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Psych or Tactic


ImsinD

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Do you know which clause of the Laws, Robin, empowers the EBU to ban the Watson double after you have psyched?

 

I think the power comes from the power to regulate special partnership understandings: Law 40B2(a), in particular "allow conditionally".

 

I note that the WBF thinks it has the power to regulate psychic controls:

The following conventions or treatments are categorised as ‘Brown Sticker’:

...

d) Psychic bids protected by system or required by system.

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Some people define them as such. I've heard comments like "It wasn't a psych, it was a tactical bid." But I don't know if there's a concensus about the distinction, it seems more like a Humpty-Dumpty definition (when they do it to me it's a psych, when I do it it's a tactical bid).
Exactly. There is a definition of psychic call, and it is a tactic to make one. There is not a definition of tactical call. What the expert means when they say "tactical bid" is "I psyched because I thought it would work against these guys, and now that it worked, I want to shut off the 'he psyched!' conversation/TD call"; what that same expert means when they say "psych" is "these guys made a tactical bid against me and it worked ("that I wouldn't have made", perhaps-but-not-always). That isn't fair." This is not a new opinion of mine, as you can see if you check forum history :-).

 

I don't agree that the Watson double is a special partnership understanding, in that a double of 3NT to say "don't lead the suit I opened" would be understood by all players except of low level. Especially when it is alerted.
It is an artificial call/convention, and by Law (L40B1b) all artificial calls are special partnership understandings.

 

Even in the old laws, conventions were regulable, and per the WBF argument allowing the Endicott Fudge, universally regulable (including "you can't play it", but also "you can't play it if you psyched earlier", or "you can't play it if you made [natural call we don't like] earlier in the auction.") It's just that the Endicott Fudge, while still legal, isn't required now.

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