Fake bidding

[pork rind]

:P i like the analogy also, but then i live in the south where we believe in courtesy. and if you are not courteous then we get in your face.

:)

[helene_t]

If he had asked his opponent politely to leave after the hand instead of booting him then I still would not see what the problem was, it is just the booting that was rude.

I disagree. He was feeling stupid because he was trapped by a classic tactical bid. Then he made up some rule on the fly in order to get revenge. If he'd asked politely it may not have been sufficient reason to report it to abuse, but certainly enough to mark him as an enemy.

It doesn't make any sense to alert a (potential) psychic bid.

 

A psychic bid is by definition a gross misdescription of suit length or honour strength.

 

On the other hand you alert partnership agreements that differ from some standard - non-alertable bids.

 

If you alert then you are really saying that your agreement is that the bid is a two-way bid - either a genuine game try of whatever persuasion you happen to play or some variety of random bid attempting to deceive the opponent. The fact that you would feel a need to alert means that this bid has crossed the divide from psychic to partnership understanding which needs to be disclosed.

Agree. What I was refering to was agreements such as

1m-(X)-1M*

could be a 3-card (even a bad 3-card) so opener is not allowed to raise with 3 (or, if he is, a subsequent 3m by responder exposes the psyche). You're right that this is not a psyche but a two-way bid.

[hrothgar]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

[kenberg]

The legitimacy of this auction depends on what E knows of W's style. Sitting E, hearing 1H-2H-3D-3H-4H, I would assume that E held (or was faking) the ace of diamonds and was interested in slam if I had good values. Is that not how everyone would bid holding a W hand that wanted to make a below game slam try? Since my hand, the E hand, is pretty good for my bidding opposite such a W hand, I would bid 4S over 4H and if partner responded 5C I would bid 6H. Possibly a really good result if they still fail to find the D lead. Not so good if they lead the D. If the EW agreements preclude bidding over 4H on this auction, the opponents need to be told. If they are a casual partnership then there is no problem.

 

I can't recall ever booting anyone for any reason other than for being a pain in the butt so I disagree with the booting. I also would not ask anyone to leave. At most I would ask about their agreements, but in a casual game I would let it go, assuming that no such detailed agreements exist.

[pclayton]

There's a world of difference between opening 1N on: xx, xx, xx, QJTxxxx and making a fake cue.

 

If I choose to rebid 1N after 1♣ - (1♠) - dbl - (pass) with: xxx, Qxx, AKx, Axxx, is that a psyche?

 

If I choose to make a 4♦ splinter on a hand like: AKQx, AKQxx, Kx, xx after I've opened with 1♥ and heard 1♠ by pard is that a psyche?

 

If I balance with 3N after a 3♠ opening on my left with: Qx, Ax, AKQxxxx, Kx, is that a psyche?

[Guest Jlall]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

This is so bogus it's not even funny. It's things like this that make people have such ridiculous attitudes about psyches/tactical bids.

[SoTired]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

This is so bogus it's not even funny. It's things like this that make people have such ridiculous attitudes about psyches/tactical bids.

no no... i think blackshoe is right. i read it, too. i believe in a book by Reese.

[Guest Jlall]

I meant the quote is so bogus, I definitely believe blackshoe that someone wrote it.

 

I REALLY REALLY doubt it was Reese though. Reese was known for his psyching so...

[bid_em_up]

Just a few thoughts:

 

1) Toystar was playing with Double!. They do not appear to be a regular partnership, so there is no possibility of "fielding" a psyche.

2) It really isn't a psyche. It is a tactical bid or a lead inhibiting bid.

3) Why on earth would you ever alert a psyche? How would you alert this? "Opps, I'm psyching, whack my butt now?" Come on. If you make a psyche, there is never a reason to alert it.

4) Yes, the table host was rude. Mark them as enemy and move on.

[pclayton]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

This is so bogus it's not even funny. It's things like this that make people have such ridiculous attitudes about psyches/tactical bids.

I was playing a team game at Dana Point last week. Gilbert makes a riduclous underbid on a 15 count after I overcalled, since 'obviously' I psyched, because the opps were bidding like crazy.

 

I had a 5 count. We are cold for 4♠ with my 5-5.

 

The learned lady to my left with about 275 masterpoints gently warned me that psyching is not allowed in ACBL. I kindly told her that unless it was a I/N game that psyching is specifically allowed.

 

She later told me how Michaels is the only proper way to play a direct cue bid.

 

I'll never learn.

[pclayton]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

This is so bogus it's not even funny. It's things like this that make people have such ridiculous attitudes about psyches/tactical bids.

no no... i think blackshoe is right. i read it, too. i believe in a book by Reese.

I think reese wrote it too, but I think he wrote it in the context of playing rubber bridge against really bad players.

[fred]

Anyone familiar with the recent thread on "123 stop" will know that my regular partner and I frequently psych game tries. Here is how we handle this situation:

 

1) We alert our game tries even though they are natural bids

 

2) If an opponent asks our answer is: it shows 4+ cards in the suit, but he could have just about any holding

 

3) We always respond as if partner has 4+ cards in the suit

 

The key point in my view is that, if you do something like this once, then it is a psych - no big deal. If you do this more than once with the same partner, it is not a psych anymore - it is part of your system. In this case the opponents have the right to know as much as you do even if the partner of the possible "psycher" will always play the person who made the game try to have a "normal" hand for his bid.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[P_Marlowe]

Just a few thoughts:

 

1)  Toystar was playing with Double!. They do not appear to be a regular partnership, so there is no possibility of "fielding" a psyche.

2) It really isn't a psyche. It is a tactical bid or a lead inhibiting bid.

3) Why on earth would you ever alert a psyche?  How would you alert this?  "Opps, I'm psyching, whack my butt now?" Come on.  If you make a psyche, there is never a reason to alert it.

4) Yes, the table host was rude. Mark them as enemy and move on.

#2 What is the difference between a tactical bid and a psych bid?

There is no difference.

#3 Thats the main problem.

Playing Online bridge, one alerts his own bids.

You alert the bid (according to partnership agreement),

but your hand does not match the explanation you gave

about your own hand, what do you think the explanation was?

The truth or a lie. Unless your opponents know you, sad as it

is, they will believe the later.

=> Playing with strangers in the MBC or in a general tourney,

it does not pay to make a psych bid, because they dont trust

you, and you have to accept, that they believe you a scoudrel (?!,

just wanna try out a english word I came across).

#4 See #3, no excuse for rudeness, but may explain it to some extend.

 

Re #3: (a related example, but face to face bridge)

A world class female player made a artificial psych bid, unfortunately her

partner explained it wrong, but the explanation did match with the hand she

held. She became declarer, and before the lead was made corrected the

explanation. The opening leader now choose a lead, which lead the contract

through, ... he would have found the correct lead, with the wrong information.

Several players interviewed at the tournament found declarers action unethical.

Sry, I for got the tournament and the name of the players involved.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[bid_em_up]

#2 What is the difference between a tactical bid and a psych bid?  There is no difference.

Of course there is a difference. A psyche is usually based on garbage and may or may not work well, even if you have a suit to run to.

 

With the tactical bid, the opening bidder is always bidding 4H, regardless of what his partner does or what the opponents do. He is simply attempting to draw attention away from a possible diamond lead. Is it a form of a psyche? Sure. But it is one that is made with a specific intent or tactic in mind. Of course, by bidding game over partners non-acceptance of the game try, you also tend to clue good opponents into the fact that the 3D call might have been a tactical bid.

 

#3 Thats the main problem.

     Playing Online bridge, one alerts his own bids.

     You alert the bid (according to partnership agreement),

     but your hand does not match the explanation you gave

     about your own hand, what do you think the explanation was?

There is nothing to alert. Assuming you are playing 3D as a natural game try, what are you supposed to alert it as? IF the opponents asked for an explanation, you would say "natural game try". There is nothing more to tell them, as that IS your partnership agreement (assuming you even have one).

 

because they dont trust you, and you have to accept, that they believe you a scoudrel (?!, just wanna try out a english word I came across).

The word is "scoundrel". :wacko:

[DrTodd13]

Well said, Todd. I wonder what's next. Suppose I ask someone to leave as I find out that s/he's, say, Chinese, or 60 YO, or left-handed. I can ask people to leave for any reason, right?

Most people get the concepts of right/wrong and legal/illegal all mixed up. They think that everything wrong should be illegal. For me, one example of something wrong that is legal is kicking someone from your table. If you "own" the table you should be able to ask them to leave or just plain kick them for any reason or no reason. However, if you do so, it doesn't mean what you've done is socially acceptable. Someone has joined a table with every expectation that the rules of bridge are in effect only to find later that law 40 doesn't apply. If you sit down and the host says "law 40 replaced here with 'thou shalt not psyche'" and you psyche anyway then you deserve to get kicked. If I get kicked for being 60 and Chinese then I have no recourse other than to spread the word that the person who kicked me is an ageist and racist.

[DrTodd13]

Fred, I am wondering about the correctness of someone giving a description of a bid as "this hand type or almost any other hand type." Isn't it almost certain that in practice "almost any other hand type" is really two or three specific hand types and that others are excluded? Isn't the principle that any question triggers full disclosure and that they shouldn't have to ask you what other hand types the "almost any other hand type" can actually be? The 3♦ bid may be a real HSGT, an advance cue-bid, or a worthless dub or trip attempting to deter a lead. How many other options do you actually use and what is the problem will listing these options?

[Double !]

Just a few thoughts:

 

1) Toystar was playing with Double!. They do not appear to be a regular partnership, so there is no possibility of "fielding" a psyche.

In fact, I had never met nor had the pleasure of playing with Toystar prior to this travesty.

 

We had just started playing, so prior discussion other than, possibly, "your profile, P", had not occurred. (No one plays my profile, It's too schizophrenic.) I didn't have a clue about what my P was up to until a little light bulb went off (well, more like flickered) when he raised 3H to 4H...........I said "hmmmmm".

 

DHL

[Echognome]

#2 What is the difference between a tactical bid and a psych bid?  There is no difference.

Of course there is a difference. A psyche is usually based on garbage and may or may not work well, even if you have a suit to run to.

 

With the tactical bid, the opening bidder is always bidding 4H, regardless of what his partner does or what the opponents do. He is simply attempting to draw attention away from a possible diamond lead. Is it a form of a psyche? Sure. But it is one that is made with a specific intent or tactic in mind. Of course, by bidding game over partners non-acceptance of the game try, you also tend to clue good opponents into the fact that the 3D call might have been a tactical bid.

I have to say that using the term 'tactical bid' has no meaning whatsoever in the laws and may as well be disregarded entirely. It's fine by me if you want to classify psyches as 'tactical bids' or 'pure psyches based on garbage', but the distinction from a legal point of view is nothing. A psyche is defined in the laws, a tactical bid is not. From a TD's point of view, they are not going to care whether the psyche was a tactical bid or not. It is still a psyche. Being a psyche doesn't make it illegal (in fact you are specifically allowed to psyche as long as it's not a concealed partnership understanding. You are also allowed to have some multi-way bids and even some cryptic bidding, but then you'd have to alert and explain.)

 

Whether your opponents can work out it was lead averting by the fact that you still raised to game is another issue. Just see how Fred plays it. It could be a slammish hand that was asking responder to evaluate how his hand fit with opener having a diamond suit on the side. If responder bid 3♥ to show no interest (game or otherwise) and opener carried on to game, it could still be the case that opener has not psyched. Give opener x KJTxxx AQJx AK for example and he might bid this way.

[fred]

Fred, I am wondering about the ethics of someone giving a description of a bid as "this hand type or almost any other hand type." Isn't it almost certain that in practice "almost any other hand type" is really two or three specific hand types and that others are excluded? Isn't the principle that any question triggers full disclosure and that they shouldn't have to ask you what other hand types the "almost any other hand type" can actually be? The 3♦ bid may be a real HSGT, an advance cue-bid, or a worthless dub or trip attempting to deter a lead. How many other options do you actually use and what is the problem will listing these options?

The explanation we give is practical I think because both my partner and I have made "game tries" with a lot of different 2-card and 3-card holdings in the suit bid. Off the top of my head I can't remember either of is ever making a "game try" with a singleton or void in the suit bid, but it certainly could happen.

 

Of course if an opponent asked me more about our history I would be happy to provide a list of holdings for which we might make a psychic game try, but I believe it would be a waste of time to offer such a list without being asked. Given that I have seen us make these bids with holdings ranging from xx to AKQ, I don't see the point of trying to enumerate these holdings and everything in between.

 

Surely it is better to say "just about anything is possible" (but it might be appropriate to add "unlikely to be a singleton or void").

 

It is not like this happens a lot, by the way. Probably we make no more than a couple of game tries per (long) tournament and of course some of these are not psychs (more likely they are natural slam tries).

 

Most of our opponents really seem to appreciate the way we alert and explain these bids since psychic game tries are far from rare in top-level bridge and since most partnerships are not forthcoming at all about these possibilities.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Guest Jlall]

Surely it is better to say "just about anything is possible" (but it might be appropriate to add "unlikely to be a singleton or void").

yeah my usual answer is "random but not shortness, partner bids like its a natural game try" but it sounds like my style is slightly different than yours.

[blackshoe]

It is tantamount to the flat statement I read in a recent book on bidding: "ethical players never psych."

Out of curiosity, who wrote that?

Eric v.d. Luft, in How I Became a Life Master Playing the Weak Notrump.

[kenberg]

It's becoming clear, if it wasn't so already, that game tries mean different things to different people. With the given E hand, I would accept all game ties of any sort. Only if I had agreed to look only at my diamonds and absolutely nothing else would I reject a 3D game try, and even then I might bid 4H and just claim I forgot.

 

Even so, game tries and slam tries often seek different holdings. If, for example, the 3D asks if responder can trump the third round of diamonds then that would be useful for a game and not for a slam. W is not making a slam try here, only a lead inhibiter, but strengthen the W hand a bit and he might well want to do so.

 

From this I assume that at least on some hands a responder might reject a game try but reconsider if he comes to think that partner was actually slam seeking.

 

Fred explicitly and Justin implicitly seem to be endorsing the phony game try for at least occasional use as a lead inhibiter. Is partner forbidden to reevaluate his hand for slam purposes once he rejects the game try and opener bids game anyway? It would seem that this must be so. Or are the game tries designed so that no reevaluation would be reasonable?

[fred]

Fred explicitly and Justin implicitly seem to be endorsing the phony game try for at least occasional use as a lead inhibiter. Is partner forbidden to reevaluate his hand for slam purposes once he rejects the game try and opener bids game anyway? It would seem that this must be so. Or are the game tries designed so that no reevaluation would be reasonable?

I have always played that in auctions like:

 

1H-2H-3D-x-4H

 

4H is a complete signoff regardless of what x is (including 3H of course).

 

This has nothing to do with the possibility that 3D might be a psych - it is because responder has limited his hand and opener has picked the contract he wants to play in.

 

If opener wants to keep slam in the picture after responder bids x, he has to bid something other than 4H at his 3rd opportunity.

 

I doubt this appears in any textbook on "standard bidding", but I would be willing to bet that you would have a hard time finding a top-level expert who would disagree with the above.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[skjaeran]

I have always played that in auctions like:

 

1H-2H-3D-x-4H

 

4H is a complete signoff regardless of what x is (including 3H of course).

 

This has nothing to do with the possibility that 3D might be a psych - it is because responder has limited his hand and opener has picked the contract he wants to play in.

 

If opener wants to keep slam in the picture after responder bids x, he has to bid something other than 4H at his 3rd opportunity.

 

I doubt this appears in any textbook on "standard bidding", but I would be willing to bet that you would have a hard time finding a top-level expert who would disagree with the above.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

I wouldn't advice anyone to take that bet. :)

[SoTired]

I have always felt that a lead-inhibiting lie is still a "psyche". It's intent is to fool the opponents by greatly misrepresenting either the length of the suit or strength of your hand.

 

A "tactical psyche" is a lie that may greatly misrepresent your hand, but its intent is not to fool the opponents.

 

For example, opener jump-shifts onto a short suit or responder bids a 3-card new suit to force opener.