Calculating the Zar Points
in a hand is straightforward, as you already know:
(HCP + Controls)
+
(a + b) + (a – d)
wherea, b, c, and d
are the lengths in descending order of the 4 suits of
the hand (ranging from 13 to 0).
To open, you need 26 points.
To go to a game – double the opening amount, or
52. You simply count and bid.
NOTE, that you can do just fine without this
second part of the article, which gets into somewhat
deeper stuff.
Pace yourself comfortably.
How does this fit in the bidding
space, though? And what is the bidding space to begin
with? How does the fit and misfit affect the bidding
and what is a fit to begin with? How often do you have
a fit? What are the bid-pips and the foot-prints? What
is The Theorem and how you can use it?
Questions like these will be
answered in the discussion below.
Let’s now have a look at the entire board and
see what the global evaluations would be. Now we will
consider the suits in the combined hands and the evaluation
formula will be based on the shapes of both hands.
The considerations below have been inspired by a board
given to me by Mike Lawrence as a challenge for an initial
version of the article - thank you, Mike. Here are the
2 hands of the board:
K J x x x
x
A x x x
K x x
x
K J x x x
K x x x
A x x
The best contract is 2
and the question is “Can you stop there?”I will allow myself, instead of this board to
consider 2 “almost identical boards” –
this will make it easier for me to unveil the point.
Here they come:
1)
A x x x
K x x
K J x x x
x
K x x x
A x x
x
K J x x x
2)
x
K J x x x
K x x
A x x x
K J x x x
x
A x x
K x x x
These hands in the 2 boards are “almost completely”
identical. They have:
-the same shape;
-the same HCP;
-the same Controls;
-the same top honors;
-the same Zar Points;
-the same offensive power;
-the same suit-support;
-the same level of best contract (level 2).
Still … which of these 2 boards do you like better?I’ll make it a bit harder – FORGET
that with the first board the best contract is 2
and you will score 110 while in the second one it’s
2
and you’ll score “only” 90. Let’s
pretend for a moment that each of the four suits brings
30 pt, i.e. both boards would bring you 110. NOW which
one do you like better? If any – after all they
are “almost completely” identical…
I personally STILL like the first one better. FOUR
TIMES better! Why? And why four times?
Because it gives me FOUR TIMES bigger bidding space than the second one!
Do you see that? Four times is a lot!
Let’s introduce the term bid-pips (pips is a term we use in backgammon to describe the steps
in the backgammon space). A bid-pip is any bid in the
bidding space, so there are 5 bid-pips per level, and
35 bid-pips in the entire bidding space (as opposed
to only 24 pips in backgammon – that’s why
backgammon is a simpler game :-) - and why I love it
so much). So, there are 2 bid-pips between the bids
1
and 1
, 4 bid-pips between 1
and 2
etc.
Now you probably see why board 1) has 4 TIMES bigger
bidding space than board 2)… In board 1) East
opening bid is 1
and there are 8 bid-pips to the ‘best contract’
of 2
, while in board 2) East opens 1
and there are only 2 bid-pips to the best contract of
2
! Don’t tell me that you’ll stop at the
best contract of 2
here – I’ll call the Director :-)
Things like bid-pips, bid-space, and what I call the
inherent HCP-inertia
(the fact that it is almost impossible to stop at a
contract like 2
if you have 25 HCP in the combined hands simply because
you need room to express the “additional”
and “undisclosed” power of the hands) are
all things that you HAVE to keep in mind during the
bidding process and in the same time things that can
be grasped neither by Zar Points, nor by “Czar”
points if they exist :-) As Kozma Prutkov said nearly
a century ago, “Nobody can grasp the ungraspable”
– that’s where the beauty of the game of
bridge comes from. Bidding sequences like 1
- 2
have to catch your attention and to alert you that you
have already “eaten-up” 8 bid-pips without
communicating that much of information, and to consequently
make you more conservative for this board. Let alone
the opponents’ interventions and even worse –
their pre-emptive bidding. It’s a jungle out there
:-)
To make things more clear, let’s consider the
following scenario. NOTE how important this hypothetical
scenario is in order to recognize that the bidding space
is HUGE, contrary to your beliefs, probably.
So … we are going to consider a “slightly”
different game of bridge – a game in which ALL
the 4 people are “partners” in the sense
that they cooperate towards a common goal – the
goal to REVEAL the holdings of EVERY player, ALL the
13 cards of ALL the 4 players. And you can go as high
as possible – like bid 9 NT, 13 SP, 21 CL etc.
as needed. BUT – at the end you can write down
the positions of ALL 52 cards at the table. Interesting
…
Remember that the number of all possible deals is pretty
large –
53, 644, 737, 765, 488, 792, 839, 237,
440, 000
last time I counted.
This hypothetical question has been answered by an
old friend and former partner of mine – Manol
Iliev. And the answer is pretty surprising. It turns
out (mathematically proved, of course) that everything
will be clear by the level of 6 Clubs! That’s
all!
At level 6 you’d know EVERY card of the 52 cards
on the table!
How big is the bidding space indeed, or how many different
bidding sequences are possible in the regular game of
bridge? The answer will surprise you more than the answer
about the number of all possible deals – it is
2, 400, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 TIMES bigger
than the above-mentioned number
of deals !!!
The total number of bidding sequences including doubles,
redoubles, and passes is a bit more than
128 E+45, that is -128 times 10 to the power of 45
Not enough room to fit-in the actual number :-)
So … there is room at the table – you just
have to use it wisely.
