[aljorge]

Hi all,

I am a helping as TD in a couple of daily tourneys, where the hosts have decided to ban psyches. Personally I do not agree since I feel they are a part of this game, although I think I have never used them.

However, I do feel there is a significant difference between a psyche and a false bid. Often, if you do not have a suitable bid and you want to keep the auction open, sometimes you just need to take something out of the hat, and then take the consequences and the possible following disaster as a (wo)man. I must admit I'm not a frequent user either, but I do admire when people are able to use them correctly (also when I am the damaged part).

The trouble as I see it is that many people do not agree on this - whenever someone makes an 'imaginative' bid they call TD and shout 'Psyche!!!!'.

So - am I right or am I wrong? Is there a difference between psyches or not?

Thanks and regards,

Allan (aljorge)

[han]

You are right., there is a wide spectrum of "smallest lies" to "tactical bids" to "outright psyches".

Banning psyches is off course madness and creates problems like these.

[ralph23]

Yes, sure there is a difference. A psych is a "false" bid that (1) intentionally (2) grossly distorts (3) either the shape or the strength (or both), of the hand. Obviously, it is not a part of the partnership understanding.

You can find the actual ACBL definition of a psych on their website, I'm sure.

There are many kinds of "false bids" -- not all of them are psychs. Many are too mild to be a "gross" distortion of the hand. E.g I open a weak two on a crappy 5-card suit with only 4 HCP. This is outside of partnership agreement and parameters. We "require" by our standards" a six-bagger with 5HCP. So .... I took liberties.

But maybe I had a reason. Maybe I was in 3rd seat and sensed that 4th seat had a strong 2 club opening (or whatever). I distorted my values, but not grossly. Just some.

[skjaeran]

Banning psyches is illegal, it's against Law 40A:

Quote

A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call — such as a psychic bid — or a call or play that departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based on a partnership understanding.

It's also against Law 75B:

Quote

A player may violate an announced partnership agreement, so long as his partner is unaware of the violation (but habitual violations within a partnership may create implicit agreements, which must be disclosed). No player has the obligation to disclose to the opponents that he has violated an announced agreement and if the opponents are subsequently damaged, as through drawing a false inference from such violation, they are not entitled to redress.

Some SO's ban psyching conventional bids and/or conventional replies to those. That's allowed by Law 40D:

Quote

The sponsoring organisation may regulate the use of bidding or play conventions. Zonal organisations may, in addition, regulate partnership understandings (even if not conventional) that permit the partnership’s initial actions at the one level to be made with a hand of a King or more below average strength. Zonal organisations may delegate this responsibility.

If an SO asked me to be a TD and they had banned psyches I'd tell them that such a regulation is illegal - it's not bridge any more. And refuse to be TD unless they changed the regulation.

Except for that, I agree with Han and Ralph.

[jillybean]

I agree with the other posters here and I fail to understand why people ban psyches. Out of interest, how are bidding misclicks handled in these tournaments?

[P_Marlowe]

aljorge, on Sep 9 2007, 01:35 PM, said:

So - am I right or am I wrong? Is there a difference between psyches or not?

No, there is no difference.
And thats why it is problematic to ban
psych bids.

Playing Bridge Online, you have selfalerting,
and this means you have to explain your bids.
You make a psych / imaginative bid, and you
explain it, and the explanation does not match
with your hand.
Did you lie or did you tell the truth?

How do you think, a unknown guy will decide?

And thats why it is problematic to make psych
bids playing online against people which dont know
you.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Mbodell]

jillybean2, on Sep 9 2007, 03:42 PM, said:

I agree with the other posters here and I fail to understand why people ban psyches. Out of interest, how are bidding misclicks handled in these tournaments?

I had a sort of misclick psych playing in IMP pairs against a novice player (partnered with a good player) SAYC in ACBL. The LHO novice opened 2C, partner passed, RHO bid 2H positive, I passed with a 15 count and 5 hearts, LHO passed, partner passed. The LHO had a weak-2 opening in clubs. I misdefended and let them make when they should have been down 1. Was a flatish result as most people were playing 2H our way down 2.

[kenberg]

Mbodell, on Sep 9 2007, 05:59 PM, said:

jillybean2, on Sep 9 2007, 03:42 PM, said:

I agree with the other posters here and I fail to understand why people ban psyches. Out of interest, how are bidding misclicks handled in these tournaments?

I had a sort of misclick psych playing in IMP pairs against a novice player (partnered with a good player) SAYC in ACBL. The LHO novice opened 2C, partner passed, RHO bid 2H positive, I passed with a 15 count and 5 hearts, LHO passed, partner passed. The LHO had a weak-2 opening in clubs. I misdefended and let them make when they should have been down 1. Was a flatish result as most people were playing 2H our way down 2.

Must be an epidemic. Playing pickup at acbl imps I opened 2C and partner responded 2H. We were playing sayc with a little extra and her card said it was natural. Rho doubled. I held

Axx
AK
AKx
AKQJx

How bad can it be to play 2HXX so I did. Partner, holding xx in hearts, bid 2S. Well, the card says rkc 30 14 so I tried 4N, found there was no king of spades, bid 6N, got doubled, made it (there are five clubs to the ten on my left or it would have been iced). Somewhat in a state of confusion, I misplayed, but rho holding KQx of spades, misdefended.


Clearly 2H is a false bid (I assume she meant 2D) unless I misunderstood the card. A psych? I doubt it.

Playing on line bridge, in what I suppose is a less than expert environment, a sense of humor is needed. If someone is going to yell for the director everytime someone makes a call that isn't quite kosher, I would advise leaving them to their own devices.

[barmar]

Mbodell, on Sep 9 2007, 05:59 PM, said:

I had a sort of misclick psych playing in IMP pairs against a novice player (partnered with a good player) SAYC in ACBL. The LHO novice opened 2C, partner passed, RHO bid 2H positive, I passed with a 15 count and 5 hearts, LHO passed, partner passed. The LHO had a weak-2 opening in clubs. I misdefended and let them make when they should have been down 1. Was a flatish result as most people were playing 2H our way down 2.

Sounds more like a misbid than a misclick or psyche.

It's not a psyche, because he forgot the system. Thus, at the time he thought he was bidding correctly, it wasn't an intentionally incorrect bid.

And it's not a misclick if he clicked the button he intended to click.

Beginners misbid all the time (I suspect about once every 5 boards). Sometimes you get fixed as a result.

[Fluffy]

I wodner if this has somethign to do with the regulation:

When a pair of cheaters is allowed to psycke, they will always do the right psycke, leaving you with 0 chance of a decent score nor enjoing the hands.

When they cannot psycke, you might play some normal bridge, maybe you won't even notice their cheats and have some fun.

[Gerben42]

Quote

When they cannot psycke, you might play some normal bridge, maybe you won't even notice their cheats and have some fun.

So tell me how is a bad bid that happens to work, and they know it works as they are cheating, a psyche?

And what about a misclick? I've had misclicks "work" for me (usually not). I also dislike tourneys without undo. A player has the right to undo during the auction if there was no change of mind until his partner has bid (Law 25A).

Online this usually works like this: Accept a reasonable undo, if it turns out to not be reasonable afterwards, TD.

I've played a tourney without both and was wondering if I would psyche and claim it was a misclick... then what? Probably the same as if I would misclick and claim it was a misclick: Tar and feathers!

[han]

Gerben42, on Sep 10 2007, 06:32 AM, said:

Quote

When they cannot psycke, you might play some normal bridge, maybe you won't even notice their cheats and have some fun.

So tell me how is a bad bid that happens to work, and they know it works as they are cheating, a psyche?

Surely the poster meant that it is extremely easy to cheat online, and psyching is a very effective way to cheat (when you just tell partner that you psyched).

[SoTired]

It is quite common in some sequences to make a natural bid in a suit you don't have to solve a bidding problem, like opener jump-shifting into a short suit to create a game-force. I call this a "tactical psyche".

A real psyche can be differentiated from a tactical psyche by the purpose of the bid. If the purpose of the bid was to deceive the opponents, then that is a real psyche. If the purpose of the bid was to solve a bidding problem and the only likely player deceived was partner (except for maybe defensive play errors), then the bid is a tactical psyche.

The rest fall into the category of misbids. And seriously, noone will mistake a misbid for a psyche. "Sorry, I thought those 2 fours were aces" is not going to fool anyone.

But now the question becomes what light bids are true psyches? If one responds to 1C with 4HCP, is that a psyche? What about 3 or 2? What if one has a 6-card heart suit, 2 HCP and singleton club and does not want to pass partner in 1C?

So just stating "No Psyches" becomes a decision fraught with legal, picky, nitty-gritty problems. It means the TD needs significant bridge expertise and may be forced to make bridge decisions overriding those of players. All to prevent cheaters from overcalling a 3-card suit so that the stronger partner plays the 5-3 fit or safely interferes in the auction.

How about just using the "Rule of Coincidence" and kicking the obvious cheaters out. If you kick them out once rather than ban them, you don't have to make a value judgement about whether they were actually cheating or just lucky.

[kenberg]

The above comments of SoTired represent what I see as complete common sense. If they are not the way things are done, they should be.

[mycroft]

The story has been told before...

1NT-p-2C-p;
4H "what's that?"
"I think he had a 4-4-3-2 hand, and has just found out that both of his 4-card suits are hearts."

The problem with banning psychic calls is that, as has been said here, 1) misbids get called "psych!" and either the TD spends the extra time to determine that it wasn't deliberate (and then the opponents are just as mad when the misbid wins as when the psychic does (you know, the 10% of the time), so there's more time wasted arguing, and more hurt opponents who will leave, which is why the SO has decided to ban psychics in the first place) or the TD circumvents all the investigation, calls it an illegal psychic, and the misbidders never come back.
2) there is a gredation between "least of all lies" through "systemic hole" through "mark time bid" through "tactical bid" to "outright psych". When you ban one end, where do you draw the line? People will gripe "psych!" over 1NT by responder after an overcall without a stopper, raising a 4-card response on 3, a weak two on AKQJ9, miscount Blackwood, ... (trust me, I've heard all of the above). If the opponents leave with "the tournament bans psyches, but not when they're against *us*", they're gone. If the player who made a least lie call gets ruled psych, *they're gone*.

Skid Simon knew the proper answer to psychic calls, and he gave away the information in 1947; penalty doubles and "proposal to partner" doubles to get 'em when you can, and "stay psyched" when you can't. But of course, we can't do the former any more, and we're not willing to do the latter, so we "ban psychics".

Bleah.
Michael.

[blackshoe]

Hannie, on Sep 10 2007, 09:26 AM, said:

Gerben42, on Sep 10 2007, 06:32 AM, said:

Quote

When they cannot psycke, you might play some normal bridge, maybe you won't even notice their cheats and have some fun.

So tell me how is a bad bid that happens to work, and they know it works as they are cheating, a psyche?

Surely the poster meant that it is extremely easy to cheat online, and psyching is a very effective way to cheat (when you just tell partner that you psyched).

When you make a call that ostensibly is a gross distortion of your partnership agreement, but your partner is aware that you might have the hand on which you've made the call through either discussion or partnership experience, the call is not a psych (note, there is no k, and no e, in that word), it is a concealed partnership understanding (CPU). CPUs are illegal per Law 40B.

[barmar]

SoTired, on Sep 10 2007, 09:30 AM, said:

It is quite common in some sequences to make a natural bid in a suit you don't have to solve a bidding problem, like opener jump-shifting into a short suit to create a game-force. I call this a "tactical psyche".

I think it's commonly called "manufacturing a bid". If there's no bid in your system that accurately reflects your hand, any bid you make is going to be a distortion. However, a psyche is defined as a a gross distortion, and most of these manufactured bids are not gross; often they're just off by 1 card in the suit ostensibly being shown (e.g. reversing or jump shifting into a 3-card suit).

And I don't think anyone is trying to regulate these bids away. They're a natural consequence of the fact that there aren't enough bids available to describe everything, which is part of what makes bridge interesting.

[FrancesHinden]

blackshoe, on Sep 10 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

psych (note, there is no k, and no e, in that word)

Depends where you live.
It has an 'e' in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Island and Eire, among other places.

[mycroft]

barmar, on Sep 11 2007, 09:09 AM, said:

I think it's commonly called "manufacturing a bid". 
[...stuff I agree with snipped]

And I don't think anyone is trying to regulate these bids away.  They're a natural consequence of the fact that there aren't enough bids available to describe everything, which is part of what makes bridge interesting.

...which I also agree with.

The problem is that the players who want to play in "no psych" games don't see it that way. They never want to see 1NT with a singleton, a reverse into hearts before game-forcing support of spades, a 4-card overcall, a 5-card weak 2, preempts on QTxxxx, 3C-p-3NT on CQTxx and out, 2H-2NT "feature ask" on a Hxxxx and a 3-count, 2H-4NT on the same hand at favourable, Stopper-showing cuebids on xx, ...

And they yell "Psych!" And the TD has to rule. And she's going to annoy one side or the other.

It's not a regulation issue, it's an education issue. And unfortunately, like a lot of things, we're teaching intolerance, and lack of knowledge of the Laws under which the game is played. For good and valid reasons, but I think it's wrong.

Michael.

[skjaeran]

FrancesHinden, on Sep 11 2007, 05:18 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Sep 10 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

psych (note, there is no k, and no e, in that word)

Depends where you live.
It has an 'e' in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Island and Eire, among other places.

It also has an 'e' for non-english speakers learning english outside of North America.