A perfect Bridge hand

[GwydionM]

I've heard both that this is possible and that it isn't. One statistician reported a case when he and three honest friends apparantly got one per player. A phenomenon that was easily explained when his teenage daughters started giggling. But does it really happen without someone 'fixing' the deck?

I've found this definition, and if this is standard then I suppose the occasional player would get them, but never more than one in an honest deal.



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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[ChrisHunt]

Depends on what you mean by a "perfect bridge hand". If it's a guaranteed win in 7NT, you need to have all the aces (and more), so only one player could have one in any given deal.

If you mean having all 13 cards of one suit - which is only perfect if you win the contract (though if your opening bid is 7C I don't suppose anyone is likely to outbid you), then it is possible for multiple players to get one in a deal, though fantastically unlikely. The chance of all four people getting one is 24/635,013,559,600, or 26,458,898,316 to 1 against (the odds shorten in proportion to the number of teenage daughters with prior access to the cards).

So if you play 26 and a half billion (daughter-free) hands of bridge, you could expect it to happen once. Which begs the question how many hands of Bridge have been played by everyone everywhere since the game was invented? We could then estimate how often it actually has happened...

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd