A MEASURE OF SUIT QUALITY

When considering a suit for various purposes---such as opening Weak Two-Bids or making other
preempts, overcalling with marginal-strength hands or in four-card major suits, opening four-card majors in
third or fourth seat, making supposedly two-suited overcalls with only four cards in one of the suits---you
will usually want to take suit quality into account. I seek a measure of suit quality. In my opinion, the
"number of points" in the suit (which Edgar Kaplan and Jeff Rubens called "suit quality" in their "Four C's"
article in the October 1982 Bridge World) won't do; although the size of the honor-cards is relevant to suit
quality, the number of honor-cards should be taken into account, and so should high spot-cards.
After some reflection, I decided to create a suit-quality count in which the ratio of the value of
higher honors to lower is less than in point-counts such as the Four Aces Count (6-4-2-1) and Doug
Bennion's Count (13-9-5-2). Although lower spot-cards are sometimes significant, I'm especially respectful
of the eight of trumps, so I've taken it as the unit of measure, a unit that I've named the berry in honor of
Berry Westra.
Here is my proposal for the count. Unlike some other counts (such as Quick Tricks, Honor Tricks,
the "Four C's" Count, and Doug Bennion's Count), the suit quality count is designed to be purely additive,
not synergistic. However, one merit of the "Four C's" Count is that it recognizes the diminishing
importance of lower cards that get "swallowed up" by top honors as the suit becomes longer. My measure
of suit quality will also vary with the length of the suit.
The basic count applies to suits of six cards or fewer. I have chosen a count that is symmetric
about the jack and separates key cards from low honors and low honors from good spot-cards. However,
for each card in a suit beyond six, I shall adjust the basic count for the "swallowing" that occurs. Each
column may be derived from the column on its left by subtracting 1 from each of the bottom four entries
and adding 2 to each of the top two entries. This preserves a scale that runs from 0 to 37, but the actual
maxima are 30 for six-card suits, 33 for seven-card suits, 35 for eight-card suits and 36 for nine-card suits.
I consider a suit to be “good” when it contains at least 18 berries (60% of the maximum strength).
However, all is relative to the bidding context and dependent on partnership agreements, and others are free
to use the scale to set different standards.

Count only the four highest cards in the suit.

6 cards or fewer 7 cards 8 cards 9 cards

ace 10 (+2) ace 12 (+2) ace 14 (+2) ace 16
king 9 (+2) king 11 (+2) king 13 (+2 -1) king 14
queen 6 queen 6 (-1) queen 5 (-1) queen 4
jack 5 (-1) jack 4 (-1) jack 3 (-1) jack 2
ten 4 (-1) ten 3 (-1) ten 2 (-1) ten 1
nine 2 (-1) nine 1 (-1)
eight 1 (-1)

Needless to say, this measure of suit quality does not apply to raising partner's suit, where other
considerations (especially trump length and ruffing values) greatly affect the quality of support.