Overview

If you have never tried a bridge-playing program, read about them before continuing this review to learn, in general, how the programs work and the features they normally have.

Bridge Buff has a huge variety of features, many of them unique among bridge playing programs. It is fast and easy to use and extremely flexible in the ways you can control its bidding and play.

Bridge Buff's playing screen is well designed and easy to use.

Bidding Systems

Bridge Buff has a very flexible system for supporting different systems and conventions.

For starters, it has a Conventions screen from which you can choose among three systems: Standard, 2/1, and Kaplan-Sheinwold. When you choose a system, the program automatically sets the various options on the screen for that system. Then you can manually change any options you wish in order to customize the system.

If you want to play something other than what is on the screen, you can use the System Builder to define a system or convention a bid at a time. For example, if you want to play Precision, you can specify that any hand with 16+ high card points ("HCPs") be opened 1C, and that after the sequence "1C-P", partner should bid 1H with 5 Hearts and 8+ HCPs, and so on.

This is the first program we have tested which offers this capability. Bridge Baron and GIB do not support Precision at all. Q-Plus supports Precision, but there is not one standard version of Precision, so it is unlikely that Q-Plus plays the specific variation that you play, and there is no way to modify it to make it do so, as you can with Bridge Buff.

The same is true for any bidding system. Other programs only allow a limited amount of customization, while with Bridge Buff, you have the power to do substantially more customization. (In theory, such a program would allow virtually unlimited customization, but the data fields provided by Bridge Buff for defining bids are not quite that flexible.)

An equally worthwhile use of BUILDER is when Bridge Buff makes a bad bid. When other programs consistently make a bad bid in a specific situation, there is nothing you can do about it. And you know that every time the program gets the chance in the future, it will make that same wrong bid.

When Bridge Buff makes a bidding error, you can go into BUILDER and make an entry to correct it. Then when the same situation arises in the future, Bridge Buff will bid the way you want it to. Even if you never create a system of your own, it is worth learning to use BUILDER to fix these kinds of errors.

In this example, West shows 11+ HCPs by raising 1C to 2C (apparently playing Inverted Minors, although this is not clear in the Help file or anywhere else). East shows a minimum (11-13 HCPs) by bidding only 2NT. West bids 3NT, even though his minimum 11 added to a minimum with East is not enough for game.

So we load BUILDER and make an entry telling it to Pass when the auction has gone "1C-P-2C-P, 2N-P-??" and responder has only 11 HCPs (under "Hand Requirements").

We go back to the game and tell Bridge Buff to use the newly created rules file. We back up to the incorrect bid, and Bridge Buff now passes, as it will continue to do with this type of hand in the future. Problem solved.

(This example is over-simplified for illustrative purposes. In practice, you would want multiple entries which allow for different distributions of cards.)

Every time you repeat this process for different bad bids, you teach Bridge Buff to bid better (or at least what you believe to be better). Do this long enough, and you will eventually have a program that bids just the way you like it.

Thinking Options

Bridge Buff lets you choose among three methods of "thinking" by the software:

Rule Based - A "rule" is something like: "If the hand contains 15-17 High Card Points and no more than one doubleton and no singletons or voids, open 1NT." Rules are a very fast way for the software to play.

Double Dummy - Normally, when a bridge program is playing one hand, it does not look at the cards of the other hands. In "Double Dummy" mode, the software looks at all the cards to find the best play. The documentation says that Bridge Buff will "sometimes" peek even during Rule-Based play, perhaps when the rules are not able to suggest a play.

The advantage of having the software peek at all the hands is that it can play much better and faster. The disadvantage is that it also plays unrealistically. A program which peeks will make plays that a human player will never make. You cannot really learn good bridge technique by emulating a program which plays based on peeking rather than on good bridge technique. At best, you can learn how to peek. Also, it isn't really any fun to play an opponent who NEVER takes a losing finesse, nor crashes his partner's honor, nor is ever fooled by a falsecard.

"Double Dummy", in which the software analyzes the actual holdings of all the hands, should not be confused with "Double-Dummy Analysis", which is described next.

Artificial Intelligence - Other than the opening lead, during the play of a deal, each player knows what is in two hands, his own and dummy's. Using "Artifical Intelligence", the unknown cards are randomly dealt to the other two players in a way which corresponds to previous bids and plays by those players.

Then Double-Dummy Analysis ("DDA") is used on the resulting 4-hand layout to find the best play for that particular distribution of cards. This step of dealing out the remaining unknown cards to the other two players and finding the best play via DDA is repeated as many times is allowed in the time alloted by the user, and the play which most often comes up as "best" is used.

This process often finds better plays than rule-based play, but as readers of our GIB review know, it is also very time-consuming and makes playing the computer not as much fun.

The author of Bridge Buff is clearly aware of this problem and provides many alternatives to help speed up play. The first alternative is to use a thinking option other than AI.

Another option is the use of various shortcuts, such as always following low when a hand can follow suit but cannot beat the high card on the trick.

Bridge Buff also lets you set the AI level by specifying a maximum number of sample deals to use instead of a time limit.

On the other hand, if you want to look for the best possible play without any time constraints, that option is offered as well.

Features

Bidding Kibitzer: This puts a box on the screen which is supposed to show the meaning of bids which have been made, according the Help file. Instead, it shows the meaning of bids remaining in the bid selection box. The help file does not list "Kibitzer" in the Index; you have to look for "Bid Meaning", instead.

Saving/loading deals: You can save and re-load games, but the standard Portable Bridge Notation format is not supported, so you cannot download games in PBN format from the Internet to play.

Network play: Bridge Buff does not appear to support play over the Internet nor local networks.

Manual input: Deals can be entered manually, allowing you to see how Bridge Buff would play a deal, using it to solve bridge problems, etc. This feature has numerous bugs, including a Help button which does nothing, and several design flaws, such as not being able to specify a dealer nor vulnerability.

Point and suit-length control: Bridge Buff lets you control the types of hands which are dealt by setting HCP parameters for each hand and (optionally) the number of cards for each suit in each hand. This lets you practice specific types of hands. In the screen shot linked above, it is set up to give North hands which would be opened 1NT.

You can also control the general distribution of High Card Points among the hands. This lets you control whether you play more offense or defense.

Help System: Bridge Buff has a fairly extensive Help system, in many ways. For example, it has an excellent discussion of how the program bids. Advancing bridge players should be able to learn a lot by reading it. Pop-up help boxes are also used in the program for quick help without having to load the Help file.

Support: Bridge Buff has a Web site where you can download updates and get tech support. It also has a file of BUILDER bidding files submitted by users, but these were disappointing trivial. We would have liked to have seen (whether from the author or other users) extensive bidding files for at least the major systems such as Precision and Acol and SAYC which the user could modify.

Practice vs. Match Play: Bridge Buff has two modes, Practice and Match. In Match play, features such as the ability to view all four hands are supposedly turned off; however, the first time we tried it, it did not turn off Kibitzer nor View-All-Hands.

Scoring options: In the Match mode, you have your choice of several scoring options, Teams, Pairs, Individual, Easy Matchpoints and Tough Matchpoints. Since the method can be selected after the deal, it apparently does not influence the bidding and play as it would in real life.

The "Other Table" in the scoring comes up instantly, indicating that the bidding and play is rule-based, rather than the much slower AI-based. It's nice to not have to wait, but the results are not very meaningful when North can blast to 4S with only 17 HCPs opposite a possible 6-7, as shown in the last screen shot.

The Bottom Line

If we had a comparative review of bridge-playing programs based on potential, Bridge Buff would walk away with a victory. Unfortunately, it is flawed with bugs -- lots and lots of bugs -- as well as design weaknesses.

Not being able to replay a previous hand is one annoying shortcoming, especially if you just fixed the bidding file to correct errors. Not being able to specify the dealer and not being able to take back a bid or play prior to the current one are a couple of others.

The BUILDER feature which lets you create your own bidding system and fix errors in the program's built-in bidding is a wonderful feature. Every bridge program should have this feature, but they don't. (Disclaimer: I have been working on a similar, but more extensive, user-editable bidding system for several years, off and on, so I may be biased.)

Being able to choose the type of thinking is another great feature. In our review of GIB, which offers only slower "AI" play, we said that patient people would like GIB and impatient people would not. With Bridge Buff's choices, both personality types can enjoy the same program.

Although Bridge Buff's problems are annoying, they mainly involve the extra features which most other bridge programs don't even have at all. You can still play games against Bridge Buff without the problems getting in the way most of the time, and the extra features which do work make the program really worth a look.