3rd seat creativity anyone?

[han]

I was told by someone that psyching in short suits is a bad idea because they're already splitting badly, so we want the opps to play there. 3 or 2 card suits however...

That doesn't seem the most important reason at all. The worst is that partner virtually always raises.

[rbforster]

Well my psych certainly didn't work out well, but I've gotten a lot of advice thanks to all this discussion. I'm not sure I'll put this to use any time soon, but its always good to learn to think about what makes an effective psych from others' experiences (rather than having to subject your poor partner to them very often!).

 

If you open 1NT in 3rd or 4th seat, its (essentially) impossible for the partnership to have sufficient values for game.  Partner can't ever hang you by bidding 3NT or bidding Stayman and then forcing to game or even inviting game.

 

Comment 1:  Its unclear for me whether this is an efficient use of a 3rd/4th seat 1NT opening.  I suppose that this is an OK preempt, however, I don't find this overly appealing.  I'd want a 1NT opening to promise enough values that game is possible.  Otherwise, the amount of "dead" bidding space over the opening seems excessive.

We intend our weak 1NT (10-13) in 3rd as somewhat preemptive, but play it sounder (14-16) in 4th when there's noone left to preempt.

 

I'd be the first to admit our bidding system is far from optimal, and maybe there's a better way to use our NT ranges. Our responses after P-1NT are much the same as by an unpassed hand - lots of signoffs, together with stayman which probably only includes garbage or 5-4 majors signoffs (rather than any inv+). We just don't use the bids higher than 2N by a PH realistically.

 

Comment 2:  I don't think that this structure would constitute a psychic control per see.  However, it could be argued that a 1NT psyche is protected by the initial pass playing a light opening style.

Right, the definition of a psychic control is a bid that asks partner if he psyched, and we certainly don't use any of those (except Drury if you count that, but it's officially allowed). Some psychs are just safer than others when partner's a limited hand, and I guess this is one of many such situations.

 

it could be argued that a 1NT psyche is protected by the initial pass playing a light opening style.

I think that's a really good point. Certainly, if I were directing, you'd get away with this once. Ever. It is so tempting to make the 1NT bid "0-13 hcp, balanced if 10-13" that if I got a whiff of that you wouldn't be playing the system any more.

Wow, that's a pretty strong position to take! You realize there's an important difference between an (often illegal) psychic control bid/agreement and a perfectly legal psych made in a "relatively safe auction" where partner's normal responses are unlikely to work out badly.

 

If you really meant this, I hope you would apply the same rule to everyone out there who's bid 2♠ after 2♥-(X) with a weak hand and heart support. After all, partner's shown a weak two bid and won't jump to game or anything (at most raising to 3♠ which you can pass, and then correct to 4♥ if doubled). Don't tell me playing the system of weak two bids must be banned under this logic...

[jtfanclub]

If you really meant this, I hope you would apply the same rule to everyone out there who's bid 2♠ after 2♥-(X) with a weak hand and heart support. After all, partner's shown a weak two bid and won't jump to game or anything (at most raising to 3♠ which you can pass, and then correct to 4♥ if doubled). Don't tell me playing the system of weak two bids must be banned under this logic...

If somebody did that twice, I would make them alert the 2 spade bid from there on out as saying "Spades and (point range) or occassionally a weak hand with heart support".

 

If you have a bid in which a particular psyche is easily handled by your system, and you make that psyche multiple times, I would argue that the "psyche" is in fact part of your system. I wouldn't even take it seriously if you claimed that your partner was as suprised as your opponents the third time you did it. Not revealing your tendency to psyche with a particular bid after having done it several times is unethical.

 

In your case, a 1NT opener of 0-13, balanced if 10-13, and having conventional responses to this is simply illegal (outside of Superchart). Therefore, the second time you did it I would ban the bid. You can't play an illegal bid simply by claiming it's a "psyche" every time it goes outside the legal parameters.

 

If you continuously rotate partners so that every time you only did this once per partner...you might have a case, but I'd still be rather unhappy about it.

[rbforster]

Ah, I misunderstood the basis for your argument. I thought you were claiming the limited context of partner somehow constituted a psychic control (which I disagree with), rather than the rule about conventional followups of a maybe-weaker-than-10-point-1NT.

 

If somebody did that twice, I would make them alert the 2 spade bid from there on out as saying "Spades and (point range) or occassionally a weak hand with heart support". 

 

If you have a bid in which a particular psyche is easily handled by your system, and you make that psyche multiple times, I would argue that the "psyche" is in fact part of your system.

Sure, full disclosure of common psychs seems like a good thing. I would argue this should be true whether or not the particular psych is "easily handled" (although if it's not, hopefully you'd learn to stop doing it!).

 

In your case,  a 1NT opener of 0-13, balanced if 10-13, and having conventional responses to this is simply illegal (outside of Superchart).  Therefore, the second time you did it I would ban the bid.  You can't play an illegal bid simply by claiming it's a "psyche" every time it goes outside the legal parameters. 

I agree there's a real issue here, although I'm not sure what the best resolution is. Certainly if I claim to play a 10-13 NT but often bid 1NT with only 9 points, I'm really playing a 9+ to 13 NT and shouldn't get away with conventional followups just by claiming I psych a lot (even though playing a 9-13 NT is legal by itself). I think it's probably a matter of frequency - if you psych 1NT too often then maybe you shouldn't be allowed to play stayman, etc. I'm not sure what "too often" is, but I would probably define it as a ~2% of such hands (or some other %), rather than a strict number of psychs like you suggest. Twice out of 50 hands is very different than twice out of 5000.

 

I will point out that others in this thread have suggested they would have psyched a strong 1NT in this situation, but not a weak NT (since the opponents would still likely find game). Your argument applies equally to those playing a strong NT who psych with a weak balanced hand - I just want to make sure you would treat the strong NT'er equally in this situation. Will you really ban a pair from using stayman the second time they psych a strong NT? Something to think about.

[whereagles]

This is a somewhat lousy hand to take action. Just let it be, pass... there's always next hand.. you don't need a good board all the time to win tournaments. Besides, opps might easily mess up or you can come up with a brilliant defensive play.