Goren on Bridge

For some years now, World Championships have included a competition between bridge playing computer programs. These programs were not very good in the beginning, but they have made tremendous progress. The programmers proudly bring their “babies” to this competition and battle it out for fame and glory, along with a boost to their marketing strategies. Today’s deal is from the recent World Championships held in France.

The computer sitting West found a terrific opening lead. On any other lead, except for the ace of spades followed by a trump shift, the South computer would have been able to get a diamond ruff in the dummy. South won the trump lead in his hand and cashed another high trump. He then led a low spade toward dummy’s king. West again did the right thing by hopping up with his ace of spades and shifting to a low diamond. East’s queen was taken by South’s ace and South began to run his hearts.

The West computer was very slow to discard on the last two hearts. A human would be thinking, but this computer was computing. The West computer again did the right thing by discarding both of his diamond honors to avoid being end-played with one of those cards. When South exited with his last diamond, East was able to win it and lead a club through the ace to defeat the contract.

Believe it or not, neither of these computer programs won the competition!