 Jack
is the six times World Champion Computer Bridge of 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004, 2006 and 2009. Bridge players from all over the world welcomed its
exceptional bidding and playing strength.
A Jack 5 Upgrade is now available, to qualify you will need a copy of
Jack 4
Jack is by far the strongest and most versatile bridge
program available. Jack is developed by bridge players for bridge
players, paying special attention to the ease of use.
More than 80 conventions.
Many tournaments with frequency charts included.
Built in convention cards: SAYC, Moscito, Acol, 2/1GF,
Wei Precision and many others or create your own convention card.
Network play.
Deals in ladder-play or tournaments: random or
constrained by deal profile.
Bidding contests.
Advice from Professor Jack.
Complete PBN support.
Calls and plays announced by Berry Westra.
World's fastest double-dummy.
Extensive tournament options.
Competition in the virtual JackBridge club.
many forms of scoring; matchpoints, total points,
cross-imps, compensation and others.
Extensive printout capabilities.
Multilingual CD in English, Dutch, French, German and
Italian.
Jack 5.0 improves upon Jack 4.01 in ways that will
benefit advanced players as well as beginners.
Here is a list of the most significant ways in which Jack 5.0 has
improved upon Jack 4.01.
Interactive Professor Jack. The Professor will look over your shoulder
as you play, making helpful comments about your bidding and card play on
the spot. He is flexible. At your command, he will comment about
whatever aspects of your play you specify.
Bidding contests. Jack provides about a hundred bidding contests that
you can enter to improve your bidding and compare your contracts to
those of many pairs that have bid the deals previously.
Jack's Washington 2009 bidding and play engine: In Computer World
Bridge Championship of 2009 at Washington DC, Jack played better and
faster to regain his title. Now you can use the same methods with and
against Jack.
Expanded levels of playing strength: Now there are 100 different
levels, ranging from weak to expert, with sophisticated options for
detailed tuning.
More versatile deal profiles: Now you can specify almost any kind of
deals that you may want to examine or practice, e.g. deals with 1NT
openings, deals with wild distribution, and so forth.
Built-in provision for updating: Now you can download improvements to
Jack and new tournaments as they become available on our website ...
free of charge until we create Jack 6.0.
Jack 5.0 is now usable on "notebook" computers (laptops without a CD
drive) and with Windows 7.
Improved and fully printable help, along with other interesting
documentation, is easily accessible.
On-screen playing cards are digitally enhanced and now available for
even the highest resolutions.
Jack can now be linked directly to the Jannersten Duplimate software.
Jack 5.0 provides dozens of other improvements and enhancements, of
course, including more tournaments, more deals in competition, new
bidding conventions, Jack's Washington 2009 convention card, reviews of
played deals in the game-viewer, and changes in Jack's partnership
approaches.
System Requirements Jack 5
Jack will run on Windows 7 and Windows Vista but will also run fine on
earlier versions of Windows (Windows 98 - 2nd edition, Windows XP).
Memory: 256 Mb, Hard Disk: 80 Mb, Video: 1Mb SVGA. Pentium or AMD
system, minimum: 400 MHz, recommended: 1GHz.
Jack's installation will only be complete after you activated Jack.
Looks
Jack offers a very user friendly interface. It's
ergonomical interface allows you to relax and enjoy using Jack. If you're not
completely satisfied with the default looks, you have numerous possibilities to
adjust it to your own likings. Settings exist for almost anything: the
colours, the backside of the cards and the shape of the playing table are just a
few examples.
With Jack the pretty playing cards are not only printed on the outside of the
box, but you also play with them on screen. You can choose between English
(international), French, German or Dutch playing cards. The sets are all based
on the Carta Mundi playing cards. You don't like the rounded corners on
the cards? Jack will straighten them for you. If you prefer larger numbers and
letters on the playing cards, Jack offers a special set also.
Ease of use
The fully graphical user interface was
developed by bridge players for bridge players. Jack comes with a manual
so you can sit down and read about the most important features. Above that the
program has a built in interactive help with many examples. The tip of
the day will help you master Jack's possibilities faster.
You decide if you want
announcing bids and plays switched on, in which
case you'll hear the voice of Berry Westra.
The program is very friendly. You can play with all cards visible, take back
cards or restart a deal at any time. Settings were not only developed to change
the appearance on your screen but also to adjust Jack's behaviour. You can even
set the tolerance with which Jack has to accept your claims. After you completed
a deal you can have Jack replay the deal and instantly compare your result with
Jack. You can store the bid and play to look it over again at a later moment.
Your own deal annotations can be incorporated and stored with the deal in
Jack.
The powerful deal profile allows you to
generate deals that meet certain criteria. Specifying for example auction,
distributions, combined values for North and South, playing tricks or points
enables you to create almost any situation. Very useful for practising
purposes.
You can even have Jack calculate the statistical probability for any profile.
For example the probability for a 1NT opening.
Each deal has a number. All 53.644.737.765.488.792.839.237.440.000 possible
bridge deals can be generated. You can use this number to generate a specific
deal again. It also ensures you won't play the same deal twice.
Deals can be
printed directly to the printer or exported to HTML files.
You can specify in detail what to print (diagram, auction, play, footnotes,
alerts, annotations). The HTML- (internet-) format allows you to directly bring
the information online, look at it in your favourite browser, email it to your
partner or edit it with a word processor.
Inputting a deal is very easy, have Jack show you how he would have bid and
played the deals from you local competition.
Tournaments and competitions
Extensive tournament environment with many
tournaments. Jack offers the functionality to create your own tournaments. Match Points, imps, imp pairs and more. Just enter the number
of rounds/contestants. Jack will play the tournament for all participants whilst
varying its play to generate the necessary variation in the results. Also almost
any PBN can be converted to a tournament.
The same tournament can be played by more than one user. This enables you to
compare with other people. Neat reports with tournament results can be printed.
To start your own tournaments collection the CD
contains 25 tournaments (totalling over 100 sessions), in which you play
partnering Jack. These tournaments all appeared on Jack's website earlier. New
tournaments will continue to be made available in the future. For more
tournaments the Tournaments
2002 CD with annotated tournaments is on sale.
Extra for Jack 4 are the finals of the last six Worldchampionships Computer
Bridge.
Jack has a built-in virtual bridge club, the
Jack Bridge club, complete with promotion and demotion. You compete with Jack as
you partner amidst computer personalities. There are six different skill levels
(flights) and in a higher flight the computer players will be tougher to beat.
Of course you can specify the length of the competition, the strength of the other
players, and whether your opponents use their own convention cards or yours.
Your goal is to move up the ladder of skill levels. Try to become the champion
of the club!
Bid and play
Jack 3 contains the completely rewritten
bidding and playing engine, used to win the World Championship Computer
Bridge in New York 2004. For the playing strength you can choose from over
30 levels of play with extra options enabling you to change Jack's style of
bidding and playing. The lead system and signal methods are very complete and
adjustable to one's personal likings.
Both during the auction and the play Jack will provide you with
hints, if
asked for.
Starting version 3 Jack offers a new method of scoring when playing random
deals: Compensation scoring (also known as Russian Scoring). The
stronger side gets penalty points depending on their combined HCP strength.
Penalties are user adjustable.
You can use Jack to analyze a position, Jack will show what he thinks about it.
Jack has a very extensive convention card
environment. Major convention cards from all around the world are built in,
amongst others: Standard American Yellow Card, Dutch Acol, 2/1 GF, Bridge
World Standard, Jack New York (the exact card that was used in New York
2004), Moscito (a strong club system developed by the Australian
international Paul Marston) and Jack's own convention card. Of course convention
cards for novices are available as well.
Or you can compose your own convention card using adjustable
conventions. Jack now has
over 75 adjustable conventions, recent additions in version 3, amongst others:
Variable 1NT, additional defences against 1NT, Puppet Stayman after 1NT.
Many other bidding additions as well, e.g. you can specify the style of
overcalling you would like Jack to use and it is possible to count an extra
trump when using RKC Blackwood).
In the auction you can choose for Fit points. After discovering a fit it
is good practise to re-evaluate your hand. Jack does this by using fit points.
It is based on Berry Westra's teaching methods of adding and subtracting points
in fit situation. You will quickly learn to correctly re-evaluate your hand in
fit situations. The fit points are entirely user adjustable.
But also from the didactical point of view for
less experienced bridge players Jack 4 has a lot to offer. For example,
directly after playing a deal you can ask Professor Jack what he thinks of your
bidding and cardplay. When he does not agree he explains in detail why so.
Many extra's
Jack contains the fastest double dummy
solver in the world. Jack will instantly show you how many tricks can be
made with each card.
Jack is completely multi-lingual,
you can dynamically switch between English, Dutch, French and German. Within
any of the supported languages you can also use the English, Dutch, French
or German playing cards.
If your language is not supported yet, we offer the possibility to translate
the user interface.
Play with up to four people in a network
at home or over the internet.
Several scoring methods are supported.
Printing.
Deals can be printed directly to the printer or exported to HTML files.
You can specify in detail what to print (diagram, auction, play, footnotes,
alerts, annotations)
Fun and games.
A completely new and interactive environment. You will find
interesting and amusing facts, teaching material and puzzles like Double
Dummy problems. A lot of content available already.
Search for updates.
From inside Jack you can search for updates and install them directly. No
need for visiting the website and look whether there is new material. |
