[dickiegera]

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Is this an allowable 3♣ pre-empt in 2nd seat, or is it a psyche? Director said it was not a psyche.
Director said a psyche is never an under bid. North had 1pt [Jack of clubs] and hand in 3NT played by EW was totally misplayed because of 3♣ bid.


South said that he wished to show a six card club suit.
CC said it was weak and partner said it was weak when asked.

Thank you

[aguahombre]

I doubt anyone would have an undisclosed agreement that that hand will open 3C. but even if "reverse Psyches" existed what would anyone do about it if it wasn't "fielded".

[jillybean]

dickiegera, on 2012-January-10, 20:54, said:

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Is this an allowable 3♣ pre-empt in 2nd seat, or is it a psyche?

Yes you could open 3♣ on this hand and no, I don't think it qualifies as a psyche but both are legal.

[barmar]

The definition of psyche is:

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A deliberate and gross misstatement of honour strength and/or of suit length.

Nothing about whether the misstatement is high or low.

In this case, the length is appropriate, but the strength is, IMHO, significantly higher than expected for a 1st or 2nd seat preempt -- making a weak bid with 3 sure defensive tricks is pretty unusual.

But so what? As jilly said, there's nothing prohibiting psyches. If the declarer misplays because of it, he succeeded, and them's the breaks. Since his partner only had 1 HCP, it doesn't seem like there was any question of him fielding the psyche.

And in this case, if we believe South, it sounds like he just doesn't know what he's doing -- the way to show a 6 card suit is to open 1♣ and rebid 2♣. I think the opponents were simply fixed.

South should be given a quick bridge lesson. And if he does it again with this partner, I think it becomes a partnership understanding, and they should alert it.

[aguahombre]

dickiegera, on 2012-January-10, 20:54, said:

Is this an allowable 3♣ pre-empt in 2nd seat, or is it a psyche?

So, the answer to the either/or question is YES.

[barmar]

aguahombre, on 2012-January-11, 00:55, said:

So, the answer to the either/or question is YES.

Who let the logician in the room?

[AlexJonson]

If my partner opened this hand 3C, I would definitely think he had grossly deviated from agreements.

Does it matter? Depends if the TD is supposed to record pyschs.

[Trinidad]

dickiegera, on 2012-January-10, 20:54, said:

Director said a psyche is never an under bid.

I remember that one of the Hackets once didn't open with a balanced 18-19 HCP hand. He passed instead. I am 100% sure that was a psyche (that happened to be successful too). I am also 100% sure that was an underbid. Your TD doesn't understand what a psyche is.

Rik

[bluejak]

You need to remember that a psyche is a gross deviation from the agreements of the pair who made the bid. If I had opened 3♣ first in hand then, yes, it would be a psyche, since my idea of a 3♣ bid is

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But the fact that the given hand is a psyche for me does not mean it is a psyche for the pair concerned.

Furthermore, players will always make calls that look silly to their opponents, and in the case of poor and inexperienced players, solely because they actually think the call is right. In such cases sometimes they get a good board, and their opponents have to grin and bear it. An example from last night:

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They were playing simple club Acol so 1NT showed 6 to 9. The pass of 2NT was made with no thought and no interest. You can imagine what we thought of getting 25% since despite game values no game makes. Would you call the pass a psyche?

Assuming the pair concerned are inexperienced or just weak, as I expect, 3♣ will not have been a deliberate attempt to mislead so it is not really a psyche. But it matters not: poor players will play poor bridge, and sometimes get good results. Shame.

[barmar]

An important aspect of the definition of "psyche" is that it be "deliberate". That's what distinguishes a misbid from a psyche. If you don't know what you're doing, it's probably safe to assume that most deviations are misbids, not psyches.

This type of thing happens all the time with novices, and occasionally they fix us. You console yourself with the fact that this was just one bad board for you, more often their misbids will hurt themselves. Don't waste your energy getting upset, calling the director, etc. If they're receptive, you can offer to teach them how to bid the hand properly.

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But the fact that the given hand is a psyche for me does not mean it is a psyche for the pair concerned.

True. But in this case if it was the correct bid for this pair, then it was a failure to alert (MI). The ACBL Alert Procedures says:

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Natural opening bids at the three level or higher which convey an unusual message regarding HCP range or any other information which might be unexpected to the opponents must be Alerted.

13 HCP and 3 QT outside trumps is an unusual meaning for a 1st/2nd seat preempt.

[aguahombre]

Again the same theme. Anyone opening 3C with that hand, or even agreeing to open 3C with that hand as one of many possibilities, would have no clue that it was alertable, unusual, or anything else. Once we tell them it is a HUM, then it probably wont happen again; but, why would we want to do that unless we are being paid to teach and/or someone is eager to learn?

[barmar]

Because playing against people who don't know what they're doing is not much fun.

If all you care about is winning, let them keep stumbling.

[mycroft]

aguahombre, on 2012-January-11, 17:29, said:

Again the same theme. Anyone opening 3C with that hand, or even agreeing to open 3C with that hand as one of many possibilities, would have no clue that it was alertable, unusual, or anything else. Once we tell them it is a HUM, then it probably won't happen again; but, why would we want to do that unless we are being paid to teach and/or someone is eager to learn?

Because there are people out there that call the TD on hands like this, either because they don't get it, or they have a "winning is all. If we can rattle the opps, so much the better" attitude.

If the first, we clear it up. If it's the second, they've stood on the chair and screamed for the "DIE-REC-TOR!", and their explanation of what happened will be right up against the "c-word" wall. And it *will* rattle these players, and they might just not come back after they lose.

If we can, as TDs, sanely and quietly explain to them that we're not trying to tell them they bid "wrong" or "badly", but what they're doing is unusual enough that they have to let their opponents know, then when they hit the above type of people, that's one less thing to game the system with, and one better chance that they'll be back for me to beat up play against next time.