Introduction to Bidding
	How a Bridge Hand is Played
	Index of Lessons

At the end of the last lesson, you were encouraged to bid games and slams when you and your partner had hands good enough so that making those contracts was an odds-on proposition. But how do you value how "good" a hand is, and how do you know how good your hands must be so that games and slams become good propositions? That's what this lesson will tell you.

Valuing Your Hand

After you have picked up the cards you were dealt, and have arranged them in your hand, it is time to look at them and form an estimate of how good they are. Eventually, your partner will tell you how good his hand is, and then the two of you can decide if the combined worth of both your hands justifies the bidding of a game or slam contract.

We will value a hand by assigning some number of points to it. There are two kinds of points- high card points (HCP) and distribution points.

High Card Points

Determining how many high card points your hand contains is a simple matter. If you can remember four numbers and can add as high as 40 or so, you have all the math skills you need.

The four numbers you need to remember are the point values for the four highest cards in each suit. Those cards are, of course, the Ace, King, Queen, and Jack. The point values are "4", "3", "2" and "1", respectively. That is, an Ace is worth 4 points, a King is worth 3 points, a Queen is worth 2 points, and a Jack is worth one point. That's all there is to it. But what's the importance of the number "40"? As it turns out, 40 is the number of points in an entire deck. You can see this in two ways. Keeping in mind that there are four suits, you can see that each suit has a single Ace, a single King, a single Queen, and a single Jack. So each suit has 4+3+2+1 points, or 10 points. Four suits times 10 points per suit is 40 points. Looking at it another way, since there are four suits, each deck has four Aces, four Kings, four Queen, and four Jacks. So each deck has 16 points in Aces (4x4), 12 points in Kings (3x4), 8 points in Queens (2x4), and 4 points in Jacks (1x4). 16+12+8+4 = 40. There are 40 points in the deck.

To determine the high card point value of your hand, all you need to do is to add 4 points for every Ace you hold, 3 points for every King, 2 points for every Queen and 1 point for every Jack. Let's look at an example:

A K 10 8 7   K J 4   Q 7 3   J 2

How would we value this hand?

Well, we have one Ace, so that's 4 points. We have two Kings, so at 3 points each, that's another 6 points. We have one Queen, which is worth 2 points, and we have two Jacks, each worth 1 point for another 2 points. So we have 4 points in Aces, 6 points in Kings, 2 points in Queens and 2 points in Jacks- for a total of 14 high card points.

Some people prefer to count another way. They count the number of points in each suit, and then add up those numbers. Let's look at a different hand:

A J 8 7 2   A J 4   K Q 3 2   2

How would we value this hand?

Well, we have 5 points in Spades, 5 points in Hearts, 5 points in Diamonds, and no points in Clubs for a total of 15 HCP.

Whether you count Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks or Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs, the total should be the same.

Q J 8 7   Q 3 4   K J 3   4 3 2 Answer

A K 8 7   A 3 4   K Q 3   A J 2 Answer

K J 9 8 7   A J 6 5 4   A   6 2 Answer

9 8 7 3 2   J 3 2   A 5 4 3 2     Answer

A 10 5 4   A 6 5   A 5 4   A 10 Answer

Since the deck contains 40 HCP, the point count for an average hand is 10 HCP. If you have more than that, your hand is above average, and you should feel good. If you have less than 10 HCP, you have a right to feel a bit cheated. Of course, it is not possible for you to have all 40 points; can you figure out why? While there are 40 HCP in the deck, to hold all of them you would need 16 cards, and each player will have only 13. So the maximum number of HCP you could hold would be 37. How often do you think this might happen?

Distribution Points

You will find out, as you learn the game of Bridge, that unbalanced hands typically generate more tricks than do evenly-distributed hands. While this may not be apparent yet, a couple of examples might be helpful. In each of the hands below, we will assume that our partner has no high card points at all, and an evenly-distributed hand. Look at this first hand:

A 9 8 7   A 3 4   A 10 3   A 3 2

Your hand has 16 HCP, but it is unlikely that you will take more than 4 tricks- no matter which suit is trump or whether you play without a trump suit. You will win your four aces, but that's it.

Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4   3 4       3 2

Your hand has only 3 HCP, but its trick-taking potential is enormous. If Spades are trump, then you will lose at most two Spade tricks (the Ace and King), two Heart tricks and two club tricks. If you lose six tricks you will take 7 tricks. This hand has only one-fifth the point count of the first one, yet will take almost twice as many tricks.

So we can see that the point count of a hand can be misleading; highly-distributional hands can have greater trick-taking potential. So to properly value your hand, you need to take the degree of its distributional imbalance into account. This is done by adding to your high card points extra distributional points.

If your hand has a void (a suit in which you have no cards), add 3 distributional points for each void suit. If you have a singleton (a suit in which you only have one card), add 2 distributional points for each singleton. Finally, if you have a doubleton (a suit in which you have only 2 cards), add 1 distribution point for each doubleton. (NOTE: Some Bridge experts claim that these points do not go far enough- that they should be increased. Perhaps they are right, but beginners would do well to stick with these numbers- at least until more experience is gained.)

Let's look at the previous two hands:

A 9 8 7   A 3 4   A 10 3   A 3 2

This hand has 16 HCP. Since its has no voids, singletons or doubletons, it has no extra distributional points. So the total point value of the hand remains 16 points.

Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4   3 4       3 2

This hand has only 3 HCP, but it is highly distributional. It has a void and two doubletons. So we add 3 more points for the void and one for each of the doubletons. So this hand gets an additional five distribution points, and the hand is now worth 8 points.

Distribution Point Adjustments

While it does not happen often, you should avoid counting full value for singleton or doubleton Kings, Queens and Jacks.

If you have a singleton King, Queen or Jack, count only the distribution points or high-card points, whichever is greater. For a singleton King, count the 3 HCP but not the 2 distribution points. For a singleton Queen, count either the 2 HCP or 2 distribution points. For a singleton Jack, count only the 2 distribution points.

If you have doubleton King, count both the 3 HCP for the King and the one distributional point for a total of 4. For a doubleton Queen, count only the 2 HCP for the Queen. Finally, for a doubleton Jack, count just one point- either for the Jack or for the doubleton.

For doubleton or singleton Aces, count both the four points for the Ace and the one or two points for the distribution. Thus, you will count a total of six points for a singleton Ace.

Final Hand Valuation

So, to value your hand, add together your HCP and your distribution points, taking care to first adjust the distribution points as necessary and as detailed above. This total will be the value of your hand in points, and your subsequent decisions as to what and how much to bid will be based largely on this total.

Point Requirements for Games and Slams

As we said earlier, there are significant score bonuses for bidding and making games (3 , 4 , 4 , 5 and 5 ) and slams (6 or 7 of any suit or Notrump). Because of this, you should try to bid a game (or slam) whenever you and your partner, together, have enough points.

How many points do you and your partner, together, need? Here are the average number of points needed:

26 points for 3 , 4 or 4

29 points for 5 and 5

33 points for a small slam (6 , 6 , 6 , 6 and 6 )

37 points for a grand slam (7 , 7 , 7 , 7 and 7 )

What does all this mean? Whenever you can determine that your partnership possesses 26 points, then you can probably bid a game in either Notrump or, if together the two of you have enough cards in the suit (see below), in Hearts or Spades. If you have 29 points, you can probably bid a game in Diamonds or Clubs, again assuming that you have enough cards in the suit. If you have 33 points, you should investigate whether a small slam is possible, and if you have 37, a grand slam.

Suit Length Requirements for Games and Slams

One final note. If you decide to play a game or slam contract in one of the four suits, then you should try to ensure that you and your partner, together, hold at least eight of the cards in that suit; the more you hold the better. And if you hold the minimum- eight-, it is better if five or six of them are in one of your hands and the remaining three or two in the other, instead of four in each. This is another of those guidelines that may not mean much now, but will once you have gained more experience. For now, just keep these in the back of your mind.

	Introduction to Bidding
	How a Bridge Hand is Played
	Index of Lessons