Backstreet Bridge

Winning Percentages For One-Card Hands

Live Application: https://www.newmediadimensions.com/apps/backstreeet_bridge_one_card_hands_analysis/index.html

This application was developed to provide insights into the best strategy for a specific scenario in Backstreet Bridge:

• Hand consists of 1 card dealt to each player
• Player 1 (the player to the dealer's left) must decide what to bid

This scenario has generated some controversy:

• Some experts have proposed that Player 1 should assume they will win the trick and therefore bid "1", and that all other players should bid "0" (with the exception of the dealer who will be forced to bid "1").
• Others have proposed that Player 1 should assume they will win the trick only if they hold a trump card.

This application can be used to view the win rate of Player 1 when they have a trump card and when they do not have a trump card. By using the application's "Auto-Play" feature, statistics based on thousands of single-card hands can be generated.

Using the Application

Using the application is a 3-step process:

• Choose Players - Choose the number of players sitting at the virtual table
• Play Hands - Click the "Play One" button to play a single hand; Click the "Auto-Play" button to start an automated playing of multiple hands;
• View Stats - Scroll down to the "Statistics" section to view the result.

Tips

• Use the Auto-Play feature to allow the app to play thousands of hands. The more hands played, the more reliable the statistics. The application developer notes that after about 10,000 hands played, the statistics remain stable.
• You can watch the statistics change while auto-play is in progress.
• You can use both the "Play One" and "Auto-Play" buttons to generate data for analysis.
• enable the "Show Percent Decimals" option to see percentage details.

How the Application Works

This application was written in Javascript, and displays data using an HTML + CSS template.

The Javascript code performs the following operations:

• create a virtual deck of cards (create array)
• shuffle the virtual deck (sort array)
• display the shuffled deck
• deal a hand from the top of the shuffled deck
• calculate the winner of the hand and store results
• update the displayed statistics