This is one of several user guides on specific topics. The directory for all user guides is here.
This guide describes every method of generating a bridge deal—that is, every action you can take that will result in a deal appearing in the “Generated Deal” panel. Those actions are:
Press the Random Deal button of the Generated Deal panel.
Press the Generate Deal button of the Deal Shaper.
Press the Generate Deal button of the Deal Recipe Maker.
Load a PBN file.
Load a Navigator file.
Load a LIN file.
Load a BCOARECIPE file.
Load a BCOASHAPER file.
Use an URL with a saved bridge deal link.
Use an URL with a saved bridge deal shaper link.
Use an URL with a saved bridge deal recipe link.
From that list, you may correctly surmise that for every panel that generates a deal, you can save whatever you are creating as either a file or a URL, and you can later reload that creation via the file or URL.
Random Deal
Click the “Random Deal” button near the top left of the web page. A randomly-generated deal should appear in the Generated Deal panel.
Click the “Copy Link” button above the deal display if you want to save a link to this deal. If you later plug that link into any browser’s address bar, you can regenerate this exact deal. Of course, once the link is in your clipboard, if you intend to use it later than you need to save it somewhere, say in a document.
If you want to edit the generated deal in the display, click the “To Recipe” button and the deal will be loaded into the Deal Recipe Maker panel. Each suit will end with “B” to note that the suit should be exactly as long as shown. After you edit the recipe, you can click “Generate Deal” in the Recipe Maker panel to generate a new deal, based on the revised recipe, in the Generated Deal panel.
Generate Deal - Deal Shaper panel
Click the “Generate Deal” button at the top of the Deal Shaper panel near the top right of the web page. Doing so will generate a deal in which the hands have the shapes and HCP ranges you have chosen in this panel.
Before generating the deal, the program makes its best effort to ensure that you have not entered an impossible HCP configuration. You will see error messages if you do certain things, such as making the “from” points in a range higher than the “to” points.
The “Allocated HCP” gives you the sum of all “from” values in HCP ranges (called “Minimum”) and the sum of all “to” values in HCP ranges for each hand. It only updates after you press “Generate Deal,” but it’s handy if you then get an error message telling you that you have not allocated enough HCP, or that you have allocated too many. If you get such a message, you will need to adjust the points in one or more hands and press “Generate Deal” again.
The “Minimum” allocated HCP must be 40 or less.
The “Maximum” allocated HCP must be 40 or more.
Remember, these are the high and low ends of a range based on what you have allocated to each hand; in practice, of course, exactly 40 HCP will be dealt out becuase that’s what is in the deck.
The edits prevent you from requesting an impossible deal, which would cause the deal generator (or searcher, actually) to run for a long time, blocking any other activity. However, you can still request very rare deals, such as one with 37 HCP in one hand. Very rare deals take a long time to find, and the program may reach its search limit (see the “Maximum Number of Shuffles” selector on the web page).
Click the “Copy Link” button of the Deal Shaper panel to copy a link to this shaper to your computer’s clipboard. You can then paste that link into your own document and use it later to revisit this shaper.
You can also save a Shaper to a file by clicking the “Save Shaper” button in the File Save panel in the lower left of the web page.
Generate Deal - Deal Recipe Maker panel
The Deal Recipe Maker panel in the center right of the page lets you create a recipe that is as general or as specific as you want it to be.
A recipe consists of user-keyed values that represent either specific cards or placeholders that can be filled by various types of card. The placeholders are described in a separate guide.
Once you have a recipe, click the “Generate Deal” button of this panel. A deal should appear in the Generated Deal panel.
Click the “Copy Link” button of the Deal Recipe Maker panel to copy a link to this recipe to your computer’s clipboard. You can then paste that link into your own document and use it later to revisit this recipe.
You can also save a Recipe to a file by clicking the “Save Recipe” button in the File Save panel in the lower left of the web page.
Load Deal From a File
Click the “Browse” button in the “Load from deal, shaper, recipe, or navigator file” area at the top right of the web page. A file selector dialog will appear. In the file selector, navigate to the folder where you have any .PBN or .LIN or .HTML files. If you choose an HTML file, make sure it is one that was created with the “Save Navigator” button of this program; no other HTML files will contain bridge deals in a readable format. Double-click the file you want to load.
If the file contains multiple deals, the entire file will be loaded into your session, but you will only see the last deal from the file on the web page. The deal will also appear as a recipe in the Deal Recipe Maker panel.
Load a Shaper From a File
Click the “Browse” button in the “Load from deal, shaper, recipe, or navigator file” area at the top right of the web page. A file selector dialog will appear. In the file selector, navigate to the folder where you have any .BCOASHAPER files. Double-click the file you want to load.
The recipe will be loaded into the Deal Shaper panel. If there was a deal in the Generated Deal panel before you loaded the shaper file, it will be discarded.
Load a Recipe From a File
Click the “Browse” button in the “Load from deal, shaper, recipe, or navigator file” area at the top right of the web page. A file selector dialog will appear. In the file selector, navigate to the folder where you have any .BCOARECIPE files. Double-click the file you want to load.
The recipe will be loaded into the Deal Recipe Maker panel. If there was a deal in the Generated Deal panel before you loaded the recipe file, it will be discarded.
Link to the Website with a Deal
This works similar to loading a deal from a file, but you do it by clicking on a deal link that you have saved elsewhere (in your clipboard if you haven’t wiped that out, or perhaps embedded in a document) in a previous session.
If you saved a link from a generated deal to a document, click the link in that document and the bridge deal web page should appear with the deal loaded into the Generated Deal panel. The deal will also appear as a recipe in the Deal Recipe Maker panel.
One example of a document with deal links is a Navigator web page created by this program.
Link to the Website with a Shaper
This works similar to loading a shaper from a file, but you do it by clicking on a shaper link that you have saved elsewhere in a previous session.
If you saved a link from a deal shaper to a document, click the link in that document and the bridge deal web page should appear with the deal shaper loaded into the Deal Shaper panel.
One example of a document with shaper links is a Navigator web page created by this program.
Link to the Website with a Recipe
This works similar to loading a recipe from a file, but you do it by clicking on a recipe link that you have saved elsewhere in a previous session.
If you saved a link from a deal recipe to a document, click the link in that document and the bridge deal web page should appear with the deal recipe loaded into the Deal Recipe Maker panel.
One example of a document with recipe links is a Navigator web page created by this program.
How the Panels Work Together
We have seen that all “Generate Deal” buttons in any panel will cause a generated deal to appear in the Generated Deal” panel.
Clicking the “To Recipe” button above the Generated Deal will cause the current generated deal to be copied into the Deal Recipe Maker panel as a recipe. The letter “B” at the end of each suit in the recipe means that that suit should be exactly as long as shown. You can delete the “B” if you choose to edit the recipe and change the lengths of suits, or let the generator randomly assign a length.
One potential workflow using every panel goes like this:
A user wants to create a recipe for a lesson they are going to teach, or just to create deals for practicing a specific scenario. Suppose the scenario is one where North is the dealer and has a hand suitable for opening 1NT; East has points insufficient for an overcall, and South has at least one 4-card major and 8+ HCP.
The user would start with the Deal Shaper panel. Configure North as “Balanced” and with 15-17 HCP (or however many HCP defines a 1NT opener in your system). Give East “Any” shape and very low HCP, say 0-4. Give South 8+ HCP. If you want to keep things from getting crazy (i.e. you’re not necessarily interested in slam bidding for this example), narrow South’s HCP to 8-12. You can leave West with default shape and 0 to 37 HCP; that seat will actually just get whatever is leftover once the other seats, which have more restrictive specifications, are satisfied.
Notice that the shaper doesn’t let you say anything about card distribution, other than specifying balanced, unbalanced, or any shape. So where’s your Stayman hand in South? Don’t worry—that comes later in the process.
Click “Generate Deal” in the Deal Shaper panel to see a deal with the specified shape and HCP.
If you like the look of that deal and it suits your needs exactly, you are done. You can do as you like with that deal, either in this program or off in your bridge-playing software.
If you don’t like the first deal you see, just keep pressing “Generate Deal” in the Deal Shaper panel until you see a deal you like.
This is a fairly simple scenario, and chances of a South hand with a 4-card major are good. But let’s suppose it’s not so common, or that you want not just any 4-card major but a very specific one. This is where my program doesn’t make assumptions or predefine anything about bridge systems, because such matters depend on what the user wants. So let’s give you a very particular “want”. You want a deal with the general shape and HCP distribution from the Shaper, but you want South to have exactly four hearts with 5 HCP, and three spades with any HCP. Why that exact setup? I don’t know—you’re the player/teacher, and you know what you want. Maybe it’s a suit combination from an article you’re reading, and you want to expand it to a whole playable deal so you can play real bridge on your computer instead of “air bridge” in your head.
So, you used the Deal Shaper to get a deal that is close to what you want—right shape and points, but not your desired hearts and spades.
Click on the “To Recipe” button above the deal in the Generated Deal panel. The generated deal will now also appear as a recipe in the Deal Recipe Maker panel.
North looks good, East looks good with his puny points. South is close, but you want to give it some cards that are currently sitting in West to give your hearts and spades the right shape. Easy—click the “spade” graphic next to West’s spade suit in the Recipe Maker to clear out their entire hand. In South’s spade suit, key in three cards or placeholders followed by the letter “B”, thus restricting it to three cards. In South’s hearts suit, key in four cards including face cards adding up to 5 HCP (using any not already present in North or East, of course. Key a “B” after the four cards in hearts. Now key in cards and placeholders into South’s diamonds and clubs. Make sure that the cards and placeholders for South still add up to the HCP you want for your scenario. You started off with 8-12 HCP when you brought the generated deal into the Recipe Maker, so to keep the HCP in that range, just don’t do a net addition or subtraction of face cards.
Seem like a lot of work? It’s really just a little bit of work, done very quickly once you know how. It takes a long time to describe it, but it only takes seconds to actually do it, especially once you learn the Deal Recipe placeholders.
Now press “Generate Deal” in the Deal Recipe Maker and see what you get in the Generated Deal panel. Does it suit you? If not, tweak your recipe and try again. Once you like the result, save that recipe to a file by pressing the “Save Recipe” button over on the lower left. Give it a meaningful (to you) file name, as the automatically-assigned filenames are just date/time info. Then you can use that recipe again in the future, along with any others for other scenarios you have developed.
So you see, we started in the Shaper with a general configuration, rumbled through a bunch of generated deals until we hit one that was close to our vision, took it into the recipe maker, then refined and tested the recipe until we got exactly what we wanted.