Have you ever thought about why computer chess games are world class players, but computer bridge games are still struggling to achieve mediocrity? A muscular older brother (4 processors) of my computer chess game, Fritz, recently played the best human player, Garry Kasparov, to a draw in a five game match. I was in Florida at the time and spent four beautiful, sunny days sitting inside watching it on TV because I thought the mantle of superiority might pass from human to computer in that match.
It didn't, but it's generally conceeded that in the very near future, the world's best chess player will be a computer. Why isn't the same true of bridge? I think the reason is that there are so many different kinds of information available in bridge that it's hard to pick out which are the important factors on any given hand. Here's an example from a recent Riko practice hand: