Thursday 18 February 2016

What is aaBridge ?

aaBridge is a free program for Win, Mac and Linux.    You can download it from http://rogerpf.com/aaBridge .     I think of it as 5 different things in one.

  
1.  A "Jukebox" that will play .lin files.   It contains a large collection of bridge tutorial .lin files, many thanks to Hondo717, Kia and Karen10.   For a sample, from the aaBridge Welcome screen, click on  Index of Useful Lins.

2.  An after play (postmortem) Hand Analyser. If you have played on BBO you can get your hands into aaBridge see the post  How do I - get a BBO hand into aaBridge.  Now you can use the Double Analyser - see this post.
More importantly you can re-create how the hand looked to you and your partner to re-think yourself back to when that hand was being played - see this this post. A question to ask is - Now I have more time to think, would I act differently ?

3.  Learning to Count the hand - to me, if you think of aaBridge as a goose, this is the  Golden Egg. 
Inside aaBridge is a .pdf file. Can get to the file from the Welcome screen and then clicking, How to - Defend Like an Expert. The next screen gives you a button to click that will copy the .pdf to your desktop. That file includes detailed instructions and many screen shots. Think of it as a - must read.
To build your counting skills there is also 'hand distribution' training feature.  On the welcome page click on Distribution Flash Cards.      For instructions - Watch the Video.

4.    For  Novices and Beginners.  aaBridge is good for playing HUGE hands until you get bored with them.  So no more 'HUGE hand fright'.  From the Welcome screen click on - Play Bridge and Show Deal Choices.
In the right hand column is now a list of the New Deals choices select  37+  7NT
The main  Play Bridge  window is also showing.  Click the New Board  button.
You will now asked to play the hand in 7NT.  It will be easy !  When you are bored with this. Reduce the number of points you will be given by selecting a harder option.
32+  6NT  -  will produce a few difficult hands.  This is where a developing player can benefit. Look for throw-in's and simple squeezes and other end plays. Such end plays are easier to find and practice in high lever contracts where you have a lot of control.

5.  aaBridge contains (as internal lin files) all the instructions you need to write you own lin file.
To learn about lin files click on any of the books menus on the menu bar and choose the very last entry, What goes on - inside a lin file.

Finally - for New aaBridge Users
Please follow the instructions on the Welcome Page, click the   Flow   button and read all the
New user tutorial pages.


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