Hand Evaluation Articles
This is a collection of articles which explore hand evaluation using what was, at the time, a new technique. Due to the revolution in the ability for computer software to solve full double-dummy problems, we can generate huge data sets and start to investigate the value of hand shapes and suit holdings in some objective fashion.Articles
- Single Hand Evaluator
- My original article, which estimates how many tricks you expect to be able to take (double dummy), looking at your own hand.
- Binky Points: An Additive Evaluator
- This uses the data from the previous article to determine an evaluator which is "additive," that is, which is defined so that the sum of your hand's value and partner's hand's value approximates the number of tricks available.
Testing Binky Points
- Comparing Binky Points to other evaluators.
- Aces and Spaces: Checking Binky Points
- Examining balanced hands with four aces and no other high cards or spots.
- Card Values for Three Notrump
- Another approach to valuations - targeted for three notrump. Is this the revenge of Milton Work?
- Conclusions and Warnings
- Some conclusions, and some attempts to avoid jumping to conclusions.
- High Card Points versus Binky Points
- Noting that one high card point is worth approximately 1/2 a trick in notrump and 1/3 a trick in suit contracts, and looking at 'refined' values for holdings from a HCP viewpoint.
- An Interactive Evaluator
- Allows you to try out various evaluators online.
- Problems with using double dummy data
- There are problems using double dummy data when building evaluators.
- Cowan's 5-4-3-2-1 Result
- Richard Cowan determined that trick values for honors down to the ten correspond fairly closely to 5-4-3-2-1. What's wrong with this picture?
Data Files
Raw Data
- NT tricks taken, by holding
- NT tricks taken, by hand pattern
- Suit tricks taken, by suit length
- Suit tricks taken, by holding
- Suit tricks taken, by hand pattern
- Suit tricks taken, by suit length
- NT tricks taken, by hand pattern
Binky Points Data
I recently regenerated the Binky Points values from a bigger set of data. There were only minor difference except for very long suits where I had little data before.
Other Articles
- Tysen's TSP Evaluator
- Tysen started with two articles on evolving Binky points with the auction, then proposes in this article a 6-4-2-1 variation.
- Wikipedia article on hand evaluation