DEALER, a bridge hand generator program

Description

The program dealer can be used to generate hands for partnerships bidding training or for generating statistics that can be used to design conventions, or win postmortems.

Running the program involves 3 steps. First, the user has to write an input file containing hand-descriptions and action. A very simple example would look something like:

condition shape(north, any 4333 + any 4423) and hcp(north)>=19
action printall
The first 2 lines specify a condition for the north hand, in this case, a hand with 4333 or 4432 shape and at least 19 high card points. The last 2 lines tell the program to print the 4 hands. The program reads from standard input, so in principle, it is possible to enter the conditions directly into the program. Using a file is a lot more practical though, as it allows the user to re-use conditions and fine-tune the conditions.

Then the program has to be run, it reads the file, looks at the various command line switches and then produces a number of hands. The output appears on the screen but can be re-directed to a file.

Finally, the user has to look at output and analyze the produced hands. Alternatively, the output can be used for a playing program.

Warning

Dealer is meant for relatively complex use. If you just want to deal hands for a tournament Hans has written totally different code. You can find it at www.xs4all.nl/~sater. If you use other programs now to deal hands for tournaments please read the documentation of Big Deal. You will be convinced and switch.

Index

  • Read this first
  • Copyright
  • Authors
  • Downloading and installation
  • Using the program
  • Performance
  • Bug reports and submitting new code
  • Updates and modifications