Losing Trick Count: How to Count Losers in Bridge

The losing trick count (LTC) measures a hand by its losers instead of its points. Count your losers in each suit, add the losers partner has shown, and subtract the total from 24: the answer is the number of tricks your side should take once you have a trump fit of eight or more cards.

The method was described by F. Dudley Courtenay in the 1930s and later made popular by Maurice Harrison-Gray and Ron Klinger. It works best for suit contracts with a fit and shape, the hands where high card points alone get it wrong.

Look only at the first three cards in each suit. Each missing ace, king or queen among those cards is a loser. A suit can never have more losers than cards, so a suit holds at most three losers and a hand at most twelve.

Cards after the third never count as losers: in ♠AK8742 you count only AK8, so the suit has one loser.

Try a full hand: ♠AQ852 ♥KJ4 ♦7 ♣K1063. Spades AQ8 = 1 loser, hearts KJ4 = 2, diamonds 7 = 1, clubs K10x = 2. Total: 6 losers.

The basic count is rough on purpose. Players who use it a lot add a few corrections:

• Qxx counts 2.5 losers unless partner has bid the suit. A queen with no ace or king behind it is often worthless.
• AJ10 and KJ10 count 1.5 losers. The jack and ten give you a good chance of a second trick.
• Aces against queens. A hand with no aces is often a half loser worse than the count says. A hand with three or four aces is better. Ron Klinger's New Losing Trick Count goes further and counts a missing ace as 1.5 losers, a missing king as 1 and a missing queen as 0.5.
• Flat shape. A 4-3-3-3 hand has no ruffing value; many players add half a loser for it.

You do not need all of these on day one. Learn the plain count, then add the Qxx and aces corrections.

The formula is tricks = 24 - (your losers + partner's losers). Subtract 6 from the result to get the level.

As responder, assume partner's opening has 7 losers. Then 24 - (7 + your losers) tells you how high to bid at once: 9 losers raise to two, 8 losers make a limit raise, 7 losers bid game. Opener does the same in reverse after a raise, counting partner at the number of losers the raise shows.

Here is the usual pattern. You open 1♠, partner raises to 2♠ and you hold 6 losers. Partner's single raise shows about 9 losers: 24 - (6 + 9) = 9 tricks. That is a three-level hand, so you invite with 3♠ or with a help suit game try. With 5 losers you bid game: 24 - 14 = 10.

The count also stops you. With 7 losers opposite a single raise, 24 - 16 = 8 tricks: pass 2♠ even if you hold 14 points.

North has only 7 HCP but four trumps, a singleton heart and the ♣A. Count the losers: spades Q96 = 2, heart singleton = 1, diamonds J86 = 3, clubs A54 = 2, total 8. An 8-loser hand with four trumps is a limit raise, so North bids 3♠.

South has 13 HCP and 6 losers (spades AK10 = 1, hearts AQ6 = 1, diamond singleton = 1, clubs 863 = 3). Now 24 - (6 + 8) = 10 tricks, and South bids 4♠.

The partnership has 20 high card points, well short of the 25 or 26 that point counters want for game. Double dummy, ten tricks make in spades on this layout, while 3NT has only seven tricks. Heart ruffs in dummy and the diamond singleton do the work that the points cannot. You can enter any deal like this in the free double dummy analyzer and see the trick count for every contract.

Now the other side of the coin. Take ♠AQJ ♥AJ2 ♦QJ32 ♣KJ2. That is 19 HCP, a fine hand. The LTC says: spades 1, hearts 2, diamonds 2, clubs 2, total 7 losers, the count of a minimum opening.

The LTC is wrong about this hand, because its strength lies in queens and jacks that win tricks in notrump and in a balanced shape with nothing to ruff. Open 1♦ and jump to 2NT to show 18-19 balanced. With balanced hands and no fit, trust points.

• No fit, no count. The formula assumes eight or more trumps. On a misfit, losers do not turn into ruffs.
• Duplication. A singleton opposite partner's singleton, or partner's honors opposite your void, do not add up the way the count says.
• Minor honors. Tens, nines and jacks outside AJ10 or KJ10 holdings are ignored, and long side suits that set up are undervalued.
• Partner is an average. You assume partner holds the typical number of losers for the bid, so a maximum or minimum raise moves the answer by a trick.
• Slam needs controls. The count can say 12 tricks with two aces missing. Check controls with Roman Key Card Blackwood before you bid slam.

The LTC works well alongside other counts. Point counters often use it as a second opinion, and the law of total tricks is its partner in competitive auctions.

More practice with a score attached is in the BridgeDummy Bidding Room, where you bid random deals with EPBot robots, and in the bidding puzzles, where every call is tested double dummy on many deals that fit the auction. Count your losers on each hand before you bid, then compare. For the point-based side of the same question, read hand evaluation.