[sceptic]

Hi, I have read a few bits in the forum and have discussed pshyces with some friends and something called brown sticker conventions.

I have a question, but first I will explain the way I am thinking.(I dont know whether I am correct)

I thought bridge was a game with no secret meanings.

I understand that a pshyce is a distortion of the truth about hcp and suit length or both, this distortion fools both opps and partner?

I understand that brown sticker conventions are in place to screw up opps conventions.
this distortion fools opps and NOT partner?

What is the difference between the two and why do the ruling bodies allow pshyces.

also I understand that to be a good player is to play consistantly well, so throwing the odd pshyce in seems to be as unhepful as making a game try when you really should just pass and accept part score

also why is e.g 2 club bid (an artificial bid) not allowed as a pshyce and a 1 spade opener is?

just curious about all this, I dont really have an opinion on it as I dont fully understand about them, I just wanted something in laymans terms to think about

[hrothgar]

I'll work on a more specific response later today when I have a bit more time. In the mean time, you might find the following somewhat interesting:

rec.games.bridge had an enormously long thread on brown sticker conventions in december 2003. You can access an edited summary regading at the following web site.
http://www.cavendish.demon.co.uk/bridge/de...own-sticker.htm

Its amusing to note the sheer number of BBO regulars who were active participants in this thread.

I don't think that the thread was "conclusive". I'd be shocked if the scales feel from anyone's eyes. With this said and done, I think that the discussion hit on a number of useful points.

[the hog]

Firstly:
Anyone who says that destructive methods are not bridge is an idiot. Bridge is a 4 handed game as I have often said. The objective is to bid to your best contract AND to stop the opponents from bidding to theirs. To think that just because you have a good hand you should be allowed to bid unimpeded to your best spot is naive and foolish.

Psyching , on the other hand, is to take a calculated risk. You risk making a bid that will confuse your partner in the hope that it will confuse the opposition. Iow you are saying that your pd is a better player than the opps and hopefully the psyche will obfuscate their auction more than yours,

Brown sticker conventions otoh are are a perfectly legitimate weapon and anyone who can not or does not want to play against them should give up the game. They are not designed to "fool" the opps, but to present the opps with a range of options and hope they take a losing one. Your pd may also take a losing option on the basis that he thinks the opps have their bid. The classic is bidding 3H over a multi on this auction on
QJTx x x AKQxxxx

(2D) 3H (4S) P
(P) X (P) P

Personally I think all psyches should be allowed, of course.


Ron

[Flame]

psychs bid full both partner and opponents, for example if you decide to open 1sp when u have 3 hcp, and partner know nothing about it.
You are right that psyching cant hurt you partnership trust and therefore i dont use them or allow my partner to, if you have a very solid partnership and you can think it can handle such a thing and the trust wont be hurt then you might find it usefull. psyching has its point in bridge, but im 100% sure that if you check all the psychs made by all players or even all those who made by this forum members, you will find more losers then winners, this doesnt mean that there arent some who know how to use them. nyway they arent one of the importent things for you to learn.
Brown sticker is somethign totally different, those are conventions or bidding systems that arent allowed in most turnament, the resson they arent allowed is not because they are cheating systems or bad system, its mostly because the field cant handle them, most bridge players agree that they cant excpect you to be able to play against any system, for exmple you are not prepered to play against forcing pass system. because there can be millions of system, a decision was made to allow only part of them to normal turnaments, still if we want to check who is the best pair in the world it make sense to allow this par to play what he believe to be the best system, therefore in very importent turnament all those systems (the brown sticker) are allowed, all the pairs get a discriptions of the systems they are going to face before the turney and they can prepare themself (oviously this couldnt be done in a normal club turney)

[paulg]

The World Bridge Federation (WBF) says that any opening bid at the 2 or 3 level (including 2NT but not including 3NT) that might be made with a weak hand which does not have a known 4 card or longer suit is classified as a Brown Sticker bid, subject to a couple of exceptions - there is a plain English explanation on the Ecats site. Overcalls may also be Brown Sticker Bids. In order to be defined as Brown Sticker, an overcall must be made over a natural opening bid of 1 of a suit (not 1NT), and not promise 4 or more cards in a known suit.

They are known as Brown Sticker as this is the colour of the sticky dot that should be put on your convention card.

Sponsoring organisations, such as the WBF, English Bridge Union, ACBL or BBO Tournament Director, have rules that define which competitions Brown Sticker bids may be used.

In essence, Brown Sticker bids are considered to be difficult to defend without significant preparation. Hence they tend to be disallowed at non-expert events and at events where you play a small number of boards against the same pair. In the UK there is only ONE event in the calendar where you can play Brown Sticker bids.

Familiarity with BS bids makes them easier to defend. For example, the traditional Multi-coloured 2♦ bid should be BS, but is an exception due to its popularity. BS conventions are more popular in some countries, for example Poland and Australia spring to mind. The Wilkosz 2♦ opener, showing a weak undefined major-minor 2-suiter, is a popular Polish convention that is popular on BBO but never seen in the UK as it is Brown Sticker- however this may be because no-one asked for it to be licensed!

Whether organisations should allow BS bids is a contentious issue, which is why the rgb thread was sooo long

It will be interesting to see if online bridge, which exposes people to a greater variety of systems and conventions, will drive a relaxation in the use of BS bids over time.

[paulg]

The Laws, on 1997, said:

Law 40 (A)
A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call — such as a psychic bid — or a call or play that departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based on a partnership understanding.

Psychic Call — A deliberate and gross misstatement of honour strength or suit length.

A psychic bid is a legitimate ploy as long as it contains the same element of surprise for the psycher's partner as it does for the opponents.

Many sponsoring organisations prohibit the psyching of conventional strong opening bids, such as a 2♣ opener, although it is not particularly clear why.

The fear of psyches is complex and you can see my thoughts in another thread.

[Fluffy]

The_Hog, on Oct 3 2004, 12:17 PM, said:

Brown sticker conventions otoh are are a perfectly legitimate weapon and anyone who can not or does not want to play against them should give up the game. They are not designed to "fool" the opps, but to present the opps with a range of options and hope they take a losing one. Your pd may also take a losing option on the basis that he thinks the opps have their bid.

I hate to disagree with you, but most brown sticker conventions have the main goal of creating missunderstandings in the opponents, there are others wich are much more constructive but as soon you allow any of thse the looking for missunderstanding ones would become the most popular (spcially at low level).

There is also the fact that the use of brown sticker conventions usually lead to a very agressive field where always the side that has used it is in better position, not because of their criterium, concepts or good play, bu because they have artificial weapons to handle with, while the opponents couldn´t talk about such situations.

You could develop a system where opponents are in equal conditions after you use a brown sticker convention, bringing yourselft a certified anti-system. Only for high level tournaments.

The use of brown stickers have no sense at local clubs IMO.

[Flame]

Some ppl in this forum, like to think of the bridge federations guys as the bad guys. Also refered to as those who have no talent for the game and therefore makes rules to help them.
I am sure this is far from the truth.
The perpose of the regulations is to make the game more fun for more people thats all. wather its right or wrong is another question but it should be adress rationaly.

[Chamaco]

Flame, on Oct 3 2004, 03:26 PM, said:

Some ppl in this forum, like to think of the bridge federations guys as the bad guys. Also refered to as those who have no talent for the game and therefore makes rules to help them.
I am sure this is far from the truth.
The perpose of the regulations is to make the game more fun for more people thats all. wather its right or wrong is another question but it should be adress rationaly.

There is some wisdom in these words, but I have to say that any regulation which forbids to the "normal" player to bid like some champions do, must have some elements of perversion in it, even if it is formulated to protect weaker players.

[Free]

Imo it's quite simple:

With Brown sticker conventions, all players know what the bidder can have, but nobody knows exactly what he has in the beginning... It will usually become clear after 1 round of bidding.
With psychs, all players know what the bidder suggests he has, but nobody knows the real truth. Nobody can act correct unless they field the psych.

In both cases nobody knows what the bidder has exactly, but with brown stickers they will ALL find out later on while with psychs this won't be the case.

Brown stickers have a complete different goal in mind than psychs. Brown stickers are just used to include as much hands as possible in 1 single bid, and make them biddable. This will increase the frequency of certain bids, which has it's advantages as we all know. Psychs want to fool opps (hope that partner doesn't gets us into trouble) and don't want to make the current hand biddable.

[nilbes]

hi,
The so called 'brown stickers' is a convention, a system you choose to play ; so is 'forcing pas' with actually opening hands (not allowed in many places also).

Bridge has definite rules as how it is played but I dont think anybody and I stress the word 'anybody' should have the right to say which system you can play and which you cant. That just shows how narrow-minded we approach certain things:what I dont understand I dont want :-))))

I hope one day this barrier will be broken and we will just have more fun at this beautifull game adjusting our knowledge to different systems and open wider horizons.

[Free]

I might have misread this, but 'forcing pass' systems are not brown stickers, they are yellow, HUM, but not brown.

Btw, Brown sticker conventions only apply on opening bids from 2♣ to 3♠, and overcalls (except over strong artificial openings or defense against brown sticker conventions). Pass is none of these bids...

[BritTim]

I think I understand how restrictions on psyches and non standard bidding systems evolved. It is a matter of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. For social bridge players, dealing with the unknown is typically not intellectually stimulating, but disruptive to their pleasant afternoon game. Thus, to protect the enjoyment of these players, the regulating authorities try to prevent unfamiliar conditions from affecting the game of social players. In the US, the ACBL even tried to introduce the idea of games where everyone plays exactly the same system -- though this will not work with social players as they will never know the system properly.

For strong and ambitious players, these restrictions are a major drag. As far as psyches are concerned, putting opponents under pressure is part of the game. If we are going to prevent "disruptive bidding methods", perhaps we should ban preempts. (Actually, some attempts to regulate "undisciplined" preempts have been made.) Even more annoying is that a pair is prevented from trying to develop new and improved bidding methods, or from having fun with some interesting old systems from the past (e.g. Roman Club). I think that many highly creative people have been lost to the game because their creative energies have been deemed unwelcome.

For me, the rise of Internet bridge, where it is easy to arrange games with like minded individuals, has been wonderful. Finally, for the first time in over 30 years, we can play bridge again.