I fought the law

[Flame]

Anyone read this book by mike lawrence ?

Is it good ?

Does it really go against the law or just show when and how to make adjustments ?

[ArcLight]

The book is not yet out. I ordered it in advance, but Mike Lawrence said it should ship in January (that the publisher had some problems).

 

I have not read it, but I don't think its just a rehash of the LAW. I get the impression that the author is not as strong a believer in the LAW as others.

 

I'm very curious about its contents myself. Considering how well the LAW is known, writing an "anti-LAW" book seems controversial. There will surely be many people looking to test out the ideas in this book. Right or wrong its a high profile topic, and will certainly get notice.

[whereagles]

I tend to agree the law of total tricks is better used as a guideline than gospel.

[Cowology]

I tend to agree the law of total tricks is better used as a guideline than gospel.

I tend to feel that way about everything relating to bridge.

[mr1303]

Just been reading an extract from "Bridge, Zia and me" by Michael Rosenberg

 

Larry Cohen has a dream, where he ends up in a room surrounded by 3 witches. He holds:

 

AKxxx

xxxx

x

xxx

 

bidding goes as follows (RHO opens)

 

(2D) P (2NT) P

(3D) P (P) X

(P) 3S (4D) P

(P)

 

and Larry has a think. He decides to bid 4H (to be flexible) and his partner corrects to 4S, which ends the auction

 

Dummy comes down with:

 

QTxx

AKQ

xx

QJTx

 

Left witch cashes the AK of clubs, and her partner plays the 9 then the 4, and a 3rd round is ruffed, then the A of diamonds cashed. 1 down.

 

The full deal was:

 

[hv=n=sqtxxhakqdxxcqjtx&w=sjxhjxxdqjxxcakxx&e=sxxhtxxdakxxxxcxx&s=sakxxxhxxxxdxcxxx]399|300|[/hv]

 

Left witch says "19 total trumps, 17 total tricks".

 

"But...." began Larry, before being promptly told to shut up

 

Later Larry holds the same hand again, and the bidding proceeded to follow exactly the same path, except this time left witch doubled.

 

"You don't learn from your mistakes do you?" said left witch

 

The deal is played a third time. This time Larry passed 4D

 

The full deal was:

 

[hv=n=sqtxxhakqdxxcqjtx&w=sjxhjxxdqjxxcakxx&e=sxxhtxxdakxxxxcxx&s=sakxxxhxxxxdxcxxx]399|300|[/hv]

 

Both 4S and 5D are cold

 

"19 total trumps, 21 total tricks" said the witch.

 

Larry woke up.

[cwiggins]

The book can now be ordered through through at least these three sites:

 

* Baron Barclay www.baronbarclay.com (item 5077 $17.95 plus shipping and handling)

 

* Mike Lawerence's site: Mike Lawrence order page

 

* From the site Lawrence and Wirgren have set up about the book: www.newbridgelaw.com (click "Order our book")

 

As of January 12, Amazon did not have it for sale.

[mike777]

Got the book, reading now.

[MickyB]

Also carlritner.com, the ACBL Library's book sale. $15.95 plus P+P. It is well worth a look for those outside the US as well, particularly with the current exchange rates.

[Chamaco]

* From the site Lawrence and Wirgren have set up about the book:  www.newbridgelaw.com

From what I could read on this site, their claim that the LOTT works only in 35-37% of the deals is based on an adjustment of Matthew Ginsberg's statistical analysis.

 

According to Ginsberg:

- total tricks = total trumps in 40% of the deals (adjusted to 35-37 by the authors)

- total tricks-trumps difference is exactly +/- 1 trick in 46% of the deals

- total tricks-trumps difference is +/- 2 or more in 13 % of the deals.

 

So, authors' claim that LOTT works in 35-37 % of the cases is a a little "trick" :) , maybe to advertise the book.

 

Actually, anyone using the Law, accepts a +/- 1 total trick deviation, which is also included in the undetermination of the knowledge of how many trumps the opponents actually hold.

On average, a +/-1 *total* trick, is 0.5 trick for each side, so that's where common sense, adjustments, hand evaluation and "feeling" come into play.

 

If we accept a +/- 1 total trick deviation, Ginsberg's stats reveal that LOTT approximates by *at worse* +/-1 TOTAL trick about 86% of the hands (or 83% using Lawrence & Wirgren adjustment) , which is quite a high percentage, IMO.

[ArcLight]

I'm halfway through the book.

 

The author methodically demolishes the LAW, and especially what Larry Cohen says in his 2 books. (he refutes each of the LAW rules such as moving a card from East to West not affecting the total number of tricks, or adding a trump inceasing the total number of tricks).

 

The LAW as Vernes described it is generally accurate over a large number of hands, but it has a very high variance, meaning that frequently it will be off by 1 or 2 tricks in either direction. Its more accurate with balanced hands, and when the total number of trumps is low, and less accurate the greater the number of total trumps.

 

44% accuracy on average, with 56% accuracy with 14 total trumps (while being off 2+ tricks in either direction 5% of the time), dropping to 30% with 20 total tricks (while being off by 2+ tricks in either direction a quarter of the time!!!!).

 

The author demonstrates how moving cards around does indeed make a difference in the number of total tricks, in contradiction to what the LAW says (and Larry Cohen wrote). Adding a trump can make no difference at all. And which partner is the declarer also can make a difference. Lots of factors that throw the LAW off.

 

The authors approached this as a scientist would. They didn't just say "based on looking over some hands" . They used a sample size of 1 million (1,000,000) hands to get a frequency distribution of total trumps.

Then they analysed 2,000 hands to get an exact count of total tricks.

(While a scientist would prefer more than 2,000 hands, it is probably large enough that the numbers are accurate to within 1% or so. And I wouldn't be surprised if more hands are eventually analyzed to get a slighly more accurate table)

 

 

What does make a difference? ....

 

DISTRIBUTION!!! And working HCP.

 

(no surprise there)

 

 

(its a fast read, I'll have it done in a day or so)

[Chamaco]

I ordered the book too (not here yet).

 

The authors approached this as a scientist would. 

 

I really hope their approach is MORE scientific than their way to QUOTE other people's data.

 

Any scientist knows that a rule holds true +/- some error.

 

So, to say that "the law is right only 37% of hands" is a tricky way (because it means *exactly right*) : using the same Ginsberg's data (those quoted in the book advertisment, and in the web page), one could as well say "in 86% of the hands the law approximates total trick by a max deviation of 1 total trick" ...

[ArcLight]

>I really hope their approach is MORE scientific than their way to QUOTE other people's data.

 

I'm not aware of any of their quites being inaccurate.

 

>Any scientist knows that a rule holds true +/- some error.

 

Their proint is that while the LAW is accurate on average, its not nearly as good an evaluation tool as Larry Cohen has said. (they don't beash him directly, they let the facts speak for themselves). Larry Cohen wrote in one of his books that the LAW was more accurate than experts judgement, and that is something that I think Mike Lawrence would object to.

 

 

>So, to say that "the law is right only 37% of hands" is a tricky way (because it means *exactly right*)

 

The book jacket (back of the book) says the LAW accurate on average 44% of the time. But the LAW is less accurate than that as there are more total tricks.

 

In addition, it's not always the case that the right trump suit is selected.

The author makes a good point - lets say your side has 9 spades and 10 Clubs, making 10 tricks with either suit as trumps. You want the game bonus, so you prefer Spades to Clubs, but thats not the Lawfully correct suit.

 

 

> : using the same Ginsberg's data (those quoted in the book advertisment, and in the web page), one could as well say "in 86% of the hands the law approximates total trick by a max deviation of 1 total trick" ...

 

It depends on the # of total tricks. In general the LAW is 95% accurate with 14 total tricks, meaning off by 1 or fewer tricks. Its far worse with 18 total tricks.

 

The author points out that underbiding, where you win the acution is not a problem. But if you over bid by 1 and are set an additional trick (taking a bad save) it can have a big impact on the score.

 

 

LAW accuracy (from I Fought the LAW of Total Tricks)

 

# of Frequency Exactly

total tricks Percentage Right

14 10.5 56

15 10.5 42

16 27 44

17 23 36

18 16 36

19 8.5 34

20 3.5 30

21 1

22+ 0.3

 

 

(I wouldnt be surprised if these numbers would change a percent or so with a larger sample set than 2,000 hands. The author also says so. Maybe in time this will happen)

[Chamaco]

I'm not aware of any of their quites being inaccurate.

 

 

At this web page, one of the authors (dunno if they wrote it together) says:

http://web.telia.com/~u40127101/lott.html

 

"One reason why the Law has been so popular is because it is so simple to use. But simplicity is one thing, accuracy another. In the statistics section you will learn (if you didn't know it already) that at the table the Law predicts accurately no more than 35-37% of the time. "

 

 

Then at this other web page they talk of statistics and things look quite different:

http://web.telia.com/~u40127101/stat.html

 

"In preparing for our book, we did a lot of statistics by looking at thousands of hands in many different ways. But before us, Matthew Ginsberg had done a large study published in The Bridge World (May 1996). He had let his double dummy engine (the same that he has based his very strong computer program GIB on) analyze almost 450,000 deals in order to see how accurate the Law of Total Tricks really was.

The result of his study showed these things:

the average difference between total tricks and total trumps is 0.05

the average error per deal is 0.75

total tricks equals total trumps on 40% of the deals

on 46.9% of the deals there is a difference of one (up or down)

on 13.1% of the deals there is a difference of at least two (up or down)

 

........................................

 

So, for practical purposes, to say that "The Law of Total Tricks" is right on 40% of the deals is a little too high. 35-37% will be closer to the mark. Or, put differently, slightly more often than every third deal.

"

 

 

So, the trick is using in the first sentence

"In the statistics section you will learn (if you didn't know it already) that at the table the Law predicts accurately no more than 35-37% of the time."

 

So, the key is the term they use, "ACCURATELY", which is not accurate :-)

They should use the term *EXACTLY*.

If they want to introduce "accuracy", they should give a +/- range.

Otherwise it is just a way to play with number to make it appear the Law works less often than it does... :rolleyes:

 

Indeed, from the same number they quote, it appears that on those deals the LOTT predicts the number of total tricks within a +/- 1 total trick about 83-86% of the hands, not a bad percentage indeed...

[inquiry]

I ordered the book too (not here yet).

 

The authors approached this as a scientist would. 

 

I really hope their approach is MORE scientific than their way to QUOTE other people's data.

 

Any scientist knows that a rule holds true +/- some error.

 

So, to say that "the law is right only 37% of hands" is a tricky way: using the same Ginsberg's data (those quoted in the book advertisment, and in the web page), one could as well say "in 86% of the hands the law approximates total trick by a max deviation of 1 total trick"...

I will order the book today as well. But as for the law, even if it was "more" precise than it is, that precision is hardly useful, because it is impossible for you to know with any certaintly the number of trumps both sides hold. The "law" as applied in the real world also includes a number or well known adjustments ("purity", doulbe-double fit, voids).

 

However, I look foward to reading the "new law" espoused in this book.

 

Ben

[arrows]

My humble opinion:

 

Although the claim of "LOTT is more accurate than expert judgement" is

argubly an exaggeration, I think predicting the EXACTLY total trick about

40% of the time make it quite accruate a tool in the game of bridge.

and generally correct with a deviation of 1 trick over 80% of the time

make it practically very useful.

 

I have been seeing many players making poor decisions which I believe

they wouldn't have made, were they aware of it was a violation of the LOTT.

 

I am not sure whether studying the LOTT isolately, without put it into a

context of auction, is a scientific approach or not, but I am pretty sure

it is not the bridge approach.

 

Since the LOTT often off by about 1 trick, we need frequently make some

adjustment on the "raw" prediction. Fortunately, there are always some

bidding context for us to evaluate our hands from other perspectives,

such as, shape? losers? fit in side suit? wasted high card? etc. we can then

form an evaluation on these factors and choose to bid aggressively (making

a positive adjustment to the "raw prediction") or conservatively (making

a negative adjustment to the "raw prediction").

 

Therefore, it is usually not hard for an average player, who undertands

all the basic concepts, to make better decision by following the LOTT and

the adjustment routines. And IMO, with ordinary hands, if you think you made

a "lawful" decision and it seems not worked well, chances are you have

overlooked some adjustment factors.

 

It is well known that LOTT is far less accurate when dealing with wild

distributions, off by 2 tricks or even more. And there's no reliable guidence on

how to make adjustment of 2 tricks or more.

But with wild distributions, it's more or less a guessing game any way,

even for world class players. Most bridge veterans could recall the hand

that Hamman made an unfortunate lead and the french team made slams

at both tables.

 

Demanding LOTT working with wild distribution just makes no sense. why?

because eventually we use these tools in the CONTEXT of some bridge AUCTION.

With wild distribution, chances are the auction will start at

, or immediately reach to the game level or above, at which,

most of the time, we are not even given a chance to investigate what is our

trump, why should we be worried about the accuracy of the LOTT?

In these cases, if I do know what the trumps are, I will think of following

Grant Baze's advice, "with 6-5, bid one more".

 

In conclusion, I think it's safe to say LOTT is a good start point to consider how

high one should bid in competition, and make the necessary adjustments along

the way, and this part, is the art of experts. So for me, I'll say I wouldn't want to

make a decision that crudly violates the LOTT unless I am 100% sure what

's going to happen next and prepared for it, like having a well-calculated escape

plan when partner trying to get the throat of me after the game.

[RonH]

Jusy received the book. It is not a light read . Takes a much more scientific approach in presenting arguements, pro and con.

 

Ron

[ArcLight]

>Jusy received the book. It is not a light read . Takes a much more scientific approach in presenting arguements, pro and con.

 

Ron, compared to Mike Lawrences other books I find this a much faster read. It is not a light read compared to Points Schmoints. But compared to Mike Lawrences Overcalls or Opening Leads, its a breeze.

 

 

A chunk of the book consists of hands where the authors show how the law fails when the hand is slightly altered. (i.e. moving a king from East to West)

[ArcLight]

I just finished the book. Well worth reading.

 

A fast summary is:

 

1) The LAW of Total Tricks is accurate over a large number of hands, but it has a wide variance, meaning you will frequently be off by 1 or 2 tricks in either direction.

 

2) The LAW is less accurate the greater the number of combined trumps.

 

3) The method the authors suggest has 2 components:

Distribution (they call this Short Suit Total) and

Working Points

 

 

Working Points are HCP that are useful. (Ex. Qx in the opps bid and raised suit is probably useless. A king behind a 2NT opener is suspect.) You get a bonus for long suits, and for implied ownership, meaning if you have 10 total trumps including the AK, you probably will drop the Q and J and will get creedit for owning them too.

 

SST = the sum of the length of your partnerships 2 shortest suits. If your third suit is a doubleton, reduce your SST by 1. IF its a stiff, reduce SST by 2, and a void reduces the SST by 3.

 

This method seems to work well. And the authors give many hands where the LAW fails and these work. To be fair they also show some hands where their idea doesnt work. Its in the case where you take a save with low HCP and few trumps. Thats because the opponents will lead trumps and you wont be able to ruff.

 

I think the authors tried to be fair and present the strengths and weaknesses of their system and the LAW. It seems their system is a lot better. And its easy to use.

 

use 13 - SST + adjustment for WP.

 

with 19-21 WP, no adjustment.

For every 3 additional or fewer WP, increase/reduce the number of tricks by 1.

 

Ex.

With 2 doubletons, you have a SST of 4 (2+2)

13 - 4 = 9 expected tricks.

If you have 23 WP you get a +1, and can expect to take 10 tricks.

 

 

(its a much faster read than Mike Lawrences other books, perhaps a bit deeper than Larry Cohens LAW book, but still easier than many advanced books)

[Chamaco]

1) The LAW of Total Tricks is accurate over a large number of hands, but it has a wide variance, meaning you will frequently be off by 1 or 2 tricks in either direction.

 

Off by 1 total trick is far within the tolerance used by most law followers: that's where judgement comes in.

 

 

3) The method the authors suggest  has 2 components:

Distribution (they call this Short Suit Total)  and

Working Points

Working Points are HCP that are useful.  (Ex. Qx in the opps bid and raised suit is probably useless.  A king behind a 2NT opener is suspect.)  You get a bonus for long suits, and for implied ownership, meaning if you have 10 total trumps including the AK, you probably will drop the Q and J and will get creedit for owning them too.

SST = the sum of the length of your partnerships 2 shortest suits.  If your third suit is a doubleton, reduce your SST by 1.  IF its a stiff, reduce SST by 2, and a void reduces the SST by 3.

 

This seems to converge more and more towards ZAR evaluation concept ?

ZAR accounts for length and shortness as well as for fitting honors.

[ArcLight]

First, its certainly worth buying the book. Its $16 from Carl Ritner at www.carlritner.com. Ive bought many books from him, he is reputable.

 

Secondly, the authors do a better job than I of stating their points and making their points.

 

Having said that ...

 

>Off by 1 total trick is far within the tolerance used by most law followers: that's where judgement comes in.

 

It can be off by a lot more than 1, and frequently, as the total number of tricks increases. The variance (meaning deviation from the arithmetic average) is high. Also, it can make a great deal of difference if a King is switched, which side plays the hand, etc. The LAW says this shouldn't matyter, but it does in some cases. The LAW is not a good method to use, there are better. Read the book and the authors will explain this in greater depth, with many more examples.

 

 

>This seems to converge more and more towards ZAR evaluation concept ?

ZAR accounts for length and shortness as well as for fitting honors.

 

Its not ZAR points at all. The authors discuss that having lots of trump doesnt necessarily add anything. Distribution and working points. ZAR dosnt address working points.

 

The book gives many examples of typical hands where moving a card around between the hands has a big impact on the total tricks (despite the LAW saying this wont happen), while the authors system does generally account for this.

 

 

If you are in doubt, try reading the book. See what you think then. At least keep an open mind. Time will tell which is a better system.

[mike777]

Arclight, very concise summary of the book. You captured the essence.

[cwiggins]

I was not impressed by the book and would like feedback on my criticisms of it.

 

To start with, as several others have pointed out, the book starts with a straw man argument. Cohen does not claim that the Law EXACTLY predicts the number of total tricks. Instead, “On most bridge deals, the number of total tricks will be APPROXIMATELY equal to the number of trumps.” (emphasis mine). From From “Introduction to the Law” by Larry Cohen, page 8:

 

That leads to a second fallacy in the book. Lawrence says he will prove that there is no causation between the number of trumps and the number of total tricks. But causation and predictability are different. Something can be a valuable predictor even though a causal link is not clear or does not exist. Example: living in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, when my calendar says “January,” I predict and am frequently correct that it is going to be cold outside. But my calendar saying it is January is not causing it to be cold. Similarly, whether the LOTT is causally connected to tricks does not matter if it is a good predictor. Is it? When you look at plus or minus one trick, the tables in the book show that for 16 trumps, the Law is accurate 88.2% of the time. This is close to 90%, the level that most social scientists consider to be statistically significant. So whether causality exists is less important than whether being plus or minus one 88.2% of the time is good enough. (The answer might be different for matchpoints and IMPs.)

 

That it is right to switch from approximately equal to exactly equal implicitly makes some crucial assumptions that are not explicitly backed up in the book. The missing crucial assumptions are encapsulated in these claims: (1) It is possible to predict the actual outcome to the trick based on the information from the auction and your hand. (2) To bid effectively, you need to know the exact outcome rather than plus or minus one. But don’t the examples they show of the results changing by several tricks depending on the location of a key card show that the actual outcome is not known? And are you better off if your opponents know that you are going to make your bid plus or minus one or if your opponents know you have bid exactly what you will take?

 

As for proving that the LOTT does not work by counterexamples, SST and WP are open to the same attack. Consider the following two hands opposite a 1S opening.

 

Hand A:

S-Qxx

H-Kxxx

D-xx

C-xxxx

 

Hand B:

S-Qxxx

H-Kxxx

D-xx

C-xxx

 

The SST and the WP are the same for both hands. But because of the fourth trump, Hand B is a significantly better hand. If you have hand B, declarer will encounter a bad trump split (4-0) 10% of the time while a declarer facing Hand A will encounter a bad trump split 32% of the time. The fourth trump is likely to reduce the number of trump losers against normal splits (consider playing 4S opposite Axxxxx or Kxxxx). And the fourth trump virtually guarantees at least one ruff provided partner has 3+ diamonds. When you hold only three trumps, opponents are likelier to be able to prevent a ruff. I.e. the number of trumps makes a difference.

 

Is a counterexample sufficient to discard an evaluation method? Perhaps whatever evaluation method you use, you should use judgment to identify exceptional cases (magic fits in side suits, absolutely mirrored hands, etc.), i.e. cases like the counter examples, and rely on your normal methods when you cannot identify exceptional circumstances. If that process produces accurate results, do you really care that you are using judgment in some cases?

 

I was also put off by the claim that judgment is not part of bridge when you use the LOTT. Cohen advocates using judgment to determine adjustments and exceptions to the Law. Also, it is no revelation that some contracts include running side suits and whether the contract makes or fails miserably depends on a finesse being right or a stopper being protected by its position (e.g. you hold a king while the ace is either in the opening leader’s hand or on side). I know of no modestly advanced bridge player who, just because they started using the Law, stopped using judgment to determine whether these situations exist.

 

The claim that distribution produces tricks, not total trumps is overstated. Lawrence (page 257) in one of the more moderate statement says, “Trumps are nice but you need good distribution to make them work.” I agreed. But I would add: “Good distribution is nice, but how much it works depends on how many trumps you have.” Isn’t it self-evident that if you hold a void opposite four cards, the number of tricks you will take is dependent in part on whether you have 3- or 4- card support for partner? And if you have a side suit that you want to use ruffs to set up, do you want 3- or 4-card support in the hand doing the ruffing?

 

 

Despite my negative reaction, whether the book is worthwhile depends on whether you answer the following question positively: does it let me bid better than with my current methods?

 

For me, the answer is no. My current methods are use the LOTT combined with Rosenkranz’s losers and cover cards evaluation method. I went back and compared this to every example in the book, and the LOTT combined with Rosenkranz’s methods is better than SST plus WP and is easier to apply. In case anyone wants to verify this, I’ve put a description of how to count cover cards below. (I assume that everyone knows how to count losers and plus/minus adjustments to it.)

 

I have a thoroughly marked up copy of the book with lots of other comments. But these are probably my main issues. I would appreciate feedback on these criticisms.

 

 

Description of Cover Card count

 

Losers minus cover cards = how many tricks you will lose (assuming an 8+ trump fit). E.g.: 7 losers minus 4 cover cards = 3 losers = 10 tricks for you, so bid 4M.

 

Rosenkranz's counts cover cards as follows.

* ace = one cover card

* king = one cover card

* queen = 1/2 cover card

* with three trumps, a doubleton is a plus value, a singleton is 1/2 a cover card, and a void is one cover card

* with four card trump support, a doubleton is half a cover card, a singleton is one cover card, and a void is 1 1/2 cover cards. (Extra cover cards were not awarded for 5+ trump support, which fits with the statistics that Lawrence and Wirgren propose.)

As bidding proceeds, you adjust the number of cover cards depending on what partner shows. E.g if you hold a queen in a suit that partner has 3+ cards in, count it as a cover card. If partner splinters in a suit that you hold a king or queen in, re-evaluate to zero cover cards. Also, Rosenkranz encourages you to use judgment when using the cover card and losing trick count, and gives some factors to consider to determine whether to upgrade or downgrade the loser count.

 

Rosenkranz claims “[W]hen used in tandem with point-count, this adjustment of cover cards is more accurate than the LTC.” Godfrey’s Bridge Challenge (1996) page 16

 

Among several pluses of this over SST and WP, cover cards evaluates four card support for a five card suit higher than 3-card support, which it should be and which SST and WP do not.

[bglover]

I think people focus too much on the Law and its general usefulness as a whole.

 

I've stated several times before on this forum that people misapply the Law with too much frequency and generally make a mockery of it. I've had "expert" partners who claim to be slaves to the Law misapply it so frequently that I wonder if they ever really understood it to start.

 

There is no mathematical way to quantify "judgement", which basically the Law seeks to do. If one blindly just does the trump calculations and fails to (1) listen to the opponent's bidding (to locate where outside honors are likely to be sitting, and thus make the proper adjustments for guarded kings, etc.) and (2) doesn't account properly for distributional values, the Law is worthless. And, I can say confidently that a great many players do not seem to do both of these when applying the Law.

 

It can, and should, be used as a "guide" only and can only be useful if the other factors/adjustments are used properly. My experience has been that many people never learn to use the adjustments at all. And, that obviates the value of the Law entirely.

 

I stopped playing bridge for a number of years, then returned to the game. My new partner (after my return) used to constantly refer to the Law and I had no idea what he was talking about. BUT I ALWAYS KNEW to compete another level with a 9 card fit and i ALWAYS KNEW that a hand that holding a singleton or void with a trump fit was more likely to produce more tricks than a hand that was 4432. All the Law does is quantify theses principles. Any good player knew these things long before Cohen's books appeared.

 

Misapplication of the Law is very common BECAUSE people use it to replace good judgment. To focus solely on the Law (or even primarily) to make decisions whether its proper to compete/sacrifice is, in my opinion, a mistake. There are usually "other" factors to consider. And any good player must be aware of everything going on in the hand at that moment to make the "best" decision.

[ArcLight]

>To start with, as several others have pointed out, the book starts with a straw man argument. Cohen does not claim that the Law EXACTLY predicts the number of total tricks. Instead, “On most bridge deals, the number of total tricks will be APPROXIMATELY equal to the number of trumps.” (emphasis mine). From From “Introduction to the Law” by Larry Cohen, page 8:

 

I read both Cohens books on the LAW, and he says the LAW is better than most experts judgement. (by Experts were talking people at Freds level, not a run of the mill expert who wins a regional). He presents a number of examples where the LAW gave a better result than the experts. To me he very clearly presented the idea that the LAW was superior, and while never claiming 100% perfection, he does imply that most of the time its wrong is because some adjustment wasnt factored in. So I dont think its a straw man at all. Larry Cohen vigorously presented the idea that the LAW was very accurate, and better than experts judgement. (I think he even came across as ridiculing some experts for thinking their judgement was better than the LAW). Thus I dont think this is a straw man argument at all.

 

 

>That leads to a second fallacy in the book. Lawrence says he will prove that there is no causation between the number of trumps and the number of total tricks. But causation and predictability are different. Something can be a valuable predictor even though a causal link is not clear or does not exist.

 

I think you are arguing semantics. Perhaps the correct term he should of used was predictable? It doesnt really matter. What does matter is the authors (Anders Wirgren was involved too) presented numerous examples backing their points, and refuting the LAW.

 

>Example: living in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, when my calendar says “January,” I predict and am frequently correct that it is going to be cold outside. But my calendar saying it is January is not causing it to be cold. Similarly, whether the LOTT is causally connected to tricks does not matter if it is a good predictor. Is it? When you look at plus or minus one trick, the tables in the book show that for 16 trumps, the Law is accurate 88.2% of the time. This is close to 90%, the level that most social scientists consider to be statistically significant.

 

In I Fought the LAW (hence forth IFTL) the authors point out that the LAW is fairly accurate when there are 16 total tricks, but does worse the more total tricks. 88.2% is also close to 86.4%, maybe 86.4% isnt so good? (i.e. what does 90% have to do with anything?). Is 88.2% better than experts judgement? When its off, how far off is it?

 

 

>So whether causality exists is less important than whether being plus or minus one 88.2% of the time is good enough. (The answer might be different for matchpoints and IMPs.)

 

It may very well not be good enough. The LAW may be off 2 or 3 and that may be disastrous. Thats discussed in the book.

 

The LAW is probably good enough for low total trump hands, but clearly not (as demonstrated in the book) for higher total trump hands.

 

 

>That it is right to switch from approximately equal to exactly equal implicitly makes some crucial assumptions that are not explicitly backed up in the book.

 

Yes they are. The LAW is generally accurate on average, but there may be a high variance. Suppose I had a method that predicted the total number of trick with 100% accuracy over a large number of hands, but the variance on any hand was around 3 tricks. Would that be useful? Not at all. The authors show the LAW works well enough with 14 total tricks, but not with 17+.

 

>The missing crucial assumptions are encapsulated in these claims: (1) It is possible to predict the actual outcome to the trick based on the information from the auction and your hand.

 

Yes with the method presented in IFTL. No with the LAW adjustments Larry Cohen gives.

 

 

> (2) To bid effectively, you need to know the exact outcome rather than plus or minus one.

 

To bid effectively you need to be 100% accurate most of the time, and not be too far off the other times.

 

 

> But don’t the examples they show of the results changing by several tricks depending on the location of a key card show that the actual outcome is not known?

 

They show that the LAW can be way off, in direct refutation to what Larry Cohen wrote (in bold) as one of the laws. That card position doesnt affect the total tricks. It can.

 

>And are you better off if your opponents know that you are going to make your bid plus or minus one or if your opponents know you have bid exactly what you will take?

 

I'm not sure I understand your concern. Your opponents don't necessarily know your distribution, that you are bidding in such a way becaus eyou have a void as opposed to HCP. You can bluff bid as well, you opponents dont know what you are thinking. There is psychology as well. Id rather have a 100% method and bluff occasionally, than have a less accurate method. (and Im not saying IFTL is 100% either)

 

 

>As for proving that the LOTT does not work by counterexamples, SST and WP are open to the same attack. Consider the following two hands opposite a 1S opening.

 

Hand A:

S-Qxx

H-Kxxx

D-xx

C-xxxx

 

Hand B:

S-Qxxx

H-Kxxx

D-xx

C-xxx

 

>The SST and the WP are the same for both hands.

 

***> Perhaps not, because you have 4 to the queen, you may have enough to have an implied Jack (the enemy Jack cant make because you have 9 trumps), that in turn gives you one extra WP. Or you may be ablt to take the opponents King, either through a drop or a finesse.

 

 

> But because of the fourth trump, Hand B is a significantly better hand. If you have hand B, declarer will encounter a bad trump split (4-0) 10% of the time while a declarer facing Hand A will encounter a bad trump split 32% of the time. The fourth trump is likely to reduce the number of trump losers against normal splits (consider playing 4S opposite Axxxxx or Kxxxx). And the fourth trump virtually guarantees at least one ruff provided partner has 3+ diamonds. When you hold only three trumps, opponents are likelier to be able to prevent a ruff. I.e. the number of trumps makes a difference.

 

The authors acknowledge that having 9 trumps is far better than having 8. What they also say is having 10 is probably not that much an advantage over 9. But the LAW would make a big deal out of that. The authors do a good job of showing that extra trump (say beyond 9) are not necessarily that useful, but having distribution is. In complete disagreement with the LAW.

 

 

>Is a counterexample sufficient to discard an evaluation method?

 

Not at all. Please come up with many, as did the authors in their book. Come up with a number of complete hands and lets analyze them. Im sure the IFTL method is not 100%, but its probably a lot better than the LAW in general, over a large number of hands.

 

 

> Perhaps whatever evaluation method you use, you should use judgment to identify exceptional cases (magic fits in side suits, absolutely mirrored hands, etc.),

 

! agree 100%, but thats in direct contradiction to Larry Cohen who was mocking some experts who didnt follow the LAW. The point of IFTL is to use judgement, and not rely on a simple method.

 

 

 

>I was also put off by the claim that judgment is not part of bridge when you use the LOTT.

 

Cohen mocked experts who got set who didnt follow the law.

 

> Cohen advocates using judgment to determine adjustments and exceptions to the Law.

 

He may have one blurb that sasys that, but everywhere else he's showing how the LAW is better than peoples judgement. He tries to explain the LAWs failing by people "not useing their judgement to come up with an adjustment", such as the double fit, or impurity, etc. And those may not necessasrily be detectable during the bidding either.

 

 

>Also, it is no revelation that some contracts include running side suits and whether the contract makes or fails miserably depends on a finesse being right or a stopper being protected by its position (e.g. you hold a king while the ace is either in the opening leader’s hand or on side).

 

The LAW says that the cards positions is irrelevant, the total tricks will be the same, and thats not always corrrect.

 

 

>I know of no modestly advanced bridge player who, just because they started using the Law, stopped using judgment to determine whether these situations exist.

 

Good.

 

 

>The claim that distribution produces tricks, not total trumps is overstated.

 

I disagree 100%. Shape is vital in Bridge. Imagine the opps bid a grand slam holding all 40 HCP. But the 2 opps are void in 2 side suits and each hold 2 trumps. Thats 4 ruffs for down 4.

 

 

>Lawrence (page 257) in one of the more moderate statement says, “Trumps are nice but you need good distribution to make them work.” I agreed. But I would add: “Good distribution is nice, but how much it works depends on how many trumps you have.”

 

He does say in IFTL taht you need some trumps to make use of the distribution.

If you read Mike Lawrences writings (such as www.bridgeclues.com) he is always talking about how important having 9 trumps (5-4 ) is than having 8. (He points out that a Limit raise needs 4 trumps, not 3).

 

 

>Despite my negative reaction, whether the book is worthwhile depends on whether you answer the following question positively: does it let me bid better than with my current methods?

 

For me the answer is a resounding YES. I felt it helped my hand evaluation and a few things began to click.

 

 

>For me, the answer is no. My current methods are use the LOTT combined with Rosenkranz’s losers and cover cards evaluation method. I went back and compared this to every example in the book, and the LOTT combined with Rosenkranz’s methods is better than SST plus WP and is easier to apply.

 

Please post the complete hands where your method is better, Id very much like to see them. (I have Klingers Modern Losing Trick count and thought it was interesting. He too has a number of adjustments, some which seem similar to those you listed below.)

 

 

>Rosenkranz claims “[W]hen used in tandem with point-count, this adjustment of cover cards is more accurate than the LTC.” Godfrey’s Bridge Challenge (1996) page 16

 

Please present some hands and lets take a look.

 

 

>Among several pluses of this over SST and WP, cover cards evaluates four card support for a five card suit higher than 3-card support, which it should be and which SST and WP do not.

 

Please present some hands and lets take a look.

 

 

I don't think any new theory (such as the one presented in IFTL) should be blindly accepted. It should be vigorously challenged. The way to do that is come up with hands that it doesnt work on. The authors do that themselves in their book. Also its necessary to come up with a large number of random hands and test both theories, as opposed to "stacking the deck" and only testing hands on which one method works and the other doesnt. ex. If there are 1000 possible bridge hands (out of the universe of all Bridge hands) on which theory X doesnt work then theory X is fantastic. But if one presented just those 1000 hands it would look like theory X is awful.

[luke warm]

whether or not one misapplies the law (and sure it happens) or relies on it too much has no bearing on the situation... lawrence, if i understand him, is stating that the law of total tricks is a deficient evaluation method for the same reason you are - that it eliminates judgment... this is not true, or at least it isn't true for anyone who understands cohen's book

 

as cwiggins said, anyone can knock over a straw man... it's ok to argue for or against anything one wants, but lawrence should at least argue against lott based on what was actually claimed...

 

is the lott a good indicator of the total tricks a hand contains? by adding/subtracting for purity, fit, etc, is it an even better indicator? i think it is, but i don't think it replaces (and i don't think cohen meant for it to replace) judgment

 

while you may be correct in stating that you "always knew" to compete with an extra trump, the same obviously isn't true for some other very good players (at least if one can believe the things they said and wrote about the book)... as often seems to happen, the more attention a thing attracts the more obvious it becomes