PBNToPar: A Program to Compute Par Results for Bridge Deals Free Software by Jeff Miller Version 1.0: Jan 2005 Overview: --------- This program computes the double-dummy par result for each bridge hand in an input file saved in portable bridge notation (PBN) format. The par result, contract, number of tricks taken, etc, are written to a plain text output file. The program runs in a CMD window (also known as a DOS window) at least under Windows 2000 and XP. Installation: ------------- You also need to download the file GIB.exe (i.e., the double-dummy solver program written by Matthew Ginsberg), which you can get from here: ftp://ftp.cirl.uoregon.edu/pub/users/ginsberg/bridge/gib.exe Put gib.exe in the same directory where you put pbntopar.exe. Program Use: ------------ To run PBNToPar: o Open a cmd or "dos" window (Start -> Run -> CMD) o Use chdir to change into the directory that holds the PBN file(s) you want to process. o Type "PBNToPar Filename" The input PBN file should be called Filename.PBN, and the output file will be called Filename.Par. Obviously, Filename can be any name you like. For example, you could type "PBNToPar Sample" to process the sample PBN file included with this distribution. Output: ------- The results are written to a tab-delimited plain-text file with the same name as the input PBN file, but with the extension .par. Each line in the file corresponds to one deal in the input file. The output file columns on each line are as follows: Col Contents 1 Board number 2 Par NS score 3 Par contract level (1-7; 0 for passout) 4 Par contract denomination (1-5 for clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump, respectively). 5 Par declarer (1=north, 2=south, 3=east, 4=west) 6 Number of tricks taken by north at clubs 7 Number of tricks taken by north at diamonds 8 Number of tricks taken by north at hearts 9 Number of tricks taken by north at spades 10 Number of tricks taken by north at notrump 11 Number of tricks taken by south at clubs 12 Number of tricks taken by south at diamonds 13 Number of tricks taken by south at hearts 14 Number of tricks taken by south at spades 15 Number of tricks taken by south at notrump 16 Number of tricks taken by east at clubs 17 Number of tricks taken by east at diamonds 18 Number of tricks taken by east at hearts 19 Number of tricks taken by east at spades 20 Number of tricks taken by east at notrump 21 Number of tricks taken by west at clubs 22 Number of tricks taken by west at diamonds 23 Number of tricks taken by west at hearts 24 Number of tricks taken by west at spades 25 Number of tricks taken by west at notrump