Players who are serious about improving often focus their efforts on developing more sophisticated bidding methods. They add new conventions, experiment with different systems and incorporate widely played treatments that are often referred to as “expert standard”.
Upgrading your bidding system is one way to advance your game, but it’s not the fastest nor most effective. Far more valuable is improving your hand-evaluation skills. A new bidding gadget may come up a few times a year and actually get you to a better contract even less often. The ability to accurately judge a hand’s playing strength can pay dividends every time you play.
In the previous issue, we looked at modern approaches to assessing the trick-taking potential of opening bids. There’s more to think about later in the auction, when you have information about trump fits. To simplify these decisions, most beginners are taught to count distribution points using Goren’s 3-2-1 system (Void=3, Singleton=2, Doubleton=1). These points are added to high-card points after finding a fit.
This is a helpful tool for deciding how high to bid in your trump suit, but it has limitations. Sometimes a void is worth a lot more than 3 points and sometimes it’s a liability. To tell the difference, you need to consider other features of your hand, including trump length, side-suit fits and honor locations.
With experience, most players learn how to spot exceptions and adjust the 3-2-1 values. You can also try different systems for counting distribution points. Many of the alternatives give more weight to long suits by starting with “length points”:
Audrey Grant advises adding one point for each extra card in suits longer than four cards. This is used to determine a hand’s initial strength. When you find a trump fit, you switch to “dummy points”, using a 5-3-1 count (Void=5, Singleton=3, Doubleton=1).
Roth Point Count adds length points only for a suit of six or more cards and, if a minor, only if it has two of the top three honors. It also counts distribution points using the 3-2-1 system before a fit is found.
Kaplan-Sheinwold is similar to the Roth system, but counts distribution as 2-1-0 (Void-Singleton-Doubleton) before a fit is found. With a fit, the values increase to 5-3-1.
The Zar System counts points for honors, distribution and controls, then factors in trump length and suit fits. This is the most robust calculation, but it’s so complex that it's not a practical choice for use during a game.
Other counting systems include point adjustments for specific holdings. Some call for adding a point for each extra trump and each trump honor. A point is subtracted for an aceless hand, 4333 pattern or a raise with only three trumps instead of four.
All of these methods attempt to quantify more than just shortness. They can be improvements on the 3-2-1 system, but it’s easy to go overboard with all the point additions. You need to recognize and make your own adjustments when the guidelines are overstating the hand’s actual playing strength.
The Grant system, for example, values ♠J3 ♥Q2 ♦Q986432 ♣KQ as 13 points (10 high-card points + 3 for the extra diamonds), but it’s far weaker than what most partners would expect for a 1D opening bid.
If partner opens 1S and you use a 5-3-1 counting system, your responding hand of ♠KJ3 ♥Void ♦Q8632 ♣Q8754 isn’t really equivalent to 13 points. With only three trumps, the void might not be worth even 3 points and certainly isn’t worth 5 points.
How do experts count distribution points?
Without speaking for all, I’ll posit that most don’t use a specific method. Ask them later and they may come up with a number for a hand’s value, but at the table, they probably aren’t doing arithmetic. Their experience gives them a good sense of what a hand is worth and they rely on their judgment. If it looks like 13 points, they bid it that way, even if a counting system would call it a higher or lower number.
The biggest difference between the expert and the average player is that the expert is re-evaluating his hand multiple times during the auction. More about this and other expert counting tips in the next issue.
© 2022 Karen Walker