Estoril

The 2005 World Computer Bridge Championship will be held from October 25-30 at the WBF's World Team Championships in Estoril, Portugal.

Jack won the title in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 and will try to retain the title in 2005. Last year's contestants Sabrina and Meadowlark Bridge, who battled each other for the last position in 2003 and 2004, won't participate this year. The remaining participants have all proven their qualities in past championships, but were not able to beat Jack. Nevertheless the Jack-team constantly continues to improve the program. Recently the program was extended with new features (see also NEW: 3.0 -> 3.01), and now the team is putting all its effort in Jack's strength.

The programs competing are:
 
Blue Chip Bridge- Ian Trackman / Mike Whittaker, United Kingdom
Bridge Baron- George Yanakiev / Stephen Smith, United States
Jack- Hans Kuijf / Wim Heemskerk, Netherlands
Micro Bridge- Tomio and Yumiko Uchida, Japan
Q-Plus Bridge- Hans Leber, Germany
WBridge5- Yves Costel, France

On this page we will keep you posted as the tournament progresses.

Off course you may also check the organisers own computer bridge site.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: we started this service when, during previous championships, the organisation published the results only after the whole championship (or whole Round Robin) was played. During this championship the organiser is also fast in publishing the (intermediate) results, see: Round Robin Results on Computerbridge.com.
The finals will even be broadcasted live on BridgeBaseOnline.
Offcourse we will also continue with our reports.

Results final
Results preliminaries
Ranking Round Robin
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Championship dedicated to Alan Truscott

Organizer of the event, Al Levy, has dedicated the 2005 Championships to the memory of Alan Truscott who passed away on September 4, 2005. It was Alan Truscott who inspired Al Levy to organize the computer championship.
Alan Truscott, bridge editor of The New York Times from 1964 - 2005, was a former president of the International Bridge Press Association. He has been executive editor of all six editions of The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge.

"It is an honor to dedicate this year's ninth annual World Computer-Bridge Championship to Alan Truscott, a remarkable man who made bridge better and more interesting for all of us." - Al Levy
Alan Truscott
1925 - 2005		 [photo: ACBL Hall of Fame]

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Day 1 - good start for Jack

Results 1st round

Bridge Baron - Micro Bridge42 - 72
Blue Chip Bridge - WBridge534 - 76
Q-Plus Bridge - Jack15 - 62

Results 2nd round

Micro Bridge - Jack33 - 42
Q-Plus Bridge - WBridge543 - 65
Bridge Baron - Blue Chip Bridge58 - 43

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Day 2 - Jack 2nd after first half Round Robin

Jack 3rd after round 3

After the 3rd round of the round robin Jack is 3rd after WBridge5 and the strong playing Micro Bridge.

Jack 2nd after first half Round Robin

With the first half of the Round Robin completed, all programs met each other in contest. Below on this page is the ranking.

Results 3rd round

Bridge Baron - Q-Plus Bridge35 - 40
Micro Bridge - Blue Chip Bridge48 - 4
WBridge5 - Jack34 - 10

Results 4th round

WBridge5 - Bridge Baron97 - 7
Micro Bridge - Q-Plus Bridge35 - 21
Jack - Blue Chip Bridge110 - 17

Results 5th round

Jack - Bridge Baron62 - 28
WBridge5 - Micro Bridge58 - 25
Q-Plus Bridge - Blue Chip Bridge73 - 18

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Day 3 - Jack takes lead

WBridge and Jack favorits

After the first part of the Round Robin WBridge leads 99 VPs followed closely by Jack with 97 VPs. Third is Micro Bridge with 82 Vps.
Jack needs to at least maintain this position. Because of the small number of contestants there won't be semi-finals this year. The top 2 programs will decide in a 64 board final who is to be the new champion.

In the 2nd half of the Round Robin all programs will meet on 20 boards again. The sequence of the games will be determined by the ranking. The results will be added up, and a new and final VPs calculation will be performed.

Jack takes lead

With 2 more return games Jack and WBridge5 swapped positions. The gap between Jack and, 3rd ranked, Micro Bridge now is 20 VPs.

IMPORTANT NOTICE regarding this championships' reports.

Results 6th round

Jack - Q-Plus Bridge54 - 25
WBridge5 - Bridge Baron33 - 68
Micro Bridge - Blue Chip Bridge56 - 36
Jack - Blue Chip Bridge53 - 20
WBridge5 - Q-Plus Bridge24 - 30
Micro Bridge - Bridge Baron16 - 25
Jack - Bridge Baron55 - 25
WBridge5 - Micro Bridge69 - 63
Q-Plus Bridge - Blue Chip Bridge103 - 23

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Day 4 - Jack winner Round Robin

Jack leads

Today the Round Robin enters its final day. On schedule is the clash of the titans Jack - WBridge5. The game Jack - Micro Bridge can also be decisive.

Sensational: WBridge5 trips over Blue Chip Bridge!

After WBridge5's unexpected loss against Blue Chip Bridge, Jack is almost certain to be finalist.

Final: Jack - WBridge5

Afther the 9th round Jack was the first program to qualify for the Final. In the last round WBridge5, Micro Bridge and Q-Plus Bridge decided on the other finalist. The race for the other spot in the final was won by WBridge5.

Jack winner Round Robin

With a total of 111 VPs Jack is the big winner of the Round Robin. WBridge5 follows with 91 VPS, and Q-Plus Bridge has found itself near the top with 83 VPs.

Results 9th round

Jack - Micro Bridge60 - 15 tot: 102 - 48VP 23-7
WBridge5 - Blue Chip Bridge34 - 86!! tot 110 - 116VP 14-16
Q-Plus Bridge - Bridge Baron58 - 21 tot 98 - 56VP 21-9

Results 10th round

Jack - WBridge540 - 23 tot: 50 - 57VP 14 - 16
Micro Bridge - Q-Plus Bridge45 - 91 tot: 80 - 112VP 11-19
Bridge Baron - Blue Chip Bridge35 - 53 tot: 93 - 96VP 15-15

Day 5 - Final: WBridge5 breaks Jack's reign

Final: Jack - WBridge5

In this years final again the two strongest programs of these years will meet. In 2002 and 2004 Jack managed to keep WBridge5 from the title. In 2003 it was Bridge Baron who cut WBridge5 short for the final by just a few points. This year Bridge Baron 16 was launched in a huge campaign, but in the competition the other programs had to call it back down to earth.
There will be no carry-over in the final.

Final: first results: Jack 27 - WBridge5 31

Because of the scheduled live broadcast the organisation is confronted with a whole new problem for the final: Some programs use special slower versions of their commercial product for the competition to be able to get more calculations done. But Jack not only plays strong, but also very fast. This may cause a live broadcast to be to fast for humans, so some sort of delay mechanism may need to be installed.

Final: intermediate: Jack 44 - WBridge5 45

Quite some delay mechanism: You can follow the final 16 boards of the 64 board final live on BridgeBaseOnline on October 30th 0900 (timezone?? tonight (29-30 Oct) summertime ends: at 0300 change your clock to 0200).
When (intermediate-) results are known, we will publish them here.

Final: WBridge5 far ahead: Jack 48 - WBridge5 86

After the 3rd series of 16 deals escaping seems impossible for Jack. WBridge5 is now far ahead after winning the 3rd set 41 - 4.

Final: WBridge5 breaks Jack's reign

After 4 years of domination Jack's reign was broken by WBridge5 from France. Halfway into the final both programs where still very close, in the second half WBridge5 took the lead and defeated the 4-time champion of the past 4 years.

Congratulations to Yves and his team. And take good care of the title, we do want it back next year!

 1-1617-3233-4849-64total
Jack271741967
WBridge531144150136

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Results Round Robin

In the first 10 rounds the Round Robin will be played. This means all programs will meet each other twice in competition. The Round Robin realy consists of 2 parts: for the first half a draw decides the sequence, in the 2nd half this is determined by the ranking after the first half.

Team
vs.
Team		 1

JACK

 2

Bridge Baron

 3

WBridge5

 4

Micro Bridge

 5

Q-Plus Bridge

 6

Blue Chip Bridge

 VPs position
1

JACK

Q

 x 62-28
55-25
117-53

24 VP

 10-34
40-23
50-57

14 VP

 42-33
60-15
102-48

23 VP

 62-15
54-25
116-40

25 VP

 110-17
53-20
163-37

25 VP

 111 1
2

Bridge Baron

 28-62
25-55
53-117

6 VP

 x 7-97
62-33
69-130

6 VP

 42-72
25-16
67-88

12 VP

 35-40
21-58
56-98

9 VP

 58-43
35-53
93-96

15 VP

 48 5
3

WBridge5

Q

 34-10
23-40
57-50

16 VP

 97-7
33-62
130-69

24 VP

 x 58-25
69-63
89-73

20 VP

 65-43
24-30
89-73

17 VP

 76-34
34-82
110-116

14 VP

 91 2
4

Micro Bridge

 33-42
15-60
148-102

7 VP

 72-42
16-25
88-67

18 VP

 25-58
63-69
88-127

10 VP

 x 35-21
45-91
80-112

11 VP

 48-4
56-36
104-40

24 VP

 70 4
5

Q-Plus Bridge

 15-62
25-54
40-116

5 VP

 40-35
58-21
98-56

21 VP

 43-65
30-24
73-89

13 VP

 21-35
91-45
112-80

19 VP

 x 73-18
103-23
176-23

25 VP

 83
 3
6

Blue Chip Bridge

 17-110
20-53
37-163

0 VP

 43-58
53-35
96-93

15 VP

 34-76
82-34
116-110

16 VP

 4-48
36-56
40-104

6 VP

 18-73
23-103
41-176

0 VP

 x 37
 6

Ranking Round Robin

ProgramVP's
1st half		VP's
Jack97111
WBridge59991
Q-Plus Bridge7283
Micro Bridge8270
Bridge Baron5548
Blue Chip Bridge4137

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