Friday 21 June 2013

Too safe?

N-S Game
Dealer West
  • 97
  • Q6
  • AKQJ106
  • K104
West
North
East
South
Pass
Pass
1
2Multi
3fit jump
Pass
Pass (!)
?
You are South. Your call?

Love all
Dealer West
  • KJ6542
  • 4
  • A75
  • Q53
West
North
East
South
1
Pass
1
Pass
2
Pass
2
?
You are South. Would you have bid 2 directly over 1 if that were natural? Would you bid 2 now?

These hands come from last Saturday's Garden Cities Trophy Final.  On the first one, either East has passed by mistake, or, much more likely, his opening bid was a misrepresentation.  Partner is therefore likely to have a few high cards, making double a reasonable call.  But no one has much experience of this position, and the player at the table elected to pass, scoring +150 instead of the +500 or +600 (in 3NT) which were available, and losing 11 imps.

On the second, there's no particular reason to suspect anything afoot, but as it happens East, the redoubtable Gunnar Hallberg, has introduced a diversion on a 3325 5-count, and found his partner with 1543.  Each side can make nine tricks in its major suit fit.  But the spade spots were too few for me, so I lost 6 imps.

It's unusual to see two outright psyches like this in one afternoon: they're rather rare nowadays because they're more dangerous than the once were - the modern partner will often compete to what he thinks is the level of the fit.  Norberto Bocchi, the Italian world champion, wrote an article recently decrying a different sort of psyche - a safer and therefore more common one - in which a player asks a question in the bidding without having any real interest in the answer, in order to deceive his opponents about the nature of his hand: Bocchi's example is a long-suit game try on a hand which is always going to bid game anyway and hence need not have the long suit it represents.  In Bocchi's opinion, this sort of "controlled psych" should be banned.  I respectfully disagree; there's no need to ban anything, all we need is full disclosure: if a bid is simply an asking bid then it should be explained as such.  If it shows something - the game try presumably promises at least game-invitational values, and partner can double on that basis if opponents bid - then that should be explained also.  Players have got used to saying whether a Stayman enquiry promises a 4-card major, then can cope just as well with specifying whether a long-suit game try actually promises a holding in the suit bid, or if, more precisely, it asks partner to evaluate his hand opposite an invitational hand with such a holding.

I'm against banning things, and in favour of fair play.

Incidentally, the 1 psyche above is a bit safer if you're playing fit jumps.  Does anyone object to fit jumps on that basis?

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