So how does version 11 compare?

The program has lots of excellent features such as actual ACBL pairs tournaments to play in. You choose the event and then at the end of each hand you are shown the traveller with your matchpoints and your running total and position. You can also play teams - you play at one table and then the computer plays all four hands at the other giving you a match position (in IMPs) either at the end of each hand or at the end of the stanza. Of course if duplicate is not your game you can opt for rubber or Chicago.

There are 72 special problem hands for you to try out. Most are of these are well put together and will make you think a lot.

Certainly if you enjoy trying out weird and wonderful conventions you will have no cause for complaint. Added to its repertoire this time are such things as Lebensohl, Inverted Minor Raises, Responsive Doubles, not mention Smolen and Minor-Suit Stayman (no I didn't what they were either). Don't worry though, you choose which conventions to play, as well as those of your opponents. One nice feature is that you can get the computer to generate deals so that you can actually practise a particular convention.

The computer will always offer a hint if you are unsure what to bid and mostly its suggestions are sound. There are also bidding flowcharts available but, though well intentioned, they do not quite work for me.

I shall take the manufacturer's word that they have improved the standard of play. Certainly I was quite impressed with the program's performance on all the hands I tested it out on.

All in all this is an highly impressive package let down by just one aspect, its Acol bidding. Most hands are bid in text book fashion (if only because Acol and Standard American are not that different) but when it comes to No

Trump rebids and anything to do with 4-card majors it tends to slip up. For instance it bids in the American fashion such that a 2NT rebid over a 2-level response shows a minimum opener (with 15 or more it just rebids 3NT).

On one hand the computer held:

S. A643
H. QJ62
D. AQ10
C. K5

This is a hand that at Acol you would normally open 1H and then rebid 2NT over a 2C response, but the computer instead chose 1S opening followed by a 2H rebid which, where I come from, guarantees a 5-card Spade suit.

I have to say though that despite this minor failing this is a program well worth purchasing.

Mike Swanson

www.diamondbridge.co.uk