EUGENE, Ore.–World bridge champion Zia Mahmood may be facing the greatest challenge of his flamboyant career on Sept. 3—4, when he squares off in London against seven of the world’s finest bridge-playing computers program–including one developed by a University of Oregon professor.

Zia is well known for his strong views that computers cannot play bridge–and never will–on the grounds that the game stresses too many human qualities. He once bet a million pounds that he could not be beaten in a human-computer match.

That bet is no longer on the table–the purse in the London event is $15,000–but the real prize is to discover if bridge continues to be one of the few human bastions that computers remain unable to conquer.

In 1998, a computer program called GIB (Ginsberg’s Intelligent Bridge player) followed up a victory at the world computer championships with a 12th-place showing at the (human) world championships in Lille, France. The French competition was the first time that a computer had ever competed against humans at such a high level.

GIB, the top-ranked program in the world, was developed by Matthew Ginsberg, a University of Oregon professor of computer science and founder of the Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory. The other computer participants in the London event are Saitek, Q-Plus Bridge, Meadowlark Bridge, Micro Bridge, Oxford Bridge and Blue Chip Bridge.

When asked about his chances, Zia noted that he was substantially outnumbered, likening himself to Daniel in the lion’s den.

"But none of the computers," he said, "has any idea what bridge is really about. As long as the best player wins, I should have no problems."

Ginsberg scoffs at Zia’s bravado.

"Personally," he replies, "I’m betting on the lions."

The event will be held at the Andrew Robson Bridge Club, 31 Parson’s Green Lane in London. Telephone: 0171-471-4626. Play is scheduled for 5—10 p.m. on Sept. 3, and 10 a.m.—1 p.m. and 2—5 p.m. on Sept. 4. The event is open to spectators.

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