[KiwiBridge]

Scoring: IMP

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Playing an individual last night, my unknown partner passed, RHO bid 1♣ and I overcalled 1♦ for a lead. Opponents played 2NT just making 8 tricks. My partner exclaimed "you overcalled on 5 points!". Just as the move occurred the director appeared at the table. Halfway through the next board, the message popped up the board had been adjusted to Ave- for me (minus 3 IMPS). When I asked the TD for an explanation, he said "As you KNEW from your partners PASS that the opponents probably have game on, I therefore rule that you have psyched!". He went on to say that if I had bid on any 5 card suit that would have been fine. For the record, everyone else played 3NT, 1 was -1, 12 made 3, 13 made 4 and 9 made 5. I think this is one of the most insane rulings I have ever seen, what do you think?

[DrTodd13]

Did the director have a no psyche policy? If he did then you have to realize there is no oracle for deciding what was a psyche, a tactical bid, a mistake, bad eyesight, bad judgement, etc. So, if the principle of self-serving statements being given little weight is used then the director would have to consider all such abnormal actions to be psyches and punish accordingly. Know the rules of the tournament and don't play in tournaments that disallow psyches. It isn't bridge.

[david_c]

Looks like a psyche to me. If this is a "no psyches" tourney, then the ruling is correct.

[pbleighton]

"Looks like a psyche to me. If this is a "no psyches" tourney, then the ruling is correct."

My pd and I overcall on 4 cards and 6 hcp routinely (it is on our card).

It is aggressive, you can argue the bridge merits, but it is certainly not a psyche.

Peter

[glen]

Here's Swan's take on sayc:

[url="http://www.swangames.com/main/Duckling/SAYC/sayc.html"]Swan sayc[/url]

From there we have:
[quote]Suit Overcalls show 8-16+ points. At the one level a major suit overcall may be made on a four-card holding of exceptional quality. All other overcalls show five+ cards.[/quote]
Your minor suit overcall only had four cards instead of five+, and only had V points instead of VIII. Thus it is a psyche. I suggest you don't play anymore of these no-pysche tournaments that follow Swan guidelines.

Note that the ACBL sayc booklet, at [url="http://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/SP3%20(bk)%20single%20pages.pdf"]Sayc booklet[/url] mentions 8 to 16, but not a five+ card suit requirement, so still a problem if you overcall on points you can count on one hand. If you would like to see sayc blogged (not flogged) check out:
[url="http://bridgelessonssayc.blogspot.com/2007/01/defensive-bidding.html"]sayc blogged[/url]

BBO Standard does not mention any point count or suit length requirement.

So clearly you want to be playing in a BBO Standard tournament.

However wikipedia goes back to this:

[quote name='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overcall']The common requirements for an overcall include:

A "good" 5-card or longer suit (definition of "good" subject to interpretation)
8-16 high-card points (HCP) for overcall on level 1[/quote]
So avoid no-psyche wikipedia tournaments.

Following wikipedia you can make up a Feb-14 card for the TD, using the guidelines of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roses_are_red"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roses_are_red[/url]

[he]s are red
[sp]s seem so blue
Don't rule on me
Or I'll tell on you

They might reply

[di]s are not red
[cl]s are not blue
Your overcalls suck
So I bid you adieu

[inquiry]

You have no agreements to overcall stregnth with a pick up partner, so you have no agreement per se. Under these conditions this was a psyche, but psyches are legal. I would suggest that you avoid playing in events that outlaw legal bids.

If it was a psyche free event, then accept the judgement and move on.

[kenrexford]

The problem with any "psych free event" is that idiots often view normal bidding as a psych, get a TD to agree, and you get adjusted. Run from that as quickly as you hide when the JW's ring the doorbell.

[1eyedjack]

officeglen, on Feb 14 2007, 03:44 AM, said:

Here's Swan's take on sayc:

Swan sayc

From there we have:

Quote

Suit Overcalls show 8-16+ points. At the one level a major suit overcall may be made on a four-card holding of exceptional quality. All other overcalls show five+ cards.

Your minor suit overcall only had four cards instead of five+, and only had V points instead of VIII. Thus it is a psyche.

Part of the problem is that it has to be a gross distortion in order to be ruled a psyche. Merely demonstrating that the bid falls outside of normally expected parameters falls short of demonstrating that the deviation is gross.

But as others say, TD is God. The ONLY solution is to give the TD a wide birth. Others may prefer his style. Let them.

[matmat]

who, exactly, do these "no psych" tournaments cater to?

damn, i have such a bad temperament for these things... don't let me play a psych free tournament...

[cherdano]

kenrexford, on Feb 13 2007, 10:47 PM, said:

The problem with any "psych free event" is that idiots often view normal bidding as a psych, get a TD to agree, and you get adjusted. Run from that as quickly as you hide when the JW's ring the doorbell.

The other problem is that many (otherwise) reasonable people cry "psych" when it was just idiotic bidding...

[Gerben42]

Quote

who, exactly, do these "no psych" tournaments cater to?

I have no idea. Maybe there should be a limitation to what TDs can set as rules so that at least the game of Bridge is played.

Anyway, I understand you are upset but if this was a free tourney the best you can ask for is your money back.

[paulg]

matmat, on Feb 14 2007, 08:30 AM, said:

who, exactly, do these "no psych" tournaments cater to?

I expect that these TDs have found that there are fewer complaints with no-psych tournaments and hence they are easier to run.

I also believe that the majority of BBO and f2f players feel that psychs are normally perpetrated by experts who "cheat them out of a good score" (especially the known psychs that only appear to be 'known' to experts) and so they prefer the no psych events.

I do not agree with no-psych tourneys but I also wonder why experts psych against non-experts.

Paul

[hotShot]

I would consider this 1♦ bid a psyche. It is a gross deviation from a standard 1♦ bid.
But psyches are perfectly legal in bridge, and any tourney that does not allow psyches is not a bridge tourney.

How come that player from a nation who created the "psyching card game" (poker), feel cheated when the same strategy is applied to bridge?
Perhaps they need to feel superior to poker player and feel that allowing psychs in bridge would drag them down.
Or is it just a matter of wording, it's not called psyching in poker?

[hotShot]

sceptic, on Feb 14 2007, 02:29 PM, said:

I am very curious here, why on earth would anyone want to psyche with an unknown partner,

A psyche is allowed by the rules, if your partner is as surprised by it as opps are.
This can in fact only be true will an unknown, random pickup partner.
If you psyche with your regular partner once, from that moment on he will consider the agreed meaning of any bid of yours, with the suffix "or he may be psyching". If he saw you psyche a few times, full disclosure of partnership experience will require him to say, my partner is sometimes psyching.
A psyche is only effective, if opps trust their opponent more than their partner. Pickup partnerships have very little partnership trust, so it's more likely they trust you at least as much as their partner. If they are informed that you are (sometimes) psyching (meaning that you are not trustworthy), they will of cause rely more on their partner, making the psyche less effective.

It's always easier to take candy from babies than from heavyweight boxing champions.

[mink]

My impression is that those who think that this was a psyche are too much in love with points and number of cards per suit. But rather the main question when deciding if something was a psyche or not is the intention of the bidder: Did the OP want to mislead opps, or did he want to do something constructive for the own partnership?

Clearly bidding 1♦ here does not mislead opps, as they really have a problem with their ♦ suit, which is not relevant here only because all other 3 suits are distributed so well for them. On the other hand partner benefits from the bid because he can lead ♦ now, and South clearly sees that all other lead tend to be bad. So this is a deviation from the assumed standard system but never a psyche.

Anyway, the fact that the posters of this thread disagree about the question if this is a psyche or not shows that forbidding psyches creates more problems than it solves.

There is another aspect about this ruling that has not been mentioned yet: West has 13 points and therefore knows they should bid a game. They play for IMPs, so they should really bid a game, as there is no reasonable way to 1♦ for penalty. When they now fail to bid the game and even fail to make 9 tricks, they really deserve their bad result (at least West does), and even in a no-psyches tourney this should not be adjusted, unless you think that psychers are bad people who need to be punished regardless if the adjustment makes the overall result more fair or not.

Karl

[hotShot]

The rules say: Psyches are illegal, if they get partnership experience.

This is why psyching in regular partnerships is highly problematic. This is why there is (should be) a recording system for psyches.

[hotShot]

sceptic, on Feb 14 2007, 04:02 PM, said:

surely that only applies to the same psyche / bid ?  (I could be talking out my backside here)

If he bidding shows 50 HCP and your partner has psyched 10 times before, will you be more careful (=fielding the psyche)?
I think yes.
BBO indy you and new your pickup partner meet a new pair, the bidding is strange.
Who do you think is novice, lunatic, misclicking or psyching?
Who knows!


So it does make a difference, even if it's a "new" psyche.

[jillybean]

cardsharp, on Feb 14 2007, 04:18 AM, said:

matmat, on Feb 14 2007, 08:30 AM, said:

who, exactly, do these "no psych" tournaments cater to?

I expect that these TDs have found that there are fewer complaints with no-psych tournaments and hence they are easier to run.

I think you will see an increase in TD calls with ‘no psyche’ tournaments and this rationale for banning psyches is misplaced. After any unusual bid and a bad board players are going to call the TD and feel justified in doing so because the ‘rules’ say so. Rather than protecting the players it is possible the TD’s are trying to protect themselves, my personal experience is that I found psyches difficult to understand, so best avoid them all together. What do you mean they are allowed to bid 1♥ holding xxx AND then tell the ops its 5cards, 13-15 points!
Deciding if a psyche was fielded takes a lot of time, thought and understanding, I will usually call on someone with more experience if I think a psyche has been fielded.
Having said all this, I can’t remember the last time I was called about a psyche, this type of call is few and far between. (unfortunately so because they are a lot more interesting than the 'sub me, my partners an idiot' calls.

The best thing that could happen here would be for these TD’s to join forum and take part in these discussions.

[jtfanclub]

mink, on Feb 14 2007, 08:19 AM, said:

Clearly bidding 1♦ here does not mislead opps, as they really have a problem with their ♦ suit,

(.......)

There is another aspect about this ruling that has not been mentioned yet: West has 13 points and therefore knows they should bid a game.

West's hand value drops dramatically if South has an opener or near opener- move those major suit kings to South's hand and 3NT is hopeless.

The no psych rule is so that a player doing poorly in an indy won't start making crazy bids, either in an attempt to get lucky and win or just to disrupt the game because he has nothing better to do. Having had partners who did this, I like the rule.

But the 'no psyche rule' isn't for cases like this, which is a 'green' poisition, like a third hand opener. Oh well.

[david_c]

cardsharp, on Feb 14 2007, 12:18 PM, said:

matmat, on Feb 14 2007, 08:30 AM, said:

who, exactly, do these "no psych" tournaments cater to?

I expect that these TDs have found that there are fewer complaints with no-psych tournaments and hence they are easier to run.

I doubt that's the reason. More likely, these TDs are the sort of players that don't like their opponents psyching against them and don't think it should be part of the game. So, when they get the chance to make up the rules, they decide to ban psyches.