Man (Zia) vs Machine
Zia takes on the computer bridge playing “robots”
See “Bridge Plus” an article by Elena Jeronimidis (No. 119, October 1999)
“Wonderfully organised by Andrew Robson at his elegant new club in London, the contest saw the great Zia Mahmood pit his wits against seven of the world’s best bridge computer programs” (EL)
“Like every other person present, I enjoyed every minute of it — not least because of the Vu-Graph coverage provided by the EBU and Andrew Robson’s exciting, fast-and-furious sport’s reporter style of commentating” (EL)
“The colourful Zia has long angered the computing community with his strongly held belief that machines cannot play bridge. He once bet a million pounds that he could not be beaten in a match against a computer. The goal in September will be to discover whether bridge remains one of the few human bastions which computers are unable to conquer.” (AR in press release)
Final Ranking: 1. Zia Mahmood (10); =2 Blue Chip, Oxford, Q-plus, Saitek (8); 6. Meadowlark (7) 7. Micro Bridge (6); 8. GIB (5).
Cover of Bridge Plus magazine
