How much are high cards worth?

A few weeks ago I built a double dummy solver and have been using it to analyze the relative value of honours. I'm not sure I have the methodology exactly right and will post more on that later, but for now I'll just report the results. This is based on computer simulation of about 130,000 hands.

Card	Average tricks
A	1.2660
K	0.8145
Q	0.4618
J	0.2275
T	0.1133

The trick value is the average extra tricks taken in your side's best fit (or notrump). In order to use this, we really need to convert to a scale with 40 total points in the pack, so that values will be comparable. The following table compares the above simulated results with various point counting methods, all adjusted to the same scale.

Card	Simulated Value	4-3-2-1 Value	6-4-2-1 Value	11-7-4-2-1 Value
A	4.391	4	4.615	4.4
K	2.825	3	3.077	2.8
Q	1.602	2	1.538	1.6
J	0.789	1	0.769	0.8
T	0.393	0	0	0.4

As you can see, the 11-7-4-2-1 count is extremely close to the actual trick taking ability of honours. Probably someone has discovered this before, but I haven't heard about it. Now of course there is a lot more to life than counting points, but I think this can improve bridge decision making. Conveniently, the total of 11+7+4+2+1 is 25 so you can add up your points, double the total twice then divide by ten to get a value corresponding to the 4-3-2-1 scale.