[myprac]

He was, of course, the second earl of Yarborough, best known for offering to wager at 1,000 to one odds that the hand you're about to be dealt will include at least one honor (10 or higher). The odds against a "true" Yarborough hand are 1,828 to one. This hand with no card higher than an eight might be called a super Yarborough. You'll pick it up only once in 16,960 deals, so even if you play as much as I do you'll see it only once or twice a year.

My link

Unless you play a lot, and stick with it a long time, you might never see a hand with no card higher than a seven, which occurs about four times out of a million.

[BunnyGo]

Your spots summed to 64. I recall a recent George Jacobs article in the ACBL Bulletin (although I couldn't find it) where someone had a hand that summed to less than 50.

[Fluffy]

On the other side of the story we dealt once a hand with 33 HCP

AKQ
AQ
AKJ
AKQJ9

Lowest spot a 9 is the reverse to highest a 7.

Sadly for the holder we weren´t playing bridge but "Barbu", dealer asked for no tricks, the other players all doubled obviously, and he claimed at trick 4.

[eyhung]

Well, I guess I now know the worst hand I'll ever hold in my life. I was dealt :

753 53 6543 6542

in a Swiss match this year. I took a photo of the hand and it's on my cell phone. Pip count is 58. Seems really difficult to get less than 50.

[myprac]

In her book Bid Better, Play Better, Dorothy Hayden Truscott reports holding

742 654 6532 432

Fifty-three pips, if I added correctly. If you subtract a point for flat distribution your point count goes negative and you enter the Twilight Zone. BTW, she had a top board with that sorry collection, so you should never get disgusted with the cards you're dealt.

[S2000magic]

Last night my partner held:

♠ 5 3 2
♥ 7 6 5 4 3
♦ 7 2
♣ 7 6 5

Sum = 62.

[FrancesHinden]

Fluffy, on 2011-December-04, 10:32, said:

On the other side of the story we dealt once a hand with 33 HCP

AKQ
AQ
AKJ
AKQJ9

Lowest spot a 9 is the reverse to highest a 7.

Sadly for the holder we weren´t playing bridge but "Barbu", dealer asked for no tricks, the other players all doubled obviously, and he claimed at trick 4.

Trick 4? An optimist. I'd have claimed at trick 1.

[daveharty]

myprac, on 2011-December-04, 09:37, said:

You'll pick it up only once in 16,960 deals, so even if you play as much as I do you'll see it only once or twice a year.

That IS a lot a bridge.

[myprac]

daveharty, on 2011-December-07, 16:39, said:

That IS a lot a bridge.

Depends on who you ask, I guess. Recently I noticed there was a particular name that popped up frequently in my travelers, and I pulled up a week's hand records to see how he or she was doing. After what seemed like a long time BBO gave me a list of over 2,000 hands, for ONE WEEK mind you, about 300 a day. And I thought I practiced a lot! (If I'm not especially busy with, um, work, that's a good month of practice for me.)

[Phil]

Had a 71 today. 4333, but two 9's.