With summer coming along, so are our games! We've put out a new release of all our games. We're very pleased to be offering our "games for troops" sale. Our support team is here with some comments and encouragement for everyone who's asked for our help. We'll also share a tip for improving your play in Spades.

• New release
• Games for Troops Sale
• A Message from DreamQuest Support
• Spades: Enough is Enough

The DreamQuest team has been working hard to put together a new release.

The latest 7.40 release updates all of DreamQuest's games to provide the best support for the latest sound and video cards under Windows Vista and Windows 7, including both 32-bit and 64-bit support. All of our games still run under Windows 98 and XP too, of course. The players have gotten smarter too, thanks to your feedback and badhand reports, so they are tougher than ever to beat at Master level! Lastly, a few new features you have requested have been added as well. For details, see WhatsNew.txt

Independence Day has inspired DreamQuest Software to Donate Games to Entertain US Troops

DreamQuest will offer our customers a way to enjoy a new game for themselves and seeing that the troops get to enjoy the games too. During the month of July, DreamQuest will donate one Fun Pack to the troops for every order. This will be sent directly to the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Office of the United States Armed Forces to be distributed to troops overseas. DreamQuest Software has manual activation codes so the recipients can load them onto computers not connected to the internet, or their mobile device or palm. So go ahead, buy the game you always wanted, and know that during the month of July you are giving some well-appreciated down-time recreation and enjoyment for a member of US troops.

Customer Support answers each and every email, and the younger dragons in our department, "Tip" and "Spike," route your orders and codes to the proper account so that you are playing immediately after submitting your order. However, sometimes you have questions you want answered or problems you want solved. We are here to help you. We find the personal interaction with our customers to be the most rewarding aspect of our employment. We do want to acknowledge the customers who take the time to write "thank you," emails, they brighten our day! "Thank YOU!"

We can help you faster if you include your first and last name in the email. When we get, for example an email that only says, "Code Doesn't Work," and if it isn't sent from the email we have on file from you, we must write back to get more information so we can locate your account. That delays your answer.

Many of you have received personal answers from me, "Cherry," the Dragon-in-Charge of Customer Support and have asked what is my favorite game? Well, I need to be familiar with all of them, but I do love Rummy, and play with Quaxtar as my opponent. I have to periodically re-load my game for testing so the history zeros out, but right now I have won 67 of 110 games, highest score is 685 and winning margin is 400 at an Apprentice level. I am trying to get better at Cribbage and I can't seem to have a winning margin in Euchre if my life depended on it! What were you mid-Westerners thinking when you imported that game around 1860? "Jacks over Aces" what kind of a rule is that? LOL. To those of you who haven't tried playing Euchre, and you like Hearts or Spades, you might test out our trial version and see what I mean about "Jacks over Aces".

You have been dealt the following hand in a game where you are leading the opponents 463 (3 bags) to 414 (4 bags), and the bids are as shown. What should you bid?

Even though you have an easy 3 bid, and can very probably take 4 tricks with your hand, if you bid anything other than 2 in this situation you are making a very big mistake.

The three part premise underlying all of the teachings in my book is that:

At no time is this more true than on the Last Hand of a game. The Last Hand of a game is defined as any hand on which at least one of the teams has a chance to win the game.

In the above example, your team has 463 points and bags are not a concern. You need only 40 more points to win the game. There is absolutely no reason for your team to bid a total of more than 4 tricks on this hand. If you were to bid more than 2, you would be increasing the risk of your team getting set for no possible added reward whatsoever.

Although this is the simplest of the 12 critical Last Hand bidding strategies that I discuss in my book, it is surprising how frequently this guideline is violated, and how frequently teams get set as a result. Not only newer players, but experienced ones as well, will needlessly bid their teams into a 12 or 13 bid situation, get set on the hand, and wind up grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. Very often when this happens, the offending team will not even realize why the game was lost.

Whenever you are bidding 4th and your team has an easy opportunity to win the game, always remember that the object of Spades is not to bid your hand, but to win the game, and that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Copyright 2002 by John Strichman (all rights reserved)