Acolmaster
Alpha Bridge
Blue Chip Bridge
Bridge Baron
Bridge Buff
Bridge Captain
Bridge Genii
Bridge King
Bridge Mate
Bridge Monitor
Gemini Bridge
Gib
Grand Slam Bridge
Hoogli
Jack
Meadowlark
Micro Bridge
Moose Bridge
Oxford Bridge
Pupil
Q-Plus Bridge
Ray's Bridge Game
RoboBridge
Sabrina
Shark Bridge
Sy Borg
TUT Bridge
WBridge5
Acolmaster
Acolmaster was written by Paul Jones from the United Kingdom. Paul originally wrote
Acolmaster to bid as the 'fourth guy' when playing bridge with friends.
Eventually the ability to play was introduced.
It was written for DOS on a 286 and has never been on sale. It is said to
work on a Windows system, and can be downloaded from his website!
Acolmaster did not participate in any of the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships.
In the early years of computer bridge Acolmaster participated in the
predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships. In those days only
3-4 participants entered a competition of 10-12 boards and Acolmaster was the
winner of the first championship ever in 1989.
The program never competed again as the author went travelling soon after the championship. The author continued his career as a software designer for a bank. He was struck by MS and nowadays maintains a website about MS.
Website: www.mult-sclerosis.org/AcolMasterBridge.html
Alpha Bridge
Alpha Bridge was written by Alexander Lopatin from Russia.
Alpha Bridge did not participate in any of the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships.
In the early years of computer bridge Alpha Bridge participated in the
predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships where Alpha Bridge
finished 3rd in 1992.
Author Alexander Lopatin later joined the Bridge Baron team at Great Game Products.
Note: The company in the Netherlands selling bridgebooks that is also called Alpha Bridge has nothing to do with this program.
Blue Chip Bridge
Blue Chip Bridge was written by Ian Trackman / Mike Whittaker from the United Kingdom.
Blue Chip Bridge participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships from 1998-2006.
In 2008 Blue Chip Bridge didn't participate in the Championship but played a
role in the experimental Individuals.
Results Blue Chip Bridge: 1998: 5, 1999: 6, 2000: 6, 2001: 6, 2002: 6, 2003: 7, 2004: 6, 2005: 6 and 2006: 6.
Website: www.bluechipbridge.co.uk
In 1982 Tom Throop completed the first version of Bridge Baron. In 1958 he had written a first computer bridge program, on a UNIVAC I computer at a US Navy lab in Washington, DC. This program could only finish one round of bidding before running out of memory.
In 1983, Tom Throop published the book Computer Bridge. In 1985, he founded Great Game Products. Nowadays the Bridge Baron team is being formed by employees George Yanakiev / Stephen Smith from the United States.
In the early years of computer bridge Bridge Baron participated in the predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships. In those days only 3-4 participants entered a competition of 10-12 boards with Bridge Baron organising some of the events. Bridge Baron finished 4th in 1989, 2nd in 1992 and won the competition in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1995. The very informal competition of 1994 (when some programmers met in the Throop's residence) was also won by Bridge Baron.
Bridge Baron has participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World
Championships from the beginning, but only won the first one in 1997.
Results Bridge Baron: 1997: 1, 1998: 4, 1999: 7, 2000: 5, 2001: 5, no entry in 2002,
2nd in 2003 and 2004, and 5th in 2005 and 2006, 2007: 2, 2008: 6, 2009: 6, 2010: 4.
Website: www.bridgebaron.com
Bridge Buff
Bridge Buff was written by Doug Bennion from Canada.
Bridge Buff participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships where it reached the following positions: 1999: 4 and finally 7th in 2000. Bridge Buff did not enter the competition after 2000.
Bridge Captain
Bridge Captain first entered the 2009 championship and was created by
Bob Richardson from the USA and Bo Haglund from Sweden.
Development on the program, that was first called BridgeMate,
started when Bob Richardson began writing a
bridge program in 1990 when he sailed his cutter across the Pacific together with his wife.
Website: www.bridgecaptain.com
Bridge Genii
Bridge Genii was written by Rolf Wilson from the United States.
Bridge Genii participated in the 2nd ACBL Computer Bridge World Championship in 1998 where it finished in the last position.
Bridge King (predecessor of Q-Plus)
In 1990 Germans Hans Leber and Gero Scholz started writing Bridge King
as a Bridge training program as they were eager to learn how to play bridge.
Eventually Bridge King became Q-Plus.
BridgeMate
BridgeMate was written by Bob Richardson from the United States.
Written with the main objective to provide
the user with a tough opponent, Bob allowed for BridgeMate to peek all other
hands during play.
As its peeking behaviour wouldn't be a fair skill for a championship
BridgeMate participated in the separate bidding contests only that were
organized in the ACBL's 1997 and 1998 championships.
Originally developed as BridgeMate during a sailing-trip, the creator later promoted the program's name to Bridge Captain.
Bridge Monitor
Bridge Monitor was written by Gerard Joyez from France.
Bridge Monitor is used at the championships for connecting the participating
bridge programs in automated play.
Gemini Bridge
Gemini Bridge was a program from the United Kingdom.
Gemini Bridge is a one-timer that participated in the very first 1989 event where it finished 2nd, with another one-timer, AcolMaster, winning the Championship.
Gib
Gib was written by Matthew Ginsberg from the United States.
Gib participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships where it reached the 4th position at its debut in 1997. Gib won the Championship in 1998 and 1999. Gib didn't participate in 2000 and 2001. In 2002 Gib withdrew with technical problems during the tournament after losing to both Jack and Micro Bridge in the Round Robin.
Grand Slam Bridge
Grand Slam Bridge was written by Electronic Arts from the United States.
Grand Slam Bridge did not participate in any of the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships.
In the early years of computer bridge Grand Slam Bridge
participated in the 1993 predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships.
At this only appearance Grand Slam Bridge finished 2nd,
with Bridge Baron taking the win.
Website: Grand Slam Bridge has had 2 releases: in 1986 and the last one in 1992. Several sites were found offering -almost- free copies of the program. On the Electronic Arts website no reference to the program was found.
Hoogli
Hoogli turned out to be a copy of Gib that tried to enter the 2001 Championship.
When the fraud was detected Hoogli withdrew before the event started.
More info: GreatBridgeLinks: Hoogli Mystery
Jack
Jack was written by Hans Kuijf from the Netherlands. He started programming Jack in
2000 with one goal in mind: to create the best computer bridge program in the world, both
in bidding/play and in features.
The bridge skills of World Champion Berry Westra and Dutch top-player Wim Heemskerk
resulted in a program that took the top from the start, yet is still continuously being improved.
Jack participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships where it reached
the semifinals at its debut in 2000 (3rd). After another hard years work
Jack won the title in 2001 and successfully defended it until 2005
(World Champion in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004).
After 4 years of domination Jack's reign was broken by WBridge5 from France in the final of 2005 (2nd).
Jack recaptured the title in 2006. In 2008 Jack won the Round Robin far ahead of
the field but lost the final with a smaller margin. In 2009, it was Jack
who reclaimed the title in a direct match against WBridge5, succesfully defending it again in 2010.
Results: 2000: 3, 2001: 1, 2002: 1, 2003: 1, 2004: 1, 2005: 2, 2006: 1, 2007: 3, 2008: 2, 2009: 1, 2010: 1.
Website: www.jackbridge.com
Meadowlark Bridge
Meadowlark Bridge was written by Rodney Ludwig from the United States.
Meadowlark Bridge participated in ACBL
Computer Bridge World Championships and was the Champion in 2000. In other years it
was less successful: 1997: 4, 1998: 6, 1999: 8, 2000: 1, 2001: no entry, 2002: 6, 2003: 8, 2004: 7.
In 2003 and 2004 Meadowlark only just stayed ahead of newcomer Sabrina, after that
Meadowlark didn't participate.
Micro Bridge
Micro Bridge was written by Tomio and Yumiko Uchida from Japan.
Micro Bridge participated in all the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships. Allthough the Japanese never managed to win the championship Micro Bridge came close, as the losing finalist to Jack, in 2001 and 2006. In almost all the events Micro Bridge has been a top-finisher. 1997: 3, 1998: 3, 1999: 3, 2000: 9, 2001: 2, 2002: 3, 2003: 4, 2004: 4, 2005: 4, 2006: 2, 2007: 5, 2008: 4, 2009: 3, 2010: 6.
Website: www.osk.3web.ne.jp/~mcbridge/
Moose Bridge
Moose Bridge was entered in the 2010 Championship by Peter Boton.
Scoring only 6 VP's it became clear it is not easy for a newcomer to join the ranks of the top programs.
Oxford Bridge
Oxford Bridge was written by Andrew Bracher from the United Kingdom.
Oxford Bridge participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships
where it reached the following positions: 2000: 7, 2003: 6.
In the early years of computer bridge Oxford Bridge
participated in the predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships where it
finished 3rd in the first championship in 1989. In 1990 Oxford Bridge had to
leave the title with the only other competitor, Bridge Baron.
Website: www.oxfordbridge.btinternet.co.uk
Pupil
Pupil was written by Joost Jacob from the Netherlands.
Pupil did not participate in any of the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships.
In the early years of computer bridge Pupil participated in the
predecessor of the Computer Bridge World Championships. Pupil entered the 1991
competition and finished 1st place together with Bridge Baron.
Bridge Baron was then declared the winner, and Pupil finished 2nd.
Author Joost Jacob wrote Pupil just for the fun of it. Writing Pupil caused Joost to get interested in Computer Science which he later took up at the University. Joost Jacob moved on to be a researcher in the computer science field.
Website: Joost Jacob at CWI.
Q-Plus Bridge
Q-Plus Bridge was written by Hans Leber from Germany.
In the early years of computer bridge Bridge King (predecessor of Q-Plus)
participated in the Computer Bridge World Championships where
it finished
3 in 1991, 1 in 1992, 3 in 1993.
Q-Plus Bridge participated in ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships
where it reached the following positions:
1997: 2, 1998: 2, 1999: 5, 2000: 2, 2001: 4, 2002: 5, 2003: 5, 2004: 5, 2005: 3, 2006: 4, 2007: 4, 2008: 5, 2009: 5,2010: 5.
Website: www.q-plus.com
Ray's Bridge Game
Ray's Bridge Game was created by Raymond Reynolds from the USA.
Website: www.raysbridgegame.com
RoboBridge
RoboBridge was written by Job Scheffers from the Netherlands. When Job started
playing bridge back in 1982 he had some trouble memorising all the bidding rules.
The program was started as a bidding program, to assist his own bidding training.
After that the program was used to practice the new software technologies Job
encountered as a software developer. Between 2004 and 2007 he took the program
to a higher level adding a double-dummy solver. How high that level actual is
will have to show at the 2007 World Championship.
Results: 2007: 7, 2008: 7, 2009: 7.
Website: www.robobridge.com
Sabrina
Sabrina was written by Pierre Cormault from France.
Sabrina made its debut in the 2003 ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships where it finished last, the same result was reached a year later in 2004.
Website: perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.cormault
Shark Bridge
Shark Bridge was written by John Norris from Denmark. Somewhere around 1995 John
started the program as a pure bidding program, which he wrote for fun. Then the
program was laid on ice between 1997 and 2001 when he was busy with his newborn
twin daughters. Starting 2001 the play part was added to the program to be
put to the test against the other bridge programs for the first time in 2006.
Shark Bridge made its debut at the 2006 ACBL Computer Bridge World Championships.
Allthough it finished last, Shark Bridge performed well grabbing 5 VP's,
or more, from all of its opponents. Two new contestants entered the 2007 championship
and both finished behind Shark Bridge. In 2008 Shark Bridge battled for the
title and finished second in the Round Robin and won the experimental Individuals.
Results Shark Bridge: 2006: 7, 2007: 6, 2008: 3, 2009: 4, 2010: 3.
Website: www.sharkbridge.dk
Sy Borg
Sy Borg was developed by Al Darman from the USA.
TUT Bridge
TUT Bridge was written by Takao Uehara from Japan.
His students have been developing the program as their graduation research
at Tokyo University of Technology since 1996.
Results: 2007: 8.
E-mail: uehara@cs.teu.ac.jp
WBridge5
WBridge5 was written by Yves Costel from France.
WBridge5 is the World Champion of 2005, 2007 and 2008. WBridge5 had already been very close
to the ACBL Computer Bridge World Championship title for a few times. Losing the final to Jack
by 1 IMP in 2002, WBridge5 had one foot in the final of 2003 when Bridge Baron pulled
a stunt and WBridge5 didn't make the final by just a few points.
In 2005 WBridge finally got the title. In the final, that was broadcasted live
on Bridge Base Online, 4-time reigning World Champion Jack was defeated. In 2006 Jack
recaptured the title, to loose it to WBridge5 again in 2007. In 2008 it was WBridge5 again,
to switch back to Jack again in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
Results: 1999: 2, 2000: 4, 2001: 3, 2002: 2, 2003: 3, 2004: 3, 2005: 1, 2006: 3, 2007: 1, 2008: 1, 2009: 2, 2010: 2.
Website: www.wbridge5.com