[Trinidad]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 06:39, said:

Of course, but only when it is clear from the auction that it is partner who has psyched. If partner passes Stayman, or pulls a penalty double of a 1NT overcall, then this exposes the psyche. Until that time, you have to assume the opponents have psyched or misbid.

That is not what Law 40A3 says.

Quote

A player may make any call or play without prior announcement provided that such call or play is not based on an undisclosed partnership understanding (see Law 40C1).

This says clearly that if I think my partner has psyched, I can allow for that, as long as my thinking that partner has psyched is not based on an undisclosed partnership understanding. I do not need to assume that the opponents have psyched or misbid.

This is a case where anybody with a little bridge experience will be pretty sure that partner has psyched, independent of any partnership understanding. If you hold a poll, present the hand, the auction and the vulnerability and ask: "What is going on?", you will hear two possible answers:

1) partner has psyched
2) we are not playing with the same deck

I've been playing bridge for 20 years now. Believe it or not, none of my partners has ever psyched when they played with me (or on the few occasions that they played against me). Never. If I can sense that partner has psyched, anybody can.

If other players -who don't even know who partner is- conclude that partner has psyched, then how can the conclusion that partner has psyched be based on an undisclosed partnership understanding?

Rik

[lamford]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 07:47, said:

This says clearly that if I think my partner has psyched, I can allow for that, as long as my thinking that partner has psyched is not based on an undisclosed partnership understanding. I do not need to assume that the opponents have psyched or misbid.

I agree that is how the Law should be interpreted, but the EBU (and other organisations with an antithesis towards psyches) have indicated that a partnership's actions on one board can be indicative of a CPU. They get round the word "Repeated" in "Repeated deviations lead to implicit understandings" in 40C1 with some fudge like "well this is so gregarious that there must be other instances". In my opinion, ruling a red psyche on one instance is illegal, but the EBU have decided that this is the way they will interpret the Law. And I think the ACBL would act similarly, but perhaps an ACBL director would confirm whether one instance can lead to an adjusted score.

[Trinidad]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 06:09, said:

[Link to the actual deal]

I think it is reasonable to assume that this was the actual deal. However, there is a difference between the situation in the OP and the actual deal that is important to me: in the OP the vulnerability was favorable whereas in reality the vulnerability was all red.

At favorable vulnerability (as presented in the OP) it is pretty obvious that partner did the psyching. At all red this is not so obvious, meaning that there is "some proof in that pudding".

Rik

[lamford]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 08:00, said:

I think it is reasonable to assume that this was the actual deal.

mr1303 should be able to confirm that it was game all. Other possibilities are an error in the board numbers on Pianola, or a different board number being used for some reason.

[barmar]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 07:54, said:

"well this is so gregarious that there must be other instances".

gregarious
adjective
(of a person) fond of company; sociable : he was a popular and gregarious man.

ITYM egregious

Interesting etymological note: "egregious" originally meant remarkably good, but its meaning flipped in the late 16th century, probably due to ironical use (similar to the slang use of "bad" to mean good).

[lamford]

barmar, on 2013-October-23, 09:20, said:

gregarious
adjective
(of a person) fond of company; sociable : he was a popular and gregarious man.

Indeed, a malapropism by me!

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 06:09, said:

Indeed. I presume that it was board 20 in the Eastbourne Bowl, and West took no action at all and 2NT went one off. I think that would be a fielded psyche, regardless whether partner had psyched before.

You get to a CPU one of two ways: either they explicitly made an agreement, and then failed to disclose it as required, or the agreement is implicit and comes from partnership experience. So if you rule this to be fielded when there's no partnership experience, you're saying they deliberately set this up. That's possible I suppose, but without better evidence than I've seen here, I don't buy it.

[mycroft]

...or an opponent forgot that 2NT here doesn't show minors. Or does show and fails to Alert. Or he's getting ready to get doubled in some number of diamonds, better than your game, and getting doubled in 2NT is what he thinks is the best way to do that. Or...

But, you know, if your partner is known (to you) to frequently psych (as opposed to the world who think it's illegal, and if not that, then at least immoral or fattening), then in this auction, it's "obvious" that partner psyched, as opposed to those pesky opponents. And the reason for that is...?

[aguahombre]

mycroft, on 2013-October-23, 10:55, said:

...or an opponent forgot that 2NT here doesn't show minors. Or does show and fails to Alert. Or he's getting ready to get doubled in some number of diamonds, better than your game, and getting doubled in 2NT is what he thinks is the best way to do that.

Which brings us back to a Double of 2NT being good Bridge and just fine, ethically; but, Pass not being such.

IMO, everyone except the poster who says he was the original Doubler did something wrong. The Responder's 1♠ bid, though not illegal in itself, deserved a worse fate than the table result if no irregularity by partner ensued. The 2NT jump was just plain unwarranted hand evaluation, for which I would be inclined to make no adjustment for the NOS, regardless of what I might do to the OS.

[campboy]

Oops, just noticed Robin's post, which suggests I'm not allowed to comment either.

This post has been edited by campboy: 2013-October-23, 11:54

[campboy]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 09:24, said:

Indeed, a malapropism by me!

Oh, I assumed it was a deliberate (and rather clever) joke.

[aguahombre]

We never learn. No matter how obvious the malaprop, someone will explain our "mistake".

[jallerton]

lamford, on 2013-October-23, 06:09, said:

I am assuming that the inclusion of these details on Pianola means that there is no super-injunction preventing the naming and shaming of the pair in question.

Why? The details on the website show the results at each table, not the auctions. Why do you conclude from this that it's permissible to 'name and shame' players who (assuming they don't read this forum) are not able to defend themselves?

You should think very carefully before posting a link and supporting information to enable the players' identity to be inferred quite so easily. I seem to recall that another frequent poster was widely criticised a couple of years ago for providing identifying information, in a rather less blatant manner.

[jallerton]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 07:47, said:

This is a case where anybody with a little bridge experience will be pretty sure that partner has psyched, independent of any partnership understanding. If you hold a poll, present the hand, the auction and the vulnerability and ask: "What is going on?", you will hear two possible answers:

1) partner has psyched
2) we are not playing with the same deck

I've been playing bridge for 20 years now. Believe it or not, none of my partners has ever psyched when they played with me (or on the few occasions that they played against me). Never. If I can sense that partner has psyched, anybody can.

If other players -who don't even know who partner is- conclude that partner has psyched, then how can the conclusion that partner has psyched be based on an undisclosed partnership understanding?

Rik

You are jumping to conclusions, but I'll forgive you as you do not appear to have any experience in identifying psyches in practice.

Yes there appear to be quite a lot of points in the pack; that normally just implies that everyone is a bit light for their actions. The fact that partner has chosen to bid 1♠, despite appearing to hold relatively few high cards, suggests to me that he wants to emphasise spades, presumably at least five spades with some shape. Why do you assume that a player does not hold the suit he has chosen to bid?

[mr1303]

Sorry the vul was game all.

[Trinidad]

jallerton, on 2013-October-23, 15:40, said:

You are jumping to conclusions, but I'll forgive you as you do not appear to have any experience in identifying psyches in practice.

Yes there appear to be quite a lot of points in the pack; that normally just implies that everyone is a bit light for their actions. The fact that partner has chosen to bid 1♠, despite appearing to hold relatively few high cards, suggests to me that he wants to emphasise spades, presumably at least five spades with some shape. Why do you assume that a player does not hold the suit he has chosen to bid?

Perhaps the fact that I hold 4 of them myself and the fact that the opponents have advertised between 5 and 8 of them? Partner cannot have enough spades to want to emphasize them.

Partner could have 4 spades, but then he doesn't have the strength that is required for 1♠: my 16 + his 5 + 2NT 10 leaves 9 for a takeout double of 1♥ with something like 3244 distribution.

You cannot see the distribution and the strength separately: If partner has enough spades to emphasize them (5 or more), then the opponents don't have enough spades for their bidding. And if partner has exactly 4 spades there are not enough HCPs in the deck.

I already said earlier that there is only one way that I can come up with four hands that are somewhat consistent with the auction: South has made an Aunt Millie double, showing an opening hand without any requirements regarding shape. Then it is possible to give South a 0454 with 13 HCPs and partner 6 spades to the jack and out.

Rik

[PeterAlan]

I won't comment on the specific instance (not least because I know some of the players identified by Lamford, though I have no idea whether or not they were involved in the auction under discussion), except to remark that the auction 1♥-(X)-1♠ is such a hoary old chestnut as a "baby psyche" that even I know about it, to the extent that (tongue only partly in cheek) it should come under the heading of "General Bridge Knowledge".

But it raises the following interesting thought. The 1♠ bid onwards is not regulated under Level 4 (Blue Book 7.4.1: "From responder's first call onwards all partnership understandings are permitted"), so what are your thoughts on the position if E (in the OP) / W (at the table apparently) had alerted partner's 1♠ and, when asked about it, explained that "it's a two-way bid: either a normal 1♠ response, or a weak hand, short in ♠, probably with ♥ support, and with that or another run-out destination available". Whilst there is a bar on systemic psyching it's not at all obvious that that test is applicable, and nor is the bar on psychic controls. (Rather unfortunately, these psyche-related regulations now appear only in the White Book, not the Blue, and even fewer players will read that.)

[mycroft]

Or South psyched his double. Or North doesn't know (or South doesn't agree on) what 2NT means. Or South did, in fact, with AJx x Kxxx JTxxx, decide to double. I might have, too.

Why are you believing the opponents over your partner? I'm sure you never do it the rest of the time, but when partner psyched, it's always so obvious that the opponents' bidding is perfect, having not seen their cards. Note, I'm not aiming that last sentence at anyone in particular - whenever I'm at a fielded psychic ruling (or a deliberate misbid ruling) "it's obvious that..." *always* shows up somewhere.

[jallerton]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 16:09, said:

Perhaps the fact that I hold 4 of them myself and the fact that the opponents have advertised between 5 and 8 of them? Partner cannot have enough spades to want to emphasize them.

Partner could have 4 spades, but then he doesn't have the strength that is required for 1♠: my 16 + his 5 + 2NT 10 leaves 9 for a takeout double of 1♥ with something like 3244 distribution.

You cannot see the distribution and the strength separately: If partner has enough spades to emphasize them (5 or more), then the opponents don't have enough spades for their bidding. And if partner has exactly 4 spades there are not enough HCPs in the deck.

I already said earlier that there is only one way that I can come up with four hands that are somewhat consistent with the auction: South has made an Aunt Millie double, showing an opening hand without any requirements regarding shape. Then it is possible to give South a 0454 with 13 HCPs and partner 6 spades to the jack and out.

Rik

Most people play that the T/O doubler has implied at least 3 spades. The 2NT bid showed a decent stop in hearts, not spades. The opponents' spade fit could be 3-1; maybe 4th hand has a difficult call with a 15(43) or 1633 shape. Even if you do not consider this to be consistent with their bidding, why should you assume that partner, not one of the opponents, is the person who has deviated from their system?

[bluejak]

lamford said:

I am assuming that the inclusion of these details on Pianola means that there is no super-injunction preventing the naming and shaming of the pair in question.

This seems an unwarranted assumption. As jallerton says:

jallerton, on 2013-October-23, 15:19, said:

Why? The details on the website show the results at each table, not the auctions. Why do you conclude from this that it's permissible to 'name and shame' players who (assuming they don't read this forum) are not able to defend themselves?

You should think very carefully before posting a link and supporting information to enable the players' identity to be inferred quite so easily. I seem to recall that another frequent poster was widely criticised a couple of years ago for providing identifying information, in a rather less blatant manner.

According to forum rules:

"It is often unsuitable for players to be named in cases posted to these four forums, unless a poster is naming himself, or has the agreement of the person named. So posts should generally not name players, though giving the perceived level of a player is normal. If a poster considers a post should name a player or players for a particular reason he can seek advice from a moderator first, giving the reason."

There have been cases where players are identifiable, which is generally considered to be a breach of the above, though it is a judgement based on how identifiable. Many months ago a poster claimed someone was identifiable, and someone who never posts here was invited to support him by also claiming it was identifiable. It is not our policy to make great efforts to stop someone with such a mind from finding out.

But this case is different. As soon as a link was posted to a website where players can be easily identified then in my view the forum rules were breached. I have deleted the offending post, and also another post that quoted it in full [for no apparent reason].

So while I am not worried about whether people whose aim is to cause trouble could find something out I am worried when people make identification very easy, and that is not permitted in these forums.