The Law of Total Tricks
#1
Posted 2015-June-06, 01:26
accuracy of the system,claiming it had several serious flaws. These were highlighted by top U.S. expert Mike Lawrence in his
book "I fought the Law" (1998) Has anyone here ever used this device? Can they testify as to whether it brought them improved results.
or was Lawrence correct in saying it's more of a liability than an asset?
- Dr Tarrasch(1862-1934)German Chess Grandmaster
Bridge is a game where you have two opponents...and often three(!)
"Any palooka can take tricks with Aces and Kings; the true expert shows his prowess
by how he handles the two's and three's" - Mollo's Hideous Hog
#2
Posted 2015-June-06, 01:52
#3
Posted 2015-June-06, 02:11
http://bridgebase.co...tal-tricks-lott
http://bridgebase.co...tricks-question
http://bridgebase.co...c/54809-the-law
I'm sure there are more out there, that's just what came up with a simple "total tricks" search. You can make your search more specific if you are interested in something in particular other than "do you use it"
#4
Posted 2015-June-06, 04:52
#5
Posted 2015-June-06, 06:58
Zelandakh, on 2015-June-06, 04:52, said:
I don't need it...I use the Losing Trick Count
- Dr Tarrasch(1862-1934)German Chess Grandmaster
Bridge is a game where you have two opponents...and often three(!)
"Any palooka can take tricks with Aces and Kings; the true expert shows his prowess
by how he handles the two's and three's" - Mollo's Hideous Hog
#6
Posted 2015-June-06, 07:05
PhilG007, on 2015-June-06, 06:58, said:
Then you have already decided that LTC is better than LoTT in all situations? Why did you ask the question about LoTT then?
As an side, do you use the original LTC or the MLTC? For the latter, you might find some previous BBF threads on the subject enlightening.
#7
Posted 2015-June-06, 08:45
F. Dudley Courtenay: The System the Experts Play (1934) : LTC.
Jean-René Vernes: Bridge moderne de la défense (1966): LoTT from '50s WC analysis.
Dick Payne & Joe Amsbury: Bridge: TNT and Competitive Bidding (1981).
Larry Cohen: To Bid or Not to Bid: the Law of Total Tricks (1992).
Mike Lawrence & Anders Wirgren: I Fought the Law of Total Tricks (1998).
#8
Posted 2015-June-06, 18:59
PhilG007, on 2015-June-06, 01:26, said:
Is this supposed to be a major revelation? Vernes's article is acknowledged in the 3rd paragraph of Marty Bergen's Foreword to Cohen's book. I think every well-read bridge player knows that the LOTT is based on this article.
#9
Posted 2015-June-07, 00:15
Zelandakh, on 2015-June-06, 07:05, said:
As an side, do you use the original LTC or the MLTC? For the latter, you might find some previous BBF threads on the subject enlightening.
To answer your first question....curiosity about the opinions of others.
To answer your second question...the LTC because it's best by test...
- Dr Tarrasch(1862-1934)German Chess Grandmaster
Bridge is a game where you have two opponents...and often three(!)
"Any palooka can take tricks with Aces and Kings; the true expert shows his prowess
by how he handles the two's and three's" - Mollo's Hideous Hog
#11
Posted 2015-June-07, 00:48
ArtK78, on 2015-June-07, 00:19, said:
That's as maybe but I guess I'm set in my ways
- Dr Tarrasch(1862-1934)German Chess Grandmaster
Bridge is a game where you have two opponents...and often three(!)
"Any palooka can take tricks with Aces and Kings; the true expert shows his prowess
by how he handles the two's and three's" - Mollo's Hideous Hog
#12
Posted 2015-June-07, 03:21
PhilG007, on 2015-June-07, 00:15, said:
To answer your second question...the LTC because it's best by test...
The general opinion here is that LoTT is a helpful guideline in certain circumstances but is no replacement for expert judgement.
The opinion of MLTC is mixed - some posters like it a lot and others don't. Mathematically it is a hcp count by a different name so not as revolutionary as some would have you believe.
Most here would say that the original LTC is close to useless. Statistically it is amongst the worst evaluation methods available. If you seriously believe this to be optimal then you probably need to work on your basics before incorporating LoTT into your game.
diana_eva, on 2015-June-07, 02:21, said:
And I have to ask why you allowed this Diana. If hrothgar or the hog had made such a post questioning whether PhilG had any friends, etc, then I suspect you would have edited that out of the message. Yet here you have chosen to leave it. Admittedly the message says nothing about Mike and everything about the OP and we can all see that but there is a consistency to be had. When one of our "pricklier" posters next gets upset and launches a personal attack against one of our more sensitive posters or a newbie, they can rightfully feel aggrieved to be singled out. Personal attacks are against the forum rules. This post contained such an attack without any veneer of prentence and I think you are wrong to leave it uncensured.
#13
Posted 2015-June-07, 13:28
PhilG007, on 2015-June-06, 06:58, said:
This is a misunderstanding
LTC tries to estimate how many tricks your side can win when you play a trump contract.
LOTT tries to answer whether it might be profitable to bid on in a competitive situation or in anticipation of a competitive situation.
LOTT does not answer the question how many tricks your side can make.
Some have concluded that LOTT is useless unless HCP are somewhat evenly distributed between both sides of a deal.
Zelandakh, on 2015-June-07, 03:21, said:
I disagree, though I agree with the latter that there is nothing revolutionary any more about a basic concept (later substantially refined), which was first introduced 80 years ago.
HCP usually work best for notrump contracts, LTC was designed for trump fits, where HCP does not work so well since distribution gets very important.
LTC tends to be conservative on balanced hands and is aggressive on unbalanced ones, which is sensible given the different ODR ratio of balanced and unbalanced hands.
LTC is essentially not a "high card point" evaluation method even though some have tried unconvincingly to equalize it to one.
Rainer Herrmann
#14
Posted 2015-June-07, 14:14
#15
Posted 2015-June-07, 15:10
Zelandakh, on 2015-June-07, 14:14, said:
Z, we may be talking about two entirely different concepts.
MLTC has nothing to do with HCP. It has to do with losers and cover cards. I first ran into the concept in the first Romex book by George Rosenkranz. I have used it since, and found it to be very effective. In the first Romex book, MLTC is used as the basis for the major suit raise structure and many other bids, such as the requirements for opening a Dynamic 1NT, the original Mexican 2♦ and the very strong 2♣ opening, as well as for determining which bids are minimum, middle and maximum.
Please enlighten me as to your idea of what MLTC is.
#16
Posted 2015-June-07, 15:41
ArtK78, on 2015-June-07, 15:10, said:
MLTC has nothing to do with HCP. It has to do with losers and cover cards. I first ran into the concept in the first Romex book by George Rosenkranz. I have used it since, and found it to be very effective. In the first Romex book, MLTC is used as the basis for the major suit raise structure and many other bids, such as the requirements for opening a Dynamic 1NT, the original Mexican 2♦ and the very strong 2♣ opening, as well as for determining which bids are minimum, middle and maximum.
Please enlighten me as to your idea of what MLTC is.
Well I understand what he means, but it is not for me to explain ...
#17
Posted 2015-June-07, 17:46
ArtK78, on 2015-June-07, 15:10, said:
You are still blinded by the marketing Art. Let me explain it a different way. Take a 12 loser hand, that is a 4333 hand without any aces, kings or queens, and call that zero points. To improve that to an 11.5 loser hand we need to add either a queen (call that 1.5 hcp) or change the distribution to 4432/5332 (call that 1.5 dp). Similarly, to go from 12 to 11 losers we add either a king (3 hcp) or 2 queens (1.5 x 2 = 3 hcp). And so on - each 0.5 losers equates to 1.5 points on this scale. Of course we could normalise it to a different scale if we wanted such as Zar points (6/4/2) or QP (3/2/1). I chose to use 3 points for a trick to correspond to the regular point count most people use.
Do you see the trick now? If you have understood, it should now be trivial for you to produce a point count system equivalent to the original LTC. Once you see what it really means it becomes painfully obvious just how bad that method is. And yet many club players use it and swear by it. And that is why it is my opinion that the LTC has on average lowered the standard of bridge. Even if there are a few who understand what it does, most users do not and are too blinded by the marketing. It is just another point count method, no more, no less.
#18
Posted 2015-June-07, 19:15
One of the main reasons for mediocre players staying mediocre is that they don't realize that half the time your job is to keep the opponents from playing in their best contract, not to get to your best contract. If nothing else, using LoTT helps you realize this, because to apply LoTT properly you need to compare various projected scores on a regular basis.
Actually, (M)LTC is very good replacement for LoTT, IF you remember to calculate the opponents' LTC as well as yours. That's more work (and requires more guessing) than LoTT though.
MLTC does differ from normal point count in how it evaluates singleton and doubleton honors. Having Qxx in one suit and xx in another is better than xxx and Qx. (This is even more true for QJx/xx vs Jxx/Qx or QJx/xx vs xxx/QJ.) It's much easier to see this difference with LTC based methods than with normal point count methods.
#19
Posted 2015-June-07, 21:02
akwoo, on 2015-June-07, 19:15, said:
One of the main reasons for mediocre players staying mediocre is that they don't realize that half the time your job is to keep the opponents from playing in their best contract, not to get to your best contract. If nothing else, using LoTT helps you realize this, because to apply LoTT properly you need to compare various projected scores on a regular basis.
It seems to me that the most common application of the LoTT is simply "the three level belongs to the opponents". So bid 3/2 if it seems like each side has an 8-card fit, and bid 3/3 if you have a 9-card fit or have a good reason to suspect that they do.
Any more than this is a) putting too much faith in the Law and b) pretty difficult, since at higher levels there are loads of adjustments and much of the information you need to make these adjustments will not always be available to you,
#20
Posted 2015-June-07, 23:21
Zelandakh, on 2015-June-07, 17:46, said:
Do you see the trick now? If you have understood, it should now be trivial for you to produce a point count system equivalent to the original LTC. Once you see what it really means it becomes painfully obvious just how bad that method is. And yet many club players use it and swear by it. And that is why it is my opinion that the LTC has on average lowered the standard of bridge. Even if there are a few who understand what it does, most users do not and are too blinded by the marketing. It is just another point count method, no more, no less.
I read what you wrote. I just don't agree with you.