light openers or a psyche

In a recent tournament, 12 board matches, the opponents were playing a strong club system, but opened 3rd in hand with 8 points and 4 diamonds. First question, is this a psyche? If not, what is the ruling if they do it more than once.

If it is a psyche then the ruling, I believe, is that they are not allowed to do it more than twice a session. (This was a 72 board 6 session event). But how would anyone know? We handled the bidding OK, and felt no need to call the director, or report it. But this means they could do it again in the next match or matches. Nobody can really be bothered reporting this kind of thing, which makes the rules a bit unenforceable. Any comments?

Started by STANLEY ABRAHAMS on 27 Jun 2016 at 06:22PM

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  1. Ed Roggeveen16 Jul 2016 at 09:25AM

    First - Players should report their own psyches, it is not the oponnents' job to do so.

    Second - It is unclear from your post what the opening bid was. If it is was 1C then this is an illegal psyche IMO. The Manual, page D80, states that:

    "It is prohibited to "psyche" any conventional opening call that has as one of its options a hand that

    (a) may contain 13 or more HCP, and 

    (b)is unlimited, and

    (c) does not show either a specific suit or a balanced hand."

     

    I believe a Precision Style 1C opener meets this criteria. If I am reading this wrong then could someone please clarify.


    Ed

  2. STANLEY ABRAHAMS16 Jul 2016 at 11:49AM

    Firstly they opened 1 Diamond.

    Edward, you write, Players should report their own psyches .

    Why would anyone report that they were fielding third hand Precision 1 Diamond bids, probably on a regular basis?

    My question has even more validity if indeed it is a psyche, as who is going to report themselves for a 3rd time? And worse, if they have already done it twice, their partner will know that the next time is genuine. 

  3. Ed Roggeveen16 Jul 2016 at 03:57PM

    1D here is not a psyche IMO. It is not an unreasonable "light" opener in 3rd seat. However, if it is partnership agreement to always open with 8 HCPs on third hand then it should be part of the system and alerted.

    As to the other point - there are such things as ethics. Bridge is a very easy game to cheat at. I expect people to play and act ethically. If they don't they will eventually get caught.

  4. NICK WHITTEN17 Jul 2016 at 02:21PM

     

    In an earlier forum Fraser Rew posted this guideline for definition of a psyche

    "if you can change ONE card to any other card of your choice and produce a sound bid then it is not a psyche"

    I don't know if this has any official status or not, but if it doesn't I think it should, as it is very good in my opinion (and consistent with the requirement a psyche must be "gross")

    In this example turn a small card into the Ace of diamonds and you get a 12 point hand with 5 diamonds. Anyone who thinks that is not a sound opening needs to be locked away somewhere where they can't harm themselves too much!


    Also there is no rule limiting the number of psyches permitted in a session. The only rule is "no persistent psyching".
    As a guideline it is stated two psyches in a session is evidence of persistent psyching.
    "Evidence" is different from "proof".

    No jury would find a person guilty of a drive-by shooting if the only evidence was a smoking gun found in the back seat of his car


    In my view a player who habitually makes completely random psyches once every session is psyching persistently.
    But one who makes two semi-constructive psyches in one session is not

    Nick Whitten

     

    PS just in case anyone wants to know what I mean by "semi-constructive psyche" I offer this as an example

    Many years ago on a bidding forum the panel were asked what they would respond to 1D with (something like)
    S: xxx   H: xx   D: AKQxxx   C: Ax

    The majority chose 2C with comments like "if you invent a suit choose a lower ranking one and one in which you have an honour"
    This is technically a psyche but it has a purpose other than confusing the opponents
    And it could propel the side into a 6D contract which is only beaten on a club lead which the defence won't find now because of the 2C bid.

     

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