Basics

13Tricks is a hand probability calculator for standard 13 card trick playing games such as Spades, Bridge, Hearts or Whist. From a description of a set of hands, this tool will calculate how many hands match this description. With this, it becomes trivial to calculate the the probability of the described type of hand occuring.

Examples

Chance of A♠

handsWithAs = {A*s};
handsWithAs.Count() / AllHands.Count();
Output: 0.25

{A*s} creates a set of hands that contain the A♠ and any number of additional spades. Dividing the number of hands in {A*s} by the total number of possible hands gives the chance that any given hand is contained within {A*s}. This means that 25% of all hands contain A♠.

Chance of being dealt a certain number of cards in a suit

handsMinFiveSpades = {xxxxx*s};
handsMinFiveSpades.Count() / AllHands.Count();
Output: 0.17634

{xxxxx*s} creates a set of hands that contain at least 5 spades This shows that ~17.6% of all hands contain at least five spades.

More complex hand descriptions

handSet = {AQx*!Jc 0h (Ax|xxxx)s};
handSet.Count() / AllHands.Count();
Output: 0.0002

There is a lot of flexibility in defining sets of hands. The above handSet contains all the hands with at least 3 clubs(including A♣, Q♣ but explicitly excluding J♣ and implicitly exlcuding K♣) and 0 hearts and either A♠ and exactly one additional spade or exactly four spades. See HandSet for a complete description of creating HandSets.

Set operations

handSet = {xxxxx*s xxxxx*c}
.Union({xxxxx*s xxxxx*d})
.Union({xxxxx*s xxxxx*h});
handSet.Count() / AllHands.Count();
Output: 0.02808

You may use standard set operations (Intersect, Union, Subtract, Complement) on sets of hands. Here set Union is used to create the set of hands that contain at least 5 spades and at least 5 cards in a side suit.

Taking into account your hand on other player's hands

myhand = [93c QT8d KQT9h AQ43s];
westHands = AllHands.RemoveCards(myhand);
westHands.Intersect({$K*s}).Count() / westHands.Count();
Output: 0.33333

Another player cannot have hands that contains cards that we own. RemoveCards removes all hands from a set that contain the cards we already have.

Taking into account a player's bid

StandardBid0.Intersect({A*s}).Count() / StandardBid0.Count() Output: 0
StandardBid3.Intersect({A*s}).Count() / StandardBid3.Count() Output: 0.26685
StandardBid6.Intersect({A*s}).Count() / StandardBid6.Count() Output: 0.58608

The StandardBids are HandSets that contain all the hands that will result in a given bid. This is of course an estimate. See the documentation for the assumptions made to produce these bids. The above examples shows the probability a player has the A♠ for various bids.

Deals

myhand = {63c AK8532d 862h 74s};
min2Diamonds = {xx*d};
DealSet(myhand, min2Diamonds, min2Diamonds, AllHands).Count() / DealSet(myhand, AllHands, AllHands, AllHands).Count();
Output: 0.54244

If you want to calculate probabilities that are dependent on the hands of multiple players use a DealSet. A DealSet contains four HandSets representing the hands of each player in a deal. The above example shows the probability (~54%) that both of your opponents have at least two diamaonds and that you will be able to safely play A♦ and K♦ without your opponents being able to trump.