The Losing Trick Count How Many Losers have I? The essence of the Losing Trick Count approach is assessing… How Many Losers have I? A Single Suit... The Rule of 3: Under the Losing Trick Count, only the first three cards in any suit count as possible losers (the logic being that in a Trump Suit contract you will be unlikely to have ‘mirror image’ hands with more than three cards in both hands in a side suit – so you will be able to ruff any ‘long losers’…) Aces; Kings; and : The second source of losers under the Losing Trick Count approach are any cards that are not an Ace; King; or Queen. Example 1: Take this suit: K Q x (x) The ‘Rule of 3’ says that the 4th card in the suit (in brackets) does not count as a loser, so we are left with K; Q; x… The King and Queen are not losers, so under the Losing Trick Count, this suit = 1 Loser Example 2: Now take this suit: x x x (x) The ‘Rule of 3’ says that the 4th card in the suit (in brackets) does not count as a loser… But without an Ace; King or Queen, the first three cards are all losers, so under the Losing Trick Count, this suit = 3 Losers
The Losing Trick Count How Many Losers have I? The essence of the Losing Trick Count approach is assessing… How Many Losers have I? A Single Suit... The Rule of 3: Under the Losing Trick Count, only the first three cards in any suit count as possible losers (the logic being that in a Trump Suit contract you will be unlikely to have ‘mirror image’ hands with more than three cards in both hands in a side suit – so you will be able to ruff any ‘long losers’…) Aces; Kings; and : The second source of losers under the Losing Trick Count approach are any cards that are not an Ace; King; or Queen. Example 1: Take this suit: K Q x (x) The ‘Rule of 3’ says that the 4th card in the suit (in brackets) does not count as a loser, so we are left with K; Q; x… The King and Queen are not losers, so under the Losing Trick Count, this suit = 1 Loser Example 2: Now take this suit: x x x (x) The ‘Rule of 3’ says that the 4th card in the suit (in brackets) does not count as a loser… But without an Ace; King or Queen, the first three cards are all losers, so under the Losing Trick Count, this suit = 3 Losers