My comments about Losing Trick Count and the quote about counting losers spurred some defensive reaction from one or two readers who had been converted to LTC. Fine with me if that is the way they like to convolute their bridge brain. One reader directed me to an article on LTC by a well known English bridge identity, so I thought the deals he used to illustrate the merits of LTC worth taking a look at. I will not reproduce his full article, just the two deals that he wrote about, and the bidding that he recommended using LTC.

Hand 1. Dealer S Nil Vul

	852 QJ64 KQ974 3
KQT3 852 832 AQ9		J964 7 A65 KT852
	A7 AKT93 JT J764

You are South and have landed in a delicate 4S in a teams match. West leads the jack of clubs.
Dealer E All Vul

	J74 K842 KQ94 84
K93 JT53 7652 J7		65 A6 AJT QT9653
	AQT82 Q97 83 AK2

Would you have reached 4S if you had doubled the 1C opening? Or if you had overcalled with 1S or even 1NT? I wanted to hear from some of the people who would have doubled the 1C opening bid, and how their bidding sequence would then have proceeded. I also wanted to hear from our ‘losing trick count’ aficionados as to how the bidding should have proceeded and how the losing tricks are calculated.

You are South in a TEAMS match. Dealer East, All Vul.

AQT82

Q97

83

AK2

East opens 1C. What do you bid?

In W&W 20 you were faced with a play problem. The problem came from a normal match point session. Most NS pairs reached 4H, but the bidding was not always as I stated. In some cases, West did NOT open a weak 2D, and in one case it was East who opened with a ‘light’ 1S third in hand. That is where your bidding question came from: would YOU have opened 1S with the East hand? Only one or two of the panelists even considered a 1S opening but when East did open 1S at the club, it made a big difference to the defence, as you will see. The bidding can often influence the play and defence. Let’s take a look at the full deal.

Dealer W All Vul

	J86 J754 53 AK93
K2 3 AT9874 QT76		QT954 92 KQJ2 J8
	A73 AKQT86 6 542

Let me quote from earlier: “There is of course no ‘correct’ answer every time a bidding or play problem arises, otherwise the game wouldn’t be much fun, but maybe we can all learn something each time we are faced with a problem, if not at the table then in retrospect.”
These are the full hands as they were when this deal came up some time ago in teams play.

Dealer E NS Vul

	AJ87 732 QJ KJ65
6542 98 A8 87432		Q3 KJT654 T743 A
	KT9 AQ K9652 QT9

There were varied suggestions as to the best approach in 3NT, mostly ‘diamonds has best prospects, so play them first’, or ‘finesse spades and play West for the queen’, without any detailed specifics as to the play, but I will quote two panelists who would have made 3NT with overtricks as the cards lay.