01Hands worth knowing
| Hand | Hands | Chance | About 1 in |
|---|---|---|---|
| No cards of a given trump suit Seven cards are trump once a suit is named: the five of that suit plus the left bower. | 6,188 | 14.6% | 6.9 |
| Three or more trump in a named suit The usual threshold for ordering up without help. | 5,376 | 12.6% | 7.9 |
| The right bower of a named suit Any one card lands in your five 5 times in 24. | 8,855 | 20.8% | 4.8 |
| At least one bower of a named suit Either jack of the trump colour. | 16,170 | 38.0% | 2.6 |
| Both bowers of a named suit Right and left together, before the turn card or a discard changes anything. | 1,540 | 3.6% | 28 |
| The perfect hand in a named suit Right bower, left bower, ace, king and queen of trump. Unbeatable, and exactly one hand in 42,504. | 1 | 0.0024% | 42,504 |
| A perfect hand in any suit One in 10,626 deals for a given player. | 4 | 0.0094% | 10,626 |
| A farmer's hand (three or more nines and tens) The house-rule trigger for swapping with the kitty. | 7,896 | 18.6% | 5.4 |
| Nothing but nines and tens The "no ace, no face, no trump" misdeal hand, before trump is set. | 56 | 0.13% | 759 |
| All four aces Strong for defence and a second-round call, but no guarantee of trump. | 20 | 0.05% | 2,125 |
02How many trump will you hold?
Seven cards are trump once a suit is named: the five cards of that suit plus the left bower. With five cards from 24, the counts fall like this.
| Trump in hand | Hands | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6,188 | 14.6% |
| 1 | 16,660 | 39.2% |
| 2 | 14,280 | 33.6% |
| 3 | 4,760 | 11.2% |
| 4 | 595 | 1.4% |
| 5 | 21 | 0.05% |
Holding three or more trump is rarer than it feels at the table, which is why a two-trump hand with an off-suit ace is so often the call. See how each count actually plays out in when to order up.
03The method
Each figure is a count of five-card combinations divided by 42,504. For example, hands holding both bowers fix two cards and choose the other three from the remaining 22, which is C(22, 3) = 1,540 hands, or 3.6%. These are the odds for your own hand before you see anyone else’s cards; the turned-up card and the bidding change them from there.