Opening 1NT in violation of ACBL rules

[schulken]

Quite a while ago, ACBL changed the rules about the hand you may have and open 1NT, i.e., no voids, no stiffs unless Q or better, etc. To date, I continue to see human players playing against robots in ACBL sanctioned games on BBO opening 1NT with hands that would warrant a PP if they made such a bid in a humans-only tournament. I would think that the GIB developers could grey out 1NT when the S hand doesn't have a legal 1NT opening. I don't know if this is the right place to post this. If not, please forward it along as appropriate.

[nige1]

Quite a while ago, ACBL changed the rules about the hand you may have and open 1NT, i.e., no voids, no stiffs unless Q or better, etc. To date, I continue to see human players playing against robots in ACBL sanctioned games on BBO opening 1NT with hands that would warrant a PP if they made such a bid in a humans-only tournament. I would think that the GIB developers could grey out 1NT when the S hand doesn't have a legal 1NT opening. I don't know if this is the right place to post this. If not, please forward it along as appropriate.

The player might claim that he psyched 1N without any agreement or understanding, explicit or implicit, with his GIB partner,

[blackshoe]

"ACBL rules" or not, f2f bridge, online bridge, and online bridge with robots are three very different games.

 

Note that one of the things about a psych is that in theory making a particular psych often enough will lead to an implicit agreement. This is because eventually your partner will come to expect the psychic hand. However, robot partners will never have that expectation, so the "implicit agreement" theory fails playing with a robot partner.

[barmar]

ACBL doesn't have any rules restricting what you can open 1NT with. The regulation governs what agreements you can have about 1NT openings. In BBO robot games, the only agreements are the robot's system -- anything you do contrary to this is a psyche, and psychic bidding is allowed as long as it doesn't become an implicit agreement.

[schulken]

Here's where I get confused. When ACBL adopted the new rules in August 2016 and updated GCC, they established guidance for what a "natural" NT opening is. The discussion in the adoption memo doesn't preclude a player from psyching a natural 1 NT opening. The laws define a psych as "a deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength and/or of suit length." Presumably, it's a psych when you use one of the situations they considered, i.e., stiff Q is not a psych but a stiff J is. However, if you psych that kind of hand frequently, it becomes an agreement "and an illegal one at that."

 

I'm wondering if there's some bucket between a natural NT opening, as defined, and a psych. The difference between a stiff Q and stiff J doesn't strike me as a "gross misrepresentation of honor strength" but maybe that's exactly what the committee was trying to do - draw a bright line. I think that bucket would contain 1 NT bids having what otherwise would qualify as a natural NT opening but not having at least a Q in your stiff suit that would be illegal to have on your card. General shape (other than the stiff) and point count would otherwise be within the acceptable range. That's how I would like to view that's where KQxx J AJxx AJxx might land. TDs would administer a PP and possible adjusted score. A psych would be something more along the lines of Jxxxxx xxxxx x x. With the latter, if you get a good score, that's why you psyched to begin with. If you get a bad score, shame on you. The question then arises as to where the line might be between a non-natural 1 NT opening and a psych.

[Vampyr]

I think that a stiff J is not enough of a distortion to be called a psyche -- after all, it is sometimes the best description of the hand, which a psyche can never be.

 

I don't have any idea how the ACBL defines a "non-natural" 1NT opening, but it does seem like a loophole that could accommodate the occasional 1NT opening with a singleton.