Deal Generator User Guide
Tutorial: Make a deal from the "Deal" line in Portable Bridge Notation (PBN)
Ideally, when you want to load a deal into the deal generator, you will have the complete deal in a file, in a web link in your clipboard, or in a clickable link embedded in a document. With those options, you are just one or two mouse clicks away from seeing and working with your deal, as described here.
Sometimes, though, you might get something like this:
[Deal “N:KJ.T3.9863.AKQ54 AT9764.Q76.AQ.T7 Q832.AK4.J54.J86 5.J9852.KT72.932”]That is a single line—the one showing which cards are in which hand—from a bridge deal file using Portable Bridge Notation (PBN). People sharing deals in comment threads on websites will sometimes present deals that way, probably by cutting that single line from a PBN file and pasting it into the comment, or perhaps in an email or a text when sharing directly with someone.
Can you read PBN and envision the deal? I can’t.
You could key those cards into the Cards panel of the deal generator and then generate a deal in the Deal panel from it. But that is time-consuming and error-prone. There is a better way: the Deal Text field of the Cards panel.
To use the Deal Text, simply copy the Deal line into your clipboard from wherever you encountered it (perhaps in an online forum, where someone might share a deal that way) and then paste it into the Deal Text input field. Then press the “Enter” or “Return” key on your keyboard, and the deal will be placed into the hands in the Cards panel.
Here’s how it looks after I pasted in a Deal line but before I press “Enter”:
And then after I press “Enter” on my keyboard:
The “Deal” line does not specify board number, dealer, or vulnerability. But you can get all of that with the deal generator. Just set the dealer and vulnerability in the settings on the left side of the web page, then click the “Gen Deal = Cards, Ignore Shaper” button of the Cards panel.
You can accept default settings at left of page if you just want a single deal and you don’t care about dealer or vulnerability. Here, though, are the settings I use to generate 64 fully-rotated versions of one deal. I can then select the specific deal I want to study in the Deal display panel:
