BBO Discussion Forums: Aces should be worth 4 1/2 points - BBO Discussion Forums

Aces should be worth 4 1/2 points, not 4. They're just that damn important. My father and I use that basis in our fairly complex system.

What do you all think?

cartruck, on 2017-May-18, 17:15, said:

Few here are going to quibble. We're possibly a little tired of the discussion though

Aces are worth around 4.5 in suit contracts but less (albeit still more than 4) in NT. Many schemes do indeed use 4.5 or the equivalent for their aces, not only modified Milton schemes (4.5/3/1.5) but also MLTC (0.5/1/1.5 losers), QPs (3/2/1), Zar Pts (6/4/2), etc. All of these normalise to approximately the same thing in terms of their power (honour card) components, although each tends to have a different way of evaluating distributional components. FWiiW, I like to use 4.5 for a non-singleton ace and 1.5 for an unaccompanied queen as a default, although that initial raw number might of course change as the auction progresses and some hands just "feel" of a certain evaluation for one reason or another.