I-ABC Hand Evaluation Lecture

[jillybean]

Bobh2 will host a lecture on Hand Evaluation in the Intermediate Advanced Bridge Club (listed under public clubs)

 

THE NOTES ARE ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS THREAD!

 

Tuesday January 10th 15:30(pst) 18:30(est) 23:30(utc)

 

Everyone welcome

 

Following this note I will post the notes from Bobs last session on leads and what they mean.

 

ty

jb

[jillybean]

What does each card led mean? by: Bobh2

 

Against suits, standard agreements (4th best):

 

ACE: Aces are meant to capture Kings, not deuces. Mike Lawrence, in his book on Opening Leads, rails against leading bare (without the K) Aces, he harps on it. (underleading them is not a good idea, either). That means that when you lead an A, you have the K. This is the way the whole expert community on the planet plays, and that's the reason why, along with the fact that if you play like I was taught, to lead the K from either AK or KQ, your pard has not idea what you have. It matters. The lead of an A means the possession of the K, expert standard, regardless of what you were taught.

 

KING:

As noted above, this is not the AK???. Period. It specifically is the KQ???. It matters, time and time again.

 

QUEEN:

This denies the KQ, and actually specifically indicates only one type of holding: QJ???, preferably with the ten, too. QJ9?? is ok, but the ten is better. If you have QJ234, this is a somewhat dangerous lead, potentially giving away a trick. The longer your suit is, the less likely you will give a trick away. Still...best to have QJt??

 

JACK:

Things get tricky. Obviously, this can be "top-of-a-sequence. JT9. This is a safe, normal lead, but without the 9, it carries a chance of messing up. Example: If you hold JTx or JTxx, you need to think about not leading it. With JTxxxx, your chances of giving away a suit are lessened by a lot.

This also can be "top-of-an-interior" sequence...example: AJTxx or KJtxx. Dangerous leads in the blind, but if you know that is the suit to lead, lead the J. If your pard has raised the suit, you only have a little risk of leading into the AQ...a good pard will have at least one of those cards. You are at liberty to chastize pard if he fails you (LOL).

 

TEN:

This is almost exactly the same as the J. Lead the Ten from 1098, or from A109?? (if pard has raised...not blind). K109 or Q109, too. Be careful, this can blow up in your face.

 

NINE:

Everything changes here. No more interior sequence leads with the 9. K98x..lead small. Q98x, lead small. J98?, lead small. Mostly dont lead that suit if you can help it. The 9 is usually from 98??. It strongly suggests you don't have anything in that suit. Be careful, pard may think you have a doubleton for this lead

 

EIGHT:

about the same as the 9. It could be your lowest card, and be 4th or 3rd best, but that will be rare. Maybe K98. ? It is hard to read and pard can make a mistake, easily.

 

SEVEN AND DOWN:

Now, these start being "small" cards...standard is 4th best. As the cards get smaller, they get easier for pard to read. SIXES AND SEVENS are notoriously hard to read.

THESE ARE THE STANDARD LEADS, RIGHT OUT OF THE BOOK (BESIDES THE A FROM AK...which is "expert standard", world wide, and should have been "standard" when the game was invented.

There are some agreements you might like to play that helps with accurate reading...played by a lot of, but not all experts. Read on.

 

"JACK DENIES, 10 OR 9 PROMISES ZERO OR TWO HIGHER"

You can get fooled if pard leads the J from say, KJTxx. It matters, sometimes. Sometimes a lot. You never know. How do you solve the problem? Answer: Agree that the lead of a J flatly denies a higher honor. This makes the lead of the 10 or 9 be either top of a sequence, or the third card down in an "interior sequence". Also, remember, if you do this, and it is from an "interior sequence", it ALWAYS contains the next card up...but not the next one up after that. Example: AJtxx...lead the ten. KJtxx, lead the 10. QJT..(fooled you...lead the Q). A109..(dont lead the suit, if you have to, lead the 9. K109...lead the 9. Q109..please look for another suit, but if you must lead this, lead the 9. This is far easier for pard to read and I strongly recommend this agreement, at suits and nt.

 

"THIRD AND FIFTH BEST"

This means that you would lead not 4th best, but your third best card, or your 5th best. From K9732, you can lead the 2 or the 7...I like the 2. From K972, lead the 7. The next question is WHY? When you defend, you need to know a lot of things. Usually, with help from the bidding, you can get an approximation of the strength of declarer's hand, and sometimes, the distribution. Trumps changs things, from NT. Declarer can use trumps to ruff with, and sometimes if you play too many rounds of the suit, it is not to your advantage. It is sometimes extremely helpful to know the exact length of your pard's led suit at trick one. One use is that if you know declarer has a 6 card suit, and you know pard's exactly count in his led suit, you have eliminated half of the possible distributions. This can be very helpful. That said, playing 4th best, pard lead the 2 from K732 or K32. All you know is that he doesn't have a doubleton. Guessing time! Guessing at bridge is not a road to winning. If you play 3rd/5th, pard lead the 2, you know immediately that he has 3 or 5. You can usually figure this out. If pard leads the 6, for example and there are missing small cards, and you don't think it's a doubleton, you can make the good guess that pard has 4...and he led the third one down. Simply, you have a better chance of figuring out, real early, what declarer's distribution is. At bridge, you don't have to decide if something is worthwhile playing...just see if the experts (the real ones) are playing that. With 3rd/5th, they certainly are. Comes under the heading of "expert standard".

 

The rule of 10/11/12

When pard leads a small card, you use the "Rule of 11". If you don't know what that is or don't know how to use it, poke around. Its an important part of your bridge education. Once you learn it, come back and read the rest of this. 3rd/5th best changes the math. Instead of subtracting pard's spot card from 11, subtract from 12. If he led 3rd best, that will work. If that doesn't compute, try subtracting from 10. If he led 5th best, that works. Lay out a few hands and look at them, using this. You might be surprised.

PS. I learned to play MUD (for Middle Up Down) a long time ago. Don't play this. Play 4th if you must or are playing with a stranger, play 3rd/5th with regular partners. Just my advice.

 

AGAINST NT BIDS:

Things almost completely change. That is because what you want to accomplish is different.

ACE:

Specific lead...tells pard to either play the Q or give you count, if hedoesnt' have the Q.This should be led from AKJtx. This is so you can run the suit or shift, get pard in, and let him lead through declarer's protected Q.

 

KING:

This asks for attitude. "Do you like this suit?" is the question. Since it's normally the KQ???, pard will signal "I like" with the A or the J.

 

QUEEN:

Another specifice lead, called an "unblocking" lead, just like the A, but now, the leader is looking for the J. He is saying, "Pard, play the J if you have it, give me count if you don't". This should be led from KQT9??. The reason for this is to keep declarer from holding up with AJx and you leading it again. If you don't play this you never know what to do. If you do, you always know. Of course, the Q can be from QJt???, too.

 

JACK:

In standard carding, this could be JT9?? or an interior sequence. You never know. I suggest playing Jack Denies at nt, too.

 

TEN:

Same thing as suits. 10 shows zero or two higher, one of which is always the J and the other higher is either the A or the K, not the Q. With the QJt??, lead the Q.

 

NINE:

Just like the 10, as previously discussed. Standard: top of length, with the 8, at least. If you play J denies, it could be A109??, K109??, Q109??.

 

EIGHT AND SEVEN:

These tend to be "top of nothing", only length, but if the are the top, they'll have at least the next card under them. If you play "attitude" leads against nt, they could be from 108??? or 107??? or 97???, too. (See attitude below).

 

SIXES, DOWN.

You can play 4th best (standard) against nt, or 3rd/5th, too. Frankly the length is not nearly so critical. What is critical is that your pard knows whether or not you want the suit led back...if you have some stuff in the suit. This is why I play "attitude". I lead second best or high (depending on if my top two cards are touching) from real weak length, but low from strength, regardless of the length. 4th best is most common, but there are a lot of variations here. I like a low card to indicate I have some strength there. It is always (almost) my longest suit.

 

The end. Bob

[pclayton]

I've played with BobH2 online for a # of years.

 

He is a very strong and talented player. You will enjoy this session.

[Guest Jlall]

confused, is it monday january 9th or tuesday january 10th?

[jillybean]

its the 10th of course, wtp? ;)

 

 

thanks !

[Double !]

What does each card led mean? by: Bobh2

 

"JACK DENIES, 10 OR 9 PROMISES ZERO OR TWO HIGHER"

You can get fooled if pard leads the J from say, KJTxx. It matters, sometimes. Sometimes a lot. You never know. How do you solve the problem? Answer: Agree that the lead of a J flatly denies a higher honor. This makes the lead of the 10 or 9 be either top of a sequence, or the third card down in an "interior sequence". Also, remember, if you do this, and it is from an "interior sequence", it ALWAYS contains the next card up...but not the next one up after that. Example: AJtxx...lead the ten. KJtxx, lead the 10. QJT..(fooled you...lead the Q). A109..(dont lead the suit, if you have to, lead the 9. K109...lead the 9. Q109..please look for another suit, but if you must lead this, lead the 9. This is far easier for pard to read and I strongly recommend this agreement, at suits and nt.

glad to see someone advocating the use of coded 9s & 10s

 

I feel that my defense has improved from a D to at least a C- since I started using them. I usually like conventions or treatments that resolve or at least begin to resolve ambiguities. The darned game is hard enough as is without actually forcing me to think!

 

DHL

[ArcLight]

Bobby Hamman wrote in "At the Table" that he hates teh Jack denies convention. But Eddie Kantar likes it.

[Gerben42]

Looks like the date of the lecture was in coded 9 and 10s (of January)

[dcvetkov]

Bobby Hamman wrote in "At the Table" that he hates teh Jack denies convention.  But Eddie Kantar likes it.

It seems expert are divided on Jack denies lead. A lot of BBO Commentators dislike this conventional lead, as gives declarer too much information on missing honours. On the other hand it also eliminates a lot of guesswork for partner. Some of the top pairs in the world have it on their convetion card, so it must be good.) On the long run, still rates to be more beneficial that not.

[jillybean]

HOW GOOD IS YOUR HAND?

...by Bob Holmes

 

Early rounds of bidding is done accurately by putting your hand in little ranges. The best example is NT bids. Opening 1N is commonly the range of 15-17, etc., etc. The concept is that one player "limits" his hand (that doesn't mean he places a top limit on it, it means he plunks it into a "range"). Then the other hand bids his hand according to what his partner has told him. If you are going to get anywhere close to bidding accuracy, this is the method.

 

We have discussed the finer points of what Aces, Kings and on down do and how they function....all by themselves. We also know how they function when in suits together...such as an A and a Q in one suit is a ton more powerful that if those two cards are in two different suits. We know that "spot cards" strongly enhance high cards. Now, it's time to put that knowledge to work.

 

The first and easiest place to start to determine how good your hand is is high card points. Count 'em.

 

Question 1. Is my hand flattish or distributional? You all know that distributional hands outperform flattish hands....in fact, it takes an act of Congress to get me to open a 4333 pattern with 12 highs. I also bump up my Quantitative NT bids by a point or so if 4333. 4333's just dont produce tricks.

 

Question 2. Is my hand major oriented or minor oriented? Majors are good...minors aren't so good..why is that? Major games are one trick lower than minors. If you have majors, you can outbid the opponents in part score competitions. You know that, but that question has to be on the list.

 

Question 3. Are my high cards in long suits or short suits? Maybe this hasn't occurred to you but an example is KQ doubleton compared to KQxxx. Which would you rather have? Obviously, for offensive purposes, KQxxx. That is a serious potential source of tricks. KQ doubleton is not nearly as good...a waste of strength, actually.

 

Question 4. Are my high cards in "Controls"...Aces and Kings....or are they in Queens and Jacks? Aces and Kings take tricks. Queens and Jacks need help...that's all there is to it. If you pay close attention, you'll start treating Jacks as virtual waste paper like I do. We all use the 4-3-2-1 point count method, but you'll find that the "real" value is more like: A=6.25, K=3, Q=1.25, J=.5. No, don't try to use this like that, but it is the real value of the cards, and you can make little adjustments in your evaluation when you know that.

 

Question 5. Are my cards working together are they all scattered around? (I don't think this ever conciously occurs to people, other than very sharp, experienced players). Example: If your partner has nothing in two suits, and you have Axx in one and Qxx in the other, mathematically, how many tricks do you have? Answer: 1.25. You have to find both the A and the K of your "Queened" suit in front of you to score a trick there. BUT. If you have AQx and xxx, all you have to find is one card, the K of that suit in front of you to score two tricks....so your likely trick count is 1.5. Note that just moving the Q under the Ace made your hand significantly better. Think on this...the light will dawn.

 

Question 6. Spot cards. Yeah, they are critically important. There are 8 spot cards that really affect the strength of your hand...10's and 9's. Obviously, 2 of them in your hand is average, and more is wonderful. Do you like Axx KJxx AQx Jxx better or A109 KJ10x AQt J109 better? Both are 15 high cards, both qualify for a 1N opener. Are they the same hand? Hardly. The second hand is a total rock, for a 15 count. If you like math, let me show you why this is so:

 

Opposite xxx in partner's hand:

 

AJx has a 25% chance to make 2 tricks

AJ10 has a 75% chance to make 2 tricks

AJ9 has a 37.5% chance to make 2 tricks (I think this is amusing...just a lowly 9...and the numbers bounce...lol.

AQx has a 50% chance to make 2 tricks

AQ10 has a 75% chance to make 2 tricks and a 25% chance to make 3!

AQ9 improves, believe it or not...I think to 62.5% chance to make 2 tricks (math might be wrong?)This goes on and on...with spot cards...last example:

Axxx has one chance to make 2 tricks, that the suit splits 3-3...35.5%

A10xx...just that brings it up to right at 40%, if my math is right. You gotta find all three "on-side" but it happens....12.5% of the time.

 

Now, you have the right questions to ask yourself about your hand. I suggest you do this, just like a pilot's check list, every last hand before you bid. Keep your list right by your elbow. Good habits are built, one action at a time. It won't be long before you do it in a flash but every so often, get your list back out and see that you are doing it. Make it a lifelong habit.

 

Practical Application:

 

This is soooo simple. Look at your hand. Count your points. Ask each question and answer it. Now, you know what your hand is really worth before the bidding starts. The bidding changes your evaluation, every time....be light on your feet....move your evaluation up or down with each bid. Critically important. If your partner bids your singleton, your hand value went down. If your pard bids your xxxx suit, you hand value went up. Simple. Your partner bids your Qxx suit...up. Your pard shows shortness in your KJ9x suit....well, there went 4 points...into the trash can, likely.

 

When you know what your hand is really worth, you can "pigeon-hole" your hand so your partner knows what's up. You can accurately bid when partner issues an invitation. You know what you should do on "borderline" hands. This is one of the primary building blocks...part of the foundation of a good bridge player. Without this, you are a lost soul, and I mean that with all my heart. Nothing, not one thing is more important to the bidding game than this

[bobh2]

We had the session on hand evaluation tonight. Lots of folks. We covered the stuff in the notes above...then...we had attendees sit down to evaluate randomly dealt hands. I had a ton of fun because I could see players with not a ton of experience start evaluating how good or bad their hand was, just like pros. This is one of the cornerstones of bidding at bridge, for if you don't know exactly how much your hand is worth, you cannot tell your partner or process the information your partner is giving you. Basics....Building Blocks....gotta have them down pat or all the other work you do won't be of much use.

 

The next session I host will be putting this knowledge to work. We are going to discuss processing of information, and how we ask partner to process it. Specifically, we are going to cover the single auction of 1Major-p-2Major. How to stay out of bad games, how to bid good games, and the session will include the three most common game tries over this auction, long suit game trys (the default game try of standard bidding), short suit game tries (deadly accurate when properly used) and help suit game tries.

 

In order to use short suit game tries, we will cover a concept called "The Thirty Point Deck", a simple, dead accurate way to evaluate short suits that you can use with short suit game tries, Jacoby 2N, and splinters.

 

We all worked hard tonight...and I think we learned a lot. Next time, come work with us to improve your game. Get some rest...be fresh...this stuff will make you work your brain...(it's good for you...lol).

 

Bob Holmes