Robot play does have a human side…                                     by Al Levy

Shark Bridge took the title at the 18^th World Computer Bridge Championship was held in Sanya, China, part of the 14^th World Bridge Series.  This year’s competitors were three-time world champion WBridge5 (France), Shark Bridge (Denmark), Micro Bridge (Japan), Bridge Baron (USA) and RoboBridge (The Netherlands).  Defending champion Jack (The Netherlands) took this year off but is looking forward to competing next year, at the Chicago summer NABC.

Year after year the best robots continues to improve.  You can see their progress as well as the 18 year history at the official website, robot.allevybridge.com. The improvement in play has created more and more interest in robot play as a form of competition, that is, with all the human competitors sitting South, all playing with the same robot partner and against the same robot opponents.  There are a number of excellent websites that have robot competition, and analyze your game at the same time.  Isn’t technology wonderf ! The top two finishers of the round robin, Micro Bridge (56 5 VPs) and Shark Bridge (53), faced off in a 64-board final match, with WBridge5 (47.5), Bridge Baron (26) and RoboBridge (17) sidelined, but with their developers as interested bystanders as seen below.

In front, left to right, are John Norris (Shark Bridge) and Tomio Uchida (Micro Bridge) watching their robots compete in the final KO, and in the back are Job Scheffers (RoboBridge), Stephen Smith (Bridge Baron) and Yves Costel (WBridge5) watching the play.

In the 48-board round robin Shark Bridge had a big win against WBridge5 to advance to the final KO, in part due the following deal.

Opening lead ♣4

At the other table, Shark Bridge (East) was more aggressive,

Opening lead, ♠8

The jump to 4♥ put pressure on South, which bid 4♠ and then doubled 5♥.  Shark Bridge +650 an 17 IMPs

With three boards to play in the final KO, Micro Bridge led by 5 IMPs.  John Norris, developer of Shark Bridge could see that the last two boards would be flat so the only hope for victory lie in bidding and making a slam on board 62.  Tomio Uchida, developer of Micro Bridge was hoping for Shark Bridge to stay below slam as Micro Bridge had bid to 5♥ and made 450 on a club lead at the other table.

The slam is quite good and is only defeated with a diamond lead as there are limited entries to ruff two clubs and pull trump.  On a club lead, the slam makes if declarer plays ♥A and noting the drop of the ♥10, ruffs one club with the ♥Q and finesses the jack to pull trump, a good prospect on the auction and restricted choice.  East led the ♠A and the title went to Shark Bridge.