Bridge Ace - now PLAY LIVE!

Overall I enjoy the product. Used to play a lot back when some duplicate which for obvious reasons is much better but I haven’t played here not sure I can. There are some annoying parts such as navigating out through Home Screen when I need to get to another app ordering more hands and overall issues like seeing the bidding afterwards. Most annoying is the idiot plays made by bridge ace opponents. But seemingly never against me!!! I just play cause I don’t have anyone else and ignore the score but it’s still insulting to lose when bridge ace opponents toss away obvious suit cards they need and other silly moves. Still not sure of the concept of the nasic American system not what I learned to play and needs simple explanations of some conventions.

Bridge Ace has some nice features. Its bidding is all right, but it makes errors on play and defense that are absurd and frustrating. When the player is on defense, it has no idea how to handle opening leads. For example, in a suit contract I led a small heart from Qxxxx. Dummy came down with K9 in hearts, good trumps, and six solid clubs. Declarer played the hK and partner won the hA. It’s obvious that it’s time to cash the defense’s winners before declarer can pitch his losers on the clubs. What did partner do? He returned a club from xxxxx! That was the end of the defense. When the app is defending, it generally plays okay in the open room, but makes ridiculous mistakes in the closed room. For example, it might lead the king from Kxxxx in an unbid suit, handing declarer the contact. And it often ducks the setting trick, even when it’s obvious that declarer has the rest of the tricks. iBridge Plus made a lot of errors, too, but it was less frustrating than Bridge Ace. I’m going back to iBridge. LATER - I’ve updated the critical review above from 2 to 5 stars because: Bridge Ace has significantly upgraded the software. It has been a long time since I’ve seen errors such as I mentioned above; I play Bridge Ace almost every day. It’s fun and it improves my game.

While the user interface is well designed and while I enjoy playing, I find myself frustrated in the following areas this leading to a 3 star review: 1-As in most bridge programs of this type, the authors use too many conventions. How about enabling a mode where most of these are turned off to support beginners who do not know or care not to learn them? Stayman and Jacoby xfer are the basics most of us learn early. Too many conventions are used here leading to a frustrating experience. 2-Where do you come off supporting an opening bid of one in a major with four cards? SAYC mandates a promise of five yet no matter what the setting your program continues to open with four in many cases. Never heard of this and also very frustrating. 3-It can be a bit frustrating replaying a hand to see how the ‘computer’ played it to earn so many points. After following many of these once again I get frustrated for it appears these conventions are coming out of nowhere leading to a contract that in no way would I have ever dreamed of playing in. In many cases it actually doesn’t even make sense. Many more times the play of the cards seems to be based on pure luck rather than strategy/ skill 4-Please - no program is bug free. Your recent email suggests otherwise.