[y66]

Is it possible to play bridge on BBO using software that accepts speech commands (vs mouse clicks)?

Ditto for BridgeMaster products.

I have a bridge playing friend who can't use his hands after a nasty skiing accident.

[TylerE]

Look into some sort of chin/mouth operated mouse maybe?

Actually come to think of it, crazy as it might sound I bet, assuming he still has full use of his feet and legs, that he could learn to mouse with his feet.

[diana_eva]

Windows has speech recognition but i was never able to properly configure it because I have an accent and computer does not understand me lol

Anyway if your friend has someone to help him set up speech recognition it might work for him. It should be in Start > All programs > Accessories > Ease of access

[y66]

Thanks for suggestions.

Can't use foot mouse unfortunately. Will test Windows speech recognition and look into chin/mouth operated mouse. The mouth operated mouse looks exhausting but also promising. I remember seeing a guy operate a wheel chair on the DC subway using a mouth operated controller so maybe it gets easier with practice. That guy was pretty amazing. Tobii Gaze (eye tracking) looks promising but is not commercially available.

[barmar]

BBO also has an option to allow bidding and playing via the keyboard. It seems like you should be able to set up speech recognition to allow "typing" those keys, but I'm not sure on the details (I'm a Mac guy, not Windows, although I admit I don't know how to do it on a Mac, either).

I'll bet there are some handicapped support groups and online forums where more information can be found.

[mycroft]

There are also special tools that are between "normal mouse" and "chintools" - I remember back in the day using a "joystick" that was simply a keyboard-sized 5-button (so the buttons were about 4" diameter) cursor-pad (left, up, trigger, down, right). If you can press on such a button with your elbow, it does take some work trying to get used to it, but it works well as a mouse (in fact, that's exactly what I *was* using it for, in my computer graphics course).

Having said that, when we weren't using it for its intended use, we tried to play Amiga games with it; for bonus points, play with can't-be-uncoiled fists (sneaking that thumb out to hit the trigger button while on the diagonal was possible, but "cheating").