Psychs

[matmat]

It seems to me that many psychers are rather bad at dealing with the negative reactions that they get.

Someone ought to be doing something about these negative reactions.

i imagine not many people playing bridge like to be branded as cheaters.

[glen]

imo, the reason tourneys ban psychs is not to protect beginners.

 

For beginners, everything is a problem - what to bid, what to play, what's going on. Handling a pysch is just another small problem on top of the mountain of challenges. In live bridge beginners often don't even know they have been psyched, as they are too focused on their own hands and don't yet have the skill set to analyse a deal.

 

The reason tourneys ban psychs is that a lot of their customers hate trickery in the bidding being used, either by their opponents or by their partners. They detest it, feeling it is an underhanded attempt to fool people.

 

At the local club that has banned most psyches, there are almost no beginners. There are, though, lots of players who have played for many, many years, and who hate psyches. They have found that while psychs are legal in bridge, it takes away their enjoyment of the game. The club has banned psyches for these customers, and it has nothing to do with beginners.

 

If BBO allowed it for their ACBL tourneys, that players could put "no psychs please" in their profiles, and you were not allowed to psych with these players, either as partners or opponents, then what you would find is not a lot of novices and intermediates with this. Instead you will find advanced, expert, "world class", and all sorts of life masters, including gold and diamond life masters, with "no psychs please". For its a set of the long timers that hate psychs, and want them out of their game.

[hrothgar]

Since it is all love and piece I'll try to add a little controversy:

 

I don't have a problem with psyching against beginners in a club game.

I'll go even further...

 

If I were to agree never to psych against beginners in a club game, this would represent a concealed partnership agreement.

 

Partner would be at an advantage because he would KNOW with certainty that I would ever psych in this tye of circumstance.

I think you are way off. There is nothing unusual about such an agreement and should the opponents ask then you can answer honestly. There is no reason to prealert this agreement or write it on your conventioncard.

Would you argue that the converse is true?

 

Assume for the moment that I am much more likely to pysche in situation XYZ.

Moreover, partner is aware of these tendencies.

 

Would you argue that there is nothing wrong with this and that our partnership doesn't need to make any kind of advanced disclosure?

 

The reason that I am raising this point is that I beleive that there are a lot of folks who would argue that one set of behaviour is fine while the other is not. I believe that this isn't particularly coherent.

 

(Please note; I'm not claiming that you would fall into this category... This exchange is simply a useful opportunity to raise this point)

[cherdanno]

If you psych rarely in situation XYZ and never in other situations, there is no need to disclose it unless asked. If your psych frequently in situation XYZ and with normal frequency (i.e., rarely) in other situations, then you should disclose it.

[wclass___]

Let's say you have already made a psychic bid in known auction (e.g. 1♥-[X]-1♠).

Does it mean that you can't psyche here with same partner anymore?

Or you have to prealert?

Can psyche be part of a system?

Well at one stage there were psychic controls which were actually parts of systems. I think Bulldog had some, and am I right in suggesting Kaplan Sheinwold did as well? Anyway they are outlawed now.

Convention cards - 2008 Mind Sport Games Beijing - open

 

Rodwell-Meckstroth Psychics: 1♥-P-1♠, light 3rd seat opening.

Freeman-Nickell Psychics: Rare - 1♥-1♠ is occasionaly short ♠'s with ♥ support.

Hackett-Hackett Psychics: sometimes 1M with 3 card

Gromov-Dubinin Psychics: rare 1♦-1M; 1♥-1♠; 2♣-2♦; 2♦-2NT

.......

It seems to me that psyche is part of their systems.

 

One more thing that i doun't get..

P-[P]-2H(w2)-[P] -//- NV-NV; I have something in my hand (say ♥KQJxx) that suggests that partner has psyched (let's say that i am 99% sure about that, probably because partner does psyche quite a lot..). Is pass an option? or not..

[olegru]

The one time I think it's unacceptable is if you are an expert playing against a novice in a minor event

Why on the earth should I care about opponents?

Partner is a key factor. He is the only person his feeling I should take into account.

If I will psych against weak opponents and we will get the bad result he will not happy, because chances are we would get a good score in a normal game.

If I will psych often, partner will not be able to trust my bidding.

If I will repeat psych in the similar position with the same partner it became an agreement. Even if partner is experienced enough to alert it he will still in a bad position because it is hard to continue normal bidding if you do not trust your partners bid in certain position.

What I want to say is bluffing (IMHO) very often is a bad idea, but it has nothing to do with unethical behavior or cheating.

[manudude03]

Let's say you have already made a psychic bid in known auction (e.g. 1♥-[X]-1♠).

Does it mean that you can't psyche here with same partner anymore?

Or you have to prealert?

Can psyche be part of a system?

Well at one stage there were psychic controls which were actually parts of systems. I think Bulldog had some, and am I right in suggesting Kaplan Sheinwold did as well? Anyway they are outlawed now.

Convention cards - 2008 Mind Sport Games Beijing - open

 

Rodwell-Meckstroth Psychics: 1♥-P-1♠, light 3rd seat opening.

Freeman-Nickell Psychics: Rare - 1♥-1♠ is occasionaly short ♠'s with ♥ support.

Hackett-Hackett Psychics: sometimes 1M with 3 card

Gromov-Dubinin Psychics: rare 1♦-1M; 1♥-1♠; 2♣-2♦; 2♦-2NT

.......

It seems to me that psyche is part of their systems.

 

One more thing that i doun't get..

P-[P]-2H(w2)-[P] -//- NV-NV; I have something in my hand (say ♥KQJxx) that suggests that partner has psyched (let's say that i am 99% sure about that, probably because partner does psyche quite a lot..). Is pass an option? or not..

It's not that psychics are part of the system, it's just that they have a tendency to make those particular psyches. You will find that they won't cater for the possibility of a psyche, but merely inform the opps of this.

 

As for your example, that's not enough to assume partner has psyched. Last week I picked up something like KJx AKQxxx Kx Axx and partner opened a weak 2H (doubled by my RHO). Pity they found the killing lead to 6H after our "scientific"auction, but just comes to show you can never assume partner psyched (partner's was JTxxxx)

[Free]

It's not that psychics are part of the system, it's just that they have a tendency to make those particular psyches. You will find that they won't cater for the possibility of a psyche, but merely inform the opps of this.

Isn't one of the reasons why Meckwell started with support Doubles exactly to avoid playing in a 3-3 fit?

[helene_t]

How often does any player psyche or encounter psyches? Playing on BBO, I rarely encounter one and nowhere near once every 4 sessions. TD’ing on BBO I get a call about a psyche perhaps once in every 3 tournaments and most of the calls complaining of psyches aren’t psyches at all.

Agree.

 

I think I have encountered five psyches in 9 years of online bridge. Two of them by myself.

 

Btw I agree with Han that psyching against beginners is OK. It is stupid but it's ok. Since beginners don't take much inference from opps bidding anyway they are less "harmed" by psyches than stronger players are.

 

What is maybe problematic is to psyche one of those calls that are notorious for being psyched, such as a 3NT response to a preempt on nothing, when playing with a p who expects such things against opps who don't.

[skjaeran]

I don't see much of a problem psyching.

 

I'd never do it against rank beginners, though. Not to be gentle towards then - they should learn that psyching is part of the game - but because I'd expect to do well against them by just playing normal bridge.

 

Anyway, I don't psyche much - very seldom, in fact.

[uday]

If you can give an example when playing by the rules is unethical, I'd like to see it.

 

here is one:

 

They're bidding constructively

 

blah blah

blah blah

OINK ARGH

 

You exercise your right to inquire about every call, for reasons that seem good to you. When you ask about OINK, you are told that it is RKC blackwood. When you ask about ARGH you are told that it shows "two keycards" ( no mention as to whether it shows the Q)

 

It is probably legal to ask for a clarification whether ARGH shows 2-with-queen or 2-without-queen, regardless of whether you happen to hold the Queen. But many people would think it is unethical to do so with the Queen in your own hand.

[1eyedjack]

I expect that most of the no-psych tournaments on BBO are free tournaments. I have not done any research to back this claim up, but ACBL and robot reward/race tournaments must make up a substantial proportion of pay tournaments, and these are psych-permitted events, while my observation of most of the free tournaments is that they are no-psych.

 

It is hard to criticise the organisers of free tourneys for banning psychs. We should perhaps just be grateful that they are prepared to give up their time to run them, and if one of the prices that we have to pay in kind for the privilege of playing in those tourneys is to let them run the events their way then so be it. I have one concern about this, however, and it is the lack of consultation that goes into the decision. In most cases there is simply no avenue to provide feedback objecting to the regulation. The tourney hosts may believe, possibly in error, that they are doing the customers a service, based on the shaky premise that they themselves would rather play under such conditions and arrogantly assume that the other players are substantially of the same mind. But I wonder if they would continue the practice if they were to discover that their beliefs are mistaken.

 

The hosts may even point to the popularity of their events as evidence of the support of the members. And yet it could be that they enjoy that support not because of that rule but for want of an alternative. It could even be that the events are otherwise sufficiently well run to attract the custom in spite of, rather than because of, the psych-ban.

 

Anyway, it would be nice if some of those TDs who routinely ban psychs were to stand up to the oche and state their reasons. Some of them must be monitoring this thread. I can understand their reticence, given the general hostility to the notion that is expressed here.

[G_R__E_G]

They're bidding constructively

 

blah blah

blah blah

OINK ARGH

I see that Uday's been playing bridge against my ex-wife.

[1eyedjack]

It is probably legal to ask for a clarification whether ARGH shows 2-with-queen or 2-without-queen, regardless of whether you happen to hold the Queen. But many people would think it is unethical to do so with the Queen in your own hand.

An alert declarer may therefore place you with the Queen, derived from your failure to ask?

[jdonn]

They're bidding constructively

 

blah blah

blah blah

OINK ARGH

I see that Uday's been playing bridge against my ex-wife.

Now that is funny.

[uday]

An alert declarer may therefore place you with the Queen, derived from your failure to ask?

 

Or with the Q if you do ask. But that's his problem. I only mentioned this here as a quick example of how following the rules (in asking) could be perceived as unethical, even tho it is perfectly legal.

[Jlall]

The one time I think it's unacceptable is if you are an expert playing against a novice in a minor event

Why on the earth should I care about opponents?

LOL really?

[Ant590]

A uni-bridge club beginner I know was playing a teams-of-four match against opponents who are arguably the best in our county. At one point he psyched which worked well, only to find that the same psyche was made on the other table! He dined out on it for weeks.

 

Anecdote aside, I think psyching is part of the game, and that the beginners we teach (who are admittedly young, keen and intelligent) treat it as part of the game. Most of our pairs have discussed auctions such as (1♥) - dbl - (1♠) - dbl accordingly.

[Cascade]

It is probably legal to ask for a clarification whether ARGH shows 2-with-queen or 2-without-queen, regardless of whether you happen to hold the Queen. But many people would think it is unethical to do so with the Queen in your own hand.

An alert declarer may therefore place you with the Queen, derived from your failure to ask?

Exactly restricted choice.

 

If he didn't have the queen he might have asked about it.

[barmar]

If I were to agree never to psych against beginners in a club game, this would represent a concealed partnership agreement.

Is such an agreement even logically possible?

 

A psyche is a deliberate violation of an agreement. Can you make an agreement covering violations of agreements? And even if you do, what's to prevent you from violating THAT agreement?

 

Psyches are really tricky to discuss clearly, because the definition is very fuzzy. If someone makes the same psyche frequently, they aren't actually psyching, they're mis-explaining by failing to disclose that the particular hand type is included in the meaning of the bid. If someone ever uses the word "psyche" in an explanation, it's an oxymoron.

 

I'm pretty sure I've never psyched. My regular partner surely knows that. Is this an implicit partnership agreement that we should disclose?

[barmar]

As to the original thread. I have to admit that I think psyching in the ACBL game as rule is probably not sporting, but it is not unethical. There is a difference. And when you sit down against two gold stars, for that round only, I would no longer consider it unsporting. But here is the problem, if you ONLY psyche in ACBL games when facing expert opponents, that becomes a hidden agreement (well with pick up partner that is not an issue unless he reads post here). This makes all your bids honest against other pairs. This becomes a problem.

I wonder about that. There's a very fuzzy line between style and system.

 

There's a book called something like "Winning Swiss Team Tactics". It has a chapter on what to do when playing against a much better team; IIRC, the basic theme is to bid more aggressively. So when you sit down against Meckwell, does every preempt need to be alerted because it's more likely than usual to be shorter than expected?

 

If the frequency of a particular tactic varies from 10% to 20% depending on the opponents, is this something that needs to be disclosed? Is it even something you realize consciously, or is it just an adjustment that decent players make automatically without even realizing it?

[blackshoe]

An alert declarer may therefore place you with the Queen, derived from your failure to ask?

 

Or with the Q if you do ask. But that's his problem. I only mentioned this here as a quick example of how following the rules (in asking) could be perceived as unethical, even tho it is perfectly legal.

If it is legal, it is ethical, regardless how someone may perceive it.

[jdonn]

Is there a law that says that?

[blackshoe]

Specifically? No.

[jdonn]

So then I don't understand. This unprovable assertion that 'anything legal is ethical' is fact even though others disagree, simply because you believe it?