The Law of Total Tricks

[ArtK78]

MLTC, applied properly, is a very valuable hand evaluation tool and a very valuable bidding tool.

 

I will not get into a discussion of how club level players use MLTC. In my experience, club level players have never heard of MLTC let alone have any idea of how to use it properly. So any discussion of how club level players use MLTC is, for lack of a better word, pointless.

[Zelandakh]

I think you are completely wrong on this, Zel. Learning the LTC massively improved my bridge, because it gave me an insight into how to evaluate unbalanced hands.

 

It is my impression that those who like LTC like it, because it improved their game, which means they get better results using LTC.

I think these 2 quotes together give some insight of themselves. Looking for insight into evaluating unbalanced hands, an easy solution might be to add a little for aces, subtract a little for quacks and add some points for distribution. Yet for whatever reason books for beginners using point count are sometimes reluctant to go into any detail, perhaps for fear of causing confusion on balanced hands. You ought to gain just as much insight from the one approach as the other as they are exactly the same thing.

 

Rainer's point is also one that can easily be incorporated into a point count method and with more flexibility than through the MLTC. For example, you might decide to use traditional dp values (5/3/1) for uncontested auctions but MLTC dp values (9/4.5/1.5) for contested auctions. Or use a compromise such as 8/4/2, 7/4/1 or whatever. This allows for finer tuning to be done. You might also decide that a singleton king or doubleton queen is worth more than zero hcp some of the time. When a player has been taught bridge the right way, with an eye to thinking and not just following some rules by rote, the MLTC is more of a straightjacket. Admittedly though, if someone has only been taught hcp and no distribution it is going to improve their evaluation in the short term. In the long run they would have been better off learning how to evaluate distribution the "normal" way though.

[MrAce]

I think you are completely wrong on this, Zel.

 

 

If Zel told me that my name is not Timo, I would probably go check my birth certificate again b4 I tell him that he is "completely wrong"

 

Just saying.http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif

[Siegmund]

MLTC is indeed mathematically the same thing as 3-2-1 point count with some special rules for evaluating shortness. It desperately needs a new name. It doesn't have the slightest connection to actually counting tricks. (It may well be better than the 4-3-2-1 count- thats a different topic.)

 

LTC is imperfect but is a spectacular tool for teaching intermediates how to think about which cards will take tricks or not and why. The value is not so much in the evaluation itself -- though that isn't bad for such a simple method -- as in the fact it corresponds to actual numbers of tricks.

 

As to LOTT - even more imperfect - but it had a HUGE impact on the average player's bidding style, bigger than any other book written in the last 50 years. Lawrence's book... *cough*... phoned in. There's a reason it has disappeared from sight for the last 10 years.

[nige1]

MLTC is indeed mathematically the same thing as 3-2-1 point count with some special rules for evaluating shortness. It desperately needs a new name. It doesn't have the slightest connection to actually counting tricks. (It may well be better than the 4-3-2-1 count- thats a different topic.) LTC is imperfect but is a spectacular tool for teaching intermediates how to think about which cards will take tricks or not and why. The value is not so much in the evaluation itself -- though that isn't bad for such a simple method -- as in the fact it corresponds to actual numbers of tricks.

As to LOTT - even more imperfect - but it had a HUGE impact on the average player's bidding style, bigger than any other book written in the last 50 years. Lawrence's book... *cough*... phoned in. There's a reason it has disappeared from sight for the last 10 years.

A = 1.5, Kx = 1, Qxx =0.5, Doubleton = 1, Singleton = 2. Void = 3. Trump control = 1

is a good approximation to LTC. It results in an almost identical trick evaluation, using addition, rather than subtraction. LOTT is also a crude but effective aid to judgement.