Monday, March 21,
2005 4:55 AM
Hand Evaluation -
Patterns ( Bidding )
PITBULLS:
Benito Garazzo says Bridge is a game of suits . if
you can convey the length of your suits
accurately in bidding , you will be much
better off. Patterns are an enumeration
of all possible suit lengths in the game of Bridge . There are 39 patterns in Bridge involving 13 cards . These 39 patterns vary from 4-4-3-2 to 13-0-0-0 . 39 happens to be
divisible by the magic number 13 . For practical
purposes there are only 20 patterns worth considering ( even
7 of these are relatively rare ) which
are highlighted in bold in the table below.
|
4-3-3-3 |
6-4-3-0 |
9-2-1-1 |
|
4-4-3-2 |
7-3-2-1 |
9-2-2-0 |
|
5-3-3-2 |
6-5-1-1 |
9-3-1-0 |
|
4-4-4-1 |
7-3-3-0 |
7-6-0-0 |
|
5-4-2-2 |
7-4-1-1 |
8-5-0-0 |
|
5-4-3-1 |
6-5-2-0 |
9-4-0-0 |
|
6-3-2-2 |
7-4-2-0 |
10-1-1-1 |
|
6-3-3-1 |
8-2-2-1 |
10-2-1-0 |
|
5-4-4-0 |
8-3-1-1 |
10-3-0-0 |
|
5-5-2-1 |
8-3-2-0 |
11-1-1-0 |
|
6-4-2-1 |
6-6-1-0 |
11-2-0-0 |
|
7-2-2-2 |
7-5-1-0 |
12-1-0-0 |
|
5-5-3-0 |
8-4-1-0 |
13-0-0-0 |
The purpose of Bridge bidding is essentially describing which one of these patterns you have to partner so you can make a joint decision on the trick taking potential of your combined hands. There is a sub class of these patterns called the balanced or semi-balanced hands. These are all the patterns with a 5 card suit or less & no voids. You should always try to describe these hands with some number of NT. Do not worry if you have a 4 c