[uday]

I sent a query into the ACBL, lets see what they tell us.

[keylime]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - we had Nanaimo Bars on Wednesday for a taste-testing contest at the regional. All that chocolate, all that fun.

Furthermore, the sanction that bans psyches, we don't play at anymore. We play instead at the same building, different sanction.

[paulg]

The problem with psyches is complex:

• Experienced players dislike weaker players randomising boards and hence organisers typically have rules banning "frivolous" actions
  
• At the same time experienced players recognise that there a number of well known positions where a psyche is likely to be more successful, and they would like to protect their right to do so
  
  
• Experienced players are quite happy to be psyched by their peers and betters
  
  
• Inexperienced players feel cheated when a "well known" position comes up and it is not well known to them!
  
  
• Experienced players only tend to psyche in well known positions - there is no reason to psyche against inexperienced players in other positions as they should win anyhow
  
  
• Good players will not consciously allow their partner's psyche record affect their bidding - inexperienced players never believe this is possible and, online, I'm not convinced everyone has the same high ethical standards.

Banning psyches is one way of protecting the inexperienced players in the field and preventing concealed partnership understandings. Personally I do not support this view, but I can understand that it solves a number of the problems albeit outside the Laws of the game.

Everyone wishes to play on a level playing field - in f2f bridge certain players are known to be "action" players, for example it is more likely (but not certain) that Zia has done something strange than Rosenberg. Online it's more difficult to tell!

My authority, the English Bridge Union, has rules on psyches but, perhaps more importantly, a traffic light system for fielding psyches. This can be seen at

http://www.math.aau....gebook/s06.html

Tournament players in the UK are quite happy with these regulations and their application, and it seems to work in the clubs too.

[Free]

In Belgium, most clubs allow psychs, but in a limited amount. Usually it's 1 psych per session, but that's enough most of the time anyway... Biggest problem is: if you psych, your opponents usually shout "TD!! psych!!!!!!!!!!" for the entire room, so the effect of "could he be psyching" is away .

In tourneys however, you have unlimited psychs available, but if you psych more than once, TD's get rather suspicious about conceiled partnership agreements... That however is no reason to accuse players, but if ANYTHING goes wrong after that (wrong explanations and stuff) you'll pay the price for sure I'm afraid.

[helene_t]

It is strange that this restriction applies to indys. I suppose it was written for pairs and then by mistake copied to the indy rules.

Also strange that people are so paranoied about concealed agreements related to psyches. Because psyches draw so much attention, a conceled agreement about psyches is very likely to be uncoverd. If I was to cheat, I would forget about psyches and make concealed agreement about something else. Playing count signals within mentioning them on the CC. Say that my p's double of 1♥ might be a 3-card spades while I know it's always a 4-card. That kind of stuff.

Not that I think anybody is doing such things on purpose, just that if I were to be paranoid I would target my paranoya at something else than psyches.

[inquiry]

uday, on Aug 26 2004, 11:36 PM, said:

I sent a query into the ACBL, lets see what they tell us.

I think they are going to tell you taht you can not limit the number of psyches per session. However, you can punish players who psyche too frequently (abusively) of if their partners catch their psyches without good bridge reason why (of course, if this is first time partnership, or a pair that otherwise never psyches, a catch is ok).

Ben

[Gweny]

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I do know know who tell you this epeeist but this is NOT what td is suppose to tell you. Our macros for start of tournament are all approve by ACBL. Please contact me with TDs name so I can let this person know this is error.

Thanks,

Gweny/ACBL Coodinator

[epeeist]

Gweny, on Aug 27 2004, 11:24 PM, said:

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I do know know who tell you this epeeist but this is NOT what td is suppose to tell you. Our macros for start of tournament are all approve by ACBL. Please contact me with TDs name so I can let this person know this is error.

Thanks,

Gweny/ACBL Coodinator

I've sent you an e-mail with, as best as I can remember, which TD it was. I had no problem or difficulty with the TD, who was friendly and polite in response to my question, I was just seeking clarification (and waiting for the ACBL's response to uday ) because it was the first online ACBL tournament I'd seen that warning in.

[1eyedjack]

A theoretical problem with limiting psyches by permitted number per session is that if you are partnering someone who likes to operate, and he hasn't psyched yet, and you are approaching the end of the session, you as partner will be less surprised by a psyche than opponents. Or if he psyches early in the session your opponents may suspect a psyche later that you know is not a psyche. Only way around that is for each player to advise the opponents at the beginning of each round how much of his psyche quota has been used, but I am not aware of any authority (that operates this limitation) requiring that.

[Cascade]

1eyedjack, on Aug 28 2004, 10:36 PM, said:

Only way around that is for each player to advise the opponents at the beginning of each round how much of his psyche quota has been used, but I am not aware of any authority (that operates this limitation) requiring that.

Indeed this approach is seriously flawed in my opinion.

If I advise my opponents at round two that I have used my psyche quota then they may have considerable unauthorized information about the boards that I played in round one.

This would not be a problem in online play where everyone plays the same boards at the same time.

However there would be other problems. A pair would have an advantage compared with pairs in earlier rounds if they knew that you had already used up your quota.

[Gweny]

Thanks Epee! :-)
and just so you all can relax...

psyches are allow but we do keep notes on who is psyching and with whom they are playing so if it becomes pattern that player xyz uses this tools abundently with same partner then we can and will take appropriate action.

[bglover]

Well I think I must take some of the blame/heat here for the "1 psyche" rule that seems to have become so prominent on BBO.

Because I received complaints everytime someone made a successful psyche, I early on instituted a rule, that seems to have been adopted by many tourney directors: if anyone pysches more than once per session, they must prealert opponents about frequent psyching tendencies. I did this, admittedly, to cut down on the number of complaints more than anything else.

When I was directing FOT (created months after I first develped this rule) I kept the rule the same. Systemic psyching needed pre-alerting. However, for TopFlight, there was not (and, I believe still is not) any such rules regarding psyches.

Why? Because one must recognize the realities of the field in each tourney. Altho FOT is by no means a "weak" game, it is a game that covers a large spectrum of players-- I felt that allowing unfetttered psyching would give too big an advantage to the better players who might take advantage of lesser opponents, and thus ruin everyone's enjoyment of the game some.

On the other hand, TopFlight was meant to represent a "best of the best" field and thus no restrictions of this sort were even considered (the only restriction I ever institiuted was that anyone playing a "forcing pass" type system must 1st forward copies of defenses to all members.. they are just too hard to defend against without having ample time to prepare).

Trust me, every time someone successfully psyched in TopFlight, I received a director call, just like I did in FOT. But, in FOT the players were reminded "1 psyche per session or prealert" while in TopFlight my answer was "sorry, psyches are part of the game".

So, I guess all you 1-psyche-per-tourney haters should blame me. I believe I was the first director to implement that rule. But, it was only meant to keep the playing field relatively level.

[luke warm]

is it fair to say then that you instituted this rule out of either an unwillingness to address the issue every time it came up or an inability to have the 'conditions of contest' specifically mention that psychics are allowed under bridge laws?

it's my opinion that such a rule runs counter to both the spirit and letter of the law

[bglover]

No, I did it for the reasons stated- to keep the field as level as possible.

Notice I did NOT outlaw psyches or limit psyches to 1 per session.. I told people they had to prealert frequent psyches if they knew they had a tendency to psyche often. By instituting that rule, it actually cut down on the number of psyches generally because people did not wish to prealert them and let opponents know of their psyching tendencies.

Now, if people knew they were likely to psyche as a partnership, it's not a stretch to say that it was somewhat systemic. And, therefore, should be alerted as part of what that partnership played. That was my thinking, anyway.

In any event, the rule cut down on the number of director calls regarding psyches. I can't honestly say it cut down on psyching per se, just that people who psyched frequently knew they had to prealert or risk getting penalized.. again, leveling the playing field some.

[Cascade]

There are perfectly adequate laws dealing with psychic bids and violations of agreements and concealed partnership understandings L40A and L75B.

Therefore there is no need to create regulations to have the same affect and I believe that those regulations are wrong when they take away some of the rights of players given under those same laws.

Pre-alerting psychic bids is against the spirit of the law in my opinion. L40A says you are allowed to make a 'surprise attack' and then that regulation says it is not allowed to be a 'surprise'.

That don't make sense to me.

[bglover]

Well in the US there used to be (might still be) a place to check off on the card if a pair uses frequent psyches.

Therefore I don't think what I did was so far beyond the realm of what the ACBL was endorsing. There was a legitimate reason for "frequent psyches" to be on a pair's card.. I was merely extending that principle to online bridge.

But, that was not my reasons.. As I stated before, I just wanted to keep things relatively level. That's all.

[Cascade]

I don't understand what you mean by level.

If everyone knows that psychic bidding is part of the game then that is level.

If they also know that concealed agreements are not part of the game then that is level.

If someone less experienced does not know about either of these things then they will need to get educated in what is part of the game.

[paulhar]

Cascade, on Aug 28 2004, 03:02 PM, said:

I don't understand what you mean by level.

Let me take a stab.

When I play with my wife, and I open 1D followed by double and 1H by her, I know she has 4+ hearts. Period. The opponents know that psyches exist and an advancer with four or five hearts might think a psyche is being used here. But I know differently. This is an advantage I shouldn't have - they should know she has four hearts too. I didn't think that mattered until once an opponent played in 4H because they thought she psyched.

On the other hand, with one of my other partners, it might be not hearts almost as often as hearts! Mabye that's an exaggeration, but here again I have knowledge that the opponents should be entitled to.

[Cascade]

That may be a partnership understanding that you would need to disclose to the opponents. If you do not then the bid is based on a concealed partnership understanding which is illegal.

How much more level than that do you want the playing field to be?

[TimG]

Cascade, on Aug 28 2004, 04:39 PM, said:

That may be a partnership understanding that you would need to disclose to the opponents. If you do not then the bid is based on a concealed partnership understanding which is illegal.

How much more level than that do you want the playing field to be?

So you're suggesting that given teh auction 1♦-(DBL)-1♥, Paul should alert and tell the opponents that his partner always has 4+ hearts? Something about that doesn't seem quite right.