Fought the law

[Flame]

Its amazing to see how lawrence use such a negative approch in his faught the law way, both in the book and in the book publication, i wonder why he does that.

As i see it could be to improve the seeling of his book, but i bet im not the only one who hate this kind of publicity and may not real the book just because of it (i read the book anyway). I think its more of a personal problem with larry choen, either a fight they had in real life, or something imginary by lawrence, maybe he hate the fact that choen's (and bergen's) simple books succed more then his complex books.

Does this negativity works for you ? Will you buy the book because of it ?

my answer is no and If you know mike lawrence you can tell him, this doesnt work, it give me nausea to read this kind of criticism which is more apropriate for 10 years old children.

[ArcLight]

>Its amazing to see how lawrence use such a negative approch in his faught the law way, both in the book and in the book publication, i wonder why he does that.

 

I agree with you that it doesn't help.

HOWEVER

In numerous books and writings both Marty Bergen and Larry Cohen mock world class players for not following the law and getting bad results.

Marty Bergen wrote that "the Law is more accurate than the judgment of the best players in the world". So I guess the Meckwell and Hamman and Lauria are all stupid because they don't always follow the LAW :lol:

 

I think Larry and Marty were perhaps a bit arrogant in how they touted the LAW, about how good it was. And their mocking didn't help their cause either, and it set them up to be "taken down". (I think anytime an idea is expressed as it was it sets up a bar to be knocked over)

 

10 years before Larry Cohens books Kit Woolsey talked about the LAW in his book MATCHPOINTS. He mentioned it as a guide and said that it wasn't perfect.

 

But Cohen and Bergen (esp. Bergen) were more of the "this is a law, follow it" viewpoint.

[Flame]

I dont thihnk you're right, i dont think they mock anyone, they said things like This guy xyz a great player faced this problem and didnt use the law and didnt succed, and many time this part ends by "and yet they won that event". marty and choen write in simple way, to make things simple to use, ofcourse they try to give simple rules, but the first book has 2 chapter of adjustments and one showing where even adjustments wont work and the law will fail you. The second book is all about adjusting the law. So saying that choen think or say the law is 100% accurent as just summing of trumps is just ....

I think there was a place for more books about the law, lawrence and other should have their word about it, just like there is more then one book about squeeses or any other part of the game, but should have done in in a possitive way.

[helene_t]

i found it very strange. Of course, it could be that Mike doesn't like Larry for some reason we can't know, possible even unrelated to bridge. I just wonder if he thought it would benefit the sale of his book, or the influence of his book, or both, that he wrote it in such an aggresive tone.

[hrothgar]

According to everything that I've heard, both Cohen and Lawrence are known as nice friendly folk. I'd be surprised if either of them is seriously attacking the other...

 

Even so, have any of you every seen adds for the World "Wrestling" Federation?

Drama, conflict, and grudges are a very powerful sales tool...

[arrows]

funny.

 

if you don't claim the LAW is better than experts, who will buy your book?

 

When everyone is talking about the LAW, Nobody would want another book named

"I follow the law"

 

if you don't claim the LAW is totally unreliable, How can you sell your book?

 

it's nothing else, but marketing gimmick.

[Elianna]

I'm still waiting for "...And the Law Won".

[bid_em_up]

I have not read the book at this point in time, but I will say this much:

 

Having been a frequent opponent against Mike on another online site, where my partner had hired him as an instructor for a 2 week bridge class in her country (he then would play against us as a result of this), I can state that these sentiments are way off base. Mike and I had some discussion of LOTT principles during our playing sessions while he was in the middle of writing the book.

 

The impression I got at the time was that it was not his intent to try and "disprove" the law, nor did I ever get the feeling that the writing of the book was due to any conflict with Larry Cohen or Marty Bergen. Instead, he wanted to try and improve on the application of law principles. That is he wanted to show when it is best used or not and to point out what he found to be weaknesses or technical flaws in its theory (and it does have some).

 

Whether or not this is something the book actually does, I dont know yet, since I havent read it yet. Nor do I really intend to. :ph34r:

 

I also believe the book is coauthored by Anders Wirgren. There is no telling how much of the writing is actually his but I do recall that a lot of theory supposedly within the book was already available on the net at the time we were discussing it. This information can be found at http://www.newbridgelaw.com/

 

And of course, Larry Cohen's published statement on the book may be found here:

 

http://www.larryco.com/FightLAW.htm

[ochinko]

I read the book recently, and don't find it any more negative than I expected. Perhaps it was the title that suggests the Law would be taken apart. Well, it was, but in a gentle manner IMHO.

 

Being a big fan of the Law for some time I frequently got embarrased when it didn't protect me, and I saw many other players showing better judgement than mine with the same hand. In the beginning I simply attributed it to their lack of knowledge of the Law. Was I naive, or what?

 

I find the book useful, and a much needed balance to LOTT. Their way of counting the tricks is both original and convincing.

 

If there's anything I don't like is that it takes a whole book to deliver one idea. But then again Larry Cohen filled two books that added almost nothing but examples to Verne's article. If IFtL was an article it would have made great impact, but it would also allow someone else to reap the benefits :)

[Flame]

Just to balance this last post in case someone is considering whather to read the book or not, i read the book and find it to be the worse book i ever read, it give nearly nothing to your competitve arsenal.

[luke warm]

In numerous books and writings both Marty Bergen and Larry Cohen mock world class players for not following the law and getting bad results.

i've never read anything by either of them that in any way held a 'mocking' tone

 

Marty Bergen wrote that "the Law is more accurate than the judgment of the best players in the world".  So I guess the Meckwell and Hamman and Lauria are all stupid because they don't always follow the LAW :)

how you get bergen calling anyone stupid from that quote is beyond me...

 

I think Larry and Marty were perhaps a bit arrogant in how they touted the LAW, about how good it was.  And their mocking didn't help their cause either, and it set them up to be "taken down".  (I think anytime an idea is expressed as it was it sets up a bar to be knocked over) 

i guess it's just a matter of perspective, but i didn't find them arrogant in the lease, much less did i find their tone to be mocking