As you will have seen from the video, assessing your hand as weak, individual or game-forcing is simply a question of adding your points to what your partner has shown to see if you definitely have, might have or definitely don’t have 25 points between you.

When your partner has opened a suit at the one level they will have 12-14 points the majority of the time so that should be the range you use to assess the strength of your hand for your first response. If they show more with their second bid, you can re-assess your combined point count at that stage.  So 13+ is game-forcing, 11-12 is invitational and 6-10 is weak.  With less than 6 your hand is very weak and should not be responding.

When your partner has opened 1NT, showing 15-17, then 10 points will get you to 25 when they have a minimum hand, so that is game forcing, 9 will get you there when partner has either 16 or 17 so that is invitational, but 8 points calls for a bit of judgement as you will only have enough when partner is maximum. It’s considerably less likely that partner will have 17 than 15 points when they open 1NT. The best way to think about 8 point hands opposite a 1NT opening, therefore, is that a ‘good 8’ is invitational and a ‘bad 8’ is weak.  A ‘good 8’ would have a five card minor suit (you will see in the next module that 5 card major suit holdings are treated differently opposite 1NT) and plenty of ‘intermediate’ cards, by which we mean 10s, 9s and 8s.  Although these don’t contribute high card points, they are useful for taking tricks in no-trumps, especially in longer suits. 

So this hand, with its five diamonds and a good smattering of intermediates is a ‘good 8’ and should be treated as invitational when responding to 1NT

♠ T 2

♥ A T 9 

♦ K  T 9 8 7

♣ J T 9

Whereas this one, with no long suit and lots of small cards is a ‘bad 8’ and should be assessed as weak opposite a 1NT opening bid.

♠ 6 3 2

♥ A 7 4 2 

♦ K 7 3 2

♣ J 5 3

You have seen in the video how distribution affects playing strength. This is why we talk of ‘high card points’ (HCP) rather than just ‘points’ — your hand is worth more ‘points’ overall if it contains certain features. Here are just a few principles to reinforce what you have learned and to help you judge how good your hands are:

Aces are very important, not just because they win tricks but because they give you control - you can grab that control and start to do what you want to in the hand rather than letting your opponents shape the play. The four points for an ace in one suit is a ‘better’ four points that a king and a jack in different suits.

Honour cards are more useful in long suits than in short ones. The king in KJT87 is worth a lot more than the king in K87 even though you count the same number of points for both.

Honour cards have much more trick taking potential when they are in combinations, especially of ‘touching’ cards. A holding of QJT9 (three HCP) means you can knock out the ace and king by playing two of them and then have two tricks guaranteed in no-trumps or if they are trumps. The four HCP holding of KJ9 on the other hand, may not take any tricks at all if the hand playing after it holds AQT because they can beat your ten with their jack and your queen with their king.

So when judging the strength of your hands to choose a contract, try to get into the habit of thinking about how many tricks you and your partner are likely to take with your combined hands, rather than just the point count.