Ruling

[pokerbids]

Just seeking a clarification from anyone who knows anything about this subject Sometimes I run tourneys with a 'local' rule disallowing psyche bids. The other day a member sprang a new phrase on me saying there is a category of psyches called "tactical psyches" and even ACBL doesnt regulate that. I looked up Law 40 that deals with psyches but I couldnt find reference to any such category. So my view was that since the Law doesnt even recognise or define tactical psyches we would just evaluate it as to whether in fact it was a psyche call or not and would rule accordingly and I also added that since this category doesnt exist anywhere it is no wonder that ACBL doesnt regulate as it doesnt exist for them. I am seeking other members of this forum views as to whether you have ever come across this phrase before or a definition that deals with it. Please note that I am not seeking views on whether the 'local' rule disallowing psyches is a correct one or wrong one. I am seeking opinion on the aspect of tactical psyches since I hadn't come across this phrase before it was thrown at me! Also whether in principle the response I gave was a right one or have I made a fool of myself (again!!) I wanted to both correct my own lack of knowledge and response if this is the case

thanks in advance

[inquiry]

Well you will not find ACBL or other organization rules banning "tatical psyches" since, to be honest, the rules of bridge they abid by does not allow banning even gross, outlandish ones. They can regulate conventions such that you can not psyche some of them.

 

When you ban psyches, it is as you say a local rule. I guess i would follow along and ban tatical psyches too, otherwise you will have a slippery slope to separate degrees of psyches.

 

A tatical psyche is something like a splinter bid in a suit you are not short in. A fake cue-bid of a control in a suit you lack a control. The trial bid in a suit you are not interested in to discourage a lead in that suit. Etc.

[jillybean]

What can I say. You've read the bridge laws and Law40 permits a player to make any call or play.

 

I can only assume this player was trying to make a distinction between tactical and disruptive psyches. However, the 2 definitions do not exist in the laws. A psyche is tactical bid intended to disrupt the auction.

 

edit oops I posted this before reading Bens reply

[Echognome]

The problem with disallowing psyches is who is going to decide whether a psyche has even occurred. Opponents call you to my table and say that my hand doesn't match my bid. So I say, "Oh. I misclicked on the wrong bid and my LHO bid before I could undo." So are you going to judge whether I made a misbid (or misclick) or whether I intentionally psyched.

 

Next point, I have a tough call on what to bid, so I have to 'fudge' a bid. Say that I jump shift into a three card minor because I do not have another good bid to describe my hand. Who is going to judge whether this is a psyche.

 

Say I make a takeout double on a light, but shapely hand (e.g. a 4441 8 or 9 count). Is this a gross deviation? When is it a gross deviation? Guess what? You get to judge it.

 

Suppose I overcall the opponents one level opening with a stopper and a long running minor, but less than normal requisite amount of high cards. Is this a psyche?

 

Suppose I open very light in 3rd seat. Is this a psyche?

 

I hope you see my point. The important part of any bridge game is that methods are fully disclosed. That is much more important, in my view, than trying to make sure everyone has their bid.

 

As a last example, suppose a couple of beginners just bid what they have in front of them. E.g. they double with an opening hand with traditional shape. Is that a psyche? Or they overcall 1NT with a 13 count because they don't know any better. Is this a psyche?

 

And I hope you don't want them to alert what they have in their hands as they are only supposed to alert their agreements.

 

It just gets too messy if you have to start judging every action. But shrug, I guess it's alright for some. Nothing I'd like to play in though.

[helene_t]

As Ben says, the laws of bridge do not allow sponsoring organisations to disallow psyches.

 

This does not mean that you cannot disallow psyches. You don't have to follow the laws of bridge. But when you choose to deviate from the laws of bridge, you must be aware that you are completely on your own. No authority can help you interpret your "local" rules. In particular, nobody here can tell you what a "tactical psyche" is and whether it's allowed under your local rules.

 

So you have to define very precisely, in lawyers' language so to speak, excatly what it is that you don't allow. Then prospective players can take it or leave it. Of course your rules deviate from ACBL rules (or any other rules) but that's not a problem per se.

[bid_em_up]

I just have a hard time accepting the fact that anybody with the ID of:

 

pokerbids

 

would then turn around and attempt to ban psyches of any sort. ;)

 

I will give a few examples of common tactical bids:

 

Splintering into a suit that is not a stiff.

 

Jump shifting into a two or three card suit.

 

Responding 1S on an auction like 1H-(X)-1S, on a hand that contains good heart support and spade shortness, in an attempt to misdirect the opponents.

 

Same goes for 2H-(X)-2S, where responder intends to support hearts later (and is attempting to again cause the opponents to miss their spade fit). Or 2H (p) 2N on a bust hand in an attempt to play 3H undoubled.

 

(1C)-1S-(2S)-4N on a holding such as Jxxxxx Kxxx xxx void, trying to convince the opponents that you are really interested in slam, when instead you are trying to play 5S undoubled.

 

Most all of these types of tactical bids are easily exposed (except for the splinter one or jump shift) if used against decent opponents. Many of them can even be considered partnership agreements if they are done frequently enough.

 

They, in my opinion, are not "psychic" bids. There is a logical bridge reason behind them and almost all cases, when you make the bid, you know you have someplace to run to where the contract will not be a disaster. It is a tactic being used to cloud the issue of who has what, but the player making the bid KNOWS where he is going and is reasonably safe in doing so.

 

A true "psyche" bid has no such assurances. It is a shot in the dark which may or may not work.

 

As always, jmoo.

[pokerbids]

Thanks all for responding and I loved bid em ups comment that how on earth can a fellow call himslf pokerbids and ban psyches!!! Actually I was just running a tourney for a club where that is the rule so I wanted to follow it. I must confess that although Inquiry did address the question and tried to explain waht a tactical psyche may mean I am still not convinced that such a term exists. In any case judging by the responses the whole issue of disallowing psyches overshadowed the main theme. Imagine if against your wishes or whatever you were forced to TD an event where no psyches were allowed. In that case if someone came up with a answer that TD this is not a psyche but rather a tactical psyche I would give them full marks for creativity but still evaluate the hand on whether it is a gross distortion of values or strength benchmarked against your cc. A subjective judgement to be sure but I would ignore the qualification of "tactical" or any other descriptor to a psyche and evaluate it aginst a psyche definiton itself. Someone else did say degrees of psyches is a slippery slope and I tend to agree that one cant categorise a subject and analyse it to death. Anyway thanks for all your responses cause each of them did give me a fresh perspective

[blackshoe]

What's in a name? You can call a bid whatever you like. Hell, call it a Heffalump. If it's a gross distortion of either strength or suit length, it's a psych. If it doesn't fit that (subjective, to be sure, but so what?) definition in the eyes of the TD (or AC, if it comes to that), it's not a psych.

[mgoetze]

Imagine if against your wishes or whatever you were forced to TD an event where no psyches were allowed.

I would take it all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. :rolleyes:

[helene_t]

When declarer falsecards, it doesn't count as a pscyhe since he's not conveying information to partner. By the same token, a misleading bid by the captain of the bidding is not a psyche. For example:

2♦*-2♥(relay to Benji)

2N-4♦(hearts)

4♥-4N(rkc)

5♣-5♦ (misleading trump queen asking: I have the queen myself but miss two aces. Just make opps think I'm missing only one ace)

5♥-pass

 

This is not a psyche. Also

3♣-(pass)-3N (as long as they don't double I'm happy to go six or seven down against their cold game)

is not a psyche.

 

However,

3♣-(pass)-3♠(same as above)

may be a pscyhe because it conveys some information to which partner is supposed to respond. On the other hand, if the agreement is that opener must pass responder's next 5♣ bid, it may not count as a psyche. I'm not so sure about this. But who cares. Semantics, seschmantics.

 

1♠-(pass)-2♣ (my weakest minor before I bid 3N, just to inhibit a club lead)

may not be a psyche since if 2♣ systematically shows only 3+ it's not a gross misdescription.

 

Of course a 1NT opening with a stiff (or even a void) is not a pscyhe, even if one thinks it is a gross misdescription. This is because it's main purpose is to hog the contract, or to preempt, or whatever. Misleading opps may be a consideration but not the main purpose.

 

Opening 1NT with much less values than expected may be a psyche. If someone opens a 12-14 1NT in first or second seat with a moderate 9-point or less, I'll assume it was intended as a psyche. In 3rd seat I might not since the consideration might be a passed hand rarely won't respond to a weak notrump anyway.

[awm]

Seems to me that whether a bid is a psych has more to do with intent than anything else. Supposing I bid something which doesn't match my systemic agreement, it seems the director could ask "why did I bid this way?" There are several reasons:

 

(1) I forgot my systemic agreement, or I missorted/miscounted my hand. Not a psych.

 

(2) I thought my bid was the best description of my hand. This could be a sign of poor disclosure (i.e. we have no opening bid for a 15 point 4441 hand so I opened 1nt -- not a psych per se but if this is how things go my partnership should disclose that our 1nt openings can be 4441 hands). It could also be that I have an unusual hand, or that I evaluate my hand a little differently in terms of point value. Not a psych.

 

(3) I bid this way in order to mess with the opponents -- to try to get them to miss their best fit, or make a bad lead, or not double my sacrifice, or not bid their game. In this case my bid is a psych.

 

Of course, people don't always answer such questions from director honestly: answers tend to be self-serving. And sometimes you can just tell from the hand in question that (2) just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

 

I should note that "asking bids" that don't show anything can't really be psychs. If I bid 4NT "keycard" that bid is just asking partner a question. It doesn't guarantee anything about my hand, so even if I bid it on total garbage that doesn't make it a psych. Similarly a bid which is "to play" like 3NT over a preempt shouldn't be categorized as a psych. A psych must be a bid that shows some feature of my hand, which my actual hand doesn't reflect.

[mink]

Some time ago opps called the TD of a private club that disallows psyches, the TD adjusted to 40/60. When I opened 1♣ with the north hand, I did not feel I was psyching. Was it objectively a psyche, though?

 

If it is legal to open this hand with 3♣, what can be wrong with being cautious and start on level 1? And, according to my judgment the odds that this opening leads to a disaster are not very high, even though partner was not aware at all - it was a pickup partnership.

 

Karl

 

[hv=d=n&v=n&n=sth97643dckq98432&w=sqj6hqdakt954cat7&e=sak84hkt52dq8632c&s=s97532haj8dj7cj65]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

West North East South

 

- 1♣ Dbl 1♠

2♦ Pass 3♦ Pass

3NT Pass Pass Pass

[jtfanclub]

Some time ago opps called the TD of a private club that disallows psyches, the TD adjusted to 40/60. When I opened 1♣ with the north hand, I did not feel I was psyching. Was it objectively a psyche, though?

In the ACBL, by definition any opening at the 1 level with 7 hcp or less is a psyche...or rather, it's illegal or a psyche, so either way you're screwed.

 

Hopefully wherever you were playing was a little more reasonable.

[helene_t]

I wouldn't personally consider this 1♣ opening a pscyhe. You have enough offensive values for some kind of opening, and the choice of 1♣ instead of some other opening was not eveidently made mainly in order to mislead opps.

 

I can understand that some would consider the 1♣ opening a pscyhe. But even then, did the tourney rules specify how the TD would adjust in the case of a psyche? This is important since the laws of bridge do not allow SOs to disallow psyches so obviously they do not specify how to rule in case someone violates such a rule.

 

If a psyche is considered insufficient disclosure, the next question is if EW were damaged. In other words, would they have reached 6♦ if the 1♣ opening had been alerted as "natural but can be very light". I think it's quite clear that the result had been the same.

[the hog]

Quote HelenT:

 

"When declarer falsecards, it doesn't count as a pscyhe since he's not conveying information to partner."

 

This is incorrect. Have you not heard of the psychic Foster Echo? There was a case in a youth match of course, where the director was called for such an incident. :)

[Finch]

By the same token, a misleading bid by the captain of the bidding is not a psyche.

No.

 

A psychic call is "A deliberate and gross misstatement of honour strength or suit length"

 

Whether a mis-statement is "gross" or not is of course subjective, but there is nothing about whether or not you are deceiving partner.

 

3♣ - (pass)-3N (as long as they don't double I'm happy to go six or seven down against their cold game) is a psyche if your partnership agreement is that 3NT is a strong call, it's not a psyche if your partnership agreement is that 3NT may be expecting to go a lot off undoubled.

 

Of course a 1NT opening with a stiff (or even a void) is not a pscyhe, even if one thinks it is a gross misdescription. This is because it's main purpose is to hog the contract, or to preempt, or whatever. Misleading opps may be a consideration but not the main purpose.

 

If your partnership agreement is to open 1NT only with a balanced hand, then a 1NT opening with a void is certainly a psyche. A 1NT opening with a singleton may or may not be, depending on whether the mis-statement is "gross". The purpose of the call is irrelevant. (If your partnership agreement was that a 1NT opening is 15-17 balanced, then I would say J KQxx AKxx Kxxx was not a psyche, but J KQJxx AKxxx Kx was)

 

 

 

Seems to me that whether a bid is a psych has more to do with intent than anything else.

 

Yes, in that a psyche has to be deliberate.

 

There is nothing in the Laws about "tactical psyches". If it is a deliberate and gross misstatement it's a psyche. If it's not, it isn't. It's a simple as that.

 

If you choose to run a "no psyches" tournament you have already deviated from the Laws, so it's up to you to decide what you want to define as a psyche anyway.

[Finch]

As Ben says, the laws of bridge do not allow sponsoring organisations to disallow psyches.

 

This does not mean that you cannot disallow psyches. You don't have to follow the laws of bridge. But when you choose to deviate from the laws of bridge, you must be aware that you are completely on your own. No authority can help you interpret your "local" rules. In particular, nobody here can tell you what a "tactical psyche" is and whether it's allowed under your local rules.

 

So you have to define very precisely, in lawyers' language so to speak, excatly what it is that you don't allow. Then prospective players can take it or leave it. Of course your rules deviate from ACBL rules (or any other rules) but that's not a problem per se.

I agree with all of this, however!

[Jacki]

A psych by any other name is still a psych. (Apologies to Wm. S.)

 

Jacki ;)

[helene_t]

By the same token, a misleading bid by the captain of the bidding is not a psyche.

No.

 

A psychic call is "A deliberate and gross misstatement of honour strength or suit length"

 

Whether a mis-statement is "gross" or not is of course subjective, but there is nothing about whether or not you are deceiving partner.

3NT as a response to a preempt is not a statement about strength. It takes full captaincy, just like a pass in 4th seat or a redouble of 7NT. It simply means "I want to play 3NT, at least as long as it isn't doubled. Don't look at your hand, just pass".

 

Of course if the partnership agreement is that opener is allowed to bid slam with a suitable (?) hand, then it is a statement about strength and then I agree.

[pokerbids]

I had actually thanked all for their views and sort of closed this posty but suddenly I had one final query. While I fully understand that members mostly were against the concept of disallowing psychic calls in a tourney I was a bit taken aback when a few said disallowing this was against the laws of the game. Am I reading or interpreting the law in an erroneous manner cause Law 80 (E) states that it is part of a sponsoring organisation right and power to establish special conditions in bidding and play. So isnt disallowing psychic calls for a tournament a "special condition in bidding" for that event or am i getting this all wrong?

[Gerardo]

You can't overrule the Laws when setting such conditions, and 40A says psyches are lawful.

[mycroft]

A tactical bid is a psych made by an expert against a non-expert, who, however, "should be able to work it out" (of course, after seeing it a couple of times, she will).

 

A psych is a tactical bid made against that same expert by a non-expert.

 

And do remember that "gross and deliberate misstatement" relates to the agreed meaning of the bid for that partnership, not for the real world. Opening 853 AK 742 97532 2C is psychic in pretty much every system I've seen, but not only not a gross misstatement, but absolutely mandated by system, if playing EHAA. Similarly, 2H-p-2NT with a bust and hearts is psychic if 2NT by system guarantees invitational values; if it simply is "asking" with no promise of strength *in that partnership*, and that agreement is freely and completely disclosed, then it doesn't matter if that's the only pair that plays it that way, it's not a psychic.

 

One of the problems I have with "tactical bids" is that they're deliberate and gross misstatements that are common enough that their partner is going to expect them - and that makes them an implied partnership understanding requiring disclosure and system regulation. The expert that says "that's not a psych, it was just tactical" is likely to get into more trouble with concealed partnership understanding and illegal agreements than he was trying to get out of for the psychic (which is, of course, legal; provided it doesn't get to partnership understanding or frivolous levels).

 

Hog - I'm assuming that you mean Foster Echo in the Australian sense rather than the bridge sense; the Canadian equivalent being the Molson Echo, no (not as much fun that way, though, especially as here, Foster's is made by Labatt, not Molson)?

 

Michael.

[blackshoe]

I had actually thanked all for their views and sort of closed this posty but suddenly I had one final query. While I fully understand that members mostly were against the concept of disallowing psychic calls in a tourney I was a bit taken aback when a few said disallowing this was against the laws of the game. Am I reading or interpreting the law in an erroneous manner cause Law 80 (E) states that it is part of a sponsoring organisation right and power to establish special conditions in bidding and play. So isnt disallowing psychic calls for a tournament a "special condition in bidding" for that event or am i getting this all wrong?

A sponsoring organisation conducting an event under these Laws has the following duties and powers:

 

E. Special Conditions

to establish special conditions for bidding and play (such as written bidding, bidding boxes, screens - penalty provisions for actions not transmitted across a screen may be suspended).

 

F. Supplementary Regulations

to publish or announce regulations supplementary to, but not in conflict with, these Laws.

 

Law 80E has to do with how you bid, not what you bid. Since Law 40A allows psyches, a regulation regarding them would be "supplementary to" that law. IOW, the governing law here is 80F, not 80E

 

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.

 

So a regulation banning psyches would conflict with Law 40A, and therefor would not be legal under Law 80F.

[barmar]

Similarly, 2H-p-2NT with a bust and hearts is psychic if 2NT by system guarantees invitational values; if it simply is "asking" with no promise of strength *in that partnership*, and that agreement is freely and completely disclosed, then it doesn't matter if that's the only pair that plays it that way, it's not a psychic.

Isn't there an implication that an asking bid means that the answer makes a difference? This isn't a matter of partnership agreement, but simple bridge logic. Can you really make an asking bid with the intent of bidding the same thing no matter what the response is?

[blackshoe]

Can you really make an asking bid with the intent of bidding the same thing no matter what the response is?

Of course you can. Whyever not?

 

It may not be a good idea, of course, since it will give opponents information they might not otherwise get, at least until dummy is faced.

 

Easy example: you play four suit transfers over 1NT, so your 2NT response is a transfer. You have a balanced 8 count with no four card major. You bid 2 ♣, Stayman, an asking bid. You don't care what opener replies, your next call is going to be 2NT.