[PeterAlan]

I've just been reading the thread on the Bournemouth multi, which prompts me to add this one.

Scoring: MP

---

S opens 2NT, explained by N as both minors, definitely 5-9 and "won't be kamikaze". The system card, such as it was, indeed gave 5-9.

Would you regard this as a deviation, a psyche, a misbid, or what?

PeterAlan

[helene_t]

I suppose it's not much a deviation to add a few points for the extra distribution.

Possibly it's a case of mild MI.

It's certainly not a psyche.

[campboy]

I think a 3-point difference, especially where there are compensating factors, is a deviation rather than a psyche. That's about where I would cut it off, though.

[PeterE]

It's definitely a psyche. Less than half of the strength "required" for this bid.

[jeremy69]

If the expectation is 5-9 with, say, at least 5-5 in the minors then this hand is sufficiently short of the advertised strength to count as a psyche. One way people used to think about it(without, AFAIK, any legal justification) was that if the bid was within 20% of advertised strength it was a deviation, if more then a psyche. Agree completely with PeterE on this one.

[blackshoe]

PeterAlan, on Jun 2 2010, 08:44 AM, said:

Would you regard this as a deviation, a psyche, a misbid, or what?

I don't know. What did the player who bid it think he was doing? (Don't forget that a psych is a deliberate departure from agreed methods).

[PeterAlan]

blackshoe, on Jun 2 2010, 10:02 AM, said:

What did the player who bid it think he was doing?

I don't know, blackshoe - in the end, we didn't ask (see below).

The full hand was:

Scoring: MP

---

and we didn't get to the NT grand that we needed for a decent score (after a Pass by S and a 2NT opening by partner, we'd have no trouble in establishing we've got 7 S + 3 AKs, but didn't manage this over the actual opening). My partner was a bit put out, and N seemed to be feeling more than a little awkward at the end of the hand. S said nothing at all, and we didn't have any desire to pursue the point.

As it happens, N and S are a regular partnership, and experienced GMs, so can be assumed to know what they were doing and what their agreements are. They certainly chose the right moment to depart from them.

I thought it would be illuminating to get a few objective views - hence the question. Many thanks to those who replied.

PeterAlan

[Phil]

Would you feel better if North's minor suit Q's were shifted to the South hand? Or if the explanation was "0-9" would you have bid differently?

I think a prepared EW can get to 7S:

Dbl (points)
4D - strong hand with spades
Then RKC

NS should get a warning about proper disclosure. Perhaps a PM is in order as well.

[jeremy69]

Quote

Would you feel better if North's minor suit Q's were shifted to the South hand? Or if the explanation was "0-9" would you have bid differently?

I think a prepared EW can get to 7S:

I don't think this matters. If South psyched there is no suggestion that his partner fielded the bid so no adjustment required. The worst that is going to happen is the bid is recorded and in my view whether it is a psyche or a deviation doesn't much matter. Having a record is useful if they do it a lot.
A very enjoyable moment at a Laws and Ethics meeting occurred sometime ago when a psyche form was examined. It contained a tick in the No box next to the question "Have you psyched in this or similar position with this partner before.
The secretary to the committee had brought not only this form but the other three recorded psyches in the preceding two years in a similar position and the same partnership

[NickRW]

Phil, on Jun 2 2010, 04:02 PM, said:

NS should get a warning about proper disclosure. Perhaps a PM is in order as well.

Yeah - seems to me a typical min, given the 5-9 description, might be something like

x
xx
J9xxx
ATxxx

And, given the "won't be kamikaze" qualifier and the state of the vul, then the above, some might think, would be sub min - sure the 6520 shape is quite a bit of compensation - but still seems to be stretching things a bit far to my mind. So, at least a warning seems in order to me.

Nick

[helene_t]

If you had called the TD he would need to consider whether you would have bid the grand given proper disclosure. Whether you would have bid it if S had passed is irrelevant. South can bid what he wants. But North has to disclose their agreements correctly.

[PeterAlan]

I quite agree with you, Phil, the Qs could equally well have been with S (though at least in that case you only expect to encounter the first-hand pre-empt in the reduced number of cases when S also has the cards, and not when his partner does instead!) It's all part of our learning (we're a lot less experienced).

As it happens, we don't have that 4D cue in our armoury. There's no two ways about it, we don't have all the equipment or experience to deal as effectively as we might with this sort of pre-empt, we recognise that, and it's why we had no intention of trying to make an issue of the bid.

We both took an unduly cautious view along the way - I'm not going to detail the auction - and I think that a 0-9 explanation might have left us being a little less so, especially as the vulnerablility was referred to in the explanation - but I'm not sure that we'd have reached the grand with a correct explanation (which is the key point regarding damage, it seems to me), and I wouldn't want to claim so.

As I said, I was interested to get people's reactions to the bid, and thank you for them.

[bluejak]

I am a little surprised that people think points are everything. A deviation of three points would normally be quite a lot, but when the hand is 6-5 rather than 5-5?

Of course, one question is what difference it makes. Psyches, misbids and deviations are legal. So it hardly matters which of the three it is. If South had an accident he would probably have explained it so it appears it is not a misbid. Is it a deviation or a psyche? Dunno really! But I think a psyche.

So what is the difference between a deviation and a psyche? Well, if a player deviates, and he does so with some frequency, we do not really feel he needs to change the way he describes his system. So if he opens a 12-14 1NT with a good 11, that does not mean he is not playing 12-14. But if he does it with a good 9, then we check to see he does not regularly do so: if he does it is MI.

So I think a deviation is small enough not to worry even if a pair does it with some frequency. I think the given hand is a psyche - just. But so what?

[NickRW]

bluejak, on Jun 3 2010, 01:11 AM, said:

I am a little surprised that people think points are everything...

Meh, the regulatory bodies are the people who put hcp references in the regs in the first place!

Anyway, this is a judgement call - what do you think 6520 shape is worth instead of the more common 5521 normal for this opening? A queen IMO certainly - possibly a king - not more I would have thought. Indeed I am being generous - by the extended rule of whatever the Orange book is so fond of it is only a jack's worth.

So... 6520 + 2 jacks is, IMO, at most worth 5521 and 5hcp. Then we have the red vul and the "it won't be kamikaze" qualifier. IMO South pushed his/her luck and the description didn't fit. If that isn't worth at least a directorial frown I don't know what is.

Of course South is allowed to bid as he/she pleases. E/W say that they would have got where they wanted without the opening - but that is not very relevant - they got the opening like it or not and we haven't seen a case for whether they would or would not have got there had they known the opening was as weak as it was.

Nick

[dburn]

bluejak, on Jun 2 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

So what is the difference between a deviation and a psyche? Well, if a player deviates, and he does so with some frequency, we do not really feel he needs to change the way he describes his system. So if he opens a 12-14 1NT with a good 11, that does not mean he is not playing 12-14.

Yes it does. And to paraphrase a comment you made earlier, it is truly shocking for a member of the EBU's Laws and Ethics Committee to condone a situation in which players lie to their opponents on a regular basis.

[WellSpyder]

dburn, on Jun 3 2010, 11:09 PM, said:

bluejak, on Jun 2 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

So what is the difference between a deviation and a psyche?  Well, if a player deviates, and he does so with some frequency, we do not really feel he needs to change the way he describes his system.  So if he opens a 12-14 1NT with a good 11, that does not mean he is not playing 12-14.

Yes it does. And to paraphrase a comment you made earlier, it is truly shocking for a member of the EBU's Laws and Ethics Committee to condone a situation in which players lie to their opponents on a regular basis.

I don't think this is as straightforward as either dburn or bluejak suggests - in fact, I am completely confused as to how best to meet the requirements of the law in this sort of situation.

In general, I believe players should always be able to apply judgment in deciding which bid best describes their hand, and that the possibility of upgrades or downgrades with suitable/unsuitable hands should just be regarded as "bridge" without explicit announcements. (Yes, I know there are exceptions to this - some may recall my rants about not being allowed in England to upgrade good 15 counts into a strong 1♣ opening.)

Now suppose that you have agreed that a 1NT opening shows 12-14 points, but you also have an implicit agreement that a few 11-counts might be regarded as suitable - and, indeed, one of your partnership once downgraded a particularly sterile-looking 15-count. Is it really important when announcing the strength of the opening to say "12-14, but occasional upgrades or downgrades are possible" every time, or should that just be understood if you say "12-14"?

What I think is clearly unhelpful in these circumstances is to say what I increasing hear in England, which is "11-14". Of course this is fine if you expect to open an average 11 count with 1NT, but if you only open a particularly good 11-count with 1NT then I think you are being more misleading than if you announce "12-14", even if you are more likely to protect yourself from a ruling of MI.

[StevenG]

What's wrong with saying "12-14, some 11s"?

[helene_t]

Is it really the understanding of legal experts that any deliberate gross deviation is a psyche?

I know a psyche is, per definition, a deliberate gross deviation. But I thought there was an additional condition: that it should be aimed at misleading opps (or partner?), or concealing information.

There can be other reasons for deliberate gross deviation: dumping, a desire to annoy opps/partner/TD, lack of trust in partner, randomizing the result to create a needed swing. Quite often players will explain their deviations with something silly like "I wanted to try something new", "the methods didn't work on the previous board" etc. My guess is that this often means that the player didn't like the methods so decided not to play them even if he had agreed with partner to play them. Does these all count as psyches?

[hotShot]

Every deviation that is deliberate and gross, should be treated as psych.

The interesting question about this hand is, whether or not the deviation is gross.

The hand is about a king short in HCP, that is compensated by a void instead of a single and an extra card that could be either in a side suit or in trumps.

Hand evaluation is part of the partnership agreements, especially their application to weak distributional hands must have been discussed by a regular partnership.
So if a partnership has agreed that this shape and strength is withing or close to their agreed range, they need to say so.

Given the disclosed meaning, 5-8 HCP and "won't be kamikaze" I would consider the deviation to be gross.

If we would discuss a similar deviation around opening strength, I would not think the deviation is gross.

[blackshoe]

helene_t, on Jun 4 2010, 05:16 AM, said:

Is it really the understanding of legal experts that any deliberate gross deviation is a psyche?

I know a psyche is, per definition, a deliberate gross deviation. But I thought there was an additional condition: that it should be aimed at misleading opps (or partner?), or concealing information.

There can be other reasons for deliberate gross deviation: dumping, a desire to annoy opps/partner/TD, lack of trust in partner, randomizing the result to create a needed swing. Quite often players will explain their deviations with something silly like "I wanted to try something new", "the methods didn't work on the previous board" etc. My guess is that this often means that the player didn't like the methods so decided not to play them even if he had agreed with partner to play them. Does these all count as psyches?

The legal definition is

Quote

Psychic call (commonly “psych[e]” or “psychic”): A deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength and/or of suit length.

The reason for the psych is not relevant. The confusion arises, I expect, because we say that a psych is legal only if partner is as likely to be fooled as opponents, implying that fooling somebody is germane to whether a particular call was a psych. It's not — it's germane to whether it was a legal psych.