In contract bridge, the honor point count is a system for hand evaluation. Balanced hands A balanced hand contains no voids or singletons, at most one doubleton and not more than five cards in any suit. Hand patterns fitting these criteria are 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2 and 5-3-3-2 and represent 47.6% of all possible deals. Hands with a 5-4-2-2 pattern are considered semi-balanced and if included in the criteria for balanced hands would raise the probability of being dealt one of the four hand patterns to 58.2%. A common practice is to assign values to the four higher honors, called High Card Points (HCP) which are a rough estimate of the real value of those cards in a notrump contract: Ace = 4 HCP King = 3 HCP Queen = 2 HCP Jack = 1 HCP This evaluation method was adapted from Auction Pitch by Bryant McCampbell and first published in 1915; after opposing it for 15 years, Milton Work accepted and published it in 1929. Today the 4-3-2-1 method is known worldwide as the "Work Point Count" or "Milton Work Point Count. Four Aces In the early thirties Howard Schenken, later author of the Schenken system, formed a successful team called the "Four Aces", together with Oswald Jacoby, Michael T. Gottlieb (later replaced by Richard Frey) and David Burnstine (who later changed his name to David Bruce). They devised an evaluation method of 3-2-1-0.5, totaling 26 HCP. One over one George Reith devised another count method about 1927, in which the 10 was assigned 1 point. To maintain proportionality the points assigned were 6-4-3-2-1, making a total of 64. Vienna The Vienna System was popular among Austrian players before World War II. In 1935 Dr. Paul Stern devised the Vienna system using the Bamberger scale, which ran 7-5-3-1 with no value assigned to the 10. In fact, if we consider that a deck has 13 tricks, and that Aces and Kings win most of the tricks, the evaluation of 4 for an Ace is an undervaluation. Real Ace value is around 4.25, a King is around 3, a queen less than 2. But the simplicity of the 4-3-2-1 count is evident, and the solution to better evaluate is to rectify the total value of the hand after adding the MW points. Adjustments to MW count Honors adjustments Concentration of honors in a suit increases the value of the hand. Honors in