[kenrexford]

I have no problem with the recording of psychics. I agree with the reasons provided by some here.

I also do not mind the TD meeting between rounds. I feel comfortable explaining the psychic decisions to show that these were not frivolous. In fact, I believe them to have been rather good psychics.

I did mind the suits showing up acting like I had been unethical and suggesting that formal charges might be brought if there were any further types of behavior. The fact that these people do not understand bridge or their own rules frankly made me mad. And, no -- there were NO other psychics or reports of psychics. The sole issue was this one round. The suits even conceded lacking any knowledge of any other infractions when I offered to share my results (and to explain the auctions) for all of the hands I played in the LM pairs with the hand records to prove this.

[TimG]

ASkolnick, on Dec 2 2008, 10:53 AM, said:

Let's say I am your partner and notice that you psyche every 12th board when you are NV versus V. I am now privy to information that the opponents might not be privy to.

Suppose I psyche once every 24 boards. Is my partner privy to information to which the opponents might not be privy? Once every 48? 96?

Some opponents will NEVER consider a psyche; they will never guess that you have psyched. Does it become illegal to psyche against these opponents because your partner will always have more information?

I think that if psyching is to be part of the game (and I believe it should be) that a certain amount of pysching must be considered general bridge knowledge. I'm not going to attempt to quantify how much. Nor do I think it should be quantified. (The old rule-that-wasn't-really-a-rule allowing only one psyche per session was silly.)

Tim

PS Nice to meet you in Boston.

[mycroft]

Did you talk to the CTD of the event? If not, you should - ask her what happened after the discussion with the first TD. You have a right to know the process.

Second - they may be "suits" (heh, even I, when I work as an ACBL TD, am a "suit"), but if they were there in an official capacity (even if it's an off-the-record warning) you should know what official capacity they were. They probably assumed you did; if you didn't, you should have asked (of course, it's their responsibility, but still). If not, they're just players talking to you.

As Tim said, this is exactly a Recorder situation - you may not have psyched in the last year, or ever with that partner, but I don't know that, and unless you're a name player, the TDs outside your area don't know that. You could be lying to us all here, too, about that, and I wouldn't know. I have my guesses, but I wouldn't know. But if all the psyches are recorded, the Recorder(s) will know.

As always (here, anyway), speaking only for myself.

[Cascade]

kenrexford, on Dec 3 2008, 02:28 AM, said:

As a follow-up, this seemed to be a recorder situation. I was informed that any further action along these lines might result in proceedings. I respectfully disagreed with the ability of the two suits to understand the fundamentals of the game but thanked them for sharing their perspective.

Later, in a pairs game playing with my wife, I psyched a spade call. (1minor-1♥-X(neg)-1♠) That one did not score well for us when I caught partner with the right hand to jump raise spades. Live by the sword, die by the sword, but not by the committee.

Its not the psyches that work that prove a concealed understanding it is the ones that don't that prove you have no special understanding.

[han]

Slightly related to Ken's story:

Last Saturday I kibitzed two young female bridge players from the Netherlands in a knockout match. They got into a bit of a fight with their opponents, these were some of the things they did wrong: They spoke with a Dutch accent, they thought for some considerable time when they had tough decisions., they played conventions with which the opponents were not familiar and most offensively, they refused to be bullied by older men.

One typical conversation:

Alert.

What does 3C mean?

It is a relay.

A relay to what?

No, it asks for further description.

It what?

It asks.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR ENGLISH!!!

The opponents became very very angry and threatened to bar the young ladies from future ACBL games. I must say the director dealt with it very well.

[kenrexford]

Here's one observation:

If you are in a Swiss event and have just played one slam hand in a partscore and one slam hand at an insane grand level down one, with one board to play, white-on-red, and partner's RHO opens the bidding, partner's next bid is likely to be complete nonsense. Not just a one-in-a-hundred chance, but probably 50-50.

That's not a partnership matter, IMO.

The TD's agreed.

The suits (no, I did not demand credentials and badges) did not.

In fact, the suits focused on the bid itself and, strangely, made no observations concerning whether or not fielding occurred. I found this particularly bizarre.

[Stephen Tu]

Ken, this is a win-loss Swiss event? Those still common in your area?

Psyching in a VP Swiss match just because you are behind in a particular match wouldn't make any sense.

[han]

Yes it would. If you are behind 20 IMPs or so then randomizing the outcome of the last board is definitely a positive EV strategy. If you win 10 IMPs you gain many more VPs then when you lose an additional 10 IMPs.

[jdonn]

han, on Dec 2 2008, 04:35 PM, said:

Yes it would. If you are behind 20 IMPs or so then randomizing the outcome of the last board is definitely a positive EV strategy. If you win 10 IMPs you gain many more VPs then when you lose an additional 10 IMPs.

I was unaware randomizing is even money expected value in terms of imps

[kenrexford]

Stephen Tu, on Dec 2 2008, 04:19 PM, said:

Ken, this is a win-loss Swiss event? Those still common in your area?

Psyching in a VP Swiss match just because you are behind in a particular match wouldn't make any sense.

Huh?

Just how many IMP's do you expect to have lost after bidding a vulnerable grand down one (where NO ONE would bid the grand) AND after playing in a vulnerable partscore when the slam probably makes?

Humorously, though, people often say, "You don't know what happened at the other table." In this situation, the people at the other table actually went down in the first slam (+100 and +140 = win) and missed the other slam.

BTW -- you may notice that we were +140 on the hand where slam makes with a normal lead. We got the normal lead. However, being in 2♠, I decided to play it safe to ensure my contract. As the only risk was a 5-0 split in trumps, I took an immediate hook with A109 in dummy and KQxxx in hand, losing and then facing a cross-ruff. But, I protected that +110 and even scored an overtrick. LOL

[Stephen Tu]

You have to be pretty sure of the margin to know you are getting the bonus effect of VP won vs. VP lost. If the opps are bad enough that you can't be sure that something crazy didn't happen on one of the boards or one of the "flat" boards, you might be only down 10 instead of 20, and instead of getting 2:1 on VPs on a 10-imp swing you are only getting even money.

In a VP situation, unlike win-loss, there is much less motive to swing on the last board and try to get it back in the same match. Hanging on to the last 1-2 VP and blitzing next round against worse opps might end up with more VP for the two rounds than scraping back to 6-14 and winning the next match 13-7.

[han]

jdonn, on Dec 2 2008, 04:39 PM, said:

han, on Dec 2 2008, 04:35 PM, said:

Yes it would. If you are behind 20 IMPs or so then randomizing the outcome of the last board is definitely a positive EV strategy. If you win 10 IMPs you gain many more VPs then when you lose an additional 10 IMPs.

I was unaware randomizing is even money expected value in terms of imps

You don't need even money. If you have more than 1/3 chance of getting a 10+ IMP win then you are +EV in terms of VPs, no matter how many IMPs you risk to lose. The more VPs you are behind, the less even money your randomizing needs to be in terms of IMPs.

Of course you know this and you know I know you know this and you understand that my comment was a reaction to Stephen Tu's comment which was wrong. So why are you arguing with me?

[han]

Stephen Tu, on Dec 2 2008, 05:04 PM, said:

You have to be pretty sure of the margin to know you are getting the bonus effect of VP won vs. VP lost.

You don't have to be sure of the size of the margin, you only have to be sure that there is a considerable margin. The larger the margin, the more -EV your attempts of swinging can be in terms of IMPs. The point here is that Ken had good reasons to believe that psyching was a sound tactic given the circumstances. Ken might have exagerated, he often does and certainly his 50-50 estimate seems way off to me, but he was trying to win the match by playing good bridge. He was white against red, well behind in a swiss match (or so he thought) and he picked up a 1-count, these are excellent conditions for a psyche.

Quote

If the opps are bad enough that you can't be sure that something crazy didn't happen on one of the boards or one of the "flat" boards, you might be only down 10 instead of 20, and instead of getting 2:1 on VPs on a 10-imp swing you are only getting even money.

If you are behind about 10 IMPs then you are right, for exactly a 10-IMP swing you need even odds. But for any swing of 11 or more IMPs you need less than even odds, as well as for a 7-IMP swing. This is still a situation that favors swinging, but not as much as when you are 20 IMPs behind, which is again worse than when you ar 28 IMPs behind (when you can only win, not lose).

Quote

In a VP situation, unlike win-loss, there is much less motive to swing on the last board and try to get it back in the same match.  Hanging on to the last 1-2 VP and blitzing next round against worse opps might end up with more VP for the two rounds than scraping back to 6-14 and winning the next match 13-7.

This is an amazing argument, truly amazing. Did you happen to write the SAYC booklet?

[kenrexford]

I'm not sure how all of these statistics add up. However, I did a little math here.

On the first board, 3NT was laydown. I could expect, therefore, a small possibility of a loss of 8 IMPs. (I cannot remember the vulnerability.)

On the second, the chance of the slam failing seemed as remote as the 3NT being bid, so that cancelled out the first. But, I expected the net to be a fair chance of losing 15 IMPs and a sure -11.

With the third board psychic, we probably picked up 8 IMPs.

On the fourth, the game seemed safe, with a slight chance of gaining some ground. A remote chance of +10 or +12. We could conceivably be up a few IMPs, but down by 3-4 seemed more likely.

On the fifth, this seemed like an assured -16 or so.

So, I expected to be down about 20 IMPs. If we tied the last, that would mean 2 VP's on a 20 scale. If I pushed us into a blitz, this tactic costs 2 VP's. If I kept them in a partscore, when game makes, this would gain us about 10 IMPs, for 6 VP's.

If my numbers are even close to right, then the psychic is a 3:1 favorite, it seems.

[maggieb]

You win 4 vs lose 2 Ken.

[kenrexford]

maggieb, on Dec 2 2008, 07:30 PM, said:

You win 4 vs lose 2 Ken.

Oh yeah.

But winning four under these circumstances is worth +2 additional in hype for the next set, whereas losing 2 additional does not really affect the general mood.

LOL

[JoAnneM]

I think this should be your attitude: If you are going to use psychic bids, and to the extent that you use them, be prepared to be hassled, and just let it flow off your back. The bids are you choice.

Now life will be easier.

[cherdano]

JoAnneM, on Dec 2 2008, 07:32 PM, said:

I think this should be your attitude: If you are going to use psychic bids, and to the extent that you use them, be prepared to be hassled, and just let it flow off your back. The bids are you choice.

Now life will be easier.

Come on. Why should Ken expect to get hassled? He is just playing by the rules.

Aisde from that, interrogating Ken for these two bids is a ridiculous waste of ACBL resources. Do these "suits" get paid?

[jdonn]

JoAnneM, on Dec 2 2008, 08:32 PM, said:

I think this should be your attitude: If you are going to use psychic bids, and to the extent that you use them, be prepared to be hassled, and just let it flow off your back. The bids are you choice.

Now life will be easier.

Life would have been easier for Rosa Parks too if she had that attitude: If you are going to use the bus, be prepared to be hassled and forced to move to the back if a white person wants your seat, and just let it flow off your back. The mode of transportation is your choice.

In other words, I do not believe you should be arguing that injustice should be accepted simply because it takes too much effort to correct.

[Cascade]

JoAnneM, on Dec 3 2008, 02:32 PM, said:

I think this should be your attitude: If you are going to use psychic bids, and to the extent that you use them, be prepared to be hassled, and just let it flow off your back. The bids are you choice.

Now life will be easier.

I don't get this attitude.

A player uses a legitimate tactic and you expect him to be hassled and bullied for it.

To me this is organized gamesmanship.