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LOSING TRICK COUNT METHOD OF HAND EVALUATION
This is the first of two classes on Losing Trick Count (LTC) in our series on Hand Evaluation. As usual, I will post a handout on Bluff City Bridge Club’s website.
Introduction
North South S - A 7 5 3 2 S - K 7 H - A Q 9 6 3 2 H - K 8 7 4 D - 2 D - 8 5 3 C - 4 C - 9 8 7 2 Here we see only a combined 16 points, but a rather good 4 Heart contract. It happens, but how would you bid it? How about - 1H - 2H - 4H!
A jump to 4 Hearts on only 10 points? It looks rather ridiculous to open 1H with 10 HCP’s then jump to 4H after a minimum raise from partner, but…it is the correct bid. Why? …Because the hand is unbalanced, and partner has shown a fit with your suit. In such a case, hand evaluation using high card points would not get us where we should be, but Losing Trick Count will get us there.
Let’s consider another type of hand using a highly improbable unbalanced hand, but one which illustrates our point. Most of us were taught that it takes 37 points to make a Grand Slam, but how many tricks could you take if you were dealt all 13 spades? How many High Card Points do you have? 10 HCP’s – the ace, king, queen and jack. It is the unbalanced nature of the hand that guarantees making the contract. Using traditional counting, there is no way you would reach the slam.
A further example - suppose you were dealt all the Spades apart from the Ace, and your thirteenth card was the Two of Hearts i.e., S - K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 H - 2 D - none C - none Now you have exactly a sure 11 tricks in Spades (12 Spades, less the Ace). If partner has either the Ace of Spades or the Ace of Hearts (4 points is all that is needed), you make a Small Slam; and if partner has BOTH of those Aces (8 points), you will make all 13 tricks. However, if partner has all the other points in the pack apart from the Ace of Spades or the Ace of Hearts (a total of 26 points!), they do not help at all. You only make the 11 tricks playing in Spades.
Some types of hands should be evaluated by trick potential and a good way of doing that is … Losing-Trick Count.
LOSING TRICK COUNT – THE METHOD
The "losing tricks" in a hand are added to the assumed losing tricks in partners hand and the resultant number is deducted from 24 to give the number of tricks a partnership can expect to take when playing in the established suit.
Method
Assumptions - There is a maximum of 12 losing tricks in any hand (4 suits times 3 max losing tricks).
Examples Responder now adds his losers to the assumed number in opener's hand (7). The total number of losers arrived at by this sum is subtracted from 24. The answer is what the responder should bid.
After an opening bid of 1H, partner will jump to 4H with 7 losers and 3+ in partner's suit. 7 + 7 = 14 subtracted from 24 = 10 tricks. With 8 losers and a fit, responder bids 3H (8+7=15, 24 – 15 = 9 tricks. With 9 losers and a fit, responder bids 2H. (9+7=16, 24 - 16 = 8 tricks. With only 5 losers and a fit, a slam is likely so responder may bid straight to 6H if preemptive bidding seems appropriate or take a slower forcing approach.
Second round bids When an opener bids 1H and partner responds 2H, using Losing Trick Count (LTC), opener then knows that partner has 9 losers. Now if opener has 5 losers rather than the assumed 7, opener adds the 5 to partner’s 9, subtracts the 14 from 24 and gets 10, and knows that game is likely. Opener then jumps to 4H – regardless of the points.
Losing Trick Count (LTC) is the best means of assessing unbalanced hands, but it only applies AFTER A TRUMP FIT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED. You can even use LTC to assess the trick taking potential of partner’s hand, even if partner doesn’t know LTC.
In summary, the LTC is a tool to help evaluate the trick-taking potential of the combination of yours and partner’s hands. It applies only after agreeing on a trump suit (a MINIMUM combined 8 cards in the two hands is a necessity).
Do NOT use it with No Trump hands or on misfit hands.
Let’s go over again what a Losing Trick is. Quite simply, a losing trick is a card that will not usually be expected to win a trick. A winning card is considered to be an Ace, or a King, or a Queen. All others are losers. So the suit holdings of - A K 5 or A Q 10 or K Q 4 Each has two winners out of the three cards, and so are ONE LOSER suits. Note that we consider each suit of a hand on its own, and count the losers in each suit.
A key point: there can be NO MORE than 3 losers in any one suit.
So holding the following suits, how many losers in each? Remember to consider the first three cards you hold in the suit, as you cannot have more than three losers per suit.) A- (A 7 5) B-(Q J 10) C-(A K 6) D- (8 5 432) Answers - A) two, B) two, C) one D) three. Remember, an Ace, King or Queen is considered a winner, but no more than three losers per suit allowed. So holding the following HAND, how many losers in it in total? S - A 7 5 3 H - Q J 10 D - 4 C - 8 5 4 3 2 Answer - eight (two in Spades, two in Hearts, only one in Diamonds, three in Clubs). Note that a singleton suit has a maximum if ONE loser, a doubleton suit a maximum of TWO losers. It is the total number of losers per hand that is used for hand evaluation. A hand with 7 losers is opened at the 1 level.
Bidding Using Losing Trick Count (LTC) Let’s return to our initial example: North South S - A 7 5 3 2 S - K 7 H - A Q 9 6 3 2 H - K 8 7 4 D - 2 D - 8 5 3 C - 4 C - 9 8 7 2 How many losers for North? 5. A hand with no more than 7 losers is opened at the 1 level. How many for South? 9. A responder's hand with 9 losers raises opener's bid to 2 level. With 14 total losers subtracted from 24, you get 10, meaning that opener will bid 4H after partner showed 9 losers.
Note that North has 5 losers, which LTC normally indicates is close to an opening at a forcing TWO LEVEL. The forcing two level is better bid with a 4 loser hand. This hand is, however, clearly not powerful enough in High Cards to warrant this, because its power is its unbalanced nature which is what LTC is designed to evaluate. A forcing two level bid should show a hand of power and quality, which means lots of high cards. Note also that the North hand is useless if South holds Diamonds and Clubs.
Let's apply what we've learned to a few practice hands.
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