ACBL -- Limited Number of psyches/tournament?

[epeeist]

Playing in an ACBL individual tournament today, one of the announcements (after tournament started) was only 1 psyche per tournament, and you have to inform the TD.

 

Now, as an aside, someone who wants to psyche more often can just claim he or she misclicked. But leaving that for the moment...

 

Informing the TD, no problem, but I asked the TD why only 1 psyche since they're permitted (and in an individual, even lower chance of being "fielded" than in a pairs). The TD said something about in a normal match only 2 psyches permitted, and since 12 boards was about half that, only 1 psyche permitted.

 

Does this mean that in ACBL face-to-face tournaments, psyches are limited? And if not, I don't think they should be in a sanctioned online tournament (notifying TD fine, but limiting the number, I don't think so). Mind you, even if they are limited in face-to-face ACBL tournaments, I don't think they should be, but that's another topic.

 

On a separate but related point, the ACBL tournaments haven't, for quite some time, generally had any "tournament rules" (i.e. when one clicks on "tournament rules" button, get a blank screen). Especially since some people tend to ignore/tune out chat once the tournament has started, rules such as limited psyches should either be in the tournament description, or in the tournament rules (especially since the tournament description says, "read tournament rules" :lol: ).

 

By the way, I very rarely psych (though if I'm having a really bad day, my bids may arguably have little connection with reality... :lol: ).

[TimG]

The ACBL does not limit number of psyches. There are manydirectors and club managers who wish psyches were limited (or banned). Some of them believe so adamantly in their point of view that theyhave come to believe it is reality. Then word spreads and you've got lots of people saying things that simply aren't true.

 

Clubs in ACBL land are given lots of latitude in restricting methods and players. tehy can bar (or allow) any conventions they want and they can bar any player without cause (so long as it isn't based up race, religion, etc.).

 

They can't bar psyches, however. Years ago, there was a local director that did not take kindly to my youthful indiscretions: psyches. She started meeting me at the door and announcing that there would be a full board penalty for any psyche. I wrote to ACBL about this and received a reply stating that a club could not bar a player from psyching (though it did not address the full board penalty). I carried the letter to club games for a while, but sadly never had a need to present it to the director.

[hotShot]

It is obvious that if you psyche more than once or twice in one tourney, your p will be aware of that, and therefor gain an advantage by that knowledge. You can see it as some sort of implicit agreement. Espacially if you do the same psyche twice, the director will assume that your p is prepared for that type of psyche.

Thats why if you play a major pairs/team event, any psyche has to be reported to the director so that he has a count and can note the type of psyche.

 

Considering the length of online tournaments more that one psyche/tournament should be too much.

 

At an online Indi you can get a p, who saw you psyche a few boards ago (as you p or as your opponent). They would be prepared for your psyche too. So one shoukld be carefull there too.

[the hog]

"Considering the length of online tournaments more that one psyche/tournament should be too much."

 

What is this game called? Its certainly not bridge.

[TimG]

Thats why if you play a major pairs/team event, any psyche has to be reported to the director so that he has a count and can note the type of psyche.

The ACBL tried this policy, but it was only in effect for a short while. It sounds like you think it is still in effect. Just another of the misconceptions about psyches and policy regarding psyches that people state as a matter of fact.

 

Tim

[paulhar]

In the 1970's in ACBLland, I psyched on the first board of a seven board Swiss match. The opponents queried the director about how often I was allowed to do that. The nationally ranked director's answer: Only six more times this match. :)

[TimG]

I once psyched (very successfully) in a sectional pair game. A few months later, iw as sitting down to play in a regional KO when my opponents from the pair game came over and asked if he could speak with KO current opponents away from the table. Turns out he was warning them about my psyching tendencies.

 

My experience is that you can get a lot of mileage out of a single psyche. And really, sometimes all you want is for your opponents to be thinking about it.

[EricK]

I once psyched (very successfully) in a sectional pair game. A few months later, iw as sitting down to play in a regional KO when my opponents from the pair game came over and asked if he could speak with KO current opponents away from the table. Turns out he was warning them about my psyching tendencies.

 

My experience is that you can get a lot of mileage out of a single psyche. And really, sometimes all you want is for your opponents to be thinking about it.

WARNING : The following might be meant as a joke:

 

You don't even need to make a single psyche!

 

If you alert some of partner's bids and point out they may be psyches, you will get pretty much the same effect. And as long as you and your partner have not made an agreement not to psyche, then you are telling the truth!

 

Even if you and your partner have agreed never to psyche, you can still alert some of partner's bids and say "people have been known to psyche in this position".

 

Eric

[keylime]

Well let me give you something totally shattering:

 

At the Nanaimo Duplicate Bridge Club, it is a POLICY to have ZERO psyches. Yep, they ban psyches per the owner of the sanction's wishes. Garbage, eh?

[the hog]

"Well let me give you something totally shattering:

 

At the Nanaimo Duplicate Bridge Club, it is a POLICY to have ZERO psyches. Yep, they ban psyches per the owner of the sanction's wishes. Garbage, eh? "

 

Why is this called a "Bridge" club? Tiddlywinks maybe.

[epeeist]

I agree psyches shouldn't (and by ACBL laws/regulations, CAN'T) be forbidden. Though if the club provided free Nanaimo bars [for those who don't know, that's a type of dessert bar], that would tempt me to overlook my objection... :D

 

But, like TimG with his letter, I always like to have something in writing to substantiate my opinions... ;) So in the highly unusual event I psyche, I'll be prepared for opponent complaints... :P

 

Surprisingly hard for me to find on the ACBL website (well, maybe I was tired... B) ) was the codification which in chapter 12 discusses psychic bids. Link:

 

http://web2.acbl.org/codification/CHAPTER%...Section%20A.pdf

 

or to the codification generally,

 

http://www.acbl.org/about/codification.html#12

 

It does say that when 3 or more psychic bids in one session come to attention of the director, he or she should investigate the possibility of excessive psyching. It doesn't set 3 as a maximum, or forbid more, it just says investigate.

 

The rest of it seems to make sense to me, e.g. psychic bids intended to improve opponent scores are unsportsmanlike, also a problem if "inspired by a spirit of malicious mischief" etc. (I assume this means, let's say you're having a poor tournament and so decide, who cares, you'll bid weirdly just to annoy everyone). So given these prohibitions, investigating if 3 or more psychic bids seems fine.

 

I was surprised to find psychic artificial openings are prohibited; so I'll have to either include a general qualifier or make sure my description of artificial strong 2♣ opening includes possibility of being based on playing strength rather than points... :)

 

There's something elsewhere in the codification about how a club can choose e.g. to prohibit certain conventions ("tonight is beginner's night, no Byzantine Blackwood"), but since as TimG pointed out psychic bids aren't a convention I can't see how that would apply. Especially since (though harder in face to face bridge) a dishonest player could just claim to have accidentally put the wrong bid card in the box... :P And to reiterate the closing of my first post, there are many (myself unfortunately included) who have on occasion mistakenly made bids so bad and misdescriptive of our hands (often due to forgetting conventions) as to seem like (bad) psychic bids despite lack of such intent... :(

[JRG]

I just wrote my "Local Director" certification examination and am waiting for the results. It was "open book", so I had the chance to browse the Laws while answering questions.

 

The discussion on psyches is interesting because one of the questions was:

 

A tournament sponsor may prohibit all psyches or limit a pair to one psyche per day if this information is published in the tournament advertising. True? False? What is the LAW reference for your answer?

 

My answer was "False". I based this on Law 40A (which has been quoted frequently in the threads about psyches - "A player may make any call...") and Law 80F which basically says that the sponsoring organization may publish supplementary regulations but "...not in conflict with, these laws".

 

However I added a commentary because I was searching for some vague justification that clubs might be using to get away with restricting psychic bids. What I came up with is that Law 90A (Director's Authority) allows assessing "...penalties for any offense that unduly delays or obstructs the game, inconveniences other contestants,...". I suppose a director could attempt to rationalize limiting psyches - "I don't forbid psyches, I just penalize each psyche a full board because it disrupts the game" or some such thing.

 

If anyone is interested, I'll let you know how I was marked on this (I believe I'll get the written test back, or at least get to see it).

[inquiry]

Excessive psyching is illegal for a simple reason. Your partner becomes much more likely to catch them than your opponents. It is hard NOT to have an awareness and to be prepared if your partner psyches a large amount of the time.

 

Having said that, I totally disagree with any rule that limits a player or a parntership to one psych per session. What if you psyche on first board? Each additional round, your partner will know that you ARE BARRED from making a psyche... something that your opponents are not privy too.

 

Second, it is not bridge... sometimes you pick up a hand that just HAS TO BE psyched....and if you can pick one up, what is to stop you from picking two up in a row???

 

Ben

[Gerardo]

Excessive psyching is illegal for a simple reason.

 

Why? Psyching is not illegal, having concealed agreements is.

 

Your partner becomes much more likely to catch them than your opponents. It is hard NOT to have an awareness and to be prepared if your partner psyches a large amount of the time.

 

Then, alert his bids as "s/he is known to psych in these circumstances" AND treat your partner bids as face value (at least, till the bidder exposes the presumed psych by self). What's the problem then?

 

Ben

[inquiry]

Why? Psyching is not illegal, having concealed agreements is.

I will refer you to the ACBL codification rules, chapter 20...

 

ACBL Chapter 20 on alterts, skip bids and psyches

 

It says about psyche's among others...

 

"The ACBL judges that the excessive, frivolous or unsportsmanlike use of psychic bidding is disruptive to the game, and may make the offenders subject to penalty."

 

I agree.. so let's start with the assumption we are not arguing in favor of frivolous psyches.... they define frivilous psyches as "Frivolous Psychic Bidding: Any psychic action apparently inspired by a spirit of malicious mischief or lack of will to win may be interpreted as frivolous."

 

Ok.. now this leaves "Excessive" undifined" so far.. what else is codified?

 

"Unsportsmanlike Psychic Bidding: A psychic action apparently designed to give the opponents an abnormal opportunity to win a good score; or unnatural or a typical psychics against pairs or teams in contention, may be classed as unsportsmanlike psychics. " Ok, I have commented on this in the past, if you are out of the competition, it is unsportsman to psyche giving tops and bottoms to people still in contention more or less at random... To pscyhe late in an event, you need to be in contention yourself.. .but this is still not "excessive" but excessive could be unsportsmanlike... and thus "evil"

 

The real problem with frequent psyches (other than unsportsman and friviolous) is this statement...

 

"When a player takes an action that appears to be based on an accurate "hunch" that his partner's earlier call was psychic, although that psychic was not clearly exposed by the opponents' calls or by legal psychic control, then the Tournament Director and Committee should consider such action to be presumptive evidence of an improper partnership understanding (even if implicit). Unless this presumption is

refuted by the psyching partnership, a match point penalty should be assessed. Repeated infractions may lead to disciplinary action."

 

Here is where you run afoul of the rules. This rule clearly states in so many words, that psychs not be "based on a partnership understanding." Frequent psyches will lead to repeatedly doing so in the same situation. Eventually your partner will notice the pattern and either consciously or not adapt to your tendencies.. perhpas underbidding "just in case" or rebidding his suit instead of raising since you frequently pscyh 1S response after opponents make a takeout double... thinkg like that...

 

Now, I suspect if you alert each and every "tendency" that partner "frequently psyches this bid or that bid" maybe you will not run afoul of the game. But bridge is much better when psyches have a chance to catch all people unaware..and even if you alert such a tendency, you know better how to deal with potential psyches than your opponents from long experience, so I would still think it illegal or at least unfair.

 

These opinions later opinions are of course my own...

 

Ben

[Cascade]

Excessive psyching is illegal for a simple reason. Your partner becomes much more likely to catch them than your opponents. It is hard NOT to have an awareness and to be prepared if your partner psyches a large amount of the time.

The laws adequately deal with concealed partnership agreements. There is no need to have an artificial rule restricting the number of times a player may psyche.

 

Doing so is directly contrary to Law 40A which grants a player the right to psyche whenever the player chooses provided that there is no partnership understanding.

 

The notion that partner is more likely to catch the psyche than the opponents is not IMO supported by the laws. There are many reasons why partner might be more likely to catch the psyche than the opponents only one of those reasons is that there is a concealed partnership understanding.

[Cascade]

"Unsportsmanlike Psychic Bidding: A psychic action apparently designed to give the opponents an abnormal opportunity to win a good score; or unnatural or a typical psychics against pairs or teams in contention, may be classed as unsportsmanlike psychics. " Ok, I have commented on this in the past, if you are out of the competition, it is unsportsman to psyche giving tops and bottoms to people still in contention more or less at random... To pscyhe late in an event, you need to be in contention yourself.. .but this is still not "excessive" but excessive could be unsportsmanlike... and thus "evil"

What is out of contention?

 

I recall once on the last or second last round of the final our National Open Pairs when we were coming about 7th but with no chance of winning taking a wild gambling action (not a psychic bid since it was in the card play against another pair in contention). My reason for taking the action was that we had a chance of picking up two or three places and I decided that this was worth more to me than the potential of losing a similar number of places or perhaps even more.

 

Were we out of contention?

 

What if instead of 7th were were 15th in the 28 pair final?

 

What if we were 28th and I really desired not to be last and thought the best albeit small chance was to make a psychic - would we be out of contention then?

 

IMO this is a flawed regulation.

 

If I am trying to do the best for my partnership whatever the motive then I have a right to take whatever action I see best. L40A gives me that right.

[paulhar]

Unsportsmanlike Psychic Bidding: A psychic action apparently designed to give the opponents an abnormal opportunity to win a good score; or unnatural or a typical psychics against pairs or teams in contention, may be classed as unsportsmanlike psychics.

 

It seems as though we're treading close to the subject of "sportsmanlike?" dumping, discussed at length in many Bridge Worlds. Cascade has posed the question, "What is OUR objective?" A good question as a bid or play which maximizes your expected matchpoints on the hand is not necessarily the best strategy to reach your objective. Oddly enough, if you want to lose the board and give your opponents a top, a psyche might be punished while simply revoking or doing something stupid probably won't.

 

An example of wanting to lose: You're in the qualifying rounds where the top 10 pairs qualify for a 5 table Howell in the finals without carryover. You have a 74% game going into the last round when your opponents are a pair you've scored 47 consecutive near tops against because they can't handle your system and you have them totally psyched out. Seems to me that this is one of the nine other pairs that you would like to be in the finals against you. Psyche on both boards against them and the long arm of the law will get you! But simply play your worst (a little theatrics here can help too :rolleyes: ) and you get your desired effect!

 

Now I'm not stating whether this is ethical or not - some say it's terribly unethical while others say it's maximizing your chances to win the event and therefore required.

[the hog]

Unsportsmanlike Psychic Bidding: A psychic action apparently designed to give the opponents an abnormal opportunity to win a good score; or unnatural or a typical psychics against pairs or teams in contention, may be classed as unsportsmanlike psychics.

 

It seems as though we're treading close to the subject of "sportsmanlike?" dumping, discussed at length in many Bridge Worlds. Cascade has posed the question, "What is OUR objective?" A good question as a bid or play which maximizes your expected matchpoints on the hand is not necessarily the best strategy to reach your objective. Oddly enough, if you want to lose the board and give your opponents a top, a psyche might be punished while simply revoking or doing something stupid probably won't.

 

An example of wanting to lose: You're in the qualifying rounds where the top 10 pairs qualify for a 5 table Howell in the finals without carryover. You have a 74% game going into the last round when your opponents are a pair you've scored 47 consecutive near tops against because they can't handle your system and you have them totally psyched out. Seems to me that this is one of the nine other pairs that you would like to be in the finals against you. Psyche on both boards against them and the long arm of the law will get you! But simply play your worst (a little theatrics here can help too :rolleyes: ) and you get your desired effect!

 

Now I'm not stating whether this is ethical or not - some say it's terribly unethical while others say it's maximizing your chances to win the event and therefore required.

Interesting Paul. One sees this in all sports, just witness some of the team sports in the Olympics for example, where some teams deliberately try to secure a particular "easier" opponent in the quarter or semi finals.

 

I don't know what I feel about this. One part of me says that I should do everything to maximise my chances of winning the event, the other part thinks it is somehow just "not quite right."

 

Ron

[epeeist]

JRG, I would greatly appreciate it if, when you get your test results back, you could let us know what the "correct" answer was... B) Myself, I can't see how a psych is any more disruptive of a game than, say, accidentally misbidding or forgetting a convention, and people aren't generally penalized a full board (!) for those things (I mean, you're supposed to know and be able to explain your partnership conventions, but the penalties I've seen even in e.g. the NABC casebooks when a partnership forgets are at worst a score adjustment, not a penalty on top of that).

 

Some other interesting points made by various posters, but some are only applicable to partnerships and/or f2f bridge. One poster did suggest that even in an individual, someone who knew you psyched might have you as a p or opponent later in the tournament and would then "know" you were prone to psych, but with respect I think that's possible, but not terribly likely. For all they know, that might have been your first psych in 3 years.

 

As for alerts, much of what was discussed seemed to be with respect to face-to-face games where you alert partner's bids, not the self-alerting BBO system. And self-alerting when you don't need to can arguably be deceptive (e.g. you bid a perfectly sound 3♠ preempt but alert it as "sometimes psych" -- even though you didn't this time -- opponent doubles and his p passes converting double to penalty thinking you're psyching and so you score game).

 

Myself, I rarely if ever psych, so doubt I would ever psych more than once in 12 boards, I just don't like being limited to that when there doesn't seem to be a legal basis for it and when psyches don't seem all that disruptive. People may not like them, but tough. I've occasionally had an opponent make an effective psych against me, and my comment is "good psych". That's it, no whining about it disrupting play when it didn't (I may check that it wasn't an unalerted conventional bid, but that's it).

[uday]

I sent a query into the ACBL, lets see what they tell us.

[keylime]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - we had Nanaimo Bars on Wednesday for a taste-testing contest at the regional. All that chocolate, all that fun. B)

 

Furthermore, the sanction that bans psyches, we don't play at anymore. We play instead at the same building, different sanction.

[paulg]

The problem with psyches is complex:

• Experienced players dislike weaker players randomising boards and hence organisers typically have rules banning "frivolous" actions
  
• At the same time experienced players recognise that there a number of well known positions where a psyche is likely to be more successful, and they would like to protect their right to do so
   
  
• Experienced players are quite happy to be psyched by their peers and betters
   
  
• Inexperienced players feel cheated when a "well known" position comes up and it is not well known to them!
   
  
• Experienced players only tend to psyche in well known positions - there is no reason to psyche against inexperienced players in other positions as they should win anyhow
   
  
• Good players will not consciously allow their partner's psyche record affect their bidding - inexperienced players never believe this is possible and, online, I'm not convinced everyone has the same high ethical standards.
  

Banning psyches is one way of protecting the inexperienced players in the field and preventing concealed partnership understandings. Personally I do not support this view, but I can understand that it solves a number of the problems albeit outside the Laws of the game.

 

Everyone wishes to play on a level playing field - in f2f bridge certain players are known to be "action" players, for example it is more likely (but not certain) that Zia has done something strange than Rosenberg. Online it's more difficult to tell!

 

My authority, the English Bridge Union, has rules on psyches but, perhaps more importantly, a traffic light system for fielding psyches. This can be seen at

 

http://www.math.aau.dk/~nwp/bridge/orangebook/s06.html

 

Tournament players in the UK are quite happy with these regulations and their application, and it seems to work in the clubs too.

[Free]

In Belgium, most clubs allow psychs, but in a limited amount. Usually it's 1 psych per session, but that's enough most of the time anyway... Biggest problem is: if you psych, your opponents usually shout "TD!! psych!!!!!!!!!!" for the entire room, so the effect of "could he be psyching" is away B) .

 

In tourneys however, you have unlimited psychs available, but if you psych more than once, TD's get rather suspicious about conceiled partnership agreements... That however is no reason to accuse players, but if ANYTHING goes wrong after that (wrong explanations and stuff) you'll pay the price for sure I'm afraid.

[helene_t]

It is strange that this restriction applies to indys. I suppose it was written for pairs and then by mistake copied to the indy rules.

 

Also strange that people are so paranoied about concealed agreements related to psyches. Because psyches draw so much attention, a conceled agreement about psyches is very likely to be uncoverd. If I was to cheat, I would forget about psyches and make concealed agreement about something else. Playing count signals within mentioning them on the CC. Say that my p's double of 1♥ might be a 3-card spades while I know it's always a 4-card. That kind of stuff.

 

Not that I think anybody is doing such things on purpose, just that if I were to be paranoid I would target my paranoya at something else than psyches.