Saturday, October 05, 2002 8:49 PM
Hand
Evaluation – Pavlicek on Patterns
PITBULLS:
Counting the Easy Way!
Many players
are afraid to get into counting a bridge hand because they think it is
difficult and only for the experts. It certainly would be if you tried to count every card as it is played. Forget it! Doing it that way might also drive you out of your mind. Fortunately,
there is a better way. Good players
think of each suit layout as a pattern.
There are 39 possible patterns, of which only about half are reasonably common.
If you memorize the
common ones, you will have a mental template for association. The 20
most common patterns are:
|
1.
4-4-3-2 |
|
2.
5-3-3-2 |
|
3.
5-4-3-1 |
|
4.
5-4-2-2 |
|
5.
4-3-3-3 |
|
6.
6-3-2-2 |
|
7.
6-4-2-1 |
|
8.
6-3-3-1 |
|
9.
5-5-2-1 |
|
10.
4-4-4-1 |
|
11.
7-3-2-1 |
|
12.
6-4-3-0 |
|
13.
5-4-4-0 |
|
14.
5-5-3-0 |
|
15.
6-5-1-1 |
|
16.
6-5-2-0 |
|
17.
7-2-2-2 |
|
18.
7-4-1-1 |
|
19.
7-4-2-0 |
|
20.
7-3-3-0 |
For example, say you are declarer and this is your
holding in the trump suit:
|
4 3 2 |
|
|
|
|
|
A K Q 6 5 |
Do not count
the missing trumps! Assume you cash the ace & both follow, when you cash the king an opponent shows out. Instantly you should recognize
the common 5-4-3-1 pattern as the original layout of the suit. Hence
you will always have one more card than your opponent , unless you or he ruffs.