Blum on Bridge Losing trick count can make you a winner
	One of my dearest friends, who passed away about 12 years ago, used to say "Everything changes. Nothing changes." No matter how many books or columns such as mine are written on the subject of bridge, most of them simply hope that their readers will find their essays are easier to comprehend than those before them. I'm sure most of you have guessed by now I am an avid reader of non-fiction articles. I leave Danielle Steele and other authors to Connie when she has limited time away from her ladies wear establishment. One of the major problems facing advanced beginners and intermediates is when to invite or bid game or slam with unbalanced hands. When holding balanced hands it is easy to add your hand to partner's and arrive at a total of 26 or 33 points that, in most cases, will be enough to contract for game or slam. Probably the simplest method to apply for those messy unbalanced situations is known as "Losing Trick Count (LTC)." The idea first came to be in the early '30s in a rare original book by F. Dudley Courtenay called "The System the Experts Play." It has been written about many times since and was improved upon recently in a book authored by Jeff Rubens called "The Secrets of Winning Bridge." I will paraphrase some of these writings including a condensed version by John Blubaugh. Instead of thinking of a distributional hand to be played in a suit contract in terms of winners, evaluate your holding by counting its losers. The more trump held by the partnership the more accurate LTC becomes. For example, a 6-4 holding is more accurate than a 5-4 trump holding. And though eight trump (5-3 or 4-4) make a golden fit, a 5-4 holding increases game or slam predictability. Counting the high honors partner must hold (aces, kings and queens) to give you first, second and third round control of all four suits determines how losers are calculated. Assume you hold KQ753-AKQ-J42-95. There are six obvious losers, the spade ace plus three diamonds and two clubs. Regardless of your holding, applying LTC no one suit can have more than three losers. For example holding 85-void-865432-97643 you have eight losers. Two losers are in spades, none in hearts and three each in diamonds and clubs. The reasoning is that long suits with no honors are limited to a maximum number of three losers. Rubens states that if all your honors are kings or if you hold the same number of queens as you do aces use the standard LTC. However, for each extra ace subtract one half loser or for each extra queen add one half loser. You will notice that the average high honor is the king. Now for the formula that you apply after calculating the above. Each partner cannot have more that 12 losers, three in each suit. The partnership thus has a total of 24 losers. You will subtract the number of losers you and partner actually have from the total possible losers, always 24. There are calculation tables for both opener and responder. An opening bid that shows between 12-14 hcps has 7 losers. Hands between 15-17 hcps have 6 losers and openers between 18-19 hcps have 5 losers. The responder with 6-10 hcps has 9 losers, 10-12 hcps=8 losers, 12-14 hcps=7 losers, 15-17 hcps=6 losers and again 18-19 hcps=5 losers. These ranges are most accurate, especially if you and partner hold nine or ten trump between you. Let us assume you open 1 heart holding 16 hcps. You can count your own losers and most likely will find 6 as your hand values between 15-17 pts. You must await partner's response to use the table above. Suppose he makes the limit bid of three hearts, announcing 10-12 pts. Applying the table partner should have 8 losers. Adding his 8 to your 6 will total 14 losers in the partnership. Subtract 14 from 24 and you will find your side should take a total of 10 tricks. (Notice your true point count added to partner's=26, the number of points generally needed for game.) Thus, you can say that LTC is actually a fine tuner for point count. Let's analyze this hand from Blubaugh's version of "losing trick count": 74-A965-K8643-73. It is easy to see two losers in spades. There are also two losers in hearts and diamonds. The 965 are three losers but subtract the ace honor to reach the two-loser result. Though the 8643 look like four losers, there can be no more than three in a suit so again subtracting the king honor from three your total is two losers. Those two club losers are obvious. Total count in the hand is eight losers. However, the extra ace has a one half plus value that is subtracted from the total count giving the hand a total of seven and one half losers.