Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridge Player v6.1
Sold Out		(Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2K/XP) (Jewel Case) (GIBRIDGEPJ)

For a replacement see Jack

Publisher: Just Write Inc.

Game / Card

Challenging, Fun and Easy to Use

Take it out of the case, slip into your machine's CD drive, and play. Ideally, you shouldn't even have to read the documentation. You will need to know how to play Bridge because this program is not for beginners!

Most of the time when you're using GIB you will probably be playing a game of bridge with a computer partner against two computer opponents.

Both your partner and your opponents will bid and signal as you request; if you want to change their methods, it's possible to do so. It's also possible to set up a table with four computers and just watch, play with more than one human, and so on. If you're the type who generally picks up bad cards at the table (aren't we all?), you can compensate by telling GIB you always want to be dealt good hands.

There are many things about GIB that make it unique among the bridge-playing programs you can buy today. The most important one, of course, is the caliber of play. GIB bids and plays better than any other program you can buy. It's as simple as that.

GIB is also unique in that it comes with some prepackaged hands. Instead of playing random deals, you can play the deals from (for example) the final of the 1997 Bermuda Bowl (USA vs. France). After each deal, you can compare your result with the ones that were achieved at the table.

One feature that GIB shares with other computer bridge programs is that it never expects you to be dummy. If your computer partner is declarer on a deal, you'll be expected to take over and play the hand for it. That's a lot more fun than watching!

Multilingual interface supporting Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and other languages.

ACBL and international-style convention cards

Wide range of bidding systems, including Standard American, 2/1 Game Forcing, Kaplan-Sheinwold, ACOL, and traditional Goren; many individual conventions as well

High-visibility card option for use on small or hard-to-read screens

GIB includes the following features:

• Highest quality of play of any bridge program
• Easy-to-use graphical interface
• Get hints or watch GIB think
• Compare your play with closed room experts: Replay 11000+ deals from international tournaments and compare your actions to those of the masters or play one of 6000 deals that have been preplayed by GIB
• Variety of defensive signalling options. Not only does GIB signal, it watches your signals and defends appropriately.
• The only computer program ever to have been a member of the ACBL or to have won master points in play against humans
• Sophisticated artificial intelligence search algorithms for both bidding and play

Requirements:

Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2K/XP: 133 MHz Pentium Processor, 32 MB memory, 12 MB disk, SVGA (800 x 600) graphics, Windows 95 or later (including XP), or Linux.

Reviews

The Bridge World, July 1999

"The computer revolution threatens to change serious bridge into a new world. However, early attempts to produce machines that can play decently floundered. Hardware advances had little effect. Most observers expect that the status of software-as-bridge-player will eventually change for the better. Is that happening now? A new product, which we review here, suggests that, at long last, the answer to that question should be upgraded to "maybe."

Matt Ginsberg's GIB (software for Windows; $79.95), which was earlier called "Goren in a Box" but is now sensibly named "Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridge Player," is the best bridge-playing program we have seen. Although we have not been able to test it thoroughly by the time of this review, our experiences with GIB have convinced us that it performs better than a human beginner. It is the first program to pass our elementary-level suite of tests. "

Sheehan on Bridge, The Times May 1999

"In his book Bridge, My Way (1991), Zia Mahmood said he would bet £1 million that no computer would be able to beat him at the bridge table. In November 1996 he withdrew the offer. Everybody was talking about the new bridge-playing computer program, GIB, of Matt Ginsberg, an American professor. Living up to its early promise, at the World Championship last year it came 12th in the par contest (the other 36 contestants being leading human players). "

Alan Truscott, New York Times August 1998

"If you test a computer's power to "think" by making it play chess, it earns an A+ grade. It will be remembered that Deep Blue, a computer program, defeated Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, in a recent match.

But test a computer that has been taught to play bridge, and the result is different. Matt Ginsberg, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Oregon and an expert bridge player, has created GIB, which stands for Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridgeplayer. It proved itself the best of its kind when several programs competed against each other in Chicago in July. "

Copyright © 1993-2000 CDAccess.com, Inc.
Questions: info@cdaccess.com