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1998 World Computer Bridge Championship | |||||||||||||||||||||||
The Baron Barclay/OKbridge World Computer Bridge Championship II was held July 23 through August 2, 1998 as part of the American Contract Bridge League's summer North American Bridge Championships in Chicago.The organizer of this event was Mr. Alvin Levy. Many thanks to Mr. Alvin Levy for his hard work in organizing this highly successful and enjoyable event.
The following are the programs that are featured in the challenge:
Competing in the bidding contest only:
World Computer Bridge Championship II by Alvin Levy |
Can a computer play bridge at the expert level? Will the world soon witness the equivalent of IBM's Deep Blue beating chess world champion Garry Kasparov? While expert play may still be a few years off, the computer play at the 'Computer World Championships' in Chicago suggest that, in the near future, players at every level will have an entertaining alternative to playing against humans. | Up to recently, beginning and intermediate players have used these programs either as a diversion - playing when alone, or to learn from lesson hands, or to just practice. While many of the programs on the market have good graphics, allow for storage of favorite hands, and contain built-in lessons, published reviews have rated the best of them as playing no better than at an intermediate level. In order to promote computer bridge activities that might accelerate the development of these programs and to generate greater interest in computer bridge playing, a 'World' computer championship competition was initiated. At my request, the ACBL approved an official 'Championship' to take place at an NABC once a year. I then organized and ran the Baron Barclay World Computer Bridge Championships at the 1997 summer NABCs in Albuquerque. With bragging rights and cash prizes at stake, the competition attracted the leading programs from around the world. Bridge Baron 7 was declared the champion beating out Q-plus Bridge on the last few boards of the finals. This year's championships, held at the Chicago NABCs, were sponsored by Baron Barclay Bridge Supplies and OKbridge. Participants representing seven programs came from around the world to compete. Tomio and Yumiko Uchida, from Japan, entered Micro Bridge 8. Hans Leber, from Germany, entered Q-plus Bridge. Michael Whittaker, from England, entered Blue Chip Bridge. From the USA, Rodney Ludwig entered Meadowlark Bridge, Don Farwell entered Bridge Baron 8, Matt Ginsberg entered GIB, and Rolf Wilson entered Bridge Genii. All rules, conditions of contest, and formats of competition were discussed and agreed upon in advance by all the participants. Official conditions of contest included the types of computers to be used and computer 'thinking' time allowed per deal. Also, all Convention Cards were exchanged in advance. Isn't e-mail wonderful?! I acted as the official Coordinator during the week long activities, coordinating conditions of contest, schedules of events, and overseeing all activities. Sol Weinstein was the Director, supplying all the hand records in a new computer file format that was specifically created for this contest and will be the standard for future activities. A three-judge panel, consisting of Chip Martel, John Solodar, and Kit Woolsey, was established to settle all 'appeals' that might arise.
The contest began on July 24th with a 10-board/match round robin scored on a 20 Victory Point scale, with the top four programs advancing to the semifinals.The four programs surviving the round robin were:
In the 48 board semifinals GIB defeated Bridge Baron, 147-64, and Q-plus Bridge defeated Micro Bridge 8, 145-71.Sometimes in bridge, as in golf, when you make a mistake, you can still make your par result by scrambling. Witness the following hand played by Micro Bridge 8 in its semifinal match against Q-plus Bridge.
GIB performed very well as it defeated Q-plus, 181-118, in a 64 board final match.Here is a hand from the final match in which GIB made a fine defensive play.
A separate bidding contest took place, with hands and datum coming from top level international play. Larry Cohen was kind enough to supply the hands and data. It was surprising to see the results, as it was not expected any program would come close to having a positive result (average is zero IMPs). But, GIB, using 2/1 game forcing methods, won with a score of +2 IMPs, second was Blue Chip Bridge, using ACOL, with -30 IMPs, and third was Q-plus, using Precision, with -57 IMPs.
Results (1998) |
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Bidding Contest GIB +2 (excellent) Blue Chip Bridge -30 (very good) Q-plus Bridge -57 Bridge Baron 8 -84 Micro Bridge 8 -88 BridgeMate 3 -94 Meadowlark didn't participate Final match 54 boards plus carryover from 10 board round robin match GIB 181 (168 + 13 carryover) Q-plus 118 Semifinal match 38 boards plus carryover from 10 board round robin match 1)GIB 147 Bridge Baron 64 2)Q-plus Bridge 145 Micro Bridge 8 71 Round Robin results GIB 95 Q-plus 78 Bridge Baron 71 Micro Bridge 60 Blue Chip 54 Meadowlark 39 Bridge Genii 23
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