It's important to remember that this challenge has lasted many years. We've learned new strategies for attacking the problem. We've doubled our computing power several times. The women have added new complications to the problem.
You can read the detailed problem description or an account of the methods we've tried to solve this problem, quite an interesting read, especially if you're interested in computer programming. I also challenge you to come up with a better seating chart, or tell me how would you go about solving it?.
The original goal was to come up with a good seating chart for a 6-table 8-game bridge tournament, but over the years a variety of people have contacted me for assistance with similar challenges. I've used my code to create a number of "seating charts" or "game movements" or whatever you want to call them. I've put the most effort into the 6-table 8-game bridge tournament since that was the original problem that I set out to solve.
I have worked very hard on the program to create these seating charts. If you decide to make use of one of them, I'd love it if you would send me some mail. If you end up making copies of one of them (either electronically or on paper), please include my Copyright. I don't want to prevent anybody from using them, I'd just like to have proper credit for my efforts:
Copyright 1999, Paul Chamberlain (tif@tifster.com) This notice required on all copies and derivatives