Hand evaluation

In contract bridge, various bidding systems have been devised to enable partners to describe their hands to each other so that they may reach the optimum contract. Key to this process is that players evaluate and re-evaluate the trick-taking potential of their hands as the auction proceeds and additional information about partner's hand and the opponent's hands becomes available.

Hand evaluation methods assess various features of a hand, including: its high card strength, shape or suit distribution, controls, fit with partner, quality of suits and quality of the whole hand. The methods range from basic to complex, requiring partners to have the same understandings and agreements about their application in their bidding system.

Basic point-count system

Most bidding systems use a basic point-count system for hand evaluation using a combination of high card points and distributional points, as follows.

High card points

First published in 1915 by Bryant McCampbell in Auction Tactics (page 26), the 4-3-2-1 count for honours was not established by computer analysis (as is sometimes rumoured) but was derived from the game Auction Pitch. Although 'Robertson's Rule' for bidding (the 7-5-3 count) had been in use for more than a dozen years, McCampbell sought a more "simple scale of relative values. The Pitch Scale is the easiest to remember. (Those ... who have played Auction Pitch will have no difficulty in recognizing and remembering these values.)"