[mike777]

BTW just got email from a long time director, over 35 years, and he said 2 were his stated limits over 4 months...not 6 .

[pigpenz]

Having been a district recorder, several psyches in the same situation would require an alert from that pair that they might do so in certain situations.

[ humour, not sufficiently marked as humour , deleted. uday ]

[uday]

I don't think it is practical for us to maintain a player database of actionable items (psyches) against number of hands played. At the very least, we'll have to start insisting that players record psychs (perhaps their own). That would suck, and be ineffective at the same time in this environment (where new username = clean slate).

So, when a TD makes a ruling that a board needs adjustment, he likely doesnt have enough data at his fingertips to know how frequently you've psyched in the past (not that they know this in the LM pairs either, mind you ).

So, there is inevitably going to be a large subjective component to the ruling (here or at an AC in the LM pairs).

I think the bodies that make up these rules on psyching should bear the burden of their vagueness. The clubs (the ACBL "tournaments" on BBO are simply ACBL club games) are simply trying to muddle through the session, making sure that the game is enjoyable for *all participants* (psychers and opponents).

So, yes, I think we'd all benefit if you could get a clarification (from Memphis) on how to deal w/successful psyching.

As the TD ( my TD skills are rusty these days) I would have unhappily let the result stand. Unhappily because I would be uncomfortable believing that NS had fine-grained agreements about pass-vs-X of 3N, thus I'd be concerned that the pass was effectively a psychic control.

We need a better answer, preferably from someone with some practical experience in these matters

[mike777]

"2"
"I agree.......

The problem is that, if more than twice, the onus on the partner of the psycher becomes way to great.......

He becomes a “catcher”, and that can get VERY nasty…..whether it works or not."


This is a third viewpoint from a very very long time director and player with over 10,000pts.

[glen]

Al_U_Card, on Jan 17 2006, 07:58 PM, said:

Just a quick question.  Does your wife psych too or is it just a guy-thing?

She rarely does it, and not my idiotic type psychs.

The actual hand reminded me of the super-weak psyches some Canadian players used to have as part of their system, so on impulse and driven by Canuck tradition I launched it.

My selective memory reminded me that I did another psych recently - no idea if this was one of the ones reported or not. It reminded me of some of the preemptive bids of Canadian experts Carroll/Turner so couldn't resist.

I had xxxx xx xxx AKQx - white vs red in third seat - I opened 3♣ (okay Carroll/Turner would require a fifth club), the next player bid 3♦, my wife raised to 4♣ on a flat hand with 3♣s (oh joy, the 4 level on a 4-3 with not a lot of points) and the next hand, reading partner for a ♣ void based on the bidding and holding 4♣s to the jack, jumped to 5♦, which was not successful.

As one can see from the 4♣ raise, it is best I forget making another attempt at this type of psychic bid. Oh well, have to study up on Zia for some new moves...

Oh, I forgot - can't use Zia moves any more, since I'm over 6 - cross that - 2 now. Well at least Zia can still play bridge, because he must be under that 2 quota for moves.

[mike777]

most of zia bids are tactical not psyches.....pls do not ask me to split the difference, gives me a headache. If you psyche a control, tactical..if you open 1nt with 2 hcp psyche.

[DrTodd13]

Just starting alerting all your bids and say "frequently tactical." Alerting that you psyche frequently doesn't make sense because if you are alerting it then it is part of your agreement and therefore, by definition, cannot be a psyche. So, I prefer the term tactical. Of course, the problem is that almost all jurisdictions disallow bids of the form "normal or very weak and tactical."

Todd

[Blofeld]

mike777, on Jan 17 2006, 05:20 PM, said:

BTW just got email from a long time director, over 35 years, and he said 2 were his stated limits over 4 months...not 6 .

A limit on number of psyches per time period seems faintly ridiculous. Psyches per hand played much more reasonable.

I take strong issue with your distinction between psyches and tactical bids, though. The opponents need to be protected against any implicit agreement that bids can mean something other than their stated meaning, whatever the size of the deviation.

[Free]

Agree, it's not the number of psychs opposite the time, but opposite the number of boards that is important. Hypotheticly, if I play 2 boards in 4 months, and I psych both of them, then I have an average of 100% psyching. However, if I play 1000 boards a month and I psych 2, then I only psych 0.05% of the time over the same period of 4 months. You don't have to be a genius to realize "time" has nothing to do with the frequency of psyching...

And another thing: if you make such psychs an agreement, then you'll start playing a HUM! So basicly people really want you to pass with weak hands, and make that game in particular quite boring for you.

[hrothgar]

mike777, on Jan 18 2006, 01:14 AM, said:

From Don Oakie commission by the ACBL Board of Directors to state leagues position....ACBL 1978 and Bridge Encyclopedia of Bridge

Couple useful observations regarding Don Oakie's article regarding psyches:

Oakie's opinions regarding psyches are (were) regularly mocked by serious players. From my perspective, Edgar Kaplan came up with the best response:

Thanks for the bulletin's clever
clarification endeavor.
It's all right to psyche,
as much as you like,
so long as you like to psyche NEVER

The rec.games.bridge archives on google groups have some interesting threads (I recommend searching on Psyche + oakie)

Equally significant: Oakie's article represented his own personal opinions on this matter. The Oakie article was published in the ACBL bulletin. The ACBL made a number of efforts to suggest that this article represented official ACBL policy and certainly succeeded in confusing a lot of people. However, when push comes to shove the ACBL was forced to admit that these personal opinions are just that... opinions, and should not be treated as having any legal authority. (This is part of what I find most annoying about the ACBL. Actions like this show no respect for either the membership or the Laws of the game)

For what its worth, I sent the following email to the ACBL back in 2000. The response that I received from Gary Blaisse directly stated that the Oakie letter has no legal standing:
------------------

I have a very explict question regarding the ACBL policy regarding psyches. This year, in the International Teams trial, Zia opened 1N in second
seat NV holding the following hand.

S JT3
H K98
D AJ64
C T65

(The board in question is hand number 107 from the ITT finals)

His partner, Michael Rosenberg, blasted directly to 3N holding a flat 14 count. (I don't think for a moment that Rosenberg "fielded" this bid in any way.)

I recall Zia making almost the exact same psyche in another recent event. (Opening a balanced hand with ~9 HCP with a "psychic" 1N). The hand in question was board 82 from the semi finals of the 1999 International Team Trials when Zia opened a 12-14 HCP 1N in third seat, NV holding

S 4 2
H A 10 7 5
D J 9 8 5 4
C A 6

I find it hard to reconcile this behavior with the ACBL's strict policy with respect to psyches. In particular, ACBL policy states that making the same pysche more than once creates a concealed partnership understanding.

I am left with the uncomfortable conclusion that one of two different things is occurring. The ACBL is selective in its enforcement of the Laws of Bridge. Existing legitimate regulations are not enforced against well known players.

The ACBL policy with respect to psyches is not legitimate according to the Laws of Bridge. This policy is not enforced during major events because the players involved at this level understand that the policy is not enforcable and would protest. However, this illegitimate policy is imposed those players who do not have a strong enough understanding of the actual laws.

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Richard Willey

[glen]

I wrote the following letter to ACBL@bridgebase.com, and cc'ed the ACBL's Mike Flader

-------

The ACBL web site accurately informs us that: “Clearly the Laws permit psychs. Psychic bidding is a part of the game.”

In the Summer 05 NABC bulletins, Mike Flader, ACBL Associate National Tournament Director, stated, as what it appears to now be ACBL policy, that “An agreement to psych, either explicit or implicit, is illegal”.

Since players are permitted to psych by the Laws, and players know that each other can psych, what is actually illegal is this policy as stated.

I ask that the ACBL tournaments on Bridge Base Online discontinue use of this illegal policy. I do understand that it could be possible to state “An agreement to psych in a certain way or at certain times, either explicit or implicit, is illegal”. However this is not what was stated, and it is not what is being enforced in these ACBL BBO tournaments.

Please reply with your decision on this item, and if this illegal policy will continue to be enforced, the suggested means for appealing this decision, perhaps using the ACBL arbitration methods I believe are made available to members. Thanks in advance!

A copy of this letter will appear on the BBO Forums.

[inquiry]

Glen,

Let me start by stating that I think your ETM matters website is one of the best sites on the web, and I quote it regularily, and use a lot of ETM treatments. I love the concepts in etm victory.

Let me further say that I psyche frequently (not in ACBL events obviously) and pseudo randomly (mostly, however not vu, never in an individual event, never against beginners, never against an inexperience pick up partnership unless both are high advanced or betterl). I agree psyches are part of the game and can not discounted.

Third, let me say that I reviewed 1138 of your hands that you played with your wife using a commercial bridge program that will show opening bids, overcalls, doublees intial responses etc, and will show allow you to "plot" a number of items for each. For instance, I can look at every 1NT overcall you or your wife made out of these 1138 hands and see how many overcalls were made on 14 hcp (your lower limit) on 15 hcp, etc. While looking I can also find how many were made with singletons, six or seven cards suits, voids, etc. I can find your 3 card overcall (only once), I can find your preemptive overcall vul on four or five card suits and no points. These all jump out with the plot feature.

When looking through the 1138 hands, I found that you do not psyche at a very high level, but I did discover this..

1) your wife never psyched in the 1138 hands (wrong distribution, or point count)

2) you had something like ONLY 27 hands that might be considered a psyche by some people, although many might easily fall more in tatical bids area. It would take a discussion of each hand to determine if psyche or tatical bidm but even 27 out of 1138 is not excessive... assuming 26 hand sessions, this is one pcyshe every 1.17 "session". that is Frequent, but not excessive, and half of these are probably not really psyches anyway. This includes a 12 point 1NT overcal showing 14-17 (I disregarded the 18 and 13 point ones as not extreme enough), out of 10 1NT overcalls you made, you had a singleton 4 times. ACBL would consider each of those a psyche perhaps. You also opened 1NT 3 times (out of 74 opening 1NT bids) with a singleton. I think the ACBL expects 1NT to be opened with a singleton at a rate less than 1/3 that (I open 1NT with a higher singleton frequency than you did, just not in ACBL events).

3) Clearly, your psyches are not controlled and in fact you do much worse than average on the vast majority of them. One kind in particular was very bad to you, and that was the "random" 2 of a major overcall when they open a strong 2C. You got three horrible results on this out of four, and should have had four horrible out of four (the other was an average).

So this raises a couple of issues (I have no way of knowing if these were ACBL events or not, but they were bbo tourneys, so if you play exclusively in ACBL there you go).

A.) Although all 27 are probably not fair to call psyches, a lot are, how many would be too many?

B.) Your wife never does, you do alot. This raises the question of each partner using a different bidding system, which I think is not allowed. So if one frequently and one never psyches, is that legal?As an aside, you open 1NT 74 times, your wife 26, you overcalled 1NT 10 times, she overcalled 1NT 3 times. This might be a similar problem?

I wish you luck in your quest to get the ACBL ruling thing straightened out. But try to remember they are trying to maximize the pleasure for their customers (including you, of course). I jsut hope everyone realizes people really are trying to make good faith decisions.

[mike777]

We all agree that the policy is vague but then many laws are vague when you really analyze them in depth as this issue has been over the decades. Kaplan has written often on this subject in BW.

Keep in mind not only the issue of implicit partnership agreements but also the laws pertaining to sportsmanship, disruption to the game and possibly other section of the laws come into the discussion also.

It does seem that many players who do not own a club or Direct for living have one bias on this issue over the bias of those who make a living or deal with this issue on a daily or weekly basis.

[luis]

Ben's post is very interesting because it raises a topic that is not discussed a lot is individual style a partnership agreement? Where is the line between playing a different system and having a different style? The law forbidding each player from playing a different system is very subjective because it's not clear if bidding style is part of the system or not, if it is then you and your pd must agree to have the same style, if bidding style is not part of the system then what is a system?
Mmmmm food for thought.

[LH2650]

From ACBL Codification (or the Club Director's Handbook). "Both members of a partnership must employ the same system that appears on the convention card."

The Sponsoring Organization has the authority to require that both players use the same system because it has the right to regulate the use of conventions. This really means that you both must play the same conventions. Style, such as opening 1 Notrump with a 5 card major, or opening a 4 card major in third position, cannot be regulated. Psyching is a matter of style.

The ACBL Club Director's Handbook has considerable discussion of the regulation of psyching, and can be downloaded from the ACBL website. Here is a piece:

"Are psychs allowed?"

"Clearly Law 40 permits psychs. Psychic bidding is a part of the game...Excessive psyching leads to implied and concealed partnership understandings and such understandings are serious offenses — they erode the very basics on which the game of bridge are built. Pairs that regularly use psychs soon learn the type of psychic calls their partner makes and are prepared for them. The opponents do not have this same information, although the rules of the game call for complete disclosure of bidding methods."


Note that, in determining whether you are psyching excessively, the cumulative number of psyches, as well as the rate, is important. You probably can't be banned from psyching, but the director can require your psyches to be reported, and he can, on minimal evidence, determine that your good result was obtained due to an undisclosed partnership agreement. At that point, you can only lose.

[Al_U_Card]

Interesting point about application of your methods. An ex-partner of mine (premature death) would never overcall vul without the complete package, so I never had a problem with taking bids on her cards......I, on the other hand was far less discriminating with mine. Does this mean that we were using two different "systems"?

[inquiry]

Al_U_Card, on Jan 18 2006, 04:24 PM, said:

Interesting point about application of your methods. An ex-partner of mine (premature death) would never overcall vul without the complete package, so I never had a problem with taking bids on her cards......I, on the other hand was far less discriminating with mine. Does this mean that we were using two different "systems"?

My feeling is this rule is to try and keep a client-pro from playing a system where the client can open 1NT... or rebid 1NT... (hehehe), but if you have ever looked at matchpoint things, the pro's bend over backwards to bid NT first (well not all of them). I am not sure why such a rule exist, but there you go.

[glen]

Thanks Ben for your very detailed reply, and your kind words once more on bridgematters.com

All of my tournament hands with my wife were in ACBL BBO tourneys. I believe my wife did psyche at least once, because my selective memory remembers a 7 or 8 point opening at some point – perhaps it was in the days before 1138.

Yes, my psychic bids may not be successful – that may be a reason for me to avoid them, but not for asking me to curtail them.

My wife and I play the same system – same ranges etc. However we have different styles and we play a system that allows one choice of bids, which accounts for the different frequency of bids. I have not seen any regulation on partnerships being forced to adopt the same style, or being forced to have a system that does not provide options.

As you note, "clearly your psyches are not controlled" – I believe it is this single factor that should allow me to continue to psych, as long as it does not become excessive, or develop into a pattern of particular psyches, or find my partner catching a bunch of them.

I do understand that the TDs are attempting to regulate the game to maximize the pleasure for their customers, and they are making good faith decisions and policies. However I believe that this particular policy is bad for the long term health of the game, since it will discourage younger players from playing and drive even more of them towards that bluffing game. I would especially like an online bridge site to permit relative free-wheeling in tournament play, as our more youthful players will enjoy this. Certainly the brick-and-mortar bridge clubs can continue to enforce rules to keep their existing clientele happy (for example, one local club has a rule that one can never, ever, open 1NT with a singleton). I believe that this is short-sighted, but far less dangerous than allowing the same regressive approach to infest tournament play on our most popular online bridge site.

[mghmaine]

Gerben wrote:
North is allowed to think and wonder why EW are attempting 3NT on a combined 15-count.

Only logical explanation - someone has psyched. It wasn't the 1NT overcaller, he bid 3NT. It wasn't the person with the ♣ either, why else would he jump? Leaves partner.


And Partner is known to psych quite a bit ! N is prepared to make better decisions because her partnership psychs quite a bit.

[hrothgar]

mghmaine, on Jan 19 2006, 05:42 AM, said:

Only logical explanation - someone has psyched. It wasn't the 1NT overcaller, he bid 3NT. It wasn't the person with the ♣ either, why else would he jump? Leaves partner.

And Partner is known to psych quite a bit !  N is prepared to make better decisions because her partnership psychs quite a bit.

Bullshit

North is prepared to make a better decision because North has more than three brain cells to rub together. Any competent player should be able to deduce that there are too many points in this deck and that West ain't the one whose lying...

If you really feel aggrieved that North/South have extra information, you might want to complain about the ACBL's disclosure regulations which don't allow players to provide information about the frequency of their psyches