Hi Colin,
There is a basic tournament mode in Casino Verite and yes I did mean that they would produce something more sophisticated.
Regarding the demands and justification for development of software for Blackjack tournament play. Casino Verite produces software for Shuffle-tracking and Ace Sequencing. I may be wrong, but I think that the card counters who would buy this software are in a smaller pond than us.
You could be right, but I think that that software was probably a lot easier to produce than a really good tournament product would be. Quite a bit of time and effort would need to spent just deciding what things the product should be able to do, let alone figuring out how to make it do them.
If the main goal is to produce a practice tool, with robot players that accurately mimic humans of differing skill levels, then that is quite an undertaking. And Ken has written in the past about the computational difficulties involved in generating the absolute best bet (or best action) when more than two players are involved, which might also be one of the goals.
By contrast, modelling decks of cards and how they rearrange themselves through various different shuffling techniques seems like a doddle!
[I see from Norm's reply to you that the difficulties involved in specifying player strategies caused work on a possible product to stall.]
Anyway Colin, you are pretty savvy around computers and know the strategies of the tourney game. Why don’t you apply yourself over the next few months and develop some software yourself for your mates on here.
Ha! It's over four years now since I first started getting interested in blackjack and in tournaments
[*]. Almost from the very start I had in mind that I might combine hobby with profession by developing some BJ-related software. I'm sad to report that I have yet to produce anything, though I have any number of half-completed projects waiting for me to return to them.
So I think I'll make a belated new-year's resolution to get at least something completed before the year is out, but you'll have to keep pestering Norm if you want your tournament software any time soon.
[*] I know this because I recall discussing the World Cup in the chat at Global, and it's that time again. (And, for those who do not follow these things, we have June 12th, England vs U.S.A to look forward to. Will it be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_v_United_States_(1950) all over again?

)
Hope to see you soon at another London tournament.
Andy
Indeed, or anywhere else. The London tournament scene seems to have dried up for the moment, sadly. Hope it picks up again, at some point.