World Computer-Bridge Championship Returns to USA

Stephen Smith writes "Computers are as good as (or better than) the best humans at such games as Othello, checkers, and chess. What game will computers conquer next? If it's not go or poker, it might be the card game bridge. The World Computer-Bridge Championship returns to the USA for the first time in six years, running from 13 July 2004 to 18 July 2004 at the Hilton New York (Concourse A, lower level) in Manhattan. Eight bridge programs are scheduled to compete; our program, Bridge Baron, will try to avenge its loss to Jack in last year's final. Spectators are welcome and admission is free."

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Do you know someone who plays this?

[SnoBall]

I have a great grandmother that lives in Winter Haven, Florida, who plays this game frequently. I found this out when I traveled there to stay a few days in November 2003 (Right around Thanksgiving).

If I knew how well she plays the game, I'd email this story to her. :)

Re:Do you know someone who plays this?

[hung_himself]

I played Bridge Baron a few years ago. It was the only decent program out there at the time. By decent, I mean playing like a human might at a casual bridge night.

Don't worry about it being too good - it isn't by any stretch of the imagination (or wasn't then) but it was the only one that was worth bothering with..

bridge eh?

[gangien]

maybe Bill Gates [komo-am.com] will be interested in this more than /. apperently is.

Re:bridge eh?

[bridgeplayer]

Interesting that you should mention Bill Gates. We hope to have the chance someday to make him eat his words [cbsnews.com]...

Re:bridge eh?

[gangien]

lol please do. Offtopic, highest UID i've seen, wonder when /. will hit the 800k mark if it hasn't already

Re:bridge eh?

[KDR_11k]

Aren't we past 900k and closing in on 1M already? Or have we passed 1M, too?

Re:bridge eh?

[gangien]

dunno i haven't seen any 800k. Dunno if there's a way to check or anything like that. I hope we get to 1M and they become common soon so i have a respectable amount of digits in my UID :)

Re:bridge eh?

[Da VinMan]

Actually, if you look in the user info pages, you will see that a couple of the pages use the user id # as a URL parameter.

For example:
http://slashdot.org/zoo.pl?op=check&uid= 151940

Change it to this:
http://slashdot.org/zoo.pl?op=check&uid=800 000

And you get an error message because that isn't a valid user. So my guess is that we haven't passed 800,000 yet.

Re:bridge eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Gates is a really terrible bridge player. He pays pros to play with him, and definitely drags the team down. God I'm a nerd.

Not bridge but Scrabble and backgammon

[hung_himself]

In the last ten years chess programs have gotten to the point where routinely kick my butt. Never big on checkers and Othello but I do know that Go and poker programs still play worse than my baby sister. However, I think the poster is wrong about bridge being the next game conquered by computers - it's been a few years but the programs I saw were very weak

Scrabble on the other hand is world class. You used to be able to beat the computer's vocabulary using strategy but not anymore.

Backgammon is nearly t

Too bad

[scot4875]

I'd expect /. to be one of few places that might harbor people that respect games like bridge, but apparently I'm overestimating the readership.

I've been playing for about 5 years. At this point I've learned that there's *so* much to learn about the game that I can never expect to know everything.

It's a very refreshing change from, say, computer games of the multiplayer RTS/FPS variety, because ultimately there are a very finite set of strategies that work well. After playing for a month or two, it's mostly a matter of refining your play.

I love video games, but bridge is the only game that's kept me playing continuously for the past 5 years. Not only for the mental challenge, but also for the social aspect. It's cool hanging around with some of my old college professors and beating them every once in a while.

Whatever happened to intellectual hobbies? I find it frustrating that I can't find anyone my age (mid 20s) interested in picking up a deck of cards unless it's some mindless drinking game. I work with a lot of intelligent people, but the closest any of their interests come to bridge is Warhammer 40k.

It's *so* much easier to deal a deck of cards (or 2, or 3, depending on how many people are playing) than setting up a LAN party. Why is it so much harder to find 3 people to play bridge than it is to find 10 to play Quake 3?

--Jeremy

Re:Too bad

[the morgawr]

You didn't overestimate this reader. I go to an engineering school and ton's of people here who play including over half of the guys in my Fraternity, the Delta Chi Kettering A Chapter.

I agree with you, it's a great, challenging game. It's also much easier to teach the basics to someone that say GURPS.

Re:Too bad

[Zangief]

Bridge is a great game, but it is hard to learn, at least, compared to chess, or even quake. I guess that it is the problem with it.

GIB

[jbolden]

I've notied that GIB is out. Have the ideas in GIB been incorporated in other products, or is there still some doubt as to how it would do if it were to play against today's programs?