Hand evaluation a la Bamberger

My post about 'Flat hand with 16 HCP seems to have motivated a free
for all debate about hand evaluation. So let me add to the debate.

It has long been common wisdom that the primary honors, A and K, are a
bit undervalued, while the secondary ones, Q and j, are overvalued on
the Work point scale and tens are overlooked. This implies that A+K
should account for more than 70%.

In his now semi-classical book "Winning Contract Bridge Complete"
E.Kaplan opined that a more accurate point count would be :
A=4.3, K=3.1, Q=1.7 and J=0.9, but he strongly adviced against using
this scale. Note that here A+K account for 74%. His evaluation was
very close to the Bamberger count :7-5-3-1, which recalculated to the
10 scale would be ; 4.375-3.125-1.875- 0.625. Here A+K account for
75%. If one were to use the Bamberger count and after adding up the
points and multiplying the sum by 60% one would get a total of 9.6
for each suit. One could then add 0.4 for the ten card to bring the
total to 10.

It would be interesting to see a pro forma computer evaluation of 250
or more random deals based on this count and compare it with the Work
count for the same deals and also the BUM-RAP count. I've only
rudimentary computer skills and am unable to do any programming.
The best I can do is a manual count for the same 36 deals I used for
my Adjust -3 comparison. I got 574x0.6=344.4 plus 38x0.4=15.2 for a
total of 359.6 vs 357 Work points.

I noted that the A+K sum accounted for 76% with the Bamberger count
but 74% with the Work count. Also, the Aces accounted for 49% vs 45%.
Thus the hands might not have been as average as ideally implied.

Feel free to improve on my analysis by simulation.

Stig Holmquist
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hand evaluation a la Bamberger
    ... for all debate about hand evaluation. ... So let me add to the debate. ... Note that here A+K account for 74%. ...
    (rec.games.bridge)
  • Re: Hand evaluation a la Bamberger
    ... for all debate about hand evaluation. ... So let me add to the debate. ... It has long been common wisdom that the primary honors, A and K, are a ... Note that here A+K account for 74%. ...
    (rec.games.bridge)
  • Re: Hand evaluation a la Bamberger
    ... for all debate about hand evaluation. ... So let me add to the debate. ... Note that here A+K account for 74%. ...
    (rec.games.bridge)
  • Re: Hand evaluation a la Bamberger
    ... for all debate about hand evaluation. ... So let me add to the debate. ... Note that here A+K account for 74%. ...
    (rec.games.bridge)
  • Re: Hand evaluation a la Bamberger
    ... for all debate about hand evaluation. ... So let me add to the debate. ... Note that here A+K account for 74%. ... When I was a novice there was a pair that used the Bamberger count in ...
    (rec.games.bridge)
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