Hand Evaluation 1: Card Texture Matters

If a player asked me what area of bridge should they study to improve their duplicate or tournament results, I would say hand evaluation. 

Its a topic that most experts practice and review constantly. In no way is this meant for beginners, however I think all levels can master these ideas, it just requires a logical and open mind. 

One big take away from this article should be - its good to have points in your long suits. Its also good to have points in suits that you know partner has length.

Lets compare some hand "textures". Both these hands have 5314 shape, and 15 points. However, their texture is different.

 Hand 1

a)The hand is badly lacking intermediate cards (10's and 9's). 

b) The long spade suit lacks points, and the short suits (hearts and diamonds) are heavily stacked with points. That is generally a bad thing, we prefer if our points are in our long suits rather than short suits.

c) Aces are very good cards, the more the hand has the better. This hand has no aces.

Consider the spade suit, if we end up for example in a contract of 4♠ 

If that is the trump suit and we are in game, we will lose 3 tricks in it most of the time, and sometimes 4 tricks. 

Compared with

Hand 2

a) This hand has nice strong robust long suits, in particular the spade suit. The 10 and 9 in that suit generally goes a long way. 

b) The two long suits, spades and hearts, have nice amount of honors (notice that the majority of points are in those two suits, 11 of 15). 

c) The short diamond suit has no wastage.

d) The hand has two Aces, which is nice.

Overall - while both hands are 15 high card points, they really are not comparable. To me the first hand is worth about 13 or 14, and the second hand is worth closer to 17.

This topic will come up often in future articles, but for now lets summarise the factors as

Good features of a hand include

a) Points mostly in the long suits.

b) 10's and 9's, the more the better. 

c) Aces. 

d) If short suits have points in them, ideally it should be an Ace or maybe a King. 

Lets take a brief look at a couple examples for point d) above. 

As far as short suits go, the spade suit doesn't look great. While the heart and diamond suit look okay. 

Its worth noting that these factors change slightly, but logically, as the bidding goes on. We've already said that we like to have points in our long suits, but it naturally follows that it is good to have points in your partner's long suit.  Lets look at an example

How do we feel about our hand after partner opens 1 ♠. To me this hand looks pretty good, but if I moved the King of spades to clubs, it would generally not be nearly as good.

I'll end this article there, but there is more to discuss on this topic in future articles to come shortly.

Where to next

• -> Next: Hand Evaluation 2: Re-Evaluate as the Auction Develops
• -> Related: Responding to a Takeout Double: Keep It Practical
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