Why are computer not better than they are at bridge?

[helene_t]

A computer certainly can be aware of past events and be programmed to accumulate this information on a on-going basis and, indeed, accumulate data about it's opponents and their tendencies too.

I just wrote a goldfish simulator that deletes all files created more than two minutes ago but it makes my computer crash. Any geeks here who can help me out?

[NickRW]

I just wrote a goldfish simulator that deletes all files created more than two minutes ago but it makes my computer crash. Any geeks here who can help me out?

 

There was something in the news a few days back (iirc)about a fish that remembered her ex owner months after being given to someone else and the fish could pick out the owner in a room of people.

 

So... suggest you change your simulator to deleting things a year old. Wait. It must have already deleted itself by now ;)

[lackeman]

Hi hrutgar so does IT means that it is only one computer that beat the worldchampion? Since IT is so exepensive? So the rest is moderate player? Well this doesnt seames for me as a description of reality!

Esther as i remembered ther was many computer for as long as 20 years that beat human!

For me this support my explanation and if tru says that it is atleaste much easier for a machine to beat a human in chess than in bridge.

If I am right that IT much harder to produce a good machine in bridge then in chess. Then we would expect that IT Will costs much more money and IT Will take much longer time before we se a bridgecomputer at the same level copaired w a chess computer!

And that if hypothesis are correct is what we can se ie reality been concistent whith what we could expected!

IF IT only were a matter of economics (ie not harder but same dificulty to produce bridge and chessrobots of same strength IT would not be a history like this).

[lackeman]

So how much money does it taskes to produce this machine ?

And remember that the computer should also be 25 years old also if we shuld be able to compare here!

As said Im not an expert at computers but IT should matter also!

[Dinarius]

I want whatever lackeman's on! :)

 

D.

[johnu]

As said Im not an expert at computers

 

Maybe slightly out of context, but I 100% agree with this statment.

[Antrax]

Maybe it can't be proven but it seems like just using common sense it is impossible to imagine that computers could not pass humans in bridge. It seems inevitable.

I suspect it's because it's difficult for people who aren't computer experts to understand just how difficult some problems are, to a computer. If forced to guess I'd wager you're right, but I can play devil's advocate here.

 

For instance, let's talk system. On one hand, if you let the computer play whatever, it can probably play some information-theoretic perfect system that a human would have no hope of understanding or remembering , which would give it an edge. But, such a system would come from a human, probably using a different algorithm to create that system. If the task were instead that the computer learn existing systems and augment them, as human experts do to taylor it to their style and close gaps, that would be one hell of a more complex computer program.

 

Another issue is something like table feel. if everyone plays online then the computer has the edge since it's all compute. However, put a computer on a human team and seat it at a table, and you might find out the +EV perfect play was wrong due to a tell picked up by the human declarer at the other table, lose 12.

 

Finally, this is the most tenuous but deep inferences, like "why did he return a club when a diamond seems auto oh he's trying to give me a losing option so he has the trump queen" - good luck teaching a computer those.

 

these are all small things so in reality probably computers will dominate bridge at some point, but it's not as automatic or obvious as may seem at first.

[rhm]

The main reason that computers aren't better than they are right now is that the market for strong bridge player computers isn't large enough to attract serious sustained interest. If IBM or Microsoft were willing to spend the money that IBM did to on a chess playing program you'd shortly see a computer beating world champions.

I am not convinced.

This is unproven. You could be right but you could also be very wrong and the market for strong chess player isn't so big either.

In fact we also do not know how much has been invested in Bridge computer algorithm. It could well be there is not such a great difference, people always claim.

In my youth I remember having read an article from an eminent chess writer, why computer will never beat grand masters in a serious game. He was obviously wrong.

But I still do not subscribe to the notion that computer can beat human mind in almost any field of endeavor if enough is invested.

It is not even clear whether everything of substance can be trimmed down to programmable computer algorithms, but mathematical research done by Alan Mathison Turing almost a century ago suggests not.

For example computers are nowadays sometimes used when proving mathematical theorems.

But I doubt that computer can substitute the ingenuity of researchers in mathematics.

In the end you have to find algorithms you can program which are better than the human mind, which works on experience, associations and inspiration. Creativity is hard to program.

 

Bridge could well be a game where this can not be accomplished no matter how much you invest. This does not make Bridge a better or worse game than chess.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[mike777]

"Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed, such as an idea, a scientific theory, an invention, a literary work, a painting, a musical composition, a joke, etc"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

 

I understand computers already are very good at creating new stuff. The new stuff created in 2015 may not be somehow valuable however I expect and see no reason why over the next 35 years or so the new stuff that is formed will not somehow be valuable.

 

I expect we will gain a much better understanding of how the software and hardware of the human brain works over the next 35 years.

[billw55]

Because bridge is often a game of percentages, there is a sort of hard cap on how "good" any computer (or human) can be. Even a flawless player will lose a double finesse 25% of the time, and so on. And therefore, they will lose matches to inferior opponents some of the time. Compare backgammon: the bots are vastly and irrefutably superior, but humans (even me) still can win matches on occasion.

 

Against all that, computers never get nervous, or tired, or angry, or go on tilt. They never miscount and never forget a single played card down to the last spot. Yes, I think it is pretty clear that they could be better than human.

 

Human ego is strong in this respect. People should have learned from the IBM experience with chess, but many are still stubborn. Another candidate for the "computers will never win" crowd was Go. But there too, the machines are advancing relentlessly.

 

Really the whole premise says much more about human psychology than about technical feasibility.

[mike777]

Emotions are being programmed into computers. I suppose one may argue they only mimic emotions but what will the difference be.

[NickRW]

Emotions are being programmed into computers. I suppose one may argue they only mimic emotions but what will the difference be.

 

[on Dave's return to the ship, after HAL has killed the rest of the crew]

HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

[Free]

I think there are many issues why bridge programs aren't better than they are at the moment. One is obviously money, but I think the most important is that we lack calculating power.

 

Some have compared it to chess. But that's a whole other game! Suppose we have unlimited calculating power. In that case you could calculate the entire game of chess and you'd never be able to win against a chess computer unless the game is predetermined that one of the players can always win. A bridge computer could only manage to simulate every deal, determine which actions are best for each player on that deal, and make percentage actions. This means they will fail from time to time depending on the hand, so a human may have an opportunity to win. In the long run the computer will obviously win, but in a single match it would be beatable. This is by far the most important to realise.

 

At the moment we lack calculating power, so we have to do it with limited resources. A chess computer can easily disregard poor looking moves and investigate further on good looking moves. It also has full information, which means it doesn't have do run simulations. It makes a move and calculates the best move for its opponent, does the same for itself,...

 

In bridge, you have to run simulations inside simulations to get to the optimal line, which makes the complexity exponentially big. Running simulations alone isn't enough, because for example (like someone mentioned already) holding Qx behind dummy's AKJ would mean you'll always lose your Q. No, you have to run a simulation for each player what the action will be in your own simulation.

 

Also note that I haven't mentioned the bidding...

[mike777]

computing power does increase exponentially. The disagreement seems to be for how long.

 

I believe one aspect in this discussion that is overlooked is how will human performance be enhanced. We all seem to believe that computers will improve performance at bridge.

What will the future bring in terms of human enhanced performance?

[johnu]

I think there are many issues why bridge programs aren't better than they are at the moment. One is obviously money, but I think the most important is that we lack calculating power.

 

...

 

At the moment we lack calculating power, so we have to do it with limited resources.

 

 

computing power does increase exponentially. The disagreement seems to be for how long.

 

We've got more than enough computing power right now. Since this is the Bridgebase forum, have you seen how fast the play goes when GIB is declarer against 2 other GIBs? The cards are usually played so fast you can't follow the play because everything is a blur, and Bridgebase computers could be running thousands of GIBs at one time.

 

Instead of a fraction of a second on a play, give GIB 2,3, 10+ seconds to make a difficult bid or play, so 10x - 10000x as much time. Do you think GIB will bid or play substantially better? There may be some edge conditions where the number of simulations is not sufficient to model unlikely distributions so e.g. GIB may miss a 100% safety play, but GIB will still make almost all the same unbelievably bad bids and plays. Why? Because the programming either has bugs or omissions or just doesn't have the coding to do the correct analysis.

 

So it's a software problem. Suppose you want to play Precision club with GIB. You can't do it because GIB hasn't been programmed to play Precision. No increase in computing power will ever change that. It's not just the opening bids that need to be programmed, but responses, rebids, responder's rebids, etc. Then for defensive bidding, you have to program a defense to a strong 1♣, a nebulous 1♦, a different 1NT range, natural 2♣, 3 suited 2♦, etc. Not that it can't be done since IIRC some other programs can play Precision, but then you will introduce a whole new class of bugs that need to be fixed and GIB programmers have trouble fixing some of the existing ones. Maybe GIB isn't the best engine to use these days. Some people have said that Jack is very good. I'm sure Jack has its own unique set of issues. Maybe they can be fixed and Jack improved to be world class. Just as likely IMHO is that a new program that hasn't been invented yet will be the first world class ability program that will build on the development of today's programs and be designed from the ground up to avoid some of the problems with today's programs.

[mike777]

Perhaps I use the term computing power incorrectly. I meant it to refer to software as well as hardware.

 

As we understand the human brain in more depth and how it learns perhaps this ability to learn will be transferable to a computer chip. At some point perhaps the computer will be creative enough to develop a learning process that is distinctly nonhuman but is a better fit.

 

 

If you accept that computers can be intelligent, in other words there is nothing in the laws of science that prevent computers from gaining intelligence this should be possible. Please note I define and measure the term intelligence in some generally accepted manner.

[hrothgar]

So it's a software problem. Suppose you want to play Precision club with GIB. You can't do it because GIB hasn't been programmed to play Precision. No increase in computing power will ever change that. It's not just the opening bids that need to be programmed, but responses, rebids, responder's rebids, etc. Then for defensive bidding, you have to program a defense to a strong 1♣, a nebulous 1♦, a different 1NT range, natural 2♣, 3 suited 2♦, etc. Not that it can't be done since IIRC some other programs can play Precision, but then you will introduce a whole new class of bugs that need to be fixed and GIB programmers have trouble fixing some of the existing ones. Maybe GIB isn't the best engine to use these days. Some people have said that Jack is very good. I'm sure Jack has its own unique set of issues. Maybe they can be fixed and Jack improved to be world class. Just as likely IMHO is that a new program that hasn't been invented yet will be the first world class ability program that will build on the development of today's programs and be designed from the ground up to avoid some of the problems with today's programs.

 

There are relatively simple ways to get around this limitation.

 

For example, suppose that two pairs of computer programs are competing against one another in a bridge match.

 

Instead of basing disclosure around a natural language description of the various bids have the program generate 100,000 hands that are consistent with this bid/this auction.

[lackeman]

Well about this computerforce/speed. If the computers "work" isnt exactly defined then it doesnt matter how "fast" it works the result will then be also a bit "randomlike". Human brain are controlled by our "feelings" that they give "thinking" a mening and the goal for brainworking! Ie feelings are the reason=canuse to 100% of our thinking! Ex thirst is causing brain to work out a Way to drink ie brain solning "problem thirst"! So I claim there is always a feeling causing thinking! We shall be happy we works like that since IT means in practically we Will then "stay alive". Then there are the good feelings ex happines and this is not a "problem" and not nessesarly a "must".

This feeling/force/cause Will be used to "understand" bye experience!

Aplying this at bridge then I understand that the thinking, analyse "resultl" in a good cardreading and affect our "result", and the computer Will then "hold IT down to =IOM

[Vampyr]

I have never really liked chess -- I could probably count on one hand the number of games I have played since the high school chess team mumble mumble years ago. But I do like backgammon, and I must admit that some of the joy has gone out of the game for me since computer ps became able to consistently outperform humans. I do not look forward to the day when the same is true of bridge.

 

But I will not, like the OP, remain in denial.

[Free]

We've got more than enough computing power right now.

That's simply not true. Note for the remainder of the post that I'm only talking about play.

 

In the perfect world of computer bridge, the computer would make a single dummy simulation of ALL possible hands for each seat and base its play on that. The result should be the percentage play, and that's the best a computer can become. At the moment we only make a few double dummy simulations and that's where it can go wrong. Making singe dummy simulations requires a lot more computing power than double dummy simulations.

 

The total number of deals is 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 (5.36E28) without taking vulnerability and dealer into account. Once dummy is visible you see 27 cards so there are 5200300 hands left for dummy and declarer's RHO to evaluate. After RHO has played you have 2704156 hands left for declarer. As you can see, the number of possible deals decreases extremely fast. But this is DD! Suppose you can do 1 million DD analyses per second, then declarer needs 5 seconds to play his first card which is acceptable. When you need SD simulations however, the amount of deals is much bigger, in an exponential way. Even if you'd only have to calculate a million times as much, do you know how much time 1 million seconds is? It's 11.5 days! Note that we can't evaluate 1 million DD hands per second, it's more like 1000 or so, so in reality you'd have to wait for 32 years for declarer to play his first card... Lack of computing power? Hell yeah!

 

Similar to chess programs: they lack computing power to calculate each and every possible move. Therefore they use algorithms and heuristics to determine which moves to analyse and how a certain position needs to be valued. With enough computing power you wouldn't need to do this and have a perfect chess machine. The game tree would be gigantic, require enormous amounts of memory, and have only 3 possible ratings: W wins, B wins, or draw.

The current bridge programs work in a similar way by making simulations, but they can't simulate every deal. So their quality depends on the quality of the simulations, and if they're good, then obviously the program is able to deliver quite good results already without having to simulate every possibility. More quality simulations give us a better result, and for this you need more computing power.

[Dinarius]

Why do I get email notification of every reply made to this thread? Very annoying.

 

On most forums you receive ONE email notification for each thread you're following, and you don't receive another one until you have visited the thread. Very sensible and very obvious.

 

Thanks.

 

D.

[MrAce]

Why do I get email notification of every reply made to this thread? Very annoying.

 

On most forums you receive ONE email notification for each thread you're following, and you don't receive another one until you have visited the thread. Very sensible and very obvious.

 

Thanks.

 

D.

 

Go yo your account-->Edit my profile--->Settings---->Notifications and set your notifications to the desired.

[johnu]

That's simply not true. Note for the remainder of the post that I'm only talking about play.

 

What you fail to understand is that computers don't have to be perfect, or even close to perfect to be world class, you just have to play as well as the best human players. What difference does it make if you could single dummy analyze 5200300 hands for 1 trick? Not every hand is equally likely]. The world class player will eliminate a huge percentage of them based on the bidding or lack of, the choice of suit led, the card led, signals, discards, etc. Human players obviously can't do millions of computations but the best are viewed as world class. If humans don't need to do all those millions of computations to be world class, neither do computers. What they do need to do is reproduce or improve on the reasoning that humans do when planning the play whether as declarer or on defense. IMO, that is a reasonable and achievable goal but it will require some top programmers to spend a lot of time coding.

 

I do have problems with the way double dummy results are used. Randomly playing high cards including honors when the double dummy analyzer says that it doesn't make any difference double dummy. This would include things like leading a singleton king of trump on the assumption that it will be dropped offside on a double dummy play, randomly playing a minor honor on the assumption that declarer will drop it or find it on a 2 way finesse. Placing too much reliance on the opponents bidding and not making a 100% play that doesn't depend on the bidding. These types of things need to be tweeked in the programming. The main problem with single or double dummy results is garbage in - garbage out. If you aren't modeling the right types of hands, your results aren't worth much. That means analyzing the bidding and previous play has to be better and more flexible.

[Zelandakh]

That's simply not true. Note for the remainder of the post that I'm only talking about play.

 

In the perfect world of computer bridge, the computer would make a single dummy simulation of ALL possible hands for each seat and base its play on that.

I agree with your first statement but not with the next. Take chess computer development as a model. Modern computers store solutions for all endgames with 6 pieces and some with 7. Bridge could be "solved" in a similar way by storing "endgame" positions for a given number of cards. With enough computing power these could, in theory at least, be extended all the way up to 13 cards without simulations being required. That would be the perfect world. Of course that would still not a solution to the game as it does not take into account opposition bidding but it would be a pretty good starting point.

[StevenG]

Bridge could be "solved" in a similar way by storing "endgame" positions for a given number of cards.

Surely not. You still have to place the opponents' cards. (And you still have to know what you are aiming for - overtricks at MPs?)