The dark side of Kamikaze

[pescetom]

♠Q8 ♥Q4 ♦QJ8762 ♣QJ7

 

You open 1NT (10-13) at favourable vulnerability and your agreement is that a suit response is NAT NF.

If partner responds 2♠ and RHO passes, does it cross your mind that partner may have psyched?

How would you have behaved over 2♦?

 

Just curious, for those with long term experience of very weak NT.

[sfi]

If partner responds 2♠ and RHO passes, does it cross your mind that partner may have pysched?

 

Not really, but then I don't care in this situation. If partner psyches they get to sort it out.

 

How would you have behaved over 2♦?

 

This is more interesting. For sure I bid something, and I may even try something like 2S in response and hope to steal the hand in a diamond partscore. Again, if partner psyches it it's their own fault. But it's a possibility when I'm looking at six of them.

 

Funny story - many years ago I picked up xx xx xx AKQJTxx. I was all set to open 3NT when RHO started with 1D. Still thinking about NT, I tried 1NT. It didn't work out this way, but partner was going to pull to clubs and hit our 12-card fit. What actually happened was LHO with their 4450 16-count decided jumping to 5D was the optimal spot on the hand. It wasn't.

[mikeh]

I’ve played a lot of 10-12 and currently play 11-13 nv

 

I strongly disagree with 1N here. I think it’s appalling. While weak1N has valuable preemptive values, it’s also important that partner be allowed to make constructive decisions, including doubling for penalty on occasion.

 

As for psyching, who in their right mind psyches 2S over 1N?

 

Put another way: do it once and people will think you are insane. Do it twice, with the same partner, and you have a serious ethical issue.

 

Heck, do it once and catch partner with this hand, and alarm bells are ringing all around the world.

[Shugart23]

agree. If partner says 2 Spades , I let him play. If he gets doubled, I probably let him decide to play or do SOS. . If he bids 2 Diamonds over the 1NT , opening, I dont know if I bid 3D or just pass but keep competing to 5 if necessary...Depends how fast he put the 2D card down (I joke)

 

I think I've opened hands as bad as that. It has an easy escape.

[pescetom]

As for psyching, who in their right mind psyches 2S over 1N?

 

Put another way: do it once and people will think you are insane. Do it twice, with the same partner, and you have a serious ethical issue.

 

Heck, do it once and catch partner with this hand, and alarm bells are ringing all around the world.

 

Well it was done and it is being discussed on that other worldly site, with not many alarm bells ringing: a typical comment is "Well done to West for picking the right moment to psyche."

 

Some point out the low frequency. Frances Hinden commented "I've played a 10-13 1NT in first NV for over 20 years. I don't think I've ever had a balanced 0-count", which surprised me a bit. I just did a rough simulation and calculation, assuming 20 boards per day (probably conservative): a pair would make 2832 1NT 10-13 openings 1st seat non vulnerable, passed by LHO to partner holding 0 HCP 3.2 times and 0-3 HCP 64.5 times. And on half of those 3.2 occasions one would be opener not responder, so it's quite reasonable that holding 0 HCP oneself might happen once or even never. 64 encounters with 0-3 HCP is enough to remember and recognise any pattern of psyches, however.

[mycroft]

One of the reasons why EHAA has the reputation it does with the "forever experts" (and one of the reasons Meck has such a bee in his bonnet about "10 is absolutely the minimum") is because one of the tricks, back in the day (besides "upgrading all 9s-that-weren't-8s into their 10-12") was "opener isn't allowed to raise a 2M response in competition, even with KJxx". One wonders why.

 

Now, of course that agreement is regulatable, and regulated, so it just went underground: "Oh, we don't have that agreement, I just didn't like my Qx in their suit/xxx in clubs/..." When I talk about "fighting 60 years of 'mah holy judgement' to do something clearly intended to be illegal", this is why "60 years". And also why I was told by the DIC of the NABC+ event that "you can play EHAA, you just can't call it that" - in 2015.

 

To me (as a mini-NT player) this is the kind of "baby psych" just like 2♠ over a weak 2♥, or 1♥-X-1♠ that A players "should expect and be able to handle". Or maybe, if that's not actually the case, that maybe those "baby psych"ers need to get over it (or stop laughing at the poor suckers who they caught this time, at least). Another set of "What I would do to bamboozle my opponents is a tactical call, what the devious ch- opponents do that caught me this time was a dirty psych." or "clearly it's obvious to open ♠AKxxx and out third seat 1♠, but how dare you think that KQTx AT9x T8 T74 is a 10-count?"

 

I am on the side of the "you don't get to have agreements that cater to a psychic call, because then it's not really psychic, is it?" Yes, it's regulating the symptom rather than the disease, but I'm willing to be pragmatic.

 

Having said that, where I play in the ACBL, *all response schemes to 1NT are legal*. So, if I play (and properly Alert) 1NT-p-2♠ as "Artificial, Non-Forcing, wants to play 2♠ undoubled opposite any hand. May or may not have spades." - then it's not a psych if I don't have spades, so it's not a psychic control if I have the agreement that it can't be raised in competition. I'm not going to try this, for a number of reasons - but it would be fun to see someone like Sam Dinkin try it.

[HardVector]

There is kamikaze, and there is totally insane. You have 0 (zero, nada, ziltch) quick tricks and 2 isolated queens. This hand is total trash.

[mycroft]

I found the other thread. Opener is favourable (white on red). A mini-NT is at least partly a preemptive weapon (opening on hands that others will pass), and the more favourable you are, the harder you can afford to push the preempt.

 

Like all preempts, it won't always work. Like all preempts, sometimes it works in ways you would never have believed when you made the preempt.

 

And I do in fact see a few people who are just assuming that this has happened before and that partner wouldn't have been allowed to raise had it gone, say, 1NT-p-2♠-X, or 3♥, and East had had a more standard KJTx 9x QJ73 KJ5. And a whole bunch more who are chiding those people for that assumption - "you don't know that".

 

No, they don't, but they do have suspicions...and those suspicions aren't totally unfounded. And the belief that E-W might "have that agreement, but have 'never discussed it', and will swear that 'it's just this hand' " is also not unfounded, even if it might be true for *this* E-W. Again, same as "oh, we've never had the discussion about 2♥-X-2♠-X; p-p-3♥" (but "I know" not to correct to spades! How would I know? Well, it's obvious that that could be a psych, at least to Anyone Who Can Play Bridge).

[pescetom]

Opener is favourable (white on red).

My OP said this, I think.

But I agree with the rest of your post. I would be curious to hear from GordonTD or others of similar standing.

 

There is kamikaze, and there is totally insane. You have 0 (zero, nada, ziltch) quick tricks and 2 isolated queens. This hand is total trash.

And yet this team won the 36 team tournament.

[mycroft]

Okay, so question for those players who have complained when I've referred to "Psychic Ogust":

 

1NT (10-12)-p-2♠. When asked, explained as "wants to play 2♠". Any issues with that if it doesn't actually have any spades? Any issues with this if there's an agreement that "opener will not raise in competition, even with HHxx support"? Or is that as "understood" as 2♥-2NT "asking about shape and strength", managing to conveniently not mention that unlike the rest of the room, it doesn't show invitational values?

 

Note: I was wrong in my original response - this bid is Natural in the ACBL:

After the opening bid any bid is Natural if it suggests the contract bid as the final contract.

Doesn't only suggest it, it demands it (unless bidder - not opener - decides otherwise). Even better, because it's Natural, it's not required to Alert (but it would not be wrong to do so). Why yes, I'm quite certain that that will last exactly as long as it takes for someone to actually play this.

 

The EBU knows better, for them this call is not Natural, and even if it was natural, it would have to be Alerted. But that doesn't mean it's not legal (all agreements starting with responder's initial action are allowed, at least at level 4). And it's not psychic - it's a disclosed part of our agreements. How dare you imply I could be doing that awful P thing, partner even Alerted my call? And since it's not psychic, the "control" agreement that opener Will Not Raise isn't a psychic control, and therefore also legal.

 

So. Willing to put your money where your mouth is, or is it only "devious" calls and "convenient explanations" that you play that deserve this treatment? Or should this be disclosed possibly more fully, just like Psychic Ogust should? Or is it different somehow?

[mikeh]

Well it was done and it is being discussed on that other worldly site, with not many alarm bells ringing: a typical comment is "Well done to West for picking the right moment to psyche."

 

Some point out the low frequency. Frances Hinden commented "I've played a 10-13 1NT in first NV for over 20 years. I don't think I've ever had a balanced 0-count", which surprised me a bit. I just did a rough simulation and calculation, assuming 20 boards per day (probably conservative): a pair would make 2832 1NT 10-13 openings 1st seat non vulnerable, passed by LHO to partner holding 0 HCP 3.2 times and 0-3 HCP 64.5 times. And on half of those 3.2 occasions one would be opener not responder, so it's quite reasonable that holding 0 HCP oneself might happen once or even never. 64 encounters with 0-3 HCP is enough to remember and recognise any pattern of psyches, however.

I stand corrected

 

Also, since I currently play in a partnership where we have an unfashionable tendency to psyche more than most, perhaps it’s wrong for me to be so down on this particular psyche. Of course, our CC discloses frequent psyches.

 

Somehow it just seems unethical if it is by agreement. And it is by agreement if it’s been done before in that partnership.

 

What makes it especially distasteful for me is that this is the kind of psychic agreement that’s almost impossible to identify if the perpetrators are at all shady. We’ve all had situations in which an opponent takes full advantage of their partner’s hesitation and then claimed they didn’t notice anything. Or their partner revoked but snatched the card back…they claim they didn’t see it…couldn’t see it because it was barely detached…even after we see it touch the table!

 

It’s also an almost risk free psyche..it’s virtually impossible to defend against while rarely resulting in a poor score for the perpetrator.

 

So…do it once…more power to you. Way to go.

 

Do it twice….throw the book at them.

 

Note that having the 1N bidder alert and explain….’usually 5 spades but he’s done it with xx and no points’…isn’t much help. After all, the opponents are not now allowed to discuss a defence to this agreement.

[blackshoe]

I know that you don't agree, Mike, but the fact that partner did something once — or even twice — does not make doing it a partnership agreement.

[pescetom]

I know that you don't agree, Mike, but the fact that partner did something once — or even twice — does not make doing it a partnership agreement.

 

Surely this depends upon what he did?

If it was only mildly unusual in the circumstances, and they occur often, then yes even twice might not be enough.

If it was a psychic deviation in very unusual circumstances where it is clearly attractive, then twice already seems a lot.

I imagine this was the basis of the decision of many RAs to record such bids.

[mikeh]

I know that you don't agree, Mike, but the fact that partner did something once — or even twice — does not make doing it a partnership agreement.

Ok. We open 1N weak and every time partner has a very bad hand at favourable he bids 2 of a short major

 

He can honestly claim never to have discussed it. It just happens and they’ve never actually agreed to do

 

But they’ve done it 6 times in three months

 

That’s an illegal agreement

 

 

Alternate take

 

It happens once. They discuss it and recognize how powerful it is. They do not explicitly agree that they’ll do it again, but both enjoyed the experience and the result

 

Are you seriously telling me that the next time it happens, opener won’t flash back to the first time? And that he would be amazed that partner ‘did it again’?

 

And that they don’t again discuss how great it was. No, they don’t say ‘let’s keep doing this’ but they also don’t say…we shouldn’t do this again.

 

What do you think are the odds that they will do it the next time opportunity arises?

 

And in those circumstances you’re seriously arguing that they do not have an agreement?

 

Of course the real problem is that it’s probable that each time they do it, the opps don’t have prior experience of it.

 

We are not playing poker. We’re supposed to practice active ethics, at least in ACBLand and it’s not anything goes elsewhere.

[mycroft]

Partnership understandings as to the methods adopted by a partnership may be reached explicitly in discussion or implicitly through mutual experience or awareness of the players.

An agreement between partners, whether explicit or implicit, is a partnership understanding.

[the RA]is empowered without restriction to allow, disallow, or allow conditionally, any special partnership understanding.

When explaining the significance of partner’s call or play in reply to an opponent’s enquiry (see Law 20) a player shall disclose all special information conveyed through partnership agreement or partnership experience...

My emphasis, obviously. So, how many times in how many hands would it take before you had "enough experience" to know that partner's 2M call here could be trying to snipe their suit?

 

I agree with you in general. In 5000 hands a year, the fact that you raised with 3 and a worthless doubleton a couple of times probably wouldn't flag partner, until you dropped dummy the third time, anyway. But this one? My guess would be you'd remember that it happened next year, especially if it worked.

 

And as I've said, I know for a fact that enough people "had the agreement" not to raise partner's 2M takeout of a mini-NT that it was the first example of a "risk-free psych". And a whole bunch of those pairs would swear up and down that it had never happened before/oh okay, only once, but we've never talked about it/I got a feeling from righty's table action that he had a lot of spades, so I didn't compete to 3 after it went p-p-2♠/well, normally I'd raise, but I had Qx in the other minor/xxx in the other major/...

 

I'm sure that this pair really do have 750,000 AMERICAN DOLLARS they need to get out of Nigeria Italy. But we're going to start by being very suspicious, because many many don't.

[Douglas43]

Putting aside the 1NT opening and looking at responder's situation. If the psyching responder has 1 or 2 spades, the most likely holding for opener is 3 or 4 spades. That means one of the defending side is quite likely to have a take-out double, which their partner can cheerfully pass for a chunky penalty (or force a run-out to a higher level).

 

If responder consistently hits shortage in opener's hand, that's another matter.

[mycroft]

The joy of all of this, Mike, is that You Are Expected to Have a Defence to this, just as much as you are expected to have a defence to 1♣-p-1♠ showing diamonds, or 1NT overcall for takeout, or 1NT-p-4♣ preemptive, or a third-seat 1♥ on AQxxx 3=5=4=1 that is not Alerted or pre-Alerted or mentioned on the convention card they have in their purse.

 

Should you have to? I don't know. But there's nothing (at least on the Open chart) saying they can't play this _by agreement_, and it's not a "pre-Alert" or "provide defence" agreement, so You Are Expected to Have a Defence. And if you think this is different from my other examples (maybe because you play those), it would be interesting to know why.

 

(Please note Mike, this is sounding aggressive, and like I am dismissing your concerns. I don't intend it to be. Partly this is a "yeah, weird, probably not intended, but somebody's going to pull this and use the same arguments I'm making as a defence" and "I hate when the system is set up so that 'minimal disclosure' is a feature of 'correct disclosure'", and partly because I'm really tired of "your weird stuff is Not Fair and I Need to Discuss a Defence, but my system that the opponents have never hit before is Good Bridge, and isn't a Problem to defend (and if it is hard to defend, that's part of why it's Good Bridge)." And you're getting caught in the backwash, I'm sorry.

[Cyberyeti]

I'm not sure if it's still there, but there used to be talk in the EBU literature about psyche control mechanisms not being allowed. If opener is not allowed to go back to spades in an auction like 1N-P-2♠-X-P-P-3♦ with 4♠/2-3 diamonds then this looks like one.

[mikeh]

The joy of all of this, Mike, is that You Are Expected to Have a Defence to this, just as much as you are expected to have a defence to 1♣-p-1♠ showing diamonds, or 1NT overcall for takeout, or 1NT-p-4♣ preemptive, or a third-seat 1♥ on AQxxx 3=5=4=1 that is not Alerted or pre-Alerted or mentioned on the convention card they have in their purse.

 

Should you have to? I don't know. But there's nothing (at least on the Open chart) saying they can't play this _by agreement_, and it's not a "pre-Alert" or "provide defence" agreement, so You Are Expected to Have a Defence. And if you think this is different from my other examples (maybe because you play those), it would be interesting to know why.

 

(Please note Mike, this is sounding aggressive, and like I am dismissing your concerns. I don't intend it to be. Partly this is a "yeah, weird, probably not intended, but somebody's going to pull this and use the same arguments I'm making as a defence" and "I hate when the system is set up so that 'minimal disclosure' is a feature of 'correct disclosure'", and partly because I'm really tired of "your weird stuff is Not Fair and I Need to Discuss a Defence, but my system that the opponents have never hit before is Good Bridge, and isn't a Problem to defend (and if it is hard to defend, that's part of why it's Good Bridge)." And you're getting caught in the backwash, I'm sorry.

I think I understand and I acknowledge that in my current main partnership we have intentionally adopted a style that we hope is difficult for the opps.

 

But, and I think this is key, our agreements (for initial auctions, not later rounds) are ALL on our CC. The acbl CC is not well designed but the WBF is much better, expressly including a section to disclose agreements that may require a defence

 

Edit. When playing any event without the WBF card, we ALWAYS announce our transfers over 1C, our variable 1Nand our two bids (when legally allowed, otherwise we don’t play them) before the start of board 1. End edit.

 

If an opp put on their CC that (weak) 1N (P) 2M might occasionally be a short suit psyche then we’d have a chance to try a defence….say x is a strong notrump rather than takeout of spades.

 

It’s the undisclosed aspect of doing this more than once in an established partnership that troubles me.

 

Maybe I’ve become a cynic but I’ve seen opps blatantly lie to a TD about what happened at the table so often that I would be extremely suspicious were an established pair, whose character was not well known to me to be impeccable, did this against me and especially if opener fielded it in competition

 

As far as I am concerned my opps can play any legally permitted method they want. If it works, good for them and maybe we will learn from the experience

 

It’s when they don’t disclose that I get annoyed.

 

If someone did this against me, I’d report it if in a serious event or at a club where I played often. Not to get an adjustment. Unless there is good evidence of this being normal for them , on the rare hands where opportunity arises, I can be annoyed but I’m not entitled to express that annoyance or suggest unethical behaviour. I am entitled, and owe it to every other player, to report it so that, one hopes, an implied illicit agreement is eventually detected should it cost.

[pigpenz]

♠Q8 ♥Q4 ♦QJ8762 ♣QJ7

 

You open 1NT (10-13) at favourable vulnerability and your agreement is that a suit response is NAT NF.

If partner responds 2♠ and RHO passes, does it cross your mind that partner may have psyched?

How would you have behaved over 2♦?

 

Just curious, for those with long term experience of very weak NT.

 

Started playing Kamikazee in 80 after watching ed davis and mike smolen in Fresno nationals.

they were talking about one hand Mike hand where his partner played hand after mike laid down dummy

and said partner they can make any game they want!

 

Meckwell had understandings that if certain bids denied a 4 card major, like opening 2 clubs you could

bid a short major and just pass, predicated on no hand and club fit....its can be part of EHAA

[pescetom]

I'm not sure if it's still there, but there used to be talk in the EBU literature about psyche control mechanisms not being allowed. If opener is not allowed to go back to spades in an auction like 1N-P-2♠-X-P-P-3♦ with 4♠/2-3 diamonds then this looks like one.

 

Hence my interest in an opinion from GordonTD.

[mycroft]

Mike, I agree with you and think your way of doing things is clearly the right way. And I think you know that.

 

My first of several comments about the new convention card was "it is clear that the ab initio assumption was that it has to fit in the current CC holders. That assumption is fatally wrong. It needs to be two-sided, and there needs to be a big "things the opponents should know" section.

 

Yes, that was the assumption ("it has to fit on the table"). No, it was not going to be changed. Yes, there's going to be a "things the opponents should know" section - which for you and me is going to be incomplete and full, because it's two tiny lines at the top there. For many others, it's going to be even more incomplete and not full, because it won't be treated the way the section on the WBF card (or the EBU card, or the ABF card, or...) is. Because it's tiny, and not 1/4 of the page right staring you in the face, because it's not two-sided.

 

But for every one of us, there's someone who likes to play these things and doesn't mind if the opponents don't get any warning. There's someone who's "an expert" but freaks out when it goes 1♣-1NT! (takeout) because "they need to be able to come up with a defence" - never mind that last week they were playing Blue Club and only mentioned that "some of our bids are canapé".) There's someone who thinks that proper disclosure of 1♣ Precision- 1♦ is "waiting", or "we play standard carding" (well, coded 10s and 9s and Lavinthal, and A from AK,... you know, "standard"). or that the proper explanation of 5♥ in a 4NT auction, with two fit suits shown, is "two".

 

And then there are those who read the instructions *looking* for how to minimize disclosure. And are smug when it happens, and even more so when it works, and are madly offended when the director says "this is not adequate disclosure" - because they are strictly following the letter of the regulations, so how can it be wrong? Those are the people that I'd love to play 1NT (10-12)-p-2♠ as "to play 2♠", and carefully not mention that it sometimes doesn't have any spades. Along with the rest of the EHAA system, which, provided we move our 2-bids to 4-11 HCP, isn't Pre-Alertable, and basically isn't Alertable either, except for 1NT (which has to be Announced no matter what) and 2♣ (because it's Natural). But I never would do that in general, of course.

[nullve]

The idea that methods can generally be disclosed fully at the table is incredibly naive.

 

For example, how would any of you describe exactly the set of hands on which you would open 1♠ in 1st seat V vs. NV?

[akwoo]

The idea that methods can generally be disclosed fully at the table is incredibly naive.

 

For example, how would any of you describe exactly the set of hands on which you would open 1♠ in 1st seat V vs. NV?

 

 

Perfect disclosure is impossible. That doesn't mean we don't aim to give as good disclosure as possible.

 

In terms of bridge law, a failure to disclose that doesn't harm the opponents has no penalty(*), so there is a limit to how close to perfection one is required to get to.

 

(*) Well - procedural penalties are still possible, but we're well beyond procedural penalty realm here.