[User23]

I don’t know much bridge so please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that “cheating” basically applying steganography to game moves? It’s not like touching your ear at the right time or some other kind of back channel. It’s all represented by game moves. That sounds tractable for an algorithm.

[tanjtanjtanj]

Well yes, that and actual cheating (the competitive scene if rife with cheating of all kinds).

If AI teammates were allowed to have a pre-developed, shared model between them for communication so the other automatically "knows" what the others moves mean then it would be closer to fair grounds but that's considered cheating even though human teammates do the same thing.

[oh_sigh]

What? Bidding is all about sharing information with your partner about what's in your hand. There's nothing cheating about that. Cheating would be if you had some side channel that was not the explicit information you were allowed to share as part of the process - e.g. if you were playing online and relaying your bids as "one - clubs" meant something different to your partner than saying "1 - clubs".

[aidenn0]

I haven't been in the contract-bridge scene in a long time, but had a friend who was competitive at the regional-level, and the impression I got was that partner-signalling was hard to get away with just because opponents would recognize abnormal results so quickly; at that level you would regularly face opponents who could tell you every contract you had bid against them and what the result was from memory.

On the other hand, I worked at a US Team Trials championship game, and the two tables were in separate rooms, with a diagonal partition across the table and completely silent bidding. Presumably they wouldn't go through such gymnastics if cheating weren't a concern. Perhaps the stakes are too low at the regional level (or those who are good enough to get away with it quickly progress to a higher level?).

[User23]

I imagine one could apply the semantics of a leadership election algorithm and a recognizer neural net in each AI player to let them develop their messaging in game. If the AI were permitted to store temporary state through the course of a tournament or with a practice round (human players practice too) then I don’t see why it couldn’t work.

[orangecat]

basically applying steganography to game moves?

Sort of, except you have to tell your opponents what your algorithm is. Like you can invent a system where an opening bid of "one heart" means "I have exactly three aces" (as opposed to the conventional meaning of "I have a reasonably strong hand with hearts as my longest suit"), but you can't keep that meaning secret.