[inquiry]

luis, on Feb 15 2005, 05:29 PM, said:

I didn't read it, I glazed over every page at the bookstore, while my wife was trying to figure out different ways to kill me. So I think I had a good view of the contents and how they were developed to decide if I was going to like the book or not.
I understand it can have some words about hand evaluation but there were too many pages showing how the law doesn't work in several situations and I decided It wasn't wise to spen money in a book that had so many pages devoted to show something that we all know like trying to demonstrate something that doesn't need a demonstration. I estimated I would use about 30% of what the book had so it wasn't a good buy for me.

If you write a book about a 1NT structure you wouldn't spend a lot of pages showing how many different hands can open 1NT would you? :-)

My feeling is this will be a cocktail table kind of book... You buy it (or borrow it), so you can discuss the pro's and con's of the various arguements. It is a given that the law is oftne wrong, ...We see plenty of examples of it being wrong everyday. So 30% to proving that is way, way, way too much. But I would be interested in reading their replacement fo the law and digesting their arguements in support of their differen view, which no doubt will not be right all the time either, but after all, nothing and nobody is right all the time.

Ben

[Chamaco]

luis, on Feb 15 2005, 09:29 PM, said:

I decided It wasn't wise to spen money in a book that had so many pages devoted to show something that we all know like trying to demonstrate something that doesn't need a demonstration.

Now that I have it at home, I can write about my impression of the book.

1) it gives a number of examples.
Maybe too much for an expert, but not too much for a non expert.
The more examples, the merrier, for a low-midlevel player.

2) the use of statistics is not documented in depth enough for testing whether an alternative hypothesis may work.
Basically the authors are "playing with the numbers" of statistics to demonstrate their hypothesis, without giving a chance to others to use the ame numbers for the contrary.
The numbers are given only is a summarized way, but the way they summarized them can be subject to criticism (see my post above related to the more detailed numbers given in Wirsgren 's web site).
So their method is only apparemtly "quantitative/objective".

3) Most of the concept given by Lawrence, except the SST+WP criterion, were already given in his previous books

4) Almost all of the hands Lawrence shows where LOTT fails, have associated MIRRORED DISTRIBUTION and in some cases duplication of honors, and in sme others 4333 shape.
These factors are mentioned by Cohen too.
The problem is that duplication of shape or strength is very difficult to diagnose in most sequences, and- no matter if you use LOTT-based system or SST+WP system or whatever, it will lead to a number of tricks lower than expected.

So, duplication of shape/strength is not a problem of LOTT only, but of all system.
And, 4333 hands are usually discounted and downgraded in total tricks even by LOTT-players.
So basically Lawrence is applying the LOTT in a biased way.

5) LOTT is not a system to estimate the number of tricks you can actually make; it tries to estimate TOTAL tricks (e.g. even if you go down, a better alternative opps contract could be cold).
WP+SST is a system to estimate the number of tricks one side can take, so it is oriented towards constructive bidding; SSP+WP in itself says nothing of the cost-benefit of taking a sacrifice.
So it makes no sense at all to try to compare the 2 methods: one method may justsay "we'll make 4H and not 5H", the other may say "who cares ? 4S for opps is cold", and they may be both right.

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My own final comment: it seems to me that most people criticizing harshly the LOTT had discussions with some "LOTT-BOT", using it automatically, without any adjustments.
This can be seen by the examples they bring:
- 4333 hands taking less tricks
- hands with duplication of shape/strenght taking less tricks
- hands very pure (double fit) or with a long running suit (squeeze) taking more tricks.
- some will just show how bad things can go if you bid LOTT-based with a lot of wasted values

But all these are well known minus/plus factor to people who do not use the Law mechanically, there is no need to say "Look at how things go bad without applying judgment".
every decent player knows or should know that.

I think it is fair to say that most expert do not need the Law, they have already grown their "pattern recognition" engine.

But, if you accept that 30% of the time 25 hcp count in misfit do not make 3NT, yet you bid it, you may also accept that 40 % of the time the LOTT predicts EXACTLY the no of total tricks, and about 20% is predicts one TOTAL trick less and 20% of the time 1 TOTAL trick more.
(Note that 1 total trick means about 1/2 a trick for each side)

These are pretty good numbers, documented by Anders Wirgren himself.

However, just as Milton Work point count should be viewed only as a starting point t asses the potential of the hand, LOTT seems to provide a good starting point in determining the right level of competing.

Sure, do not use the LAW blindly:
- Cohen's suggestion to "use adjustments" is just another way to say "apply your judgment": recognize wasted values, double fits, duplication of shape/strength, etc