Psyching a help suit game try

[DrTodd13]

Nobody should want to call this behavior a psyche because if you do you can't regulate it.

Nice circular logic there.

 

"Psych" has a pretty clear definition. Either this call fits or it doesn't. A desire to regulate it makes no difference.

Very true....but I was talking from their perspective. Presumably people want to stop this behavior and you can't do that if you call it a psyche. Fortunately, it isn't a psyche but misinformation and so you have one legitimate and one illegitimate reason for not calling it a psyche.

[helene_t]

The only thing for the TD to do is to establish whether it's a partnership agreement (and if so, whether opps were damaged or not). Whether it counts as "tactical" or not, and whether it's a "gross deviation" from the primary meaning of a HST, doesn't matter.

 

As for the semantics thing, the prefix "psycho" is sometimes used for tactical agreements, i.e. something that has nothing to do with psyches, such as "psycho suction". Maybe that's unfortunate. Zia talks about "Sting cues". It may differ from a cue that is psyche only in terms of partnership understanding, but that's the important thing from a law point of view, and that's what makes "psyching a cue" a psyche, while a Sting cue beased on partnership understanding is not a psyche.

 

Woe the day that the auction goes 1S-2S; 3D-3S; 4S and partner has a hand that doesn't have help for game, but does have cooperation for a slam try. If he makes the slam try call, you're screwed because you "knew where the contract should be played", and you don't get to play there; not making the slam try call is evidence that he's catering to the psychic slam try

Good point. If that could happen, then my previous post (about captainship) was not applicable to HST. It might not be applicable anyway, I think it's a controversial issue. Todd's point adresses a different issue, though, one which should not be controversial.

[ArtK78]

Woe the day that the auction goes 1S-2S; 3D-3S; 4S and partner has a hand that doesn't have help for game, but does have cooperation for a slam try. If he makes the slam try call, you're screwed because you "knew where the contract should be played", and you don't get to play there; not making the slam try call is evidence that he's catering to the psychic slam try

Good point. If that could happen, then my previous post (about captainship) was not applicable to HST. It might not be applicable anyway, I think it's a controversial issue. Todd's point adresses a different issue, though, one which should not be controversial.

Actually, it is not such a great point. If partner has a hand to move forward over the "game try," he will accept game by bidding game or by making some other forward going sound. Now, when opener bids game, it will seem like the "game try" was just that - a game try - not a slam try.

 

When responder declines game and opener bids game anyway, it sounds like a slam try, but responder will pass since he didn't have the right hand to bid game over the "game try." He cannot have a hand to cooperate in a slam venture if he declined the earlier game try.

 

So, the psychic game try (call it a "lead inhibiting game try") is a safe manuever. If partner accepts, you sign off in game. If partner declines, you bid game anyway knowing that partner cannot bid anymore.

 

[No doubt someone is going to come up with some theory which would allow a hand that declined a game try to bid some more after partner bids game, signifying that the "game try" was actually a "slam try."]

[Cascade]

Anytime I know where the contract should be played, I like to misdescribe my hand to the opponents

 

I think this does create an unexpected agreement/understanding and should be alerted.

 

Damage is another thing..

I don't think so. This is no an agreement with partner. It is your personal choice. Sometimes you fool around, sometimes you maynot.

But when you do such a thing in a regular parthership you very soon create implicit partnership understandings that need to be fully disclosed, and thus alerted.

What say you never do such things ...

 

... surely that too creates an implicit understanding that also needs to be alerted.

 

I don't think you can have it both ways. Psyching is part of the game.

[Cascade]

I still don't want to call it a psyche. In the situation you describe, the description of HSGT is _misinformation_. It isn't a psyche because the pair has an undisclosed agreement to bid this way. Nobody should want to call this behavior a psyche because if you do you can't regulate it. Call it what it is, misinformation, and penalize them for failing to adequately disclose their agreements.

I did about 14 years ago with this partner

 

I think it is a big leap of faith to say this is an agreement.

[helene_t]

Maybe off-topic, but in Jansma-Verhees' old system book they wrote that they would never psyche a 2N response to a multi 2♣ opening.

 

I wondered what would happen if they did it anyway:

 

Opps: Hey, your explanation of that 2N bid doesn't seem to be correct

Jansma: Well, obviously he psyched

Opps: Your CC says you never psyche that bid. Misinformation!

Verhees: The CC states our agreements. We have the agreement not to psyche this bid. I'm allowed to deviate from our agreements <_<

[mycroft]

I did about 14 years ago with this partner

 

I think it is a big leap of faith to say this is an agreement.

The problem is that although psyching a game try once every 14 years *with that partner* is a long way from an agreement, being known to make psychic game tries is special information, that should be available to the opponents, no matter how many partners he spreads it over. Being known to "if it's safe, try to mislead" - and if he admits it straight up, it's likely to have happened often enough that his regular circle, partners and opponents, know it too - is also special partnership knowledge that is disclosable.

 

If I played with Zia against someone who had Rip van Winkled from the Roth-Stone era, and we had a cuebid slam auction, the fact that he is known to cue when he doesn't have one is so well known (to me, you and everyone else in the room, except our opponents) that it is disclosable information - and I've never played with him before.

 

It doesn't have to be the individual psychic call, either. When still in Ontario, although I don't think I ever repeated a psychic, my partner and I made psychics so much more frequently than the rest of the community (i.e. at least once) that if it was clear that somebody psyched, it was one of us. Our regular opponents knew that, too, and there's no misinformation. Players from Calgary, or online, or India - well, that's information they're entitled to. How to do it under the ACBL guidelines, I don't know - but that's our problem, isn't it?

 

Yes, it's difficult to deal with. Yes, it reduces the effectiveness of the tactic - but it's not as effective against your club as it is in the BBO world, no? simply because there, you're known for it. Yes, the 90+% of the time that you give the explanation, you actually have the game try, and that can cause bad blood. But if they aren't aware, and your partner is, then you have the understanding and can and will be ruled against when it causes a problem.

 

Michael.

[kenberg]

People have been cuebidding controls that they don't have since the game was invented and perhaps it is similar here. Still, if you have some agreements along the lines of "when I make some bids along the way and then I bid game, please do not make any move beyond game because I may be throwing sand in their eyes" then there could be a problem.

 

I agree that after 1S-2S-3D-3S-4S it is unlikely that responder will want to move. As long as you have no agreement that he is forbidden to move then I think that I am OK with this tactic. More importantly I think that the director should be OK with it.

 

 

I like the definition that a tactical bid is one made by an expert and a psych is when it is made against an expert. Some truth to this I believe. I have read of various bids that are described glowingly as brilliant that I am not sure would survive a director call if I made them.

[TheoKole]

I guess the bridge laws are different in respect to psyches in Greece with respect to ACBL laws.

 

Here, possible psyches must be alerted as such if there is an implicit agreement between partnerships (higher than 2 times in a "short" time frame being the dividing line) and at the discrecion of the director.

 

In order for a psyche to be legal there must be some element of risk invovled, and that is why in Greece, a 2 club opener, a strong 2 opener, and a 1 club Precision opener are banned as psyches. Also banned as psyches are relay bids in conventions that show a strong hand in honor cards.

 

In all these bids the psycher can control the auction easily and as a result has no risk involved in his bid.

 

1NT openings, 1 of a suit openers, fake cue bids, fake help suit game tries and others are allowed because there is always some element of risk involved.

 

For example, I psyche a 1 spade opener holding a weak 2 bid in hearts and my partner bids 4 spades, what do I do? That's the risk and that is why it is allowed.

 

Theo

[blackshoe]

The laws are the same everywhere (save for some optional elections, none of which apply to psychs).

 

If you have an agreement, implicit or otherwise, then it is not a psych.

 

Sponsoring organizations have a right to make whatever regulations they like regarding conventional bids.

 

TDs make judgement calls everywhere. Does the partnership have sufficient experience of the situation that the "psych" has become an implicit understanding? That's a judgement call. The situation is no different in Athens, Georgia than it is in Athens, Greece. The guidance given to TDs may differ, however - for example your "2 times in a 'short' time frame" is not, as I understand it, the guidance given to ACBL TDs. But that's the only difference, AFAICS.

[mycroft]

And that's all that we're saying. If partner has a better idea than the opponents about something, then it's discloseable. If it's a psychic and there's an agreement, even implicit, about it, then it's no longer a psychic, it's part of your agreements, and may be an unlicensed agreement. If there's anything in the system that is designed to cater to a psychic, then not only is the call part of your agreements (and probably illegal, according to the licensing of your game), but the catering call is also an agreement which is licenseable (and the ACBL has expressly disallowed any such calls - don't know about anywhere else).

 

People like to get away with "well, it's so common that people should have got it", whether they call it a "tactical bid", a "sowing misinformation", or whatever. They don't call it a psychic, because there's this campaign to ban psychics, because they're "bad". But according to the Laws, that's what they are; gross and deliberate misstatement about their hand. And they want to do it when it's right, but they don't want anyone else doing it against them.

 

Hence the (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but nonetheless accurate) statement.

Michael.

[Edit: it helps if all sentences are actually comprehensible]

[mgoetze]

In order for a psyche to be legal there must be some element of risk invovled, and that is why in Greece, a 2 club opener, a strong 2 opener, and a 1 club Precision opener are banned as psyches.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Say I'm playing a strong club, and I open 1♣ (showing 15+ HCP) with some random 8-HCP hand. LHO passes, CHO counts 24 HCP in his hand and consequently bids 7NT, RHO has an Ace and doubles. You don't call that a risk?

 

I could understand banning them in 3rd seat as an application of this "rule", however I don't think it's an accordance with the laws with regard to natural strong 2s.

[dake50]

Making a 'help suit' try, do you want positive help: Qx, etc.

OR do you want to go game on "no 'stuff' here, partner" thus cards working in other suits??

Is the help suit bid to help game decision OR help right here only?? Not here may the help I want to decide.

[blackshoe]

A help suit game try says "partner, I can't just bid game on my own over your simple raise, but if you have some help in this side suit, game should probably work. Do you?"

 

One would not make a help suit game try in a singleton or doubleton side suit. If one has 3 or more cards, though, and 2 or 3 losers, one would - if the overall strength of the hand suggests game might be possible.

[Codo]

In order for a psyche to be legal there must be some element of risk invovled, and that is why in Greece, a 2 club opener,  a strong 2 opener, and a 1 club Precision opener are banned as psyches.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Say I'm playing a strong club, and I open 1♣ (showing 15+ HCP) with some random 8-HCP hand. LHO passes, CHO counts 24 HCP in his hand and consequently bids 7NT, RHO has an Ace and doubles. You don't call that a risk?

 

I could understand banning them in 3rd seat as an application of this "rule", however I don't think it's an accordance with the laws with regard to natural strong 2s.

And the possibility that this happens is how high? 0,0000001 %?

Very brave to psych these openings....

[helene_t]

In order for a psyche to be legal there must be some element of risk invovled, and that is why in Greece, a 2 club opener,  a strong 2 opener, and a 1 club Precision opener are banned as psyches.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Say I'm playing a strong club, and I open 1♣ (showing 15+ HCP) with some random 8-HCP hand. LHO passes, CHO counts 24 HCP in his hand and consequently bids 7NT, RHO has an Ace and doubles. You don't call that a risk?

 

I could understand banning them in 3rd seat as an application of this "rule", however I don't think it's an accordance with the laws with regard to natural strong 2s.

And the possibility that this happens is how high? 0,0000001 %?

Very brave to psych these openings....

Oh well, change 24 points to 9 and p will bid game, or keep doubling opps. You may protect your psyche by passing p's forcing bid, but if you do so, next time he holds a nice two-suiter and makes 1♠+4. Of course the risk is real.

 

A risk-free psyche is probably either a controled psyche (not allowed) or it is a situation in which the "psycher" is in control of the auction, such as

3♣-(pass)-3N*

in which case some say it's not a psyche because the message is "I try 3N undoubled, you don't have to care why I do that", so it's not a deviation to bid it with zero points and some club tolerance.