Practicing Psyching

[jchiu]

Jason, I guess this means that I should alert your McCabe's from now on as "likes to psyche these". I wish you had not written this :).

 

Darn, I really should not have been retiring this psych here, where my partners could be reading about its adventures. ;) But I wanted to leave it with an honorable discharge from my arsenal of bidding techniques. I was inspired to make this bid after I heard (from Toni Bales, in Denver) a story of Zia psyching such a call and his partner Michael Rosenberg getting the lead wrong because of the psych. A not so glorious advertisement for the psych, but I definitely had keeping the opponents out of slam as the main purpose of (1) and (2) above.

[cherdano]

Btw, anyone have more experience with psychic lead directing doubles in slam auctions?

 

Arend

[jdonn]

As long as we are all telling our stories, my favorite psych is still the smolen psych with a short weak major and a five card major, although I don't do it on the same hands as the person who first taught it to me. My preferred hand is something like xx xxxxx AQx KQx, where I don't mind missing a 5-3 heart fit as long as partner has four spades, and if he is 3-2 in the majors I want to avoid a spade lead. It's a ridiculously safe psych, since the only way it can go wrong is for partner to choose what he thinks is the 4-3 fit, something most people never do.

 

In the 2005 GNT qualifier semifinals in my district last year, playing with a first and probably last time partner (great psych situation!) I made the smolen psych on Qxxxx x AKJx xxx. 1NT 2♣, 2♦ 3♥, 3♠ 4♠. Oddly enough it worked by having the opposite effect of normal. Instead of avoiding a heart lead against 3NT, it attracted one against 4♠! Opening leader (an excellent player) led the heart ace from Axxxxx, certain that he was about to give his partner a ruff at trick two. Instead my partner's KQx of hearts was set up for two club pitches, making a game that was never going to make otherwise. Suffice to say, I was quite pleased with my shenanigans.

[han]

Btw, anyone have more experience with psychic lead directing doubles in slam auctions?

 

Arend

I made one yesterday, but I won't tell you about it Arend. :P

[han]

Very nice idea Josh, I've got to try that some time :P.

[kfgauss]

Fortunately, the Laws of Contract Bridge tell us what should have happened. Here is Law 17D:

 

"D. Cards from Wrong Board

If a player who has inadvertently picked up the cards from a wrong board makes a call, that call is cancelled. If offender's LHO has called over the cancelled call, the Director shall assign artificial adjusted scores (see Law 90 for penalty) when offender's substituted call differs in any significant way from his cancelled call . If offender subsequently repeats the cancelled call on the board from which he mistakenly drew his cards, the Director may allow that board to be played normally, but the Director shall assign artificial adjusted scores (see Law 90) when offender's call differs in any way from his original cancelled call."

 

So, the TD is supposed to let the dealer take the correct cards out of the board and let him make a bid. If it is 1♠ then play continues as it was. In all other cases, the board is cancelled and an adjusted score is given.

 

Rik

I didn't really think about the implications of this until now, but this gives the player who took out the wrong hand an interesting problem: take an Ave-minus or repeat your previous call even if it wasn't appropriate for your hand (ie psyche). It seems like this could often be correct, and indeed would have been on this board.

 

Do the opponents get to change their bids if this player chooses to make the same calls? They have added information that their opponent is somewhat likely to be psyching because the bids are being made under duress of an Ave-minus score for changing.

 

Andy

[mrdct]

The current free money bridge tourneys are a great place to practice psyching as you have three GIB players to piss-off and no kibitzers. The problem is you have little chance of winning the tourney as psyche opportunities are generally cheap sacrifices, and therefore small negatives, so if you are getting such hands it's hard to win a total points events.

[jchiu]

Apparently you haven't experienced how bad these robots could possibly be in fielding psychs. Not only do they fail to field the psych, they also bid some high and crazy contract based on their distribution and your presumed values. I doubt they play McCabe, so my psych would be dangerous bordering on insane playing with such a robot. On the other hand, that Smolen psych ...