the bidding and a separate one for the card play.

When the time limit for bidding runs out, your remaining bids are pass.

When the time limit runs out for play, the computer makes a random choice from the remaining legal plays.

declarer and dummy's time is pooled, when it runs out, both hans get played randomly.

the time remaining is displayed for all to see.

time limits to be adjusted as experience feeds back but for starters:

Speed: bidding 30s + 5s per bid. play 2 minutes
Bullet: bidding 15s +2s per bid play 1 minute
Ultrabullet 10s + 1s / 30s

there is a short pause between end of bidding and start of play. say 15, 5 and 2s respectively.

BBO could offer robot tournaments alongside the daylongs and teams/pairs events, see if it catches on. Most sports speed versions seem to thrive.

sounds fun to me, can it be done?

[pilowsky]

Hi, What you are looking for are the Express Free fun tournaments - 30S per decision or you get replaced by a robot. 80 player indy's matchpoints.
They are on very frequently.
PS - I'm playing one now - watch an expert execute a pseudo-squeeze https://tinyurl.com/y2xlhxuz

[oldboltoni]

I've tried that, but it's not quite the same thing. There is a reason chess player use clocks and not hourglasses, earning more time by managing when to think and when to plunge is part of the fun.

Of course, any timed internet game depends on the internet connection, and looking at how chess handles it that's just part of the game. If your internet connection is slow or patchy, you pay the price.
But presumably the software could be written so that the clock runs locally not centrally (not sure why chess doesn't do that).

Chess allows you to preselect a move so that when opportunity plays, you lose 0s. Presumably that's cancelled if it becomes an illegal move, and the same could be applied to bridge.
Come on BBO, give it a go!

[Vampyr]

Yes, a Fischer type clock would be much better than 30s per decision, period.