Blum on Bridge Psyche bidding: Brilliant or catastrophic?
	At a recent board meeting of the Naples Bridge Center, Director Joyce Krout expressed concerns that certain players were frequently using a controversial call known as a psyche. Although I'm quite familiar with this bid, I decided to study it thoroughly in order to pass along what I learned to you folks. My reference is "The Encyclopedia of Bridge." I will condense that version and emphasize the salient points. By definition, psyches are bluffing calls to create the illusion of strength or length in a particular suit or to conceal a weakness. In the mid-1930's, psyches spread like wildfire to every table, threatening to ruin a game still in its infancy. Eli Culbertson, who was not above an occasionally psyche, announced his opposition to the bid because the "Culbertson System" was designed to create partnership, harmony and confidence. The passion for psyche bids subsided until 1952, when parts of the Roth-Stone system included a "Controlled Psyche." Several other systems also added disciplined psyches. My partner at that time and I played Roth-Stone and employed the "Controlled Psyche," listing it on our convention card. One must have 3-6 hcps and a four-card suit headed by at least a king. Responder's call of 2NT indicated 21-22 hcps to cover opener's possible psyche. About 12 years later the bid was eliminated from the system, as it was found to cause more complications than benefits. But when it worked... Oh, boy! By far the most effective psyches are those that misdescribe the bidder's length in a particular suit. The results can be extremely successful when gaps are found in the opponents' defensive bidding conventions. Bluffing about wholesale strength is the least profitable for the psyche bidder. The position of the ACBL was stated in the February 1978 Bulletin by former President Don Oakie. His conclusions: "It is high time that we call all of our members' and directors' attention, especially at the club level, to the fact that while a psychic bid is legal, it indiscriminate use is not. People who employ psychic calls against less experienced players may be guilty of unsportsmanlike psyching and thereby be in violation of League regulation. People who psyche against their peers may be guilty of frivolous psyching, or of having an unannounced partnership understanding. People who psyche against more experienced players will probably get bad boards, and they may lose the few good boards they get by being judged to have indulged in unsportsmanlike psyching, or to have disrupted the game." Oakie further states, "What does this mean to you as a Player? If you want to psyche any call other than a forcing opening call, go ahead and do it--it's perfectly legal. If you psyche on an average of once a month, no player or director is likely to say a word about it. If you can't resist the temptation to do it oftener, sooner or later you're going to run afoul of the Laws or League regulations." "An opening psychic bid that carried no conventional forcing, meaning or implication is a legal bid. The Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge states (see Law 40). 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, conventional practice) without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based upon a partnership understanding," Law 40 continues. "A player may not make a call or play based on a partnership understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the sponsoring organization." Law 75A clarifies that this right to regulate equally applies to implicit partnership understandings (arrived at by usage & experience rather than discussion). Oakie's definition of a psyche - a bid that deliberately and grossly misstates the bidder's high card values or suit length - helps to distinguish true psyches from tactical bids. North opens one spade and South tries to discourage a club lead by responding two clubs holding J83-AJ9-AQJ2-962 (spds-hts-dmds-clbs). South's two clubs is a tactical bid (however, if North never supports clubs with A10742-KQ10-8-AKJ5 evidence of an impropriety exists.) Similarly, a first hand one spade opening on 842-10763-J8642-4 is psychic, but a third hand one spade opening on AKJ8-85-65-97532 is without psychic intent. Finally, Oakie made these observations about psychic bids in general: "The excitement of using a psychic bid often exerts an almost irresistible attraction for a new duplicate player. An occasional jaded duplicateer will fall back on psychic bids as a means of having 'fun' during a session marked by bad results in the early rounds or where few rating points are at stake. Expert players and the large majority of experienced club and tournament players seldom or never make a psychic bid."