[mga010]

I am in search for a nice replay software. It should be able to read the standard bridge formats and display the hands with proper cards in a nice way, like BBO does. I want to be able to bid and play the hand myself. But it should also be able to show the stored bidding and card play. Double Dummy Solver would be nice too.

This looks like an easy task. But I was unable to find such a software. E.g., you can load a LIN file into BBO, but not play it through yourself. I think you can set a hand source. But that is all way too complicated. Why not just simply load a hand into BBO? There is an advanced option using a Dealer format, but the links are all dead and I do not know if you can specify a hand.

Does anybody know such a software, able to run on Windows or Java? Otherwise, I am going to write it myself.

[pescetom]

Bridgesolver by John Goacher does most of what you require and very well too. You can use it as an add on to Chrome, which is more flexible than a Windows based solution (you can analyse and replay a hand shown in a BBO forum page, for instance).

[foobar]

mga010, on 2023-May-27, 07:37, said:

I am in search for a nice replay software. It should be able to read the standard bridge formats and display the hands with proper cards in a nice way, like BBO does. I want to be able to bid and play the hand myself. But it should also be able to show the stored bidding and card play. Double Dummy Solver would be nice too.

This looks like an easy task. But I was unable to find such a software. E.g., you can load a LIN file into BBO, but not play it through yourself. I think you can set a hand source. But that is all way too complicated. Why not just simply load a hand into BBO? There is an advanced option using a Dealer format, but the links are all dead and I do not know if you can specify a hand.

Does anybody know such a software, able to run on Windows or Java? Otherwise, I am going to write it myself.

Look no further than the excellent DDS: https://www.bridgeca...ownloadDD.html.

It works on Windows (and on Linux with WINE).

[mga010]

pescetom, on 2023-May-27, 07:49, said:

Bridgesolver by John Goacher does most of what you require and very well too. You can use it as an add on to Chrome, which is more flexible than a Windows based solution (you can analyse and replay a hand shown in a BBO forum page, for instance).

Yes, I have that installed. It is very good. I was not aware that it can load bridge files. I only started it to analyze games from various pages. But it cannot used to show a bidding, and it does not display cards, as far as I know. However, it looks like the best solution I could find.

[mga010]

foobar, on 2023-May-27, 11:59, said:

Look no further than the excellent DDS: https://www.bridgeca...ownloadDD.html.

It works on Windows (and on Linux with WINE).

I have been on this page and even installed Lead Captain 4.10. But it failed to load games stored by Bridge Solver e.g. There seems to be a compatibility problem.

[pescetom]

mga010, on 2023-May-27, 15:17, said:

Yes, I have that installed. It is very good. I was not aware that it can load bridge files. I only started it to analyze games from various pages. But it cannot used to show a bidding, and it does not display cards, as far as I know. However, it looks like the best solution I could find.

It can load/save files in PBN and LIN formats (and is aware of BBO non-standard LIN). No bidding.
If by 'display cards' you mean a picture of cards in line, then no, but I can't see why one would prefer that to a hand diagram when analysing a board.
My only gripes are that the extension is sometimes difficult to open in the current instance of Chrome (seemed fixed but is back again) and that it sometimes auto-saves any modifications I have made to the input file (I was not able to convince the author this was a bug).

[mga010]

So far, I have not found a solution. RealBridge would be nice, but you cannot use it just as a player for free teaching. BBO teaching tables cannot load games, unfortunately. And replaying by sitting down around the table is impossible. I downloaded and installed all sorts of programs too.

The best solution (without the option to bid) is the online DDS.

Started to write a program myself.

[mga010]

Current Progress
The main program can now load and save PBN hand, generate random hands, bid and play, call the double dummy solver in the net. Much more to do still. Unfortunately, I was unable to post a screenshot here (extension not allowed).

If anybody likes to try, you can download the jar-file from my Google drive: https://drive.google...ml&usp=drive_fs

[DavidKok]

Would http://bcalc.w8.pl/ by Piotr Beling work?

[pescetom]

mga010, on 2023-June-17, 06:56, said:

Current Progress
The main program can now load and save PBN hand, generate random hands, bid and play, call the double dummy solver in the net. Much more to do still.

Now all you need to add is logoff/logon and a primitive robot and you have BBO

Isn't it possible and more practical to build in the DD solver? I thought Bo Haglund's code was freely available, it's not rocket science to DIY anyway.

[mga010]

There are numerous versions of the code of the double dummy solver available. But my main goal was to replay and study hands, also for teaching, not using DDS, of course. I could not find code for that, nor a finished program that I would like. The BBO code or anything similar to that for playing and bidding is not available.

Even if there was such a code, it is often much easier to write it yourself in a language you are familiar with. Plain vanilla Java is quite mighty and fast on C level with lots of internet resources. And it simply fun to do it your way.

I was indeed dreaming of writing a robot to play against later. It would be a nice challenge. With a quick double dummy solver and some random analysis, it should not be too difficult to program an opponent who does not play double dummy. BBO did it that way. Extracting information from the bidding or the lead is the main difficulty here.

For me, that is a slow and relaxed project after retirement. Seeing the little interest in my request, I see no reason to hurry the development.

By the way, I think the main achievement of BBO is running a server. And making money with it, I should add.

[mga010]

[tgphelps]

Oooh, that looks quite useful. I am returning to bridge after 20 years "off", and am teaching my wife the game. I have been looking for a program that I can use to teach her, mainly declarer play. The minimum feature I need is to load a bridge deal and the contract, and let her play the hand. She should able to replay it until she gets it right, and even better to undo previous tricks and try again. It's okay that the E-W hands are displayed and must be manually played. Does your program do (most of) that? If so, I'll give it a look.

I am a retired "computer guy" with 40 years of mainframes to Unix to Linux, admin and programming. Since your program is a jar file, I assume its written in Java. I'm not a Java fan-boy but I have written a little bit of it. I am experienced with C and Python, and moderately useful in Go. If your software is open source, I would be interested in helping develop it.

[tgphelps]

I have now downloaded and run the program. (Clearly, it is full featured, and you don't need any developer help with it!) It is VERY good, many features for dealing, bidding, and playing. This will be a great teaching tool. Thank you for your efforts.