Bridge D/A generates bridge deals as specified for two hand bidding practicing, North and South, and simulates complete four hand deals based on one specific South hand and parameters for the other three hands, for analysis of delicate bidding and play problems. The main functions are:
For some general views about and advice on simulations of bridge hands, see About Simulations, based on a text by John Loewenthal, creator of Borel, the bridge hand generator and simulation tool for DOS.
All Dealer parameters are specified from a dialog, the
menus as well as the dialogs reached via the various buttons on the screen. The parameters are shown on the main screen for verification before the dealing and printing process is started. The desired number of pages of 24 deals each, the number of printed copies as well as the headers are also entered here.
There are also a number of special controls for various parameter setting, that are activated through buttons on the main screen, such as:
Different parameters are defined from a menu with its sub items. You may choose the type of major setting you want to apply on the hands, the number of losers defined between 0 and 12, the opening suit is defined from a sub menu as well as four or five card majors:
Six different, general distribution types and a few predefined special types may be selected from another sub menu:
[unbalanced opening hands
with 11-16 hcp, with diamonds as the longest suit or any 4441 distribution with four diamonds or 4-5 in the minors]
[balanced 11-12 hcp
openings or unbalanced 11-15 hcp with at least four diamonds, in both cases without a five card major]
[11-15 hcp openings
with six clubs or with five clubs and a four card major]
Long and short suits are defined from identical sub menus. A long suit is a five card suit on a balanced hand, otherwise at least five cards. A short suit is a doubleton on a balanced hand, otherwise at most a singleton:
In a special dialog box you may also set a parameter regarding major suit lengths for the opener:
Two suiter combinations are defined from a dialog box, where you just select the suit combination you want,
for example "Roman", which means clubs as secondary or equally long suit.
Some other options are the quality of dealer's long suit, Notrump hands to be excluded from the selection, and possibilities to have a specified one suiter as an alternativ, or all hands with a specified minimum strenght, like a strong club opening, or some notrump hands within a specified hcp range. It's possible to produce the hands in two text files with the handsin stead of a print out, which may be practical for sending the deals to your partner, by mail over the Internet for example.
There is a Status Display that shows the progress of the creating and printing process.
Finally, the number of sets of 24 deal each to generate and the number of copies to be printed is configurable, of course.
Again, different parameters are defined from a menu with its sub items, similar to the one for the opener, i.e. distribution types, long and short suits and two suiter combinations, except for "Roman" two suiters..
Three sub menus for defining general parameters:
From this dialog box you will run your simulations. You have to enter a South hand and may specify characteristics for the other three hands, i.e. distribution, strength, losers, suit quality and cards that must or must not appear on the hands.
You may enter the bidding that actually took place, look up the normal loser statistics for different types of hands, examine the frequencies of hands with your parameter set, check the type of hands that your parameters will generate on a test screen, save and load parameter sets, reset all your parameters to to standard values and of course generate and print pages of six deals each. Then you have the option to control the generated hands to accept or discard them before printing. During the simulation a Status Window shows the progress of the creating and printing process.
Sometimes you may want to pre-assign specific cards to a hand, or may be exclude some. You accomplish this through a dialog, which lets you place specific cards to any hand. By checking a Long Suit box you can ask for one of several options regarding a dominant suit on one hand. This in turn will enable the Long Suit Quality function for the long suit.
For advice on simulations, read About Simulations. This document is based on a text by John Loewenthal, creator of Borel, the bridge hand generator and simulation tool for DOS.