State of the Art4

[Scarabin]

It seems clear that you simply do not understand the reference work that was provided in your earlier thread.

 

It is nice to know that you do not see an insuperable barrier...

 

When can we expect to see your program in competition?

 

Perhaps you should read up on some game theory. Its foundations go back to the 40's.

 

What is your human rule for this situation?

After an opening bid of 2NT, the player in the balancing seat always doubles.

How should the "declaring" pair handle this in their bidding? Will the balancing player (team) modify its behavior? How? When?

 

(I am not trying to hijack this thread. I only pose a game theoretic straw man to suggest that. in fact, games of imperfect information tend to be perforce stochastic.)

 

Thanks for your interest. As regerds your first point it's very possible I have not fully understood the papers I read. I'd find it easier to judge if you will do me the courtesy of specifying which paper, and even better which precise part, I failed to apprehend?

 

I'll pass on your second point which seems to be weak sarcasm and unnecessary.

 

The answer to your third point is, unfortunately, probably never. I am a painfully slow programmer and I check each step meticulously, mainly because I hate having to debug large batches of code. I do produce spin-offs from time to time and these have value for me. Perhaps I may publish some of these. My aim is not to produce a world champion program but rather one which would give a good player a good game and teach a beginner to play good bridge.

 

I have read up on game theory, also statistics and probability. That's how I made my living. Unfortunately my roots go back to the thirties.

 

I do not have an answer to your next question, any program I write will only deal with bidding systems with which I am familiar. To compensate it will cover these as completely as possible.

 

Perhaps it's another gap in my understanding but I am not sure your last statement actually means anything. If you mean games with imperfect information must be programmed with monte carlo simulations this would meet serious opposition from people whose opinions are highly valued, as well as by me.

 

Slainte,

 

Ian