[rpschultz9]

I understand that an A=4 a King= 3, a Queen= 2 and a Jack= 1 and you add one for each suit of 5 or more cards, but then I read that you should add 3 for a Void, 2 for a Singleton and 1 for a doubleton. That doesn’t make any sense. You’re not going to take any tricks with a Void – because there are no cards - so why would you add points for that?
Also, because I’m a masochist, I read further and bidding appears to take on a: “if it’s Tuesday and between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m. you should bid…” Does that kind of thing become clearer just by playing more or is there a short cut of some kind?

[Cyberyeti]

These rules are there to help you before you develop the judgment to evaluate stuff yourself which comes with experience.

Example of why a void is useful (which it only really is if you have a fit elsewhere, but you assume some of that absent other info):

Compare the trick taking potential:

---

---

[helene_t]

You add points for shortness if you know you're going to play a suit contract. Then again, for suit contracts honours in long suits are more valuable than honours in short suits and an ace is worth more than two queens.

So initially when you don't yet know if you are playing suit or no trump, don't count for shortnesses

[Vampyr]

Also the value of length and shortness will vary dramatically depending on what partner holds In those suits. This will become obvious with a little experience.

[ArtK78]

Above all else, don't count for long suits and short suits in the same hand. To the extent that these methods of hand evaluation are worthwhile, don't count for both or you will be double counting.

When I started learning this game, I used the basic Goren point-count bidding texts. Those texts counted for short suits - initially, one for a doubleton, two for a singleton and three for a void. But if you were supporting partner with adequate trump support, it was one for a doubleton, three for a singleton and five for a void. Long suits were never mentioned in Goren point-count bidding.

Judgment comes with practice. You learn that a short suit holding is more valuable opposite weakness than opposite strength. Eventually, you go beyond point count and learn to figure out how many tricks the two hands will produce by visualizing partner's hand as the bidding progresses.

[mikeh]

welcome to the forum.

There are some excellent books available to the beginner. I understand the Audrey Grant series are very good, and (name-dropping here) I know Audrey and know that she has consulted some of the world's best players in writing her books.

It isn't possible to do full justice to your post in the short(ish) space available in the forum, but let me start by agreeing, strongly, with Art's advice that you shouldn't count points for length and points for shortness as well. One or the other, but never both, since they are closely linked. If you have a void, then you have to have at least 1 5 card suit and will often hold a 6 card or longer or two long suits, while if you hold a 7 card suit, you will usually hold a stiff or void somewhere.

Probably the most important idea to learn, after learning the concept of counting points and becoming aware that distributional features of the hand can be assigned point values as well, is the notion that the value of the hand is not a fixed figure! It changes with every call made at the table, and it really changes a lot when different players show different things.

Consider the notion that you add a point for a 5 card suit. Why? What basis is there for this? It is because if you are on play, or your hand is dummy, you might be able to establish a small card as a winner simply by virtue of it being the last card in the suit. If that suit is trump, this could be very powerful, not only being a winner in its own right but allowing you to ruff what would otherwise be winners for the opponents.

So we look at Axxxx and say at the beginning... this is worth 4 for the A and an extra one for the length.

But what if our RHO opened a weak 2 in that suit, showing 6 of them? Now we have no chance of setting up the long card...RHO has more than we do! So it would be a mistake to say that this suit holding is worth 5 points.

More commonly, we have auctions in which our partner shows a fit for us, or auctions in which we learn that the hand is a misfit.

When we have a fit, we need to re-evaluate aggressively, especially if we have side shortness opposite what may be some secondary length in partner's hand. Now our small cards in our long trump suit can be used to ruff losers, and our long cards in a side suit can likely be established to win tricks. On the other hand, when the auction tells us that our length is opposite partner's shortness, and vice versa, then we need to devalue the hand.

What this means is that the value assigned to the hand may change, and may change dramatically as the auction proceeds. This applies to high cards as well as distribution. You pick up, say, KJx and say this is worth 4 points. RHO opens the bidding in that suit....while that doesn't guarantee AQ there, it certainly increases the possibility that your holding is now worth 2 tricks, so you would tend to see this holding as having gone up a little. Make it LHO who opened, and you'd see this holding go down in value.

The notion that you have to re-evaluate your cards every time it is your turn to bid will seem intimidating at first, but with a little practice it will become second nature.

Finally, you will eventually find, if you don't already see, that all of these numerical measures of hand strength are imprecise and not especially accurate. They represent attempts to reduce to a simple metric or measure a process that in reality requires the assessment of numerous factors and that at best is based on estimates of probabilities. Using hcp and length or shortness adjustments is a good way to begin exploration of this wonderful game, and I am not suggesting otherwise. But as your comfort with this approach increases, you should be open to other ideas....what you are learning now is a very good foundation for what you may learn later.

[Stephen Tu]

mikeh, on 2015-March-24, 17:19, said:

It isn't possible to do full justice to your post in the short(ish) space available in the forum, but let me start by agreeing, strongly, with Art's advice that you shouldn't count points for length and points for shortness as well. One or the other, but never both, since they are closely linked.

I don't agree with this at all. It depends on the scale being used. Scales recommended that count both length & shortness are using different values for the shortness than scales that count shortness only, and some are counting length only initially but then add for shortness if a fit is established. For a lot of patterns, it works out exactly the same. If for a 5431 shape one scheme has you counting 3 points for the singleton, while another scheme has you counting two points for the singleton and one for the five card suit, both total 3 points, so who cares how you arrive at the result? With other patterns sometimes there ends up a difference of +/- 1 point, but this rarely matters. In the end it's all just a trick-taking estimate anyway, and when you get better it becomes more a thing of just visualizing probable hands for partner and judging how many tricks you are likely to take, so it doesn't really matter. All initial point count estimates have to be tweaked based on hearing the subsequent auction, seeing whether the hands mesh well, whether there is likely duplication of values (partner having values in a suit opposite your stiff is worse than elsewhere for a trump contract) or not, whether there is a large trump fit or not.

I learned bidding initially from Bill Root's books, who recommended counting both length & shortness points, and don't really feel like it makes a tremendous difference either way. Kaplan also recommended something similar. It works fine IMO. Just don't mix scales, e.g. use shortness points from a shortness only method combined with length points, which would lead to some overbidding, and reevaluate as the auction progresses.

[helene_t]

If you count for shortness (because you know you are going to play a suit contract) you should also count for length of the trump suit.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the points assigned to high cards measure the trick taking abillity, the Ace gest most,
since he basically gurantess a trick, 2nd in line is the King, and so on.

Shortages by itself dont take tricks, but if you are in suit contract with a 4-4 fit,
a shortage allowes you to take an additional trick by ruffing. Hence in the presence of
a fit, shortages generate add. tricks.
Add. tricks get only generated, if you ruff with trumps that are in the hand with fewer
trumps, with 44 it does not matter, which hand ruffs, but add. ruffs have to be in the same
hand to generate add. tricks.

Finnally, if you have length, you have shortage, this means counting length and shortage is
counting the same thing twice.
Length without honor is also quite useless, since length will only generate tricks, if you
can establish the 5th / 6th card, which is hard, if they have all the honors.

In short: If you dont count length / shortage in the beginning, you will be doing fine for a
long time.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Zelandakh]

Hello rpschultz9 and welcome to the BBO forums! The array of various valuation schemes is enough to make one's head spin when taking up bridge. I know I also went through a period of confusion as a complete beginner so do not feel bad about it. As others have already mentioned, length points and points for shortages are used in different circumstances. The former is used before you find a fit to "show" that, for example, a 5332 hand is worth more than one with 4333 shape. Meanwhile shortage points are used after a fit has been found and represent the potential for ruffing losers.

I personally suggest something that I personally find simpler, namely forgetting about length points altogether except in specific circumstances. Instead you can build the length points into the ranges. For example, you might define the range for a reverse as 17+hcp + LP, or you could say it is 16+hcp. In the normal case (5-4 shape) it amounts to the same thing. In this way you only have to worry about extra length. Now it is true that extra length is usually a plus, as are aces and points in long suits or concentrated together. Good intermediate level evaluation tends to come from taking your basic hcp count and upgrading for these plus features, perhaps also downgrading for negative feature such as unsupported quacks (queens and jacks). Each such "plus" tends to work out as around half a point. The advantage of this approach is that you start thinking about the hand as a whole, which helps lead into more advanced evaluation and judgement.

[blackshoe]

Hand evaluation is more art than science. As someone said upthread, good hand evaluation comes with experience. That said, I like Marty Bergen's rules, as expressed in the pamphlet Hand Evaluation, part of his "Secrets to Winning Bridge" series. Ten bucks from Baron Barclay or Amazon. It's kind of complicated to explain, but easy to apply once you get used to it. And I think the pamphlet is well worth the read, even for beginners. It's similar to what Zel suggests above.

[perko90]

I would not recommend counting shortness before you find a suit fit.

For opening, Bergen's "Rule of 20" will get you most of the way there.
Add your HCPs + length in your 2 longest suits; if it's >= 20 you open.
I'd also suggest subtracting 1 pt for an Ace-less hand and/or a singleton honor.

There's other adjustments you can add as you advance (quick tricks, T's, hard shapes to rebid (ex. 1-4-4-4), etc.), but they can wait until you're ready. Those are more in the "art" category.

[fromageGB]

Yes, there is a short cut. Forget completely about shortness points and length points. Just count HCPs and open a suit as in perko's post. As the bidding develops, look at Zelandakh's comments about upgrading and downgrading. That gets you thinking about the hand and the fit, and judgement improves with experience.