Q-Plus Bridge
Review By Nelson Ford, www.hsbridge.com - February 2001

Q-Plus Bridge's Features

The first "feature" when you start Q-Plus Bridge is a bad one. Q-Plus uses a form of copy protection which we thought had gone out in the 1980's. You have to dig out the manual, look up the page, line and word number specified on the start-up screen and type in the word to prove that you have a copy of the manual.

Getting past that, Q-Plus has a efficient and easy-to-use interface and possibly the best, most extensive set of features among existing programs.

In comparing the top three programs (Bridge Baron, GIB, and Q-Plus), you find one element of the programs after another where Q-Plus has not gone just an extra step in terms of offering features, but has gone several steps beyond the others.

Q-Plus was written in Germany and gives you a choice of three different languages for the program: German, English, and French. If you happen to be studying one of these languages, you can study and play at the same time!

Bidding Systems

The first feature you should look at is Bidding Systems in the Configuration menu. While you can immeditately start playing against the computer, you will not know what its bids mean.

Novices may not care what the bids mean, and selecting conventions and bidding agreements for Q-Plus to use is probably beyond the capabilities of novices. In this case, you can just start playing, and then click on bids for explanations during the bidding. (However, explanations are not available for all bids, although the program's evaluation of hands based on bidding is always available.)

Novices may also elect to have Q-Plus tell them when Q-Plus disagrees with a bid or play they have made.

Q-Plus comes with many predefined bidding systems, including 2/1 game forcing, Acol, Standard American, Standard French/German, Kaplan-Sheinwold, Precision, Schenken Big Club. Most of these are also offered in various ranges of complexity: basic, intermediate and advanced.

You can edit any of these systems and save them under a new (or the same) name.

You can assign the same or different systems to North-South and East-West. This gives you the chance to learn or practice your system while playing against a different (or the same) system.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Q-Plus offers the user more control over the bidding than other programs, it still manages to misbid not infrequently. (See Footnotes.)

Q-Plus also offers extensive control over defensive leads and signals

Duplicate Scoring

In our review of Bridge Baron, we pointed out that BB was the only program to offer a "Duplicate" mode in which after you play a deal, the program plays the same deal and computes a score based on the relative results.

This is a great feature because otherwise, it is much harder to know if you are getting the maximum result with the cards you are dealt. With Duplicate play, if you get a good result, but the program replays the deal and gets a better result, you can single-step through the program's play to see what it did differently.

Q-Plus does not have a Duplicate mode, but it does offer duplicate scoring in either matchpoints or IMPs. This is not just a cosmetic difference, since the program adapts its strategy to match the scoring method selected.

And even though Q-Plus does not have a Duplicate mode, you can manually get it to replay a deal (or a set of deals) and show the comparative results. Since all the elements are there for a Duplicate mode, perhaps a future version will have this feature.

Features and More Features

Playing strength: Q-Plus lets you adjust the program's playing strength. It appears that Q-Plus does not let you directly change the maximum amount of time the program is allowed to think, but if you have a fast computer, you can cut down its thinking time by telling it you have a slower computer.

Saving deals: If you have an interesting deal, there are several ways to save it. You can export the deal in an HTML file or in a text file, and it is saved automatically to a temporary log file. Q-Plus does not appear to allow saving files in the standard PBN format.

Network play: Q-Plus allows you to play other people over a network (TCP/IP) or via direct modem connection, but apparently not over the Internet.

PBN file support: Although Q-Plus does not save files in PBN format, it will load PBM files and let you play them. PBM files can be downloaded from the Internet for tournaments, etc., and you can replay them in Q-Plus, comparing your results to the experts.

Manual input: Deals can be entered manually, allowing you to see how Q-Plus would play a deal, using it to solve bridge problems, etc.

Deal Generator: Q-Plus has a deal generator, but it calls it a "Deal Filter". It lets you enter parameters, such as hand strength and suit lengths, so that you can practice on specific types of hands. This is especially useful when practicing your bidding system.

Other features: Q-Plus has most of the usual bridge game features, such as being able to view the cards in all the hands at any time, skip deals, replay deals, take back bids and plays, ask for a hint, and claim (or concede) any number of tricks at any time.

One unusual feature (the only other time I've seen it is in a Hearts game I wrote many years ago) is the ability to scramble the cards in two or more of the other hands. This lets you see whether or not you made a good bid/play which fell victim to a particularly unfavorable lay of the cards.

Help System: Q-Plus also has an unusual Help system. The Help menu on the screen is actually a Table Of Contents to individual help files listed in the Help menu which, when selected, are displayed in WordPad/NotePad.

But where Q-Plus's help system really shines is that at virtually every prompt or input window, you can bring up a small pop-up help window. For example, if you are selecting bidding conventions and see one with which you are not familiar, you can right-click on the convention to bring up a short description of it.

The Bottom Line

Q-Plus has far-and-away the most extensive list of features of the major bridge programs. In particular, you have a great deal more control over bidding methods and systems and defensive play.

Somehow, with all this extra control, it still manages not to bid (or play) quite as well as Bridge Baron or GIB. (See the footnotes, below.)

Q-Plus Bridge is still a good choice for those who want to learn about the game or about specific bidding systems. If it makes a terrible bid or play, you can always just move on to the next deal. Meanwhile, Q-Plus lets you try out bidding systems which other bridge programs do not.

Footnotes

Q-Plus offers the greatest user-control of bidding systems, but this feature is spoiled by generally bad bidding. Here are the first three deals I played with Q-Plus 6.1:

Deal 5291-01, neither side vulnerable, North dealer:
P-3H-3NT??
Q-Plus (as South) made a wild bid opposite a passed hand holding
97-K4-AJ84-AQ832.
Q-Plus never had a chance because of being unable to duck Hearts on the first lead, leaving West with an entry to East's long Heart suit. Had West doubled as he should have, the result would have been a clear bottom in Duplicate.

Deal 5291-02, N-S vulnerable, East dealer:
1S-2C-3S-5C
going down doubled for 1100 points. Not a smart sac against a partscore. North's vulnerable jump to 5C opposite a possibly weak overcall was based on this 10-pointer:
T-AQJ7-J985-Q732.

Deal 5291-03, E-W vulnerable, North dealer:
1S-2H-Dbl-3H
4D-4H-Dbl
down 800 when it turned out that West made a free raise of an overcall with unfavorable vulnerability and only 5 high card points in this hand:
A-J64-T6543-9632.

Just to give the program one last chance while writing this:
Deal 7662-28. North opens 2H with
J7-AJ8762-K74-Q9.
I bid 2NT (feature asking) with
AT9-QT-QT852-A83.
North responds 3D. I bid 3NT, making 4 with routine play.

Replaying it with Q-Plus playing South, Q-Plus passed the 2H bid and made just the 2 - a bottom at most tournaments. Some people might even argue that North's hand is too strong to open 2H, but if Q-Plus is going to open such hands 2H, then responder must inquire with good hands. (South's hand is better than the 12 HCP's would normally indicate: QT in North's suit plus other good intermediate cards and stoppers.)