January 2024 - 47

Newer Players
BY ADAM PARRISH
adam@adamparrishbridge.com
adamparrishbridge.com
H
and evaluation is a big part of
what sets advanced players
apart from newer players and
sets experts apart from bridge mortals.
It's a tricky and nuanced subject,
but that's not going to deter us, is it?
I'm going to spend this year explaining
some ways to think about hand
evaluation that I find helpful.
Why is hand evaluation
important?
One reason bridge robots can't
compete with humans in bridge is
hand evaluation. There's only so
much that you can break down into
simple mathematic formulas, zeros
and ones. You can try to do that, adding
a point for this and subtracting a
point for that, and make your decisions
entirely numerical. That works
for a lot of people, and if you're one
of them, that's great, I'm glad you've
found something that works for you.
But be aware that you'll never be better
than a robot.
The 4-3-2-1 point-count system
gets high marks for simplicity, but it's
not particularly accurate. Aces are
more than four times more valuable
than jacks. 10s and 9s are not given
any value, when we all know a wellplaced
9 can be the difference between
a making slam or not. Shape is
not factored in at all.
A more accurate version that maintains
a 40-point deck would value an
ace around 4.5, a king at 3, a queen
at 1.5, a jack at 0.75, and a 10 at 0.25.
Way too complicated!
You can try to solve all these deficiencies
mathematically, adding a
point for this, subtracting half a point
for that. It's way too much for me. And
I don't think it makes you a better
bridge player. Just a better robot.
Parrish the Thought
A year of hand evaluation
Instead of quantitative gadgets,
I'm going to offer you a qualitative
approach to hand evaluation. No
formulas, no " Rule of X. " We're going
to start with high-card points as a
baseline and decide whether to upgrade
or downgrade our hand, and by
how much.
I'm sure you have heard people talk
about a " good 14-count " or a " bad 19. "
You might wonder how having 19
HCP could ever be bad! What we're
talking about when we call a hand
" good " or " bad " is the qualitative
hand evaluation we have used to supplement
the basic high-card points.
You already understand a lot of this
intuitively. Consider these two hands:
which would you prefer to hold?
Which is stronger?
1 sA 10 8 hA 10 9 d10 9 cA Q 10 9 8
2 sQ J 2 hK J 3 dK J 4 cK J 4 2
The first hand has 14 HCP and the
second has 15. But don't you like the
first hand better? I sure do! Aces and
10s and 9s. A five-card suit. Whereas
the other hand is 4-3-3-3 with lots
of jacks.
What would you open with each
hand? If we agree that the first hand
is better, does it make sense to open
it 1c and the second one 1NT? I'd be
inclined to do it the other way around,
treating the first hand as 15 HCP
and opening 1NT, while treating the
second as 14 and opening 1c.
This is what we mean when we
call a hand " good " or " bad. " The first
hand is a " good 14-count. " Easily good
enough to upgrade and open 1NT. (I
would expect that virtually every expert
playing a 15-17 NT would open
this hand 1NT.) The second hand is a
" bad 15-count, " and most of us would
downgrade it, treating it as 14, and so
open 1c and rebid 1NT. (Experts love
opening 1NT, so we tend to be more
inclined to upgrade into 1NT than
downgrade out of 1NT. But good evaluation
should go both directions.)
The first hand feels stronger than
the second. It is stronger than the
second. But why? Over the next few
months, we're going to look at the five
aspects of hand evaluation beyond the
4-3-2-1 system, so that you can better
understand the factors that make
for good qualitative evaluation. 2
WBF Player Survey
The World Bridge Federation is
conducting a survey exploring what
types of leisure activities people do
and why. The survey is aimed primarily
at bridge players (but they're
interested in what friends of bridge
players think, too).
The results will help the WBF get
a better understanding of why different
groups of people around the
world like and play bridge, and how
bridge compares to other activities
that bridge players and potential
bridge players like to do.
Administrators, teachers and
promoters can use the results to
design better ways to get people
into bridge, and to stay in bridge.
The survey is available at:
pip.surveymonkey.com/r/DKJW93X.
January 2024 | Bridge Bulletin |
47
http://www.adamparrishbridge.com http://pip.surveymonkey.com/r/DKJW93X
January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2024
