Bridge Captain 6.2
The Creator
Bob Richardsson began writing a bridge program in 1990 when he sailed his cutter with his wife across the Pacific. When the project moved from pastime to obsession, somewhere between Mexico and the Marquesas, his wife began looking for something to read during the long passages. Since most of the books onboard were about bridge, she started reading them and playing my program. Soon, my program became the second mate on board, a source of enjoyment and learning for both of them, and it was duly named "BridgeMate." In recognition of the maturity and added improvements to the program, the program's name was promoted to Bridge Captain. Link to Bridge Captain Home page.
The software
Bridge Captain has come a long way since those early years when it was first written on an 8088 laptop computer. With this version, you can play tournaments and IMP yourself against the experts such as Zia and Forrester in the 1998 Cap Gemini World Top Tournament and Hamman and Wolff in the 1997 Bermuda Bowl.
Whether you are an advanced player, a beginner, or a teacher, Bridge Captain has something to offer. With Bridge Captain, you can play the way you want to play. Keep it simple by choosing from a default convention card (CC), or add all the sophistication you want by customizing your own CC. Set up Practice Hands or Custom Hands. Compete against friends by playing a match, against experts by playing a tournament, or against the computer by playing Random Hands with Team or Duplicate scoring.
Bridge Captain is a former commercial program that now is free.
It is only available for Windows.
It is not available for Mac, but can be run with a suitable Windows emulator,
It support 5 basic system. SACY, 2/1, Goren, Kaplan-Sheinwod, Precision and more than 50 conventions.
Christine Goulden has made convention cards for three systems, 5 Card Majors, Joshua Crane System and Standard American ECCG, which are available for download.
The playing strength of Bridge Captain is a bit below the other programs here, but it is good enough and it's free!
In 2010 the development of Bridge Captain was frozen. Bob Richardsson realized that Bridge Captain would never be able to compete with the other programs using simulations. He has now also removed the download possibility from the Bridge Captain home page. Because of this support for download of Bridge Captain 6.2 and the utility program PBNtoBC have been added to this site.
Bob Richardsson is still active within bridge programming. He has since 2010 focused on Double Dummy Solver and another program - Bridge Compass which incorporates Lead Captain and other features. The Double Dummy Solver and Lead Captain can be downloaded from the Bridge Captain home page.