Preempt - The Law of Total Tricks

The Law of Total Tricks

Many players now use the "Law of Total Tricks" as a "rule of thumb" for preemptive and sacrificial bidding. Bids dictated by the Law of Total Tricks are often sacrificial, but nonetheless produce consistent "top half" results with proper play.,

The Law of Total Tricks:
In a competitive auction, it is safe to bid a number or total tricks equal to the number of trumps in the combined hands of both partners.

When viewed in context of the Law of Total Tricks, normal preemptive opening bids, described above, basically assume that the preemptive bidder's partner possesses two of the five to seven outstanding cards of the long suit—mathematically, the "expected" number based on equiprobable distribution of the missing cards. Thus, the Law of Total Tricks implies that the preemptive opener's partner can safely raise the preemptive opening bid by the number of cards in excess of two in the named suit (for example, raise an opening bid of 3♥, which promises seven hearts, to 4♥ with three hearts (7+3=10 total tricks) or to 5♥ with four hearts (7+4=11 total tricks)), regardless of the responder's high card points.

The limit raises and preemptive raises of major suits in the Standard American Yellow Card bidding system also conform to the Law of Total Tricks. By opening a major suit normally, the opening bidder promises at least five cards of the major suit. A "limit" raise, which is a response of three of the opener's suit, requires ten to twelve high card points and four cards in the responder's suit, for a total of nine. Likewise, a preemptive raise, which is a bid of four of the opener's suit, requires five cards in that suit, for a total of ten. The Law of Total tricks allows the opening bidder to raise such responses by the number of cards in excess of five in that suit.