Micro HalfBridge Help

What is HalfBridge
The rule of MiniBridge
What is Team Match
Hand File Format


What is HalfBridge
HalfBridge is a game based on the rule of MiniBridge, and is improved by Japan Contract Bridge League, Mr. Eiki Shimizu. It is designed for beginners to play cards under more similar situation to Contract Bridge. There are two differences between two games.

Characteristics of HalfBridge:

The Rule of MiniBridge
Players

MiniBridge is a card game for four players. They sit round a square table and their positions are called North, East, South, and West. The North and South players are partners and the East and West players are partners.
In this software, you are South and computer plays the other three players.

Dealing

MiniBridge uses a pack of 52 cards excluding jokers. Dealer shuffles and deals the cards one by one in a clockwise direction. Each player has 13 cards and counts their high card points (HCP).

Bidding

Dealer announces his number of high card points, clockwise followed by the other players. The pair of players who announce the higher total number of points become the declaring side. If both sides have 20, deal again. The declarer is the player of the declaring side who has more points than his partner, if equal the one who announced first is the declarer.
Partner of declarer becomes dummy, and spreads his cards faced up on table. Declarer announces the contract - either game or part score, and the denomination of play either a trump suit or notrump.

Play

Declarer decides which cards are played from the dummy hand and the dummy hand is visible to all players throughout the play of the deal.
The player to the left of the declarer starts by playing the first card (the opening lead). The player leading to a trick may play any card. Each other player in turn clockwise plays a card; the four cards so played constitute a trick. In playing to a trick, each player must follow suit if possible. The trick is won by the highest trump if there is one; otherwise by the highest cards of the suit led. The player that wins the trick leads to the next one. After all the cards have been played, the players agree how many tricks were won by each side.

Scoring

If declarer wins the number of tricks required to make the contract, the declaring side earns:

If declarer does not win the number of tricks required to make the contract, the declaring side is awarded no score and the defending side earns 50 points for every undertrick.

Examples:

What is Team Match
The score in HalfBridge depends on one's cards. To diminish this effect, and increase the element of skill, one's score is compared to that of others who played the same deals. It is called Duplicates and one of the major type of games is team match. A team match is a bridge contest in which each hand is fully played at one table (Open Room), after which the same hand is played by entirely different players at another table (Closed Room).

In this program, you usually sit on South in Open Room. Closed Room is played by all computer players and achieved by a computer parallel to your play. When you finish a deal, the deal usually has been played by computer and you can compare your result with the Closed Room one.

In a team match, North-South pair in Open Room and East-West pair in Closed Room are teammates. If you takes 9 tricks and scores +140 on a deal, and your teammates, East-West pair in Closed Room, score -110 (your opponents, North-South pair in Closed Room, take 8 tricks), then the team's net score on the deal is +30. This means that your declarer play is superior to computer on that deal. Another possibility is that the defense play of your teammates, East-West pair in Closed Room, is better than opponents, East-West pair in Open Room. However, in this program, it is unlikely because both of East-West pair are computer players and there are no differences in their play skill.


Hand File Format
You can save hand files using Micro HalfBridge and play them later. You can also create or edit hand files using text editor. The hand file format is the same as one of Micro Bridge. The hand file name must have the extension .HND.

The hand file format is as follows:

There are five lines per one deal and a maximum of 32 deals in one file. Each deal usually has a sequential number. It is not necessary to sequence, and even the same deal number is allowed.

Line Column Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1    1-7    Any characters
     8      * means comment line, leave blank otherwise.
     9-10   Deal No. (1 to 64)

     17-20  Vulnerability (this is for contract bridge)
            'NONE '  Neither vul
            'NS   '  NS vul
            'EW   '  EW vul
            'BOTH '  Both vul
            '     '  Default vulnerability
     25     Dealer side
            'N'      North
            'S'      South
            'E'      East
            'W'      West
            ' '      Default dealer side

2    1-7    Any characters
     8      * means comment line, leave blank otherwise.
     9-22   South's spade suit

            Card marks are A,K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2.
            You may use 'T' instead of '10'.
            Leave blank or '-' if the suit is void.
     25-38  West's  spade suit
     41-54  North's spade suit
     57-70  East's  spade suit

3           Heart suit   (Same as line 2)
4           Diamond suit (Same as line 2)
5           Club suit    (Same as line 2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tabs are available. Tab positions are  9, 17, 25, 33,...

[Example]
----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+
       *******************************************
       *        Sample hand data.                *
       *******************************************
       *
       *  S               W               N               E
       *
         1              W
        4               965             J1082           AKQ73
        4               KJ53            9876            AQ102
        QJ10943         AK              8652            7
        QJ964           AK85            3               1072
       *
         2              S
        -               AQ8752          KJ9             10643
        Q106            K85             J2              A9743
        KJ8762          A               Q109            543
        AK97            J42             Q10653          8
----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+