Planning in bridge with thematic actions

The task of planning in a dynamic and an uncertain domain is considerably more challenging than in domains traditionally adopted by ai planning methods. Planning in real situations has to be a knowledge intensive process, particularly since it is not easy to predict all the effects of one's actions. Contract bridge offers a domain in which many of the issues involved in real world problems can be addressed without having to make simplifications in representation. Planning in the game of bridge takes us away from the traditional search-based methods (like the alpha-beta procedure), which are applicable in complete-information games like chess. In this paper we look at how knowledge can be structured to plan for declarer play in bridge. This involves deploying known move combinations, triggered by patterns which are abstracted out of the input, and then assembling the structures into a workable plan. The results demonstrate the viability of the proposed concepts. © 1994 the Indian Academy of Sciences.