THE 13th ANNUAL WORLD COMPUTER-BRIDGE CHAMPIONSHIP

Washington, D.C., USA

26-31 July 2009

 

By Alvin Levy[1]

 

The 13th annual World Computer-Bridge Championship, supported by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) and World Bridge Federation (WBF) was held in Washington, D.C., USA, alongside the ACBL’s summer North American Bridge Championship (NABC).  Since its inception in 1997, the championship has been held every year alongside an important bridge championship.  Next year’s championship will be held 10-15, October, 2010, alongside the WBF’s world championships, in Philadelphia, PA, USA.  For the history and details of previous championships go to www.computerbridge.com or www.ny-bridge.com/allevy/computerbridge

 

Technical remarks

A bridge “table” consists of a central server (CS) that manages the game, and four connecting computers that “seat” the robots.  The CS manages and records the play.  Play proceeds automatically, with pauses for occasional manual exchanges of information when explanations of bids are necessary.  The CS distributes the hands, receives and passes information from and to the robots and records the bidding and play.  All the robots use identical computers.  This year Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz/2GH Ram desktops were used, running under Windows XP Pro.  The timing of play was set at two minutes per pair per deal.

 

Without getting into the details, most of the robots are programmed with a combination of knowledge-based AI (sets of rules) and search-based AI (simulations).

 

The format for the championship event is team play.  Two teams play each other, with each team consisting of four identical robots, one pair sitting North-South at one table and their teammates sitting East-West at the other table.

 

Ten robots were entered in the six-day event.  The event started with a 28-board round robin scored on the International 30-VP scale (0-3 IMPs is 15-15; 4-10 IMPs is 16-14; up through 95+ IMPs is 25-0). The top four teams in the round robin advance, with carryover, to the 64-board semifinal KO stage.  The top eight robots from the round robin play in a side event, a 112-board Individual.

 

Competitors and round robin results

Wbridge5 (Yves Costel, France) topped the round robin with 198 VPs.  Jack (Hans Kuijf and Wim Heemskerk, The Netherlands) was close behind with 195 VPs, followed by Micro Bridge (Tomio and Yumiko Uchida, Japan) with 166 VPs and Shark Bridge (John Norris, Denmark) with 162 VPs.  Q-Plus Bridge (Hans Leber, Germany) with 155 VPs was the only other robot in contention to advance to the semifinal KO stage.  Bridge Baron (Stephen Smith, Jason Rosenfeld and George Yanakiev, USA) with 128 VPs, RoboBridge (Job Scheffers, The Netherlands) with 111 VPs and Bridge Captain (Bob Richardson, USA and Bo Haglund, Sweden) with 111 VPs rounded out the top eight to play in the Individual event.  For first time entrants Ray’s Bridge Game (Raymond Reynolds, USA) and Sy Borg (Al Darman, USA) it was a learning experience, as they didn’t take a single VP against the top eight robots.

In the round robin Shark Bridge’s good decision at the five level gained 13 IMPs against Micro Bridge.

 

Dealer: East
Vul: Both

♠ -
♥ Q 9 8 7 6 3 2
♦ A Q 2
♣ 7 4 2

 

♠ J 9 6 5
♥ J 5
♦ K 10
♣ K Q 9 8 6

 

N 

 

W

 

E

 

S 

 

♠ A K Q 8 4
♥ 10
♦ 8 7 5
♣ A J 10 3

 

♠ 10 7 3 2
♥ A K 4
♦ J 9 6 4 3
♣ 5

 

 

West

North

East

South

Micro Bridge

Shark Bridge

Micro Bridge

Shark Bridge

 

 

1♠

Pass

4♠

Dbl

Pass

5♦

Pass

5♥

5♠

Dbl

All Pass

 

 

 

 

Good decisions were made in the bidding.  West did well to preempt the auction, North did well to take an action, South did well to not pass the Dbl, and East did well to save at 5♠.  5♠x went down one for -200.  At the other table the auction was 1♠-Pass-4♠-All Pass, and +620 to Shark Bridge.  At the other eight tables in the round robin the final contract was 4♠.

 

Individual

After three days of intense round robin play, the contestants relaxed with a fun filled Individual.  Bridge Captain was forced to withdraw, leaving a 7-robot event.  After 112-boards Shark Bridge emerged as the clear winner, for the second year in a row.  With an average of 54.785, the results are: 1. Shark (61.5, 56.13%); 2. RoboBridge (56.5, 51.56%); 3. Q-Plus Bridge (55.5, 50.65%); 4. Jack (54.5, 49.74%); 5/6 Micro Bridge (53.5, 48.83%); 5/6 Wbridge5 (53.5, 48.83%); 7. Bridge Baron (48.5, 44.26%).

 

Semifinals

The major event continued on the fourth day.  The semifinal lineup saw Wbridge5, finishing first in the round robin, playing fourth place finisher, Shark Bridge.  Wbridge5 started with a 25 IMP carryover, the difference in VPs in their head-to-head round robin match.  Wbridge5 beat Shark Bridge 116-8 IMPs (25-0 VPs) in their round robin match.  In the other semifinal match, second place finisher in the round robin, Jack, was pitted against third place finisher, Micro Bridge.  Jack started with a 12 IMP carryover, beating Micro Bridge 70-37 IMPs (21-9 VPs) in their round robin match.

In the semifinal matches, Wbridge5 easily defeated Shark Bridge 232-105, and Jack overcame an 18 IMP semifinal deficit with two boards to go, beating Micro Bridge, 126-123.

 

 

carryover

1-16

17-32

33-48

49-64

Total

Wbridge5

25

24

34

59

90

232

Shark Bridge

 

18

34

52

18

105

 

 

carryover

1-16

17-32

33-48

49-64

Total

Jack

12

12

44

19

39

126

Micro Bridge

30

37

38

18

123

 

Some interesting hands from the Semifinals follow.

 

Board 25

 

 

Dealer: North
Vul: E-W

 

♠ Q 10 7 6 4 3
♥ Q J 10
♦ 10 8
♣ J 4

 

♠ J
♥ 9 8 6 2

♦ K Q 9
♣ K Q 7 3 2

N 

 

W

 

E

 

S 

 

 

♠ 8 2
♥ A K 7 5 4 3

♦ 3 2

♣ 10 8 6

 

♠ A K 9 5
♥ -
♦ A J 7 6 5 4
♣ A 9 5

 

 

West

North

East

South

Micro Bridge

Jack

Micro Bridge

Jack

 

Pass

2♥

Dbl

4♣!

Pass

4♥

Pass

Pass

4♠

Pass

6♠

All Pass

 

 

 

 

Micro Bridge’s 4♣ showed values in clubs and heart support.  East led a club for down one.  At the other three tables North opened 2♠ and South drove to 6♠, making on a ♥A lead.  Micro Bridge’s 4♣ bid, along with the good decision of not leading a high heart from AK, won 14 IMPs.

Board 41

 

 

Dealer: North
Vul: E-W

 

♠ K J 10 3
♥ 10 9 8 4 2
♦ 10 4
♣ 9 5

 

♠ Q 4
♥ K J 6

♦ A K J 9 6
♣ J 6 4

 

N 

 

W

 

E

 

S 

 

♠ A 9 7 2
♥ A Q 3

♦ 8 7 5

♣ Q 10 7

 

♠ 8 6 5
♥ 7 5
♦ Q 3 2
♣ A K 8 3 2

 

 

West

North

East

South

Wbridge5

Shark Bridge

Wbridge5

Shark Bridge

Shark Bridge

Wbridge5

Shark Bridge

Wbridge5

 

Pass

1♣

Pass

1♦