Best Objectech Shareware Selections/UNTITLED.iso/boss/game/card/015/bridge.txt

Text File | 1986-10-18 | 21KB | 439 lines

                         COMPUTER CONTRACT BRIDGE I
                              (Novice Version)


                          SOME HISTORY OF THE GAME

          Bridge is a relatively old card game with roots dating
     back to the seventeenth century. It was originally called
     Whist, but was preceeded by games with names like Triumph,
     Trump, Ruff and Honors, Whisk and Swabbers, and Whisk.

          Bridge, or Bridge Whist, was first played at the Portland
     Club in London in 1894, introduced by Lord Brougham. It was
     played for about ten years when it was replaced by a newer
     version known as Auction Bridge.

          Contract Bridge was a spin-off of the French game known
     as Planfond. A group of American players who frequented the
     Travelers' Club in Paris combined Whist and Planfond and
     came up with the basics of the game played today. American
     Yachtsman and card enthusiast Harold S. Vanderbilt, in the
     mid-nineteen-twenties brought out his own set of rules for
     play which were subsequently endorsed as the official rules
     for Bridge wherever it was played.

          Ely Culbertson, a world-class Bridge player of the
     thirties, wrote books on the subject and was a participant in
     one of the longest-running Bridge games in history consisting of
     one-hundred-fifty rubbers. The game concluded in 1932.

          Eventually Bridge became so popular that teams of players
     traveled the world to play. The greatest Bridge competition was
     the World Bridge Olympic, involving thousands of contestants.

          Ely Culbertson's rules on bidding held up for decades
     but one man, Charles H. Goren, developed a bidding system
     which incorporated more sophisticated theories. Goren since
     has become the ruling authority on Bridge and his system
     has become a standard by which the world plays. Modifications
     to the Goren system have become accepted by Bridge players
     and include the Blackwood and Gerber Conventions, usually
     agreed upon as a means of special bidding signals between
     partners. All of the rules of Bridge are quite difficult
     to come by in one publication, but books on the subject abound.
     A good bookstore may have as many as fifty different titles
     on Bridge and more become available on a regular basis. Of all
     of the forms of cards, Bridge ranks tops as a continuing
     challenge to its players because most must agree, before
     starting play, which rules and conventions they will invoke
     during bidding.

                                                                 page 2





                              BRIDGE RULES

                       THE BASICS OF COMPUTER PLAY



          This version of Computer Contract Bridge is played by
     two teams - the WE team and the THEY team. The WE team consists
     of the North and the South. North is played by the computer,
     South by the player. The THEY team consists of the East and the
     West, both played by the computer. The computer assumes control
     of each position in turn. It does not remember from one position
     to another what it played last, but calculates much as a human
     does in playing its hand. It even makes mistakes as humans do.

          If the North wins the bidding, the player will be required
     to sit out since his hand will be played by the computer as the
     DUMMY hand - thus the computer will be playing all four of the
     positions. Conversely, if the South wins the bidding, the player
     will play the North's DUMMY hand.



                                 BIDDING

          The excitement of Bridge is not so much the playing
     of the tricks, but rather the BIDDING to start play. It is
     expected that just about any team can take six of thirteen
     tricks whether a trump suit is used or not, so in Bridge
     play the first six tricks don't count for anything. In bidding,
     the first six tricks are also ingnored.

          A bid of ONE HEART means that the bidder expects that he
     and his partner will be able to take at least the minimum six
     tricks PLUS one extra trick for a total of seven tricks. By
     bidding ONE HEART, the bidder is making Hearts the trump suit. A
     trump card may be thrown any time a player cannot follow suit in
     trick play. The highest trump card played always wins the trick,
     no matter what suit leads the trick. Of course, a player must
     always follow suit if possible.

          A bid of THREE NO TRUMP means that the bidder expects
     that his team will be able to take a total of nine tricks
     (six plus three) and that no suit will be used as trump.

          A SMALL SLAM bid would be SIX of anything and a GRAND
     SLAM bid would be SEVEN of anything. A grand slam is when
     one team takes all thirteen tricks (six plus seven).

                                                                 page 3




          The SUIT bid is important because certain suits are
     worth more points than others. Every trick taken by a team
     (after the first six) when Spades or Hearts are trump, is worth
     thirty points. When Diamonds or Clubs are called as trump,
     tricks over six are only worth twenty points. If No Trump is
     called, the seventh trick won by a team is worth fourty points
     and subsequent tricks are worth thirty points. In any instance,
     the first six tricks won by a team count for nothing.

          When partners are bidding they cannot look at each other's
     cards, but each can give the other a good idea of his hand's
     contents by the way he bids.  And THIS is what makes Bridge
     such an exciting game!  Each player is trying to figure out
     what every other player has in his hand by the way the bidding
     goes.  In the Computer Novice Version of Bridge, the first
     bid by North, East or West is always the best suit with lowest
     trick count expectation. The second bid is always the next
     best suit and best trick count expectation. If your partner (the
     North) bids TWO SPADES, you know that his best suit is Spades
     and that he feels that between the two of you the team can
     expect to take at least eight tricks. If he bids again, he'll be
     telling you his second best suit - if he hasn't been forced out
     of the bidding by someone else's bid too large to answer safely.
     And THAT is where the fun comes in! If you open the bidding with
     two Hearts and your partner bids three Diamonds, will it
     be safe for you to bid three Spades (your second best suit)
     hoping the other guys will be trapped into bidding too high...
     or should you pass and see what your partner can do with the
     bidding? Is somebody bluffing? Is everybody REALLY bidding their
     hands or are there other signals being passed back and forth
     that you are missing? Is the other team trying to push you into
     bidding past your ability to take tricks? How far can you go
     without ending up on the short end of the stick?



               EVALUATING YOUR HAND FOR BIDDING PURPOSES

          The deck contains a total of 40 high-card points and
     the average hand will contain ten points. Use the following
     table to determine your hand's point-count:

                    Each Ace.............4 Points
                    Each King............3 Points
                    Each Queen...........2 Points
                    Each Jack............1 Point


                                                                 page 4




          If you have only two cards in a suit (a doubleton) add
     1 point. One card in a suit (a singleton) is worth an addition