Mark’s Tips No 2 

Hand Evaluation and the Suit Quality Test

By Mark Lincoln

The following hand is from this week’s game at Spoons. ​24/2/25

Only two North/South pairs reached a game contract and I thought it would be interesting for you to see how hand evaluation works in practice.

Board 5:  Dealer North, North/South vulnerable.

M

North opens 2H’s - which you have agreed is a weak two opening with between 6 and 10 high card points.

East passes

You (South) hold:

♠ A10 2  ♥ A 9 8 5 ♦ 9 5 ♣ A Q 7 3

A balanced hand with 14 points. As partner has a maximum of 10 points, we have a maximum of 24 points between the two hands. This is not usually sufficient strength for game and I expect this is why not many pairs reached 4 Hearts.

But, let’s think about the hand in more detail, to see if we find evidence to allow us to bid the game.

We are vulnerable and partner has opened a weak 2 in Hearts. 

They must have a good suit for this preemptive bid. 

Have you heard of the ‘Suit Quality Test’?   It is a useful measure of the strength of a long suit.

Using the Suit Quality Test helps determine whether or not your long suit is strong enough to open a weak 2.

You add up the number of cards in your long suit to the number of top honours (Ace, King or Queen) and if the number reaches 8 then you can open the suit at the 2 level.

The main reason why suit quality is important, is that it protects you against wild scores when the opponents double you.

So, on this hand, we know that North has exactly a 6 card suit and must have 2 of the Ace, King or Queen in order to satisfy the Suit Quality Test.

As our hand contains the Heart Ace, we know that North must have the Heart King and Queen.

Now, we count our cashing tricks. We have 6 cashing heart  tricks along with the  ♠ A and ♣ A, bringing our tally to 8 tricks.

If East has the King of clubs, then we can finesse to ♣ Q and our tally is now 9.

All we need is for partner to have at least 3 diamond and we could then ruff a diamond in our hand, giving the 10th trick.

This brings our trick total to a possible 10 tricks hence we raise directly to 4 Hearts. 

( well bid and well made to the 2 NS pairs in 4 hearts, Jennifer and Catherine, Shuna and Derek)