Monday, August 14, 2006 9:51 PM

Hand Evaluation – HCPS ( The Golden Rules )

PITBULLS:

There are only 40 HCP’s in the deck in the game of Bridge. This is a bench mark in assisting Bridge players to make bidding decisions & defensive decisions. 37 HCP’s in NT virtually guarantees a grand slam. 33 HCP is a nice watermark for a small slam in NT & 25-26 HCP will do nicely for a NT game unless you are Meckwell ( 23-24) .

What is less known is that HCP’s are your friend on defense also. You must be a human odometer & count HCP’s as cards are played. HCP’s are a known clue to plan your defense so “think in HCP’s” if the opponents have bid. A player had a hand playing with Tom Gandolfo that drives this point home. The defenders are nv vrs vul where leeway is routinely given when bidding non vulnerable. My partner open 1♠ vulnerable , so I bid a Jacoby 2NT. Tom “played the vulnerability” & bid 3♣. My partner passed so Tom’s partner played the vulnerability also by jamming to 5♣ on ♠QJ ♥xx ♦AJxxx ♣Axxx which I doubled. My partner pulled to 5♠ so that ended the auction.

♠	♥	♦	♣
K	K	K	K
x	x	10	Q
x		9
x		x
		x

Tom’s partner led the club Ace , everybody followed. Tom played a middle card which in their signaling system shows no particular suit preference. The first thing that strikes the defenders is the 14 HCP’s on the board. As the defender has 12 HCP’s also , she has 26 HCP’s of the deck accounted for. Vulnerable declarer must have virtually all the remaining HCP’s. You give nv partner a lot of leeway but you trust vulnerable opening bids.

Now go back your old friend patterns. The diamonds are 5-5-2-1 looking at your hand & the board ♠QJ ♥xx ♦AJxxx ♣Axxx so either declarer or partner has a stiff diamond . Does it matter who it is ? If declarer has 2 diamonds , you can give partner a ruff but if declarer has one , you are not beating this hand. Tom’s partner lays down the diamond Ace & gets rewarded when Tom ruffs. This is “standard’ expert defense. Anything but a diamond means you were too lazy to count HCP’s or apply patterns. These skills are the two basics of defense. Tom could have played a low club to signal a diamond switch but that might have been a disaster if declarer was trying to find a queen. Tom should just play “neutral” like he did letting his expert partner figure things out on her own. Being a Bridge expert comes at a price. You are expected to think.

I was watching a beginning player against Maurice & Susan who does not think in terms of the “40 HCP rule”. Maurice opened 1♥ nv & Susan bid 3♦ which was alerted as a good heart raise. The beginner had ♠KJxx ♥J ♦AKQxxx ♣AQ so what should he bid ? Lets apply the 40 HCP rule to get a “lie of the land’ as per HCP’s. You have 20 HCP , there is 13 HCP to your left & probably 7 HCP to your right. Partner has zero HCP’s !! Knowing that , I would still double for a lead & double again after their 3♥ bid to cater to the off chance that partner has very long spades. The beginning player bid 4♦ vul vrs not & Susan doubled. The final result was ugly as the beginner took 6 tricks for -1100 against +140 . Beginners have not trained themselves to think in terms of the “Golden Rules” of Bridge so disasters are common.

Thinking in Bridge comes down to the 40 HCP in the deck rule & the 13 cards in each hand rule ( patterns) & the 52 cards in the deck rule (patterns again ) & the existence of 4 suits rule. There are variations on the theme but these are the basics. Learn to think in accordance with these basic rules. These basics are your frame of reference in order to play the game of Bridge properly. These are the “Golden Rules” of Bridge.