GrahamJson, on 2017-September-11, 11:47, said:
There is a bit of a conundrum here. It seems that no 18 point hand is worth 18 points. Either it will have some values in a short suit, so a point or two should be deducted, or it will be 4333, in which case a point should also be deducted. OK if the shortage is in partner's suit maybe you shouldn't deduct points, but you get the idea.
I certainly don't advocate slavish rule-following point-counting non-thinking but I also think it fairly important to have an understanding that some hands are better than others.
What kinds of cards are located in short suits is critical - Ax is always a trick in NT. Qx is never a trick in NT
unless partner can help with the suit. Ergo, when evaluating two hands with short suit holdings of Ax, Qxx and Qx, Axx, the former is a better hand - by only a slight margin - and with no other information, provided all other cards the same.
But I am old and I was influenced strongly in my early knowledge of the game by reading books by Charles Goren, who emphasized that repeatedly making the odds-on play separated the expert from the novice as a winning bridge player, that if a queen is missing in a 2-way finesse, and you know that a side suit divided 4-3, absent any other information the expert will consistently take the odds-on play of finessing against the player who held 3.
I've always taken that advice and extrapolated it to other uses, hand-evaluation being one, and while it is certainly possible to construct hands where things work out, it is the long-term winning or losing position I always attempted to emulate.
FWIW.
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