Lesson 11B 7/22/2018. Hand Evaluation I

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Leona Amice Potter
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2 The terms upgradeable and downgrade-able have nothing to do with whether or not the hand contains a lot of formal HCP. Upgradeable simply means that the true value is greater than the formal number of HCP. Layout 1: is a very upgradeable hand. It only has 7 formal HCP. But it has great distribution and attractive long suits with lovely spot cards. The true value of this hand is significantly greater than 7. Layout 2: On the other hand, Example 4 is very downgrade-able. It contains a lot of honor cards and 15 formal HCP. But with no aces or intermediate cards, no fewer than 8 quacks, and the worst possible distribution, its true value is far less than 15. If you think that I would not ever consider opening a NT with this pile of garbage, you are 100% correct. Layout 3: On the other hand, many hands are neither upgradeable nor downgradeable. I think of them as "OK as is". Example 5 falls in this category. It contains 8 formal HCP. There is no reason to upgrade or downgrade this modest hand. Every time I pick up a hand, before I count my formal HCP, I form a first impression. After doing this for many years, I do it unconsciously. I consider the following question: "Is my hand upgradeable, downgradeable, or OK as is?" 2

3 Suppose for the moment, we changed the rules of bridge, so that partner could tell you exactly what he had in his hand. For example, suppose partner could say "I have AK32 of spades, QJ104 of hearts", and so forth. That would make the game a lot less interesting, for sure. However, you would not need to count partner's HCP to figure out where you wanted to play. You would simply look at what you had combined with what partner had, and figure out the best contract. Obviously that is against the rules in bridge. So, you have to use the bidding to describe what you have in your hand. But, there are billions of possible bridge hands, and only 38 legal bids. Therefore, you cannot possibly tell partner exactly what you have with the bidding. But, what you can do, is give him an idea of how strong your hand is, and what your distribution is. So, the idea behind hand evaluation is to figure out how good your hand is and communicate that to partner. know all of you are familiar with basic hand evaluation. That is HCP, A = 4 points, K = 3 points, Q = 2 points, and J = 1 point. And also distribution. either shortness (void = 3 points, singleton = 2 points, doubleton = 1 point) or length (1 point for each card over 4.) That is actually a pretty good system, and works well on a lot of hands. But, it is not perfect, particularly because the value of your hand changes as the auction proceeds. What I have been teaching you thus far is how to apply judgement, and upgrade or downgrade your hand based on the auction. What Marty Bergen has done, even better, is to come up with some rules that allow you to quantify how many points to upgrade and downgrade your hand. basic. Those rules are what I will be teaching you in these 3 lessons. They are not just for special or slam hands, but for all hands. 3

Whenever I pick up my cards, I always think about the following: My first impression. Is the hand upgradeable, down gradable, or will its true value be the same as it appears to be?

4 Whenever I pick up my cards, I always think about the following: My first impression. Is the hand upgradeable, down gradable, or will its true value be the same as it appears to be? Next I count my formal number of HCP just as a beginner would. I add for long suits, 5 cards or more. With a suit of 7 cards or more I add more liberally. I Upgrading For Long Strong Suits. I Devalue Honors In Short Suits. I Have My Starting Points. The Rule Of 20 I Mind the Distribution. I Look at My Intermediates. I consider the location of my honors and intermediates NT Opening Bids. I Count My Quick Tricks. Independent Suits Evaluating your hand before the auction begins is a very important first step. Reevaluating your hand as the auction proceeds is even more important. Most players do not do a good job in this area. Now to illustrate how HCP are not always accurate let me present the following two hands and give you a choice. Which hand would you rather hold when your partner bids 2? 4

5 To do so, Marty Bergen presents several Rules. I will go over each one in turn, and present examples. The first 2 rules are the easiest, and the ones most of you are familiar with. They are HCP and Length Points. 5

To do so, Marty Bergen presents several Rules. I will go over each one in turn, and present examples. The first 2 rules are the easiest, and the ones most of you are familiar with.

6 To do so, Marty Bergen presents several Rules. I will go over each one in turn, and present examples. The first 2 rules are the easiest, and the ones most of you are familiar with. They are HCP and Length Points. 2. This is the same as the last hand, except I added a 5th, so 14 is the correct answer. 12 HCP + 1 each for s and s. You add length points, regardless of the suit quality. Even a holding is still worth one length point. We will discuss tens later. 6

A singleton honor, other than the ace, is not worth as much, because it may not take a trick. And a doubleton Q or doubleton J is also not worth as much. Dubious Singleton honors are easy to spot.

7 A singleton honor, other than the ace, is not worth as much, because it may not take a trick. And a doubleton Q or doubleton J is also not worth as much. Dubious Singleton honors are easy to spot. However, Dubious Doubletons are a bit harder. Bergen enumerates all of the Dubious Doubletons. But I think it is easier to define a Dubious Doubleton as; ANY DOUBLETON THAT CONTAINS a Q OR J AND DOES NOT CONTAIN THE ACE AS THE OTHER CARD. For example, Qx and Jx are clearly Dubious Doubletons. Kx is not a Dubious Doubleton, because the K is not forced to be played under the ace. Other examples of Dubious Doubletons are KQ, QJ, and KJ. Basically, as I said, Dubious Doubletons are defined as any doubleton with a Q or J and not the ace. According to Bergen's method you deduct one point for each Dubious Doubleton or Singleton. Let us practice Starting Points calculation with added parameter of Dubious Doubletons/Singletons. Let us practice Starting Points calculation with added parameter of Dubious Doubletons/Singletons. 7

The 4-3-2-1 valuation is fine. But it would be nice to know how to adjust these values downwards for very short suits. For example, a singleton King.

8 The valuation is fine. But it would be nice to know how to adjust these values downwards for very short suits. For example, a singleton King. The clearest statement I've seen, which is immediately challenged, is here: - Samuel Stayman recommended deducting one HCP for K-Q, K-J, Q-J, Q-x, J-x Q- x-x, J-x-x holdings, this is now considered extreme. Well, even an idiot like myself can see that deducting a whole point from J-x-x would make it equal to x-x-x. Surely the J is worth more than an x? So here's my question: how about only deducting 0.5 points from Stayman's recommendations? In that case, one honor combination makes no difference to the HCP, since we can't open on 11 1/2 points (But two such honor combinations would reduce the HCP by 1 point in , and hands. That one point now makes a difference in opening, responding, raising, etc. 8

9 We have learned 3 rules thus far -- raw HCP, length, dubious singletons/doubletons. There are 2 more rules to go. The 4th. rule is "quality suits" which is defined as a 4 card or longer suit which contains 3 honors (and the 10 counts as an honor.) So KQ10x is considered a "quality suit" but KQ10 is not (only 3 cards.) You should add one point for each quality suit in your hand. That is a fairly easy rule. And let us quickly look at some example again. I post the hand on screen and a few seconds later I will give you the correct answer. OK, let us look at the first hand 9

10 A quality suit is defined as a 4-card or longer suit which contains three of the top five honors. Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten are the honors. You add one point for each quality suit in the hand - Quality Suite Point. For example KQ10x is considered a "quality suit" and equals one point. However, there would be no points for KQ10 - only three cards. Following are several hands holding quality suits. The total number of Quality Suits Points I printed under each hand. I am sure you noticed that the Quality suit in hand 6 is a Long suit too. Therefore, with what we have learned so far its Starting Points are 25. Number of Quality Suits: The following is the list all quality suits for Hearts in order of their HCP. 3 HCP: QJ10x 4 HCP: KJ10x 5 HCP: KQ10x AJ10x 6 HCP: KQJx KQJ10 AQ10x 7 HCP: AQJx AQ10 AK10x 8 HCP: AKJx AKJ10 9 HCP: AKQx AKQ10 10 HCP: AKQJ 10

But the beauty of 4-3-2-1 is, it is relatively easy and most have trouble remembering the more accurate new set of points count.

11 But the beauty of is, it is relatively easy and most have trouble remembering the more accurate new set of points count. Marty Bergen came up with a way of approximating these points count, which he calls "Adjust-3" and is much easier to use. The standard points count under values Aces and 10s and over values Queens and Jacks (Quacks). Therefore, if the hand contains lots more Aces and 10s, add something and if it contains lots more Queens and Jacks, subtract something. Therefore, for each hand, count up the number of Aces and 10s and count up the number of Queens and Jacks (Quacks). If the number of Aces and 10s is greater by 3 but less than 6 (for example you have 4 Aces and 10s and only 1 queen), add (adjust) 1 point to the hand's value. Similarly, if the number of Queens and Jacks exceed the number of Aces and 10s by 3 but less than 6 (say you have 5 Queens and Jacks, and 2 Aces), you subtract (adjust) 1 point. If the difference is 6+ in either situations add/subtract (adjust) 2. And finally, Do nothing if the difference is 2 or less. Doing Adjust-3 is rather most difficult part of Bergen's method. If you don't want to bother, most of the time it won't make a difference. What you can do instead is look at your hand. If there are lots of Queens and Jacks, or lots of Aces and 10s, then you can try to apply Adjust-3, otherwise don't need to bother. However, it is good to remember if Aces+Tens outnumber Quacks by 3 or more (but less than 6) add one point. If Quacks outnumber Aces+tens by 3 or more (but less than 6), subtract one point. Adjust 2 points if one group or the other outnumbers by 6+. Let us practice a few examples and figure out the Starting Points for each hand using the complete Bergen's method. 11

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Hand Evaluation Using Marty Bergen s Adjust-3 Method. By Neil H Timm

Hand Evaluation Using Marty Bergen s Adjust-3 Method Hand Evaluation - Introduction Let s look at two hands: By Neil H Timm WHAT WOULD YOU BID WITH EACH OF THE FOLLOWING HANDS? Hand AA: K43 A73 AK1092