[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2026-September-18, 10:21, said:

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Playing losing trick count, what is your thinking?

Certainly LTC is looked upon as a crutch by the vast majority of top players and expert level players. I believe the thinking is it hinders advancing players from developing judgement or it is simply not good.

I do know one top level female player, Karen (Kate) McCallum, who loves it and is an outspoken advocate of it. However I can't think of any others who write about it. I would add she is also well known for being an early advocate and writing articles on a very aggressive preemptive style.

For us intermediate level players learning "hand building" is the ultimate goal.

The ability to quickly visualize what partner has and what we need partner to have during the bidding.

For myself
l use Klinger's Adjusted Losing Trick Count as outlined in his book. His 40 year old book. It helps me a lot in hand building during the bidding. But then this past year I have learned a basic version of Schuler Shift, a convention 15 years old, that apparently has been rejected by the top layers, so...I like it, smile

I still have a long way to go, especially on building hands on defense.

Bottom line any advice you get from top level players on hand building, take it. They are the top players
We are thankful for their generosity..

[jillybean]

Just to be clear, I have no intention of using any form of LTC.

Last night I played at the very nice Halifax Bridge Club, thanks Gerardo.
Now waiting for my flight back home after a fabulous week in Cape Breton, I’m in love.

[P_Marlowe]

mike777, on 2026-October-06, 15:56, said:

Certainly LTC is looked upon as a crutch by the vast majority of top players and expert level players. I believe the thinking is it hinders advancing players from developing judgement or it is simply not good.

I do know one top level female player, Karen (Kate) McCallum, who loves it and is an outspoken advocate of it. However I can't think of any others who write about it. I would add she is also well known for being an early advocate and writing articles on a very aggressive preemptive style.

For us intermediate level players learning "hand building" is the ultimate goal.
<snip>

I like the LTC and use it. But the LTC is a tool, and you always need to understand
#1 what the tool can do and also what it cannot do
#2 when the tool is applicable and also when it is not, e.g. the given auction is not an LTC auction

Ron Klinger has written a book, ... 10 chapters, you can ignore the last 5 chapters, but the first chapters are well written.

There is another book, that deals with statistics and also explain the correlation between LTC and LoTT.
Bridge, Probability and Information by Robert F. MacKinnon
The author is a Mathematician, and my take is, he worked in the area of information / game theory.
The book is not a typical Bridge book, it focuses on the Mathematics.
And the author may not be a very strong Bridge Player, what ever this may mean.
The book deals with the Math behind certain things, that show up at the table.


There are books, good ones, but they are rare.

[jillybean]

Had I known, I likely could have found these books at HBCs very extensive lending library.