Review of Bridge Baron

More than 20 years ago, when computer companies were trying to promote their particular operating system for personal computers, Tom Throop devised the only bridge program available to different computing platforms. Bridge Baron, although in its earliest stages in the 1980s, could be played on Apple/Macintosh, PC, Commodore, and Amiga systems at varying strengths of play. Now, with fewer operating systems available, Bridge Baron has arrived in its latest version. Though it gets harder to keep up with the competition, it still ranks among the best, becoming a finalist in the 2003 World Computer Bridge Championship at Menton, France.

Once you follow the simple loading procedure for either the Mac or PC, a voice welcomes you to the game and a choice of four icons. The first is Tools, which allows you entry to the Deal Generator, and the Bridge Library. The Deal Generator allows you to create hands, a wonderful feature for teachers who need to prepare specific hands for class or create homework for their students. Partnerships may want to use it to refine their bidding system. Personal Play Library allows you to save hands from the program or to input specific hands for future reference.

The next icon, Play, gets you to Play Bridge and Play Online. Play Bridge allows you to select any of 2 billion hands (or more) and play bridge with the program as your partner and opponents. Play Online allows you to play with another Bridge Baron owner through your modem or other online connection. You must download and install a patch available at the Bridge Baron site for this feature to operate.

Compete allows you to try your hand at Tournaments and Bridge Match. The Bridge Match feature allows you to play from 1 to 16 boards in a team format. You can save these boards to challenge others, or Bridge Baron. Scoring is either IMP, Board-a-Match or Total Points. This can be an educational experience as some people may wish to compare techniques in each scoring form.

Tournament is a relatively new feature to Bridge Baron. It takes 300-500 hands from past NABC and regional tournaments and lets you compare your score with those who played the hands during that session. There are 10 tournaments included with the program, with additional sets available at additional cost from their website.

The last icon, Learn, takes you to Conventions and Challenges Challenges are hands pre-dealt with some analyzed by the late Alfred Sheinwold, a boon for novice players. I don't feel there are enough of these, though some may say this is just right.

Conventions allows you to recognize specific conventional calls in the course of a deal and you can practice on millions of selected hands. Again there can be some debate over which should be included, but this seems to be a good starting point for many novices and intermediates. Bridge Baron 14 now carries (our count) over 40 conventions and treatments, including Bergen Raises, DONT, Ghestem, Michaels, and Lebensohl.

The bidding systems programmed into Bridge Baron 14 are Standard American, 2/1, ACOL, Precision, French 5 Card Major and SAYC.. Selection of conventions in each system is limited to those most commonly played with these systems, helping newer players immensely and should benefit those SAYC players who want to add a few extra gadgets to their basic card. Bridge Baron has a selection of ranges for an opening of 1NT, from weak (12-14 HCP) to strong (16-18). Each of the built-in systems has three levels of play.

Hints in both bidding and play are available on demand if you want, but the best feature on the program is the bidding flowchart, which has been a part of the program almost from the start. It won't always tell you what to bid, but will offer suggestions on how to handle auctions. Pauses in play and bidding are reasonable, even when set at its lowest level, Immediate. Maximum thinking time is 120 seconds, but that should be reserved for long team matches. Note that the longer it thinks, the better it plays.

A feature that is particularly important is that you can configure Bridge Baron so that you a partnership with one in Italy and another in Canada can play online together. This is also useful for teacher and student.

In all, it's certainly not a convention monster like some programs, but for even the newest and advanced of players it can be a fine instructional tool and well worth the money spent.