Monday 10 August 2015

Hand Evaluation Through the Ages

I'll start this with a quiz of sorts. What would you open either of the following two hands, playing standard modern Acol? And roughly what point-count equivalent would you say they are (taking into account shape, honour location, etc)? 

Hand A:

Hand B: 


My answer on both hands in 1NT, I would be extremely surprised to find anyone who answered differently. Hand A might possible be worth upgrading if it were 4432 rather than 4333, but I suspect you'd also have to shuffle that Jack into a more useful position (something like Kxx xx AJxx AQxx might be too strong to open a weak NT, but that's quite a long way from the actual hand).

My answer to the second question is that I would rate hand A as a slightly weak 14 count (maybe 13.5, or something), and hand B as a weak 13 count (maybe 12.5, possibly even less). 

I ran both hands through Jeff Goldsmith's automated version of the Kaplan and Rubens/Danny Kleinman hand evaluation schemes, and it approximately agrees with me, although it's even more extreme in it's downgrading (I suspect both methods deduct a full point for the 4333 shape). The calculator rates Hand A as 12.80/13+ and Hand B as 10.95(!)/12+. 

Now, you ask, why am I interested in the evaluation of two such boring weak no trump hands? It's because I found both in a book by SJ Simon (A Design for Bidding) from the 1940s. He used the Hand B as an example of a hand that's too strong to open 1NT when playing a weak no trump:
"You cannot afford to have partner pass with 11 points, particularly 11 points made up without Aces"
What changed? Have we really gotten so much better at evaluating hands that we can completely flip the evaluation of two such seemingly banal opening bids? Did people just get so much better at defending since Simon's day that thin games don't make as often?

2 comments:

  1. Hand B is not good against a weak partner or in a suit contract, but could be good in NT with a partner with points as it has Jacks and Tens.

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  2. What really changed is that we understood that opening 1N doesnt mean that you have to play in NT. Aceless 4333 are terrible in a a suit contract. Unbelievably bad, and SJ simon probably played even before transfers so then Axxx Axxx Axx xx is a really bad hand, who wants to play 1N with that hand?

    Also, we changed the scoring system. Since then.

    Also, computer simulation have changed a lot of things about how we evaluate hands, and how we choose leads.

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