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Bridge Baron, five time winner of the World Computer Bridge
Championship, recently brought out its twelfth update. Though not many of us will
need to know it comes in four languages some of the other features are
impressive. It claims to be able to produce two billion random deals any of
which may be recovered at will, and it allows play with or against other Bridge
Baron owners on-line
There is a teaching programme which covers four different systems and a section
on bidding conventions which allows the user to practice the use of a
particular convention in a virtually unlimited number of deals. It enables you
to deal hands of a specific type and also has 96 selected deals for practice in
declarer play.
In its memory banks are all the deals from several past American championships
so that one can sit back at home and play through them with the computer as
partner and receive a score based on what actually happened at the tournament.
As with many computer programmes, where it relies on the ability to sieve
through masses of information it is very good. But where judgment is required
there is not much in evidence. This is one of the practice deals. South deals
with East-West vulnerable:
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North
 Q J 10 3 2
 A Q 7
 K 10 9 7 4
 nil
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West
7 6
10 8 5
Q 5 3
Q J 10 8 6
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East
8 5
K J 6 4
2
A 9 7 4 3 2
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South
A K 9 4
9 3 2
A J 8 6
K 5
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The auction was :
S W N E
1 NT No 2H No
2S No 3D no
3S No 4D No
5D No 6S All Pass
North's two heart response to the opening bid of one no trump was a transfer
showing spades and the three diamond bid was natural and forcing, inviting South
to bid game. The three spade reply could come only from a computer which
counted its points, decided it was minimum for a strong no trump, and signed
off. A realistic human would have looked at the great fit he had in both his
partner's suits and bid game in spades without hesitation.
Nevertheless the final contract is six spades, West leads the queen of clubs
and you have to make twelve tricks.
One line is to discard a heart from dummy, lose a trick to the ace of clubs but
discard the queen of hearts on the king of clubs later and hope to pick up the
diamonds without loss. If you try this, the computer will tell you there is a
better way.
Ruff the club queen in dummy, come to the ace of spades and ruff the king of
clubs. .Draw a second round of trumps noting they have split evenly, and cash
the ace of diamonds. Now comes the key play. Lead a small diamond and when West
follows low put in the 10.If it loses then East is on play and will have to
give a ruff and discard or lead a heart into dummy's ace and queen. Either way
you make an extra trick. As the cards lie the 10 of diamonds wins, the suit is
set up and you discard one of your small hearts on the fifth diamond, losing
only one trick to the king of hearts at the end.
In summary, it is by no means perfect but probably the best programme around
and capable of providing many hours of entertainment and instruction to players
of all standards. It is available from Marketing@BridgeBaron.com at
US$59.95 plus postage.
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