On the computational complexity of bridgecard

Bridgecard is a classical trick-taking game utilizing a standard 52-card deck, in which four players in two competing partnerships attempt to “win” each round, i.e. trick. Existing theories and analysis have already attempted to show correlations between system designs and other technical issues with parts of the game, specifically the “Bidding” phase, but this paper will be the first to attempt to initiate a theoretical study on this game by formulating it into an optimization problem. This paper will provide both an analysis of the computational complexity of the problem, and propose exact, as well as, approximation algorithms.