Scarabin

Put like that I probably am being presumptuous. My point is that if you build on the shoulders of giants you can reach great heights. Would you not concede that a program with open code which can be continually improved by new participants could have unlimited potential? That is my particular new insight.

Siegmund, Thanks for the suggestion of Gnubridge. I have revisited their site but unfortunately I think Gnubridge is too far removed from what I propose. Antrax, I take it you are querying my reference to "double-dummy cheating". By this, I mean peeking at the unseen hands. As random simulation improves it moves closer to double dummy play. I have no objection to a program cheating to improve performance to give me an acceptable game but it is not exactly simulating expert play. Or at least I hope not. I freely admit that random simulations produce results at a certain level more quickly than rule based systems (see my opening post) but I think further improvement is limited and a rule based system will ultimately out perform random simulation. Mike777 I would hate to get involved in semantics or philosophy but is it not true to say that random simulation is the antithesis of pragmatism(= rule based system?)?

"Those who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of thing they like." (attributed to Abraham Lincoln). A previous topic revealed that a number of BBOers are involved in writing Bridge simulations. Now I believe that completing a really worthwhile simulation in a reasonable timespan is beyond an individual programmer's capacity. Consequently I am calling for volunteers to pool their efforts into producing the ultimate definitive bridge program. Let me spell out briefly what I have in mind. Forgive me obvious tautologies, and if you find my style insultingly simple. I am concentrating entirely on setting out my points as clearly as possible. First I do not see much point in producing another random simulation program even if we could improve on the existing crop. We all know the problems and limitations of GIB and any significant improvement would only bring it closer to double-dummy cheating. Thus I feel that the only worthwhile approach is rule-based both for bidding and play. The trouble with a rule-based simulation is that until the knowledge base is complete, the standard of bidding and play is woefully low, even lower than for a random simulation written over a comparable period. Because of this I suggest we divide the simulation into two parts: First we write a shell program covering user interaction, card handling and graphics, and also setting up the shell of a rule-based, expert program with both bidding systems and play based on open-ended knowledge bases which could be entered,corrected, and expanded by the end-user. At this stage anyone who wishes could drop out of the joint effort, without letting anyone down, and continue development on his/her own: perhaps a limited simulation such as a bidding system comparison, or a play aid. I would hope however that enough participants would continue so that several bidding systems could be entered simultaneously, and the play could be completed in good time. So there it is. I think the project would be worthwhile and might well shape the future of computer programming. It only remains to pose the question: Would you be prepared to participate in such a project?

Thanks for your replies. My first aim, at least, is satisfied. :rolleyes: While I cannot claim to have discovered overwhelming support for a collaborative bridge simulation, I guess we have reached the stage where I should put the question directly:"Would you join a group effort to write a new bridge simulation?". I will open a new topic to do this. :)

Cannot trace it through Google so probably abandoned. On a related point, has anyone found a learning program (neural networks in the jargon?) that is beyond trivial and that actually works?

Sorry. I should have said that I read somewhere that good whist players used the rule of eleven long before contract bridge was invented. The reference may have been fiction and I have a vague feeling it may be in one of the Hornblower books. My 1964 Official Encyclopedia of Bridge says (of the rule of eleven): "The discovery of the rule is generally credited to R.F.Foster, and was published by him in his Whist Manual. First put in writing in a letter from Foster to a friend in 1890,......"

The cd (commercial)version of GIB is also written to run on a dedicated PC and I assure you I have downloaded updates. It would be interesting to see GIB compete in a championship although the winners seem to enjoy a fair degree of luck. Even if BBO prefer not to devote time to competing, and I guess it would involve unproductive effort, I would like to think BBO management periodically compare GIB's performance with leading programs. Otherwise the claim that GIB is the best playing program in the world would ring a bit hollow.

Thanks Catch22. I am currently researching expert systems (probably a dead end since all rule based systems are expert systems) and database applications of Visual Basic. I am a very amateur programmer!

I think the rule of 11 may date back to whist. I read this somewhere, a long time ago.

May we know the name of the domain specific language you use, please? Your snippet is interesting in a tantalizing sort of way.

Thanks for your responses. In starting this Topic I had 3 thoughts: 1) It is always nice to know you are not entirely alone. 2) It would be interesting to discover a common thread in people who combine bridge and computer programming. I suspect they are usually also mathematicians, for starters? 3) If enough people respond it might be worthwhile to float the possibility of a joint endeavour to write a mammoth bridge playing program. I know there are other programmers out there who have still to respond. What do you think?

I am intrigued by the number of BBO'rs who mention that they are writing bridge computer simulations or playing programs either as a hobby or commercially and I would like to learn who is involved and what you are working on. To start things off, I am engaged on two programs, both of hobby rather than professional standard: - an aid to counting in play, and - a program to compare bidding systems and hand evaluation systems. Hope to hear from you all. :rolleyes:

That's it, exactly. Thanks for help.

Not a recent film, but I really liked "Invasion of the Barbarians". It is a pleasantly cynical account of life and death among French-Canadians. Enjoyable but I do not know if it is true to life?

Are you able to access my notifications on my profile? I think this would be the best way to see what I am trying to describe.

Thanks for info. Sorry for mis-post. Just clumsy. My problem with profile views is that the number increases without any change in the list of visitors. Is this due to invisible members? On blocking: Most of my conversations are with Admin members but I sent one irate message to an ordinary member and Messenger offered to block his reply. I did not expect it to be so perceptive so thought it might automatically offer to block all non-admin members?

Two questions re profiles: - Does "Profile Views" record the number of times I have viewed other profiles or views of my profile? It does not seem to relate directly to either? - Does Messenger offer to block messages from all non-Admin members?

How about intellectual dishonesty as a pet peeve? When we make quotations surely we should credit the source? Or if we think the source is obvious, at least enclose the quote in inverted commas to show we are not plagiarising?

I have come across a new bridge playing program which has a particular appeal for me. It genuinely allows you to enter complete bidding systems! I propose to review it ( and subsequently the other robots I have) briefly under the headings: general, good features, bad features, bidding performance, play performance, and tentative conclusion. Here goes for Oxford bridge: (1) General: Oxford bridge featured in the very early world computer bridge championships but has never won a championship and has not featured in recent years. To download a trial version of the program "Google" "oxford bridge". (2) Good features: Oxford bridge has a pleasant interface and is user-friendly. Its bidding systems have been programmed on a database language (think Prolog or Lisp) and are open ended. Most programs allow you to add conventions from an existing collection. Oxford bridge also allows you to change the meanings of/ requirements for bids and in relatively normal if stilted English. Thus you can extend and correct the built in bidding systems and also enter completely new bidding systems from scratch. The only limitation is imposed by a limited vocabulary. I am not au fait with the latest bidding systems but I would guess the vocabulary would cope with these. It could cope with Fred's Modern Standard, or Reese's Little Major. Roman Club might require a deal of ingenuity. The play engine is pragmatic reasoning backed up by random simulation, potentially the most powerful approach, but I think the cross-over point needs more work. There is a play commentary which explains plays retrospectively in recognisable but limited English. (3) Bad features: I would say that both its marketing and its copy protection need re-thinking. The former is offputting and the latter comes over as paranoid. It does not recognise PBN files. (4) Bidding performance: The built in systems seem overly cautious, but this may not matter since they can be modified in detail. (5) Play performance: Unfortunately Oxford bridge plays well below its potential and the random simulation seems to kick-in only when the contract is already down. I tested Oxford bridge (why not call it Oxbridge?) on a sample of hands from BM2000, the first five deals with no competitive bidding from each level of section A. A simple criterion of 1 point if BM says correct and 0 if BM says incorrect, gives the following results: Level 1 score 5 (= 100%) Level 2 4 Level 3 0 Level 4 0 Level 5 0 (6) Tentative conclusion: I keep looking for the "great white hope", a program based on pragmatic reasoning which would outplay random simulations. And I keep getting disappointed. I fear this program is not the answer. Perhaps if the play engine were open to modification like the bidding this could be the genesis of a great program?

I liked the first episode of Awake but I think my favourite TV show is still "Forbrydelsen", the Danish original not the remake. Later episodes of Awake seem to be poorer copies of the first.

Good suggestion but it is difficult to prove this unless you already have a good pragmatic program. The work involved in writing a really good program would be prohibitive: first i would have to write a fast,accurate double-dummy program, second I would have use this to write a monte-carlo simulation, third I would have to write a pragmatic program incorporating a single-dummy program like suit-play and I would probably have to write all this in Prolog so that the pragmatic program could be open ended. I do not think I would ever finish and I do not think I would even start without a good team of programmers! Of course an author with an existing random simulation program can expand this with pragmatic supplements. Agree with your first conclusion and with your second so long as the considerations are purely financial. However I like a hybrid approach and dislike a double dummy approach. Monte carlo simulations are only acceptable so long as they do not attain double dummy accuracy. If they do they become tantamount to cheating! Do you agree?

I think we may be at cross purposes? You may be talking about what computer programs should do while I am trying to establish what 4 specific programs - GIB, Jackbridge, Sharkbridge, and Wbridge5 - actually do, based on deductions from actual examples and I am continually learning more about them. Having said that I agree completely with everything you say. I have now discovered another program, Oxford bridge, which incorporates pragmatic reasoning and propose to attempt a statistical analysis of these 5 programs performance on hands from educative software.

You are right, of course. Please disregard my last post. I should not interfere and I now realise I am only encouraging rude behaviour.

As long as we do not know exactly how GIB works you must expect us to speculate and often get it wrong. All suggestions can seem destructive but I think xxhong and cloa513 have made contributions which could be used to improve GIB. The same goes for antrax. One of cloa513's questions sticks in my mind and I think merits further investigation: "why do GIB's simulations not cause it to cash out when it has established enough winning tricks?" Now I am biassed, I want to see a pragmatic reasoning AI become the world champion and purely selfishly I wish you had developed Base lll into Base 17! Having defended the indefensible for most of my life, I do empathise with Barmar even though he does it much better than I used to.

Fair enough, but in "Upgrated GIB" you spoke of adding overriding pragmatic rules to take care of situations like cashing out and where GIB seems to lose its way. Has this also been ruled out?