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Answers to questions on hand evaluation

1.2  If the hand on your right is bidding, this is good news, as your honours are on top of theirs (play is always clockwise). This means that, provided you are able to lead from dummy, your kings and jacks have a good chance of winning tricks. You can upgrade your hand to be worth 17 or 18 points, not 16.

Conversely, if the hand on your left is bidding, this is bad news. Picture a few ace-queen combinations in this hand, and you will be lucky to make any of your kings and jacks at all! Downgrade your point count to 14 or 15.

 1.3 Although (a) has one honour-point less than (b), most of us would judge that the presence of four tens, two nines and an eight gives (a) the edge when it comes to taking tricks. These nines and tens are not usually counted in the overall point-count but they are a distinctly positive feature, enhancing any hand and its trick-taking capacity.

 1.4 The fifth card in the club suit in (b) makes this the preferred hand of the two. Whereas (a) can only ever have four club tricks at most, (b) could easily generate five.

 1.5 (a) is clearly the better of the two, generating more certain tricks once the hand is married with the suggested honours shown. In the spade suit we now have two certain tricks compared with (cf) two possibles; in hearts we have a certain three cf a possible two and in clubs we have a certain one cf a possible one. Diamonds are the only disappointment!

 1.6 What a difference! The diamonds in (b) guarantee only two losers so four hearts is the correct contract. With (a) as your dummy, only nine ticks are likely so make sure you stay out of game.

1.7 In order of superiority (1) [best], (4), (3) then (2).

1.9 Yes---they all have thirteen points! (b) must be the best with a five-card suit and several tens. (c) is next with supported honours and several eight, nine, tens. (f) and (d) are both passable. (e) is fifth best with so many queries as to how effective these honours will be. (a) must be the worst with the doubleton king queen worth only three or four points, not five.