AITopics / Bridge

Anyone who has read a number of bridge columns in newspapers will be struck by the frequency with which even the world's top players make mistakes. . . .The key . . . lies in writing a program that can play the cards "perfectly."

- David Levy, from The Million Pound Bridge Program

Good Places to Start

Do not pass Go. Computers can beat the world's best chess players but have yet to master other classic games like Go. By David Levy. The Guardian (October 24, 2002). "Ever since Garry Kasparov's sensational 1997 loss to the IBM chess monster Deep Blue, the chess world has thirsted for revenge. But the first opportunity ended in failure in Bahrain on Saturday, when Kasparov's former pupil and successor as World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, could only draw an 8-game match against one of the world's leading chess engines, Fritz. But this was just the latest in a long series of human versus computer encounters that illustrate the inexorable march of artificial intelligence (AI). It's a story that began at a Dartmouth University conference in 1956, when several of the founding fathers of AI defined the goals of that infant science. One of them was to create a computer program that could defeat the world chess champion. Success would, those scientists believed, reach to the very core of human intellectual endeavour. By the early 1990s, due in no small part to the successes achieved in computer chess, the interest of the AI community had spread to many other games of skill, including backgammon, bridge, Go and Scrabble. Where exactly are we now in this fascinating struggle? ... Two games proving even tougher to crack than chess are bridge and Go."

Some Sophisticated Bidding by Jack, a Dutch Computer Program. By Alan Truscott. The New York Times. (August 2, 2004; no fee reg. req'd.). "[Jack] is the name of the Dutch computer program that has won the world computer bridge championship for four straight years. It is the brainchild of Hans Kuijf, with input from Wim Heemskerk, Martin Pattenier and a former world champion, Berry Westra. In the 2004 contest, staged at the Summer Nationals in Manhattan two weeks ago, Jack defeated an American program, Bridge Baron, in the final by 60 imps. ... The best computer programs are improving constantly and can now play against midlevel humans on equal terms."

American Contract Bridge League’s 2004 World Computer-Bridge Championships. From Alvin Levy. "The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) established an official World Computer-Bridge Championship in 1997. This annual event takes place at a major international bridge event. This year’s championship was held at the ACBL’s summer North American Bridge Championships in New York City from July 13-17. ... The top bridge-playing programs, or robots, from around the world competed for the title of 2004 World Computer-Bridge Champion. These robots were: JACK (The Netherlands), vying to retain its title that it won the past three years; Bridge Baron (USA) last year’s second place finisher and winner of the inaugural event in 1997; Wbridge5 (France) the 1999 and 2002 second place finisher; Micro Bridge (Japan) the 2001 second place finisher; Meadowlark Bridge (USA), the 2000 champion; Q-Plus Bridge (Germany), the 1997, 1998 and 2000 runner-up; Blue Chip Bridge (United Kingdom); and Sabrina (France)."

Check out these news reports about the championship.

Jack. "Welcome to computer bridge world champion Jack. In 2004 bridge program Jack captured the world championship for the fourth straight time. time. On this website we offer you information and backgrounds regarding world champion Jack."

Bridge at The Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory (CIRL) of the University of Oregon. "

GIB is the world's first expert-level computer bridge player. It has received a great deal of press as a result of its participation in the Par Contest at the 1998 World Bridge Championships, which were held in Lille, France. In an invitational field consisting of 34 of the world's best card players and GIB, GIB finished 12th. Hands in which GIB has outplayed world-class human players are also the subject of a series of articles in the Dutch bridge magazine IMP. GIB is written in C and is based on an extremely fast double dummy solver. The principal technique used to construct the double dummy solver is Ginsberg's partition search; the single dummy bridge player is built using Monte Carlo sampling techniques. GIB is also available as aproduct." The page provides links to articles and techniques used (Adversary and Partition Search).

Computer Trumps Most Human Players at World Bridge Championship. University of Oregon Homepage News Archive. "It was the first time that a computer had ever been allowed to play bridge at so high a level of international competition and when the last card was played only 11 of the world's best human players had managed to outperform the silicon-based competition. This demonstration of computer-playing ability took place at this year's Par Contest, held as part of the 1998 World Bridge Championships in Lille, France. The Par Contest is a showcase for individual players to demonstrate their ability to make the best possible card plays. At this year's Par Contest, a computer program called 'GIB' took 12th place honors. ... 'I'm thrilled,' says GIB's creator Matthew Ginsberg, a University of Oregon computer scientist who specializes in artificial intelligence. 'This shows that the same kinds of techniques that allowed Deep Blue to beat Kasparov in chess can be applied to other domains. This success makes it very clear that computer bridge players have arrived. ... In computer-against-computer competitions held this summer at the Fifteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-98) in Madison, Wis., GIB obliterated all other computer programs, establishing itself as the preeminent computer player in the world.'"
GIB: The Strongest Computer Bridge Player in the World.

Readings Online

Computers, Games and the Real World. By Matthew L. Ginsberg. Scientific American (special issue: Exploring Intelligence - Winter 1998). "More than just competing with people, game-playing machines complement human thinking by offering alternative methods to solving problems."

Computer Bridge: A Big Win for AI Planning. By Stephen J. Smith, Dana Nau, and Thomas Throop. AI Magazine 19(2): Summer 1998, 93-106. "A computer program that uses AI planning techniques is now the world champion computer program in the game of Contract Bridge. As reported in The New York Times and The Washington Post, this program--a new version of Great Game Products' BRIDGE BARON program--won the Baron Barclay World Bridge Computer Challenge, an international competition hosted in July 1997 by the American Contract Bridge League. It is well known that the game tree search techniques used in computer programs for games such as Chess and Checkers work differently from how humans think about such games. In contrast, our new version of the BRIDGE BARON emulates the way in which a human might plan declarer play in Bridge by using an adaptation of hierarchical task network planning. This article gives an overview of the planning techniques that we have incorporated into the BRIDGE BARON and discusses what the program’s victory signifies for research on AI planning and game playing."

Related Web Sites

American Contract Bridge League. Links to bridge information, tournaments, online play sites.

Internet Bridge Archive. Maintained by Marcus Buchhorn, Australian National University. Scroll down the page to get Computers and Bridge link. Scroll further for an interesting newsgroup discussion thread on what needs to be considered in writing bridge playing programs.

1997 World Champion Bridge Program. Maintained by Professor Dana Nau, University of Maryland. The Bridge Baron, developed by Nau, Stephen Smith and Tom Throop, is described via online papers and tournament reports.

Bridge

Good Places to Start

Readings Online

Related Web Sites

Related Pages

More Readings