Catalogue of Insanity?

[kenrexford]

I have brought up this issue before, but I think no one responded. So, maybe it is not interesting to anyone else now either. But, I try anyway.

 

We all know about standard tables on how to play certain holdings to maximize tricks or to maximize chances for a particular number of tricks. We also can find or know about how these odds change with either known information or with necessary assumptions. We can easily find or create lists of standard deceptive plays and counters. We can easily find lists of squeeze types and coup types and intrafinesse types and the like. In other words, there are great resources to spot just about all mathematically relevant matters as to bridge.

 

We can also develop a fair understanding of defense communication tools, psychological ploys, and the like.

 

However, one beast that does not seem to be discussed anywhere is a sort of cataloguing of typical opposition insanity. Very often, I notice that Declarer has a 100% laydown contract that seems easy. Sometimes, it would take quite a while to figure out a line that could fail, and yet Declarer seems to find it. At times, however, the line is so bizarre that I cannot work out the way to take advantage of the blunder because it is so implaubily insane. Or, I might not work out at trick 8 that saving some irrelevant card, or jettisoning some irrelevant card, might be necessary to take advantage of some insanity at trick 10 that would yield an ability to move at trick 11 in a way Declarer cannot now handle. Or, I might not visualize that one of twelve completely senseless plays at trick two might induce some absolutely hopeless line by an idiot declarer for some reason known only to Declarer.

 

I truly believe, however, that a lot of IMPs and a lot of matchpoints are available if this mystery could be explored and understood.

 

Any thoughts here? Could a list be generated of typical insanities? For example, is it possible to create tables of layouts where nothing can legitimately be done, and no real psychological ploy is available, but where a certain idiot play is often made that needs to be catered to or where a certain random play often induces an idiot play?

 

One example is the random trump reduction play. Some declarers find the need to get their ruffs in, even though these ruffs are on the long side and will come naturally anyway. I see this all the time. Thus, a 6-3 fit may well be handled in the end as if it was a 3-3 fit in a 10-card suit. Knowing this allows you to cater to this by establishing a suit that cannot be run but for the fact that the opponent himself will tap himself out of any ability to stop the run of that suit.

 

Another is the angry partner coup. If you are declaring, and LHO has a tendency to be an angry partner, you often see them cash out or do something else stupid if they get angry. If you want them to do this when they get thrown in, you can sometimes play a specific card that convinces LHO that RHO made a mistake. For example, maybe you win his lead with the King when holding AKx. You then go out of your way to cross to dummy to play some suit and get an immediate, but meaningless, pitch of the "x" in that suit. Then you play trumps, knowing that LHO will get in. He will be so convinced that partner ducked the Ace, allowing you to win the King before pitching the other one, that he will likely do something stupid.

[kfay]

In order to understand the insane some might say you need to be insane yourself.

 

Therefore, I nominate you, Ken, to explore this interesting idea.

[rogerclee]

play against non-B/I opponents

[OleBerg]

Isn't that an artifact in D&D?

[kenrexford]

play against non-B/I opponents

Yeah, that happens. You have to not enter any stratified games. Actually, you have to somehow skip the first day of any matchpoint event. Even then you catch insanity.

 

For that matter, the only difference between insanity at the B/I level and insanity at the Flight A level is that usually the Flight A insanity is much more complicated.

 

I mean, in what event can you play where absolute insanity is not experienced at least five times in a round?

[jdonn]

I have brought up this issue before, but I think no one responded.  So, maybe it is not interesting to anyone else now either.  But, I try anyway.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[OleBerg]

Is anyone else amused that Ken posted this admitting he has posted it before and no one replied, when compared with Einstein's definition of insanity?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So it is insane to roll a die?

 

(I must admit Einstein said something a little like that too.)

[Phil]

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody.

 

If an opponent makes a mistake, but this mistake causes you to picture your opponent's hand different, then you have fallen into a Grosvenor.

 

I think you can drive yourself batty with this kind of thinking. Bridge is hard enough to play when you are trying to gauge "hmm, which mistake did declarer make? Did he reverse on a 13 count, or did he take a strange finesse?"

 

These mistakes aren't easily categorized. They are a totally different beast from the usual list of play themes.

[jdonn]

Is anyone else amused that Ken posted this admitting he has posted it before and no one replied, when compared with Einstein's definition of insanity?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So it is insane to roll a die?

 

(I must admit Einstein said something a little like that too.)

Are you asking Einstein or me? My answer would be that the result of rolling a die is not "I got a 4", it's "I get a 4 1/6 of the time", and of course that won't change no matter how many times you roll it. Perhaps he would have a more intelligent answer.

[OleBerg]

Is anyone else amused that Ken posted this admitting he has posted it before and no one replied, when compared with Einstein's definition of insanity?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So it is insane to roll a die?

 

(I must admit Einstein said something a little like that too.)

Are you asking Einstein or me? My answer would be that the result of rolling a die is not "I got a 4", it's "I get a 4 1/6 of the time", and of course that won't change no matter how many times you roll it. Perhaps he would have a more intelligent answer.

Yeah, I was probably just a bit trigger-happy. And maybe influenced a little by my love for chaos.

[mikeh]

Ken, I suspect that the reason no one answered you originally, and few (so far) now is twofold:

 

1. the subject is largely uninteresting to people who are interested in exploring good bridge and

 

2. The better players on the forum aren't interested in learning how better to pulverize players they already pulverize when they encounter them in some stratified pairs game.

 

In addition, the reality is that many of these players actually have almost no conscious function operating at the table.. their plays are semi-random, so why drive oneself crazy trying to figure it out. 2 examples from actual play:

 

I was in 6N after having shown 4 spades, and LHO was on lead with the AK♠. Not only did she not double, but she led another suit, and got stripped down to having to pitch a top spade to guard a side king.. while I couldn't believe what had happened, I had no choice but to throw her in (yes, my partner was a bit more enthusiastic in the auction than her hand justified, but both she and my LHO think I ama good declarer :) )

 

The other was I held 8642 in dummy and QJ3 in my hand in 3N. LHO led the 10 from K1075 and his partner inserted the 9 from A9. I won the Q, exited the J, which was covered by both the K and (perforce) the A, after which it was trivial to hook against the 7, scoring 3 tricks to their one.... the reverse of the usual outcome.

 

Now, what point is there in trying to categorize these defensive gems? Or to try to understand the thought processes involved?

 

The vast majority of B/I players wouldn't defend that way...ever.... and neither opp wore a sign indicating any particular flavour of incompetence, so one cannot incorporate any classification into one's table judgment anyway. So where is the utility?

[kenrexford]

...So where is the utility?

The "utility," IMO, is in recognition of the real psychology of the game. Just as a psychological ploy might be "above" someone, so also it seems that many ploys are perhaps "below" the expert or advanced player, unless discussed.

 

I think you are not actually realizing how much can be gained from actually understanding the lesser mind. A ton of opposition errors occur. Sitting back and waiting for those errors to matter on their own is nice, but it seems that understanding the errors and the reasons for these errors would enable a person to make more of those errors actually count.

 

You characterize these plays as "semi-random" or a result of "no conscious function operating at the table." I disagree. There is a reason for these mistakes. They happen all the time and in consistent ways. There is actually a pattern of blind spots or a pattern of errors. I cannot imagine why you would just throw your hands up and give up on figuring out why people do what they do.

 

Sure, some plays may well be truly random. But, I doubt that many apparently random acts are really random. I imagine that there actually is a set of principles that could predict how and why certain things repeatedly happen and could be taken advantage of.

 

I mean, don't you ever notice certain repetitions? You bid to 4♠ and make +650. You open the score sheet. The scores are all 3♦ played the other way, for +100. But, 4♦ could be cold. If everyone if playing 3♦, as insane as it is, and everyone is making only 9 tricks, when 10 is a claimer, then there is a consistent pattern of some specific bidding error or analysis error, and there is some consistent declarer error that is repeating.

 

If you understand the mind of the lesser player better, then it seems that this would enable you to actually score better.

[Stephen Tu]

I don't think it's really worth doing anything more than "keep focus, pay attention, keep trying, even if you think opp really should just claim, they just might do something exceedingly crazy & be ready to take advantage of it if they do".

 

A lot of these are random, if you can't figure out what caused the opp's brain short-circuit, how can you take actions to trigger them?

 

There are things you can do routinely to induce the non-random ones, like running a long suit looking for the pseudo-idiot-squeeze. Otherwise I think it's just sufficient to pay full attention to the hand. (Know the answer to "Did they really toss away all of that suit even though they weren't really squeezed, and my 6 is now good?")

 

Maybe there are some where your discard which "didn't matter" ended up mattering because the opp did something crazy later. So what? Not all opps mistakes are punished. We have all seen opps take practice finesses which work for no gain for our side. Or crazy overbid to the 5 level but all the hooks work so they are still +650. No justice!

 

So just be ready for the mistakes you can do something about.

[Trumpace]

Maybe we should concentrate on cutting down our own mistakes first :)

[EricK]

Maybe we should concentrate on cutting down our own mistakes first :)

There's no need to do that - most opponents won't take advantage of our mistakes, anyway.

[Lobowolf]

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody.

 

If an opponent makes a mistake, but this mistake causes you to picture your opponent's hand different, then you have fallen into a Grosvenor.

 

I think you can drive yourself batty with this kind of thinking. Bridge is hard enough to play when you are trying to gauge "hmm, which mistake did declarer make? Did he reverse on a 13 count, or did he take a strange finesse?"

 

These mistakes aren't easily categorized. They are a totally different beast from the usual list of play themes.

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though. For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

 

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy. If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9. I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

 

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

 

Things that make you go Hmmm.

[kenrexford]

That's what I mean, Lobo!

 

The principle: Lazy opponents think low cards will be ruffed and high cards will win tricks.

 

Here's a related one:

 

Opponents lose track of intermediate cards.

 

How to take advantage:

 

1. Play cards in an order that confuses the opponents. When declaring, play cards in an unexpected order (from AKQ in dummy, play the King first).

 

2. Do not expect that the opponents "know" that the 9 in dummy is high. Expect them to declare as if it is not good.

 

3. Make assumptions that the person with the lowest honor has the length in squeeze situations. That person will be less likely to realize his card is good.

 

Stuff like that.

[jdonn]

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though. For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

 

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy. If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9. I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

 

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

 

Things that make you go Hmmm.

Maybe you don't even do it, but I think that's a terrible thing to do. I equate it to discarding a card of the same color as the suit declarer is playing in hopes he won't notice you showed out, which is something lots of people love to do and I think is horribly unethical. I understand it's difficult or even impossible to judge intent, but everyone has to be able to live with themselves. Why would someone want to win because they played a psychological trick on their opponent's speech of vision rather than because they played well?

[Lobowolf]

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though.  For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

 

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy.  If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9.  I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

 

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

 

Things that make you go Hmmm.

Maybe you don't even do it, but I think that's a terrible thing to do. I equate it to discarding a card of the same color as the suit declarer is playing in hopes he won't notice you showed out, which is something lots of people love to do and I think is horribly unethical. I understand it's difficult or even impossible to judge intent, but everyone has to be able to live with themselves. Why would someone want to win because they played a psychological trick on their opponent's speech of vision rather than because they played well?

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

 

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

 

1) It's not unethical; and

 

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

 

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding. If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch. Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one. In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle. But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here. I'd be interested in other perspectives.

[mikeh]

How about this one:

 

Partner has shown out and we hold 10x in front of K9 and declarer, on cruise control, leads the last card in the suit, clearly intending to play the 9. Play the 10 quickly... if you time it right, declarer may call '9'....

 

I actually try this quite often, but only as a joke.. the one time it 'worked' I immediately told declarer to take the 2 tricks...last weekend, a friend of mine caught himself in time and we both had a small chuckle.

[Phil]

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though.  For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

 

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy.  If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9.  I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

 

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

 

Things that make you go Hmmm.

Maybe you don't even do it, but I think that's a terrible thing to do. I equate it to discarding a card of the same color as the suit declarer is playing in hopes he won't notice you showed out, which is something lots of people love to do and I think is horribly unethical. I understand it's difficult or even impossible to judge intent, but everyone has to be able to live with themselves. Why would someone want to win because they played a psychological trick on their opponent's speech of vision rather than because they played well?

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

 

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

 

1) It's not unethical; and

 

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

 

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding. If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch. Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one. In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle. But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here. I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I think these tactics skirt the line. I was just reading this morning about having:

 

♠xxx

 

♠AKJxxx

 

playing the♠A, ....

 

followed by the ♣K and checking LHO's reaction.

[jdonn]

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

 

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

 

1) It's not unethical; and

 

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

 

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding.  If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch.  Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one.  In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle.  But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here.  I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I can't tell if you are mixing up which card to play with how you play it or if I'm misunderstanding your position, so sorry if it's the latter. There is certainly nothing wrong with playing (well, having partner play) the lower card from dummy. My objection would be if you normally say "club" to play the lowest or normally call the specific "9 of clubs", but in this case make a point to say "low club" in the hope of psychologically convincing your opponent to not realize it's an equal. Of course you can and should win based on the card you play, but not based on the manner in which you call for it. At least not by design.

[awm]

I still think one of the funniest ones I've ever seen was Elianna needing to play ♦xxx in hand opposite ♦QTxx in dummy for one trick. She lead out of hand and called for the queen from dummy, somehow inducing her RHO to follow with the jack from AKJ (obviously on autopilot assuming she would make the normal play of low to the ten).

[Mbodell]

I can't tell if you are mixing up which card to play with how you play it or if I'm misunderstanding your position, so sorry if it's the latter. There is certainly nothing wrong with playing (well, having partner play) the lower card from dummy. My objection would be if you normally say "club" to play the lowest or normally call the specific "9 of clubs", but in this case make a point to say "low club" in the hope of psychologically convincing your opponent to not realize it's an equal. Of course you can and should win based on the card you play, but not based on the manner in which you call for it. At least not by design.

Interesting. One of my partner always honestly telegraphs how she is going to play spot cards by calling for high (equal) ones if she is going to run them and low (equal) ones if she is planning to ruff.

 

Another "trick" in the manner described earlier of calling different cards is I've seen people get their opponents to play the card they want by calling a card while the opponent is in the act of choosing a card by saying something like "Play a low spade" and having LHO dutifully play a low spade. I think when I've seen this it is usually accidentally done by declarer.

[Hanoi5]

I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one. In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle. But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here. I'd be interested in other perspectives.

 

I also believe that calling for 'low' or 'high' depending on what you want your opponents to do is the same as playing the highest honour if you want it covered or the smallest if you don't. In fact, if you held ♦T2 in the closed hand, and they are good and you don't want the first one to be ruffed, would you play the T or the 2? Against good opposition it shouldn't matter, as it shouldn't matter to play a card of the same colour when not following suit or all the other psychological plays.

 

Would it make you feel better if you touched the card from dummy yourself instead of calling it out? Isn't it the same principle? I think you win with the aforementioned play just because they don't want to ruff your small cards, no matter how you called it (will you be honest and say 'Play one of the now set up diamonds partner' or, 'Any diamond, they are all the same'). Bridge is a people's game and as such you can play people.

 

However, I do recognize it does sound a little 'unfair' to take these 'techniques' to the extreme. I can now imagine players calling for 'the smallest diamond you can' and then I'm not so sure how 'ethical' this action would be. I think a Director or REALLY experienced player (like Fred) could tell us about this and clear up whether it's ethical or not.

 

On another note, how do you feel about calling the director and taking advantage of errors like revokes (which didn't really affect you but could lead to penalty), leads out of turn, etc? I remember I lost an individual tournament (3 sessions) 'cause in the last session, last board, I didn't call the director to give a one-trick penalty to my opponents for a revoke. I've been calling the director more since then, although not as much as I should.