At long last

[chickenfeet]

I've finally found a Bridge program that I like. Bridge Baron 15 is really rather good. It plays a pretty high standard game. I'm playing it somewhere just above the middle of its ability range and finding it quite challenging. It has a reasonably comprehensive set of bidding conventions; Standard American, ACOL, Precision, French 5 card majors and a couple of other base systems are included plus a pretty comprehensive array of add ons. Leads and signals are fully customisable.

It also seems to have a decent array of tutorial options that allow for a complete beginner to be walked through a hand up to specialised bidding and play tutorials that allow a more advanced player to practice a particular bidding situation (say intervention over 1NT) or specific types of play such as squeezes or coups.

The AI plays a pretty sound game. Only once has it done something totally screwball of the kind that would make me assault a human partner. Compared to some other programs I've tried that's good.

Comments

[atpotch.livejournal.com]

The only bridge machine I've ever played with was a complete idiot. But luckily it was a consistent idiot, so sometimes me and my idiotic partner would make a grand slam on, say, 18 Acol points and seven trumps because of the stunningly inept defence. Other times, of course, my partner would be declarer and take us four down on a cautious contract. Ah, the fun.

TCH