[Phil]

Lobowolf, on Apr 21 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

jdonn, on Apr 21 2009, 06:36 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Apr 21 2009, 06:21 PM, said:

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though.  For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy.  If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9.  I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

Things that make you go Hmmm.

Maybe you don't even do it, but I think that's a terrible thing to do. I equate it to discarding a card of the same color as the suit declarer is playing in hopes he won't notice you showed out, which is something lots of people love to do and I think is horribly unethical. I understand it's difficult or even impossible to judge intent, but everyone has to be able to live with themselves. Why would someone want to win because they played a psychological trick on their opponent's speech of vision rather than because they played well?

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

1) It's not unethical; and

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding. If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch. Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one. In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle. But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here. I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I think these tactics skirt the line. I was just reading this morning about having:

♠xxx

♠AKJxxx

playing the♠A, ....

followed by the ♣K and checking LHO's reaction.

[jdonn]

Lobowolf, on Apr 21 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

1) It's not unethical; and

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding.  If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch.  Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one.  In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle.  But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here.  I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I can't tell if you are mixing up which card to play with how you play it or if I'm misunderstanding your position, so sorry if it's the latter. There is certainly nothing wrong with playing (well, having partner play) the lower card from dummy. My objection would be if you normally say "club" to play the lowest or normally call the specific "9 of clubs", but in this case make a point to say "low club" in the hope of psychologically convincing your opponent to not realize it's an equal. Of course you can and should win based on the card you play, but not based on the manner in which you call for it. At least not by design.

[awm]

I still think one of the funniest ones I've ever seen was Elianna needing to play ♦xxx in hand opposite ♦QTxx in dummy for one trick. She lead out of hand and called for the queen from dummy, somehow inducing her RHO to follow with the jack from AKJ (obviously on autopilot assuming she would make the normal play of low to the ten).

[Mbodell]

jdonn, on Apr 21 2009, 05:21 PM, said:

I can't tell if you are mixing up which card to play with how you play it or if I'm misunderstanding your position, so sorry if it's the latter. There is certainly nothing wrong with playing (well, having partner play) the lower card from dummy. My objection would be if you normally say "club" to play the lowest or normally call the specific "9 of clubs", but in this case make a point to say "low club" in the hope of psychologically convincing your opponent to not realize it's an equal. Of course you can and should win based on the card you play, but not based on the manner in which you call for it. At least not by design.

Interesting. One of my partner always honestly telegraphs how she is going to play spot cards by calling for high (equal) ones if she is going to run them and low (equal) ones if she is planning to ruff.

Another "trick" in the manner described earlier of calling different cards is I've seen people get their opponents to play the card they want by calling a card while the opponent is in the act of choosing a card by saying something like "Play a low spade" and having LHO dutifully play a low spade. I think when I've seen this it is usually accidentally done by declarer.

[Hanoi5]

Quote

I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one. In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle. But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here. I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I also believe that calling for 'low' or 'high' depending on what you want your opponents to do is the same as playing the highest honour if you want it covered or the smallest if you don't. In fact, if you held ♦T2 in the closed hand, and they are good and you don't want the first one to be ruffed, would you play the T or the 2? Against good opposition it shouldn't matter, as it shouldn't matter to play a card of the same colour when not following suit or all the other psychological plays.

Would it make you feel better if you touched the card from dummy yourself instead of calling it out? Isn't it the same principle? I think you win with the aforementioned play just because they don't want to ruff your small cards, no matter how you called it (will you be honest and say 'Play one of the now set up diamonds partner' or, 'Any diamond, they are all the same'). Bridge is a people's game and as such you can play people.

However, I do recognize it does sound a little 'unfair' to take these 'techniques' to the extreme. I can now imagine players calling for 'the smallest diamond you can' and then I'm not so sure how 'ethical' this action would be. I think a Director or REALLY experienced player (like Fred) could tell us about this and clear up whether it's ethical or not.

On another note, how do you feel about calling the director and taking advantage of errors like revokes (which didn't really affect you but could lead to penalty), leads out of turn, etc? I remember I lost an individual tournament (3 sessions) 'cause in the last session, last board, I didn't call the director to give a one-trick penalty to my opponents for a revoke. I've been calling the director more since then, although not as much as I should.

[Deevan]

Prior to undertaking this study; or, developing a "reference table" for use in a Stratified game, we may need to first define "insanity", and its close variations; e.g.:

absent mindedness
distraction
misclick
illness
tiredness
mental block
inexperience
black swan
etc. etc.

Here is an example from a recent Regional Stratified event:
Contract: 3NT
Dummy (Expert) : xx,KJx,QT9876x,x
Declarer (Expert): KQxx, Axxx, A,KQxx
bidding 1C-x(declarer)-P-2D(dummy)-P-3NT-PPP
Lead: Small H-x-T-A
T2:DA,x,x,K
T3-13: Declarer thought of all types of endplays, squeezes; etc. Right or wrong he ended up down 2

The actual fact is that the RHO had DKJ; and, for some reason (your pick); he dropped the K. Was he showing a doubleton!! Obviously, it makes at least 9+ tricks if you wanted to take advantage of the situation.

You can debate the bidding or the best line of play, all you want. This to me is funny, to say the least.

Was it insanity or something else? where did it reside during this board?

How would a table be of help?

Yours was an interesting question to ask anyway! It generated some lively responses.

[Phil]

Deevan, on Apr 27 2009, 12:08 PM, said:

...black swan
etc. etc.

I can't speak for everyone here, but all of my errors are black swans

[kenrexford]

Phil, on Apr 27 2009, 12:43 PM, said:

Deevan, on Apr 27 2009, 12:08 PM, said:

...black swan
etc. etc.

I can't speak for everyone here, but all of my errors are black swans

Many of mine are black velvet, but I think that's something different.

[eyhung]

jdonn, on Apr 21 2009, 11:36 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Apr 21 2009, 06:21 PM, said:

Inducing psychological errors is an interesting line of study, though.  For example, here's one that is extremely reliable in club games - Let's say a suit is divided:

5 (dummy) - 2 (me, as declarer) - 3 -3, and I've played two rounds and ruffed a third, leaving two winners in dummy.  If I don't want RHO to ruff, for strategic reasons (maybe I want to pitch two losers and he has a trump winner, so I don't mind him ruffing the 5th one, but it would be bad if he ruffed the 4th), calling "small club" seems to get even above-average club players to pitch on the 4th one, even if they're the 10 and the 9.  I don't know if it means they think I don't know it's good, or what.

Conversely, if I want to INDUCE a ruff, calling "top club" works, even when they're the 3 and the 2.

Things that make you go Hmmm.

Maybe you don't even do it, but I think that's a terrible thing to do. I equate it to discarding a card of the same color as the suit declarer is playing in hopes he won't notice you showed out, which is something lots of people love to do and I think is horribly unethical. I understand it's difficult or even impossible to judge intent, but everyone has to be able to live with themselves. Why would someone want to win because they played a psychological trick on their opponent's speech of vision rather than because they played well?

I don't think purposely discarding black-on-black to perhaps induce a miscount is "unethical". How is it different from playing for a "stupid squeeze" (a non-functioning squeeze due to lack of entries or threats) when you have a running long suit? Sure, the opponents shouldn't be taken in by it, but barring time pressure, you owe it to your side to attempt the "stupid squeeze", especially at matchpoints. Similarly, if you are in a situation where you have to choose between two completely irrelevant suits, you might as well discard the same color if that adds a smidgen of percentage to your chances of a good result.

Usually when you sit down at a bridge table, you're trying to maximize your results within the boundaries of the rules and proprieties of the game. Last I checked, choosing to discard a card of the same color for the purpose of inducing a miscount does not violate those proprieties, because the opponents have an effective counter: they can pay attention!

[eyhung]

jdonn, on Apr 22 2009, 01:21 AM, said:

Lobowolf, on Apr 21 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

Let me preface by saying that I'm willing to reconsider my position on this, and I do practice active ethics.

Having said that, my belief is and has been (and I haven't considered this a close call, but maybe I've been wrong) that

1) It's not unethical; and

2) It's not "rather than" playing well; it's an example of playing well.

Essentially, I don't see it as any different than falsecarding.  If the layout were the same, but my hands were reversed, such that I had, say, a good 10 and 2 in my hand, and nobody else had any cards in the suit, I'd lead the 10 if I wanted my LHO to ruff, and the 2 if I wanted him to pitch.  Similarly, I imagine everyone with QJT9 in the closed hand leads the Q to induce a cover, and the 9 to avoid one.  In good faith, I do think it's the same situation, in principle.  But maybe I've been missing an ethical problem here.  I'd be interested in other perspectives.

I can't tell if you are mixing up which card to play with how you play it or if I'm misunderstanding your position, so sorry if it's the latter. There is certainly nothing wrong with playing (well, having partner play) the lower card from dummy. My objection would be if you normally say "club" to play the lowest or normally call the specific "9 of clubs", but in this case make a point to say "low club" in the hope of psychologically convincing your opponent to not realize it's an equal. Of course you can and should win based on the card you play, but not based on the manner in which you call for it. At least not by design.

I agree with this -- in fact, it's covered in the proprieties section of the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge:

D. Variations in Tempo or Manner

1. Inadvertent Variations

It is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner. However, players should be particularly careful in positions in which variations may work to the benefit of their side. Otherwise, inadvertently to vary the tempo or manner in which a call or play is made does not in itself constitute a violation of propriety, but inferences from such variation may appropriately be drawn only by an opponent, and at his own risk.

2. Intentional Variations

A player may not attempt to mislead an opponent by means of remark or gesture, through the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton), or by the manner in which the call or play is made.

E. Deception

A player may appropriately attempt to deceive an opponent through a call or play (so long as the deception is not protected by concealed partnership understanding or experience). It is entirely appropriate to avoid giving information to the opponents by making all calls and plays in unvarying tempo and manner.

------

There is nothing in the proprieties that states that it is wrong to attempt to deceive an opponent with which card he plays -- just merely the manner of it. So I would object to someone who deliberately changed their phrasing to "low club" to induce a ruff, but I would not object to someone who intentionally discards a club on spades.

[dake50]

Do y'all find this "insanity" increases with pressure/agressive bidding? Thus an intangible addition for active bidders.

Does the expectation of insanity suggest give up losers to them and hope for a gift? Instead of some 30% try to make by force?

Isn't this the Yin and Yang? Push like rock; flow like water? When is which ON?