[maris oren]

Do you add both points for shotrness and points for length after an 8 card suit is found?

[nige1]

 maris oren, on 2020-August-14, 06:41, said:

Do you add both points for shotrness and points for length after an 8 card suit is found?

IMO: One or the other. Not both. They're roughly equivalent. Some count losers. Equivalently, I count winners:

• A=1.5, K = 1, Q = 0.5
• Doubleton = 1, Singleton = 2, Void =3.
• Adjusted for duplication, intermediates and honour concentration.

Kieran Dyke, cited by Cherdano said:

The easiest way to count losers is to line up the people who talk about loser count, and count them.

Perhaps so but such simple crude yardsticks help lesser players like me

[mikeh]

As one advances as a bridge player, one's valuation methods evolve to where at least some good players don't use methods such as notionally 'adding points' for distribution, but as nige1 points out, this sort of approach is very helpful to players still developing their understanding. Back when I learned, almost 50 years ago now, the normal (as I recall it) was to add points for shortness. I recall seeing 5 for a void, 3 for a stiff and 1 for a doubleton, but I also recall 3/2/1.

Adding points, as an alternative, for length seems, as best as I can remember, to be a little more recent a concept but, again as nige1 points out, the two methods are each trying to do the same thing. If one has extra length in one or two suits, for which one adds points, one will also have shortness elsewhere. Adding points for length AND shortness means double-counting.

I do applaud you for understanding that these shape modifiers are best applied as the bidding develops, since the realization that one has to constantly re-evaluate one's hand, in light of the bidding by all involved, is a concept that many inexperienced players find difficult to consistently apply. Some hands 'grow up' as the auction proceeds, and one can be aggressive. Other times, misfits loom, and the hand is likely not worth what one originally thought, and now one becomes conservative.

My advice: use whichever method appeals to you the most, but not both, while keeping in the back of your mind that efforts to pin down the 'value' of a hand using simple arithmetical methods are a kludge. Many many players are happy to use this sort of approach throughout their bridge career. Only if you have aspirations to become a serious competitive player should you worry about the more subtle refinements used by most experts. And you need a very solid foundation in basic methods before venturing further afield.

[Stephen Tu]

 mikeh, on 2020-August-14, 12:05, said:

Adding points for length AND shortness means double-counting.

Well, depends on the formula being used, no? If one is say adding 1 point for length somewhere and counting a singleton as +2, to get hcp + 3, that's the same as a system that uses a singleton as +3 and no length points. So not necessarily double-counting.

Also it depends on what targets the system is using as estimates for when you should be bidding game and/or slam. A method that recommends both hands adding distributional bonus points rather liberally after finding fit might target 26 points for major game and 33 for slam, while one that doesn't might be targeting more 25/32.

So use whatever the book(s) you are reading recommends. Any reasonable scheme applied intelligently will recommend you be bidding/inviting game/slam on pretty much the same hands as any other decent scheme, so it shouldn't matter if you and partner are using different point count methods. With experience you should develop a feel for which features are good/bad for bidding more depending on how well the hands fit and won't be as formula dependent, though to me formulas are good for beginners/int to encourage them to bid more with more shape.

Marty Bergen has a somewhat complicated formula for reevaluating total points in his slam bidding book that adds both length & shortness points, looks reasonable enough to me.
Of course everything is pretty much an approximation and it takes some experience to get more accurate.

[crapdown4]

I wait to evaluate a hand's distribution until I hear my partner's first bid and/or the opponents'. A hand like AKxxx, x, QJxxxx, x certainly has good playing strength, but its actual value varies wildly depending on what partner bids (1H, yuck, 1NT, hooray, 3C, I want to shoot him, etc.).

I was once dealt (in a tournament no less), void, x, x, KQJxxxxxxxx. Before I could figure out what to bid, my pard opened 2S. Talk about the most deflating bid in the world. Distribution is nice, but sometimes...