[oberiko]

I was recently looking at total point (TP) requirements for contract levels and came across COLETA. In a nutshell it advocates increasing the TP needed by 3 for each additional level and giving a "bump" by playing trumps (T) w/ trump-fit instead of NT.

For example:

• 1T: 16-18
  
• 2T or 1NT: 19-21
  
• 3T or 2NT: 22-24

And so on; further looking around seems to show a fairly universal agreement that the same contract level in trumps almost always requires less total points then that in no-trumps. This got me thinking, wouldn't it be simpler if we kept the table to static levels (i.e. 25 TP for all 3-level contracts) but included an additional set of distribution points for level-of-fit? I'm aware that many guides say not to add both "length" and "shortness" in distribution, however it looks like it is quite common among several evaluation methods.

To keep it simple, what I'm thinking is a point increase for the amount of additional trumps you hold over opponents. With 8 trumps, you get +3 points (8-5); with 9, you get +5 (9-4) and so on.

Does this sound reasonable, or am I overlooking something?

[ArtK78]

It stands to reason that the better your trump fit, the less HCP you will need to make the same number of tricks.

So, your basic premise is sound. How you implement this is another matter.

Point-count evaluation is not the be-all and the end-all of bidding. And attempts to try to quantify the degree of fit between the two partnership hands by point count is, at best, an approximation.

As you gain experience you will find that you will be able to determine if bidding game based on the magnitude of the trump fit and how the hands fit is less a matter of point count and more a matter of visualization. You will be able to play the hand mentally during the bidding based on the information that you obtain during the bidding and see if the hands are likely to produce enough tricks for game.

[han]

Get some driving experience before you reinvent the wheel.

[TylerE]

Forget about points and look at the 13 cards in front of you.