[relknes]

Hi. I have recently started incorperating the Losing Trick Count into my bidding. I was wondering how the lighter openings that a strong club system allows would affect the LTC.
In systems where an opening promises a minimum of 12-13 points, responder can safely assume that opener has at most 7 losing tricks. However, many people who use a strong club routinely open hands with 11 or even 10 points. How does this affect the LTC? Should responder now assume 8 losing tricks? What if opener will only have 10-11 points if they have an unbalanced hand?

[mikestar13]

It really depends on what your light opener's look like. If they promise shape, 7 losers are a reasonable assumption, if you will routinely open balanced 10's, 11's, and bad 12's, better make it 8 losers. If your openings are somewhere in the middle, 7 1/2 losers is reasonable if you evaluate to half-loser precision in your use of the LTC. I'm not particularly advocating LTC, but I think these numbers are reasonable.

[awm]

My tendency is to avoid opening hands with less than seven losers.

However, note that there are many hands like KQJxx x Kxxx xxx that qualify as "seven losers" but which I would never open in a standard system. These hands get opened in strong club for me.

[dake50]

Very fine line for those hands where responding to a
possibly light opener changes what he intends to show.
What bids would change if opener has 8-losers vs. 7-losers?
I think only minimum rebids are "minimum".

[relknes]

dake50, on 2012-February-19, 23:30, said:

What bids would change if opener has 8-losers vs. 7-losers?

If opener bids, say, 1♥, and responder holds:
♠AQxxx
♥xxxx
♦x
♣xxx
Applying the LTC, this is an 8 loser hand. If partner has 7 or fewer losers, you sould invite game with 3♥. If partner has 8 or fewer losers, a simple raise to 2♥ is all you can manage.
If partner knows you are assuming 7 losing tricks, then they have to pass 2♥ with 6 losers. If they know you are assuming 8 losers, they have to make a game try with 6 losers.
Likewise, if partner knows you are assuming 7 losers, they will pass an invite with 7 losing tricks. If they know you are assuming 8 losers, they would accept the invite with 7 losing tricks.

[rhm]

relknes, on 2012-February-20, 00:41, said:

If opener bids, say, 1♥, and responder holds:
♠AQxxx
♥xxxx
♦x
♣xxx
Applying the LTC, this is an 8 loser hand. If partner has 7 or fewer losers, you sould invite game with 3♥. If partner has 8 or fewer losers, a simple raise to 2♥ is all you can manage.
If partner knows you are assuming 7 losing tricks, then they have to pass 2♥ with 6 losers. If they know you are assuming 8 losers, they have to make a game try with 6 losers.
Likewise, if partner knows you are assuming 7 losers, they will pass an invite with 7 losing tricks. If they know you are assuming 8 losers, they would accept the invite with 7 losing tricks.

Your problem has nothing to do with LTC.
It has to do with light openers.
The same type of arguments you are raising can be raised on HCP as well.
If your openings get lighter responders actions have to get stronger or you will go down a lot.
So if your minimum openings in a major are based on more than 7 losers responder has to adjust.
On the above hand ♠AQxxx ♥xxxx ♦x ♣xxx I would consider a mixed raise - not a limit raise - appropriate and by today's standards I am not a particular light opener.
Of course a lot depends how well the hands fit and no evaluation method can predict that outside of the trump suit (unless you start bidding your side suits).
The overbidders will of course get lucky when the hands fit well, e.g.opener's hand turns out to be ♠KJx,♥AKxxx,♦xxxx,♣x.
But change opener's hand to ♠x ♥AKxxx,♦KJxx,♣xxx and 2♥ would be quite enough.

Rainer Herrmann

[relknes]

rhm, on 2012-February-20, 04:05, said:

Your problem has nothing to do with LTC.
It has to do with light openers.
The same type of arguments you are raising can be raised on HCP as well.
If your openings get lighter responders actions have to get stronger or you will go down a lot.
So if your minimum openings in a major are based on more than 7 losers responder has to adjust.

That is exactly my point. Responder's hands have to be stronger in proportion to how much weaker opener is expected to be... my question was how much weaker is opener expected to be in terms of their LTC.

rhm, on 2012-February-20, 04:05, said:

On the above hand ♠AQxxx ♥xxxx ♦x ♣xxx I would consider a mixed raise - not a limit raise - appropriate and by today's standards I am not a particular light opener.
Of course a lot depends how well the hands fit and no evaluation method can predict that outside of the trump suit (unless you start bidding your side suits).
The overbidders will of course get lucky when the hands fit well, e.g.opener's hand turns out to be ♠KJx,♥AKxxx,♦xxxx,♣x.
But change opener's hand to ♠x ♥AKxxx,♦KJxx,♣xxx and 2♥ would be quite enough.

If you have duplicated values in 2 suits (a singleton oposite AQxxx and a singleton oposite KJxx in your example), it is true that you go down unless the spade finesse works and you can dump a loser on the A before they cash their winners (which seems unlikly). It is also true that with perfectly working values, you will make an overtrick. This is true in any evaluation system, but particularly true in the LTC which is notorious for overvaluing kings and queens oposite shortness as well as overvaluing shortness oposite shortness. I am prety sure, however, that an 8 loser hand oposite a 7 loser hand is predicted to make 3 according to the LTC... 24-7-8=9. The fact that this prediction is sometimes going to over or underestimate the tricks actually taken is true of any evaluation system, HCP or LTC or otherwise. Your issue seems to be with the LTC itself, which is understandable.

[rhm]

relknes, on 2012-February-20, 11:06, said:

... I am prety sure, however, that an 8 loser hand oposite a 7 loser hand is predicted to make 3 according to the LTC... 24-7-8=9. The fact that this prediction is sometimes going to over or underestimate the tricks actually taken is true of any evaluation system, HCP or LTC or otherwise. Your issue seems to be with the LTC itself, which is understandable.

My point was less reaching the 3 level with ♠AQxxx,♥xxxx,♦x,♣xxx but what information you convey to your partner.
There is something in between a single raise and a limit raise. Some call it a constructive raise, others call it a mixed raise.
Your hand would fall into this category, asking opener not to bid game on the slightest excuse, which he would over a limit raise.
Contrast this with ♠AJx,♥JTxx,♦AJx,♣xxx and I would make a limit raise over 1♥.
Some proponents of a naive LTC (which gives LTC an unsophisticated image) would claim that this hand is not worth more than a single raise (hence worse than your hand).
I beg to differ.

Rainer Herrmann

[relknes]

rhm, on 2012-February-21, 04:45, said:

My point was less reaching the 3 level with ♠AQxxx,♥xxxx,♦x,♣xxx but what information you convey to your partner.
There is something in between a single raise and a limit raise. Some call it a constructive raise, others call it a mixed raise.
Your hand would fall into this category, asking opener not to bid game on the slightest excuse, which he would over a limit raise.
Contrast this with ♠AJx,♥JTxx,♦AJx,♣xxx and I would make a limit raise over 1♥.
Some proponents of a naive LTC (which gives LTC an unsophisticated image) would claim that this hand is not worth more than a single raise (hence worse than your hand).
I beg to differ.

Rainer Herrmann

Ahh, I see. Sorry for misunderstanding your point.
I see your point about several types of raises, and it brings to mind something I have been thinking about.
At the risk of getting a bit off topic (is there such a thing as hijacking my own thread?) I have been interested in the aplication of mini-splinters to the LTC.
As I mentioned, the LTC is notorious for duplicating values when shortness faces shortness, or when shortness faces kings and queens. The clasic way to acurately show where your shortness is would be through a splinter (or in this case a mini-splinter).
So, with the ♠AQxxx,♥xxxx,♦x,♣xxx hand, when partner opened 1♥ you would bid 3♦, showing 8 or fewer losers, 4+ trump support, and a singleton diamond. Partner can then reevaluate their hand very acurately.
1♥-3♥ would then show a hand that has invitational strength and 4+ trump support, but no shortness.
Is this kind of what you meant by "mixed raises"?
The drawback, of course, is that you lose the ability to make a strong jump shift, but I have some doubts about their usefulness anyways since the context is limited openers and a 2/1 GF framework.

[Zelandakh]

relknes, on 2012-February-22, 01:27, said:

Is this kind of what you meant by "mixed raises"?

A mixed raise is a hand that has the values for a constructive weak raise, typically something like 7-9 or 8-10, but also fits a preemptive raise to 3, so typically 4 trumps. Therefore it is a mix between a weak constructive raise and a preemptive raise.

If you have space for mini-splinters in your raise structure then they do indeed add value but they are a lower priority than most other raise options due to frequency. I have posted a structure that offers all of the different raise types including mini-splinters several times. The disadvantage is the loss of alternative uses for the bids, weak/intermediate/strong jump shifts, big balanced hands, etc. The gains versus losses for these alternatives are there for any evaluation system and not specific to LTC.