[fred]

hotShot, on Feb 16 2007, 04:14 PM, said:

Well suppose w/r the bidding was: pass - pass
and you hold x xx xx QJxxxxxx.

You can bid 3/4/5♣ or you can psyche e.g. 1NT planing to run to 2/3/4♣ if necessary. Both decisions are are made without involving partner much, both decisions are made expecting partner to pass.

Why should one be ok while the other one is shows disrespect for partner?

But after 1NT opps might not reach their best spot, while a club preempt might tell them that they must have a fit and good combined strength.

This is not randomness and this has nothing to do with disrespect to partner.

This difference is that, if you open with some club preempt, you are giving your partner an accurate description of your hand and allowing his judgment to come into play with respect to determining the result you achieve.

When you open 1NT (or whatever) you are taking your partner's judgment out of the equation.

I am not saying that I think it is appropriate or productive to let such things bother you at the table, but I can certainly understand not wanting to play with a partner (or teammates) that like to play this way.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

hrothgar, on Feb 16 2007, 04:21 PM, said:

Admitted, one can argue whether players who aren't good enough to win events playing down the middle necessarily have the necessary judgement to determine whether they should be psyching. However, I'm pretty sure that I can some "core" where these types of strategies are valid.

I am not sure you are saying this, but if you are saying "some psychs rate to work more often than not" I agree with you.

The problem is that, in my opinion, there are only a few such psychs (the 3rd seat 1NT opening with a weak hand, a long suit, and opponents who play DONT for example). If you start to use these few effective psychs on a regular basis then you are not psyching anymore - the psych has become part of your system.

And if you decide to go outside the realm of psychs that are well known to be effective you will be entering the realm of randomness.

Maybe its better to spend you time and energy trying to improve to the point that you are capable of winning by playing down the middle?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[pbleighton]

"Maybe its better to spend you time and energy trying to improve to the point that you are capable of winning by playing down the middle?"

LEARN HOW TO PLAY DEFENSE?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

Peter

[cherdano]

fred, on Feb 16 2007, 10:54 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Feb 16 2007, 04:21 PM, said:

Admitted, one can argue whether players who aren't good enough to win events playing down the middle necessarily have the necessary judgement to determine whether they should be psyching.  However, I'm pretty sure that I can some "core" where these types of strategies are valid.

I am not sure you are saying this, but if you are saying "some psychs rate to work more often than not" I agree with you.

I think what Richard is talking about are psychs that, while having a negative expected average outcome (lose more often than they gain), increase the chance of winning the event by increasing the variation of our own score.

In my opinion, these situations are extremely extremely rare outside bridge books and barometer matches on BBO (and anyway I prefer to come in 3rd three times rather than win once and end in the middle of the pack the other two times, especially if it means I can play bridge all of these times instead of playing lottery).

Arend

[hotShot]

fred, on Feb 16 2007, 06:37 PM, said:

This difference is that, if you open with some club preempt, you are giving your partner an accurate description of your hand and allowing his judgment to come into play with respect to determining the result you achieve.

When you open 1NT (or whatever) you are taking your partner's judgment out of the equation.

I am not saying that I think it is appropriate or productive to let such things bother you at the table, but I can certainly understand not wanting to play with a partner (or teammates) that like to play this way.

Sometimes a player has to make a decision, based of the facts he has (up to know). He will select the best action he can think of, using his judgment.

How do you call partners aggressive game bid?
How do you call it, when your partner goes for slam?
How do you call it, when partner decides to sacrifice?
How do you call it, when partner decides to make a penalty double?

In all these cases, your partner uses his own judgment do decide the partnerships fate.
The same could happen with preempts and psyches.

It can mean that partners judgment is poor or worse, maybe it proves that partner is bigheaded, selfish and/or arrogant, but I think it's a bit touchy to think that it shows disrespect to you.

[fred]

hotShot, on Feb 16 2007, 06:33 PM, said:

How do you call partners aggressive game bid?
How do you call it, when your partner goes for slam?
How do you call it, when partner decides to sacrifice?
How do you call it, when partner decides to make a penalty double?

In all these cases, your partner uses his own judgment do decide the partnerships fate.
The same could happen with preempts and psyches.

The difference is that, in the situations you describe, the player in question is either forced to make a final decision for the partnership, he thinks he has enough information to make the winning final decision for the partnership, or he thinks that trying to gain more information and/or enlisting partner's judgment is not going to help.

The kind of psychs we have been talking about do not (or at least should not) fall into any of these categories.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[hotShot]

"...
he thinks that trying to gain more information and/or enlisting partner's judgment is not going to help."

I thought my example was fitting this category.
Usually BBO or f2f player find less subtle ways, to express disrespect to their partners.

I think our views on this are closer together than it appears in this discussion.

[awm]

Obviously there is some luck in bridge (even duplicate). The existence of a luck factor gives inferior players a chance to win. For example, if I were to play chess against Kasparov I would lose. He is a much better chess player, and there is no luck in chess. We could play a hundred times and I would lose every time. But if I were to play bridge against the world champion italians, there is some chance I would win. I'd bet that if we played a hundred short matches (say 6 boards each) my team would win a few times despite being inferior players. This is the beauty of bridge, and one of the nice things about a game with some luck involved.

Of course, if you're the best player (or pair) in a given field you'd be more likely to win if there was less luck. But for most of us who are not the best, there is some advantage to trying to increase the amount of randomness in the game provided I can do it without significantly hurting my average score. After all, the more luck there is, the more likely an inferior player can win. I don't think there's anything "wrong" or "unethical" about trying to increase the randomness as long as it's done with improving your chances in mind (rather than just out of malice).

The occasional psych, frequent tactical bid (say preempting a level more or less than normal with your hand), and choice of non-mainstream methods has this kind of an effect in bridge.