[LghtnngRod]

Just wanted to check whether my own opinions are off-kilter here.
For better or worse, the regulatory environment within which you are operating comprises:
1) Psyches are disallowed
2) Undos are disallowed

The question to be addressed is what is the fairest regulation to govern mis-clicks.

I have an opinion of my own but will await the views of others before I state them.

[Bbradley62]

In most tournaments you are supposed to immediately self-report misclicks to the director. It's my understanding that the opponents are not entitled to the information, but you are protected from accusations and penalties against psyching.

[LghtnngRod]

Thank you. In the tournament that I attended today, you were required (immediately) to notify the TD and both opponents, but not partner.

[Vampyr]

Not commenting on the legality or whatever of prohibiting psyches; but when this is the case can you "psyche" by saying something is a misclick when it isn't?

[scarletv]

Yes you certainly could but it should not work very often when the TD/host makes notes. But I cant think of a rule to inform the opps.

Not commenting on the legality of prohibiting psyches you cannot imagine how many players are upset when psyche bidding is not forbidden.

[LghtnngRod]

 scarletv, on 2015-May-11, 01:53, said:

I cant think of a rule to inform the opps.

Tourney hosts can make up whatever rules they please. As long as they don't award masterpoints or otherwise affiliate themselves with some NBO or other, those rules do not have to conform to the Laws. The banning of psyches being a case in point. "Bridge" is not a protected name.

 scarletv, on 2015-May-11, 01:53, said:

Not commenting on the legality of prohibiting psyches you cannot imagine how many players are upset when psyche bidding is not forbidden.

I can imagine. Such players need to be educated, is all. For as long as they are mollycoddled and encouraged to their way of thinking, it is not surprising that they continue in that view. But I did not mean to hijack the thread over the legality nor merits of banning psyches. That battle has already been lost, and with it the game diminished, but move on.

[LghtnngRod]

 Vampyr, on 2015-May-11, 01:40, said:

can you "psyche" by saying something is a misclick when it isn't?

Yes you can. And you may get caught out. You can also "change your mind" and claim that it is a mis-click, which is probably more rife and no doubt led to the "no undos" rule.
I suggest that we start with a presumption of honesty unless until indicated otherwise.

[helene_t]

 Vampyr, on 2015-May-11, 01:40, said:

Not commenting on the legality or whatever of prohibiting psyches; but when this is the case can you "psyche" by saying something is a misclick when it isn't?

In those tournament where you have to inform the opponents about the misclick you obviously can't.

I must say I don't see the point, though. A disclosed misclick becomes a bit similar to an accept IB which is also a bit messy. Much better just to allow undos.

[LghtnngRod]

 helene_t, on 2015-May-11, 03:02, said:

I must say I don't see the point, though.

Referring to notifying the opponents, I think that it is far worse than simply "pointless". I am of the view that it unfairly penalises the mis-clicker, who is already at a major disadvantage due to the no undo rule.
Which is what drove me to posting here for opinions.

I agree that allowing undos would solve much of the problem. If necessary have the TD present for such a request to be sanctioned. But their concerns about undisclosed agreements seem to border on paranoia, and they are not familiar with the concept of the cure being worse than the disease.

[LghtnngRod]

I actually had a conversation with a TD during this tourney, about it. The notification rule was in part a derivative of the consequences of the no-psyche and no undo rules, so those (no-psyche/undo) rules have some relevance to the discussion and cannot be swept entirely aside. One of the justifications for the no psyche rule as put to my by the TD is that there is no facility for reporting psyches, as there is in face to face games (I expect that in NBO-sanctioned BBO tourneys there is a reporting mechanism, but I accept that there was not in this tournament), and the purpose of which is to identify undisclosed agreements under the guise of psyches.

To be frank that argument does not impress me.

The reality is that psyche reports very rarely get filled out in face to face games. No-one can be bothered. That does not lead to a banning of psyches in face to face games. And I believe that the reason why it is tolerated is because despite the lack of formal reports it does not take long for a partnership to accrue a reputation for psyching within their local community of players, from which sanctions can then flow. This particular tournament has a fairly small core of regular contestants, and the same tendency would become apparent.

[helene_t]

Probably it is a bit pointless to discuss this since the TDs in question won't participate in a discussion, they just made their mind up.

But FWIW I have more sympathy for a no-undo rule than a no-psyche rule.

The no-undo rule has the advantage that you don't have the issue with players who ask for undo because of a rethink rather than a misclick, or with players who refuse to grant undo for no good reason. Still, it is problematic to disallow undos since sometimes players alert their calls after LHO has called and obviously LHO should be allowed to undo in that case. One could technically allow undo but say in tourney chat that they are only for late alerts and should be refused in all other cases.

For tournaments where no real-world masterpoints or money prices are at stake, I would always allow undos, though.

For psyches, I think it is a very bad idea to disallow them. I don't care that the law says they can't be banned - as you say, if the TDs do not award real-life masterpoints they don't have to follow the law. But:

- Creative and ill-judged bids and are obviously OK. I would be concerned that some players (or TDs) would draw the line between psyches and creative/illjudged bids differently than I would.
- If the purpose of the ban is to avoid CPUs, it will be ineffective. You can easily have a CPU without having to mask it as a psyche. Besides, a CPU masked as a psyche will usually be fielded, which is illegal anyway even with psyches allowed.
- If the purpose of the ban is to avoid sabotage bids, I don't think it is necesarry. Players who bid 7NT on junk to punish partner can be dealt with, you don't need a psyche ban for that.

[nige1]

IMO

• Psyches should probably be allowed, except in novice games. Bridge-rules about special partnership understandings do allow the banning of psyches.
• In a tournament, only the tournament-director should see and rule on your request for an undo. I often miscilck but would still prefer no "undo" button.

[LghtnngRod]

 nige1, on 2015-May-11, 05:03, said:

Bridge-rules about special partnership understandings do allow the banning of psyches.

To be clear, which bridge rules? No need to give them more ammunition, particularly if inaccurate.
As I understood it, a particular no-no would be an agreement as to general frequency, even if not directly matched with specific hands, as would be an agreed method of exposing psyches and any conventional follow-up treatments.
But subject to those (and perhaps some similar) fringe issues, the pure psyche is by definition not a partnership understanding at all, special or otherwise, and would not therefore be subject to any rules that govern (special) partnership understandings.

[LghtnngRod]

Here is an example that led to my interest in the matter:
http://www.bridgebas...name=LghtnngRod

During the course of the auction East informed me, under instructions from the TD, that the 1NT bid was a mis-click.
At which point I felt uncomfortable about doubling the final contract, being as I was in possession of an unfair advantage.
Not that failing to double at that point made a huge impact on the IMP result. In fact looking at the traveller we may have been rather lucky to beat it. Maybe doubling 4H was a tad greedy.

If Undos had been allowed, even if only allowed by the TD, then the correct bid would have been substituted for 1NT, and we (N/S) would not have garnered 11 undeserved IMPs against all the other tables where the mis-click did not happen. Anyone at the table who read into the original 1NT mis-click some inference about East's hand would do so at their own risk, and I speculate would almost certainly draw an inaccurate inference.

[paulg]

 LghtnngRod, on 2015-May-11, 10:09, said:

To be clear, which bridge rules? No need to give them more ammunition, particularly if inaccurate.
As I understood it, a particular no-no would be an agreement as to general frequency, even if not directly matched with specific hands, as would be an agreed method of exposing psyches and any conventional follow-up treatments.
But subject to those (and perhaps some similar) fringe issues, the pure psyche is by definition not a partnership understanding at all, special or otherwise, and would not therefore be subject to any rules that govern (special) partnership understandings.

Law 40B2(d) "The Regulating Authority may restrict the use of psychic artificial calls."

Laws 40B1 and 40B2 can extend this restriction to certain natural, but unfamiliar, calls.

[Bbradley62]

 LghtnngRod, on 2015-May-11, 10:20, said:

At which point I felt uncomfortable about doubling the final contract, being as I was in possession of an unfair advantage.

• There is nothing "unfair" about an advantage that is mandated by consistently-applied rules of the tournament.
  
• When you are warned about the 1NT bid, you can't know whether opener had accidentally overbid or underbid.
  
• The 3NT bid gives you perfectly authorized information that something has gone wrong.

[LghtnngRod]

 Bbradley62, on 2015-May-11, 19:05, said:

There is nothing "unfair" about an advantage that is mandated by consistently-applied rules of the tournament.

There is a large body of rules that governs any Bridge tournament, and they are divided into two groups:
1) What you are allowed or required to do or not to do.
2) Remedies that are provided for breaches of the first type above.
The underlying objective of the second set of rules tends to be to attempt where possible to restore equity, where that is possible without damaging the non-offending side. By restoring equity I mean to try to dial back to a position in which the offence had not occurred. There are exceptions, one of which as already mentioned is where the non-offending side cannot be protected. Others are procedural penalties where the offence is culpable, deliberate or wilfully negligent, or where (as in revokes) the benefits of simplicity in the remedy take precedence.

So, in the event of a mis-click, you *might* invoke a rule that the hand is not played out, but is simply discarded and the mis-clicker concedes 10 IMPs to the opposing side. This has the benefit of saving time, and brings about approximately the same end as a rule that requires you to notify your opponents but only your opponents of your mis-click.

You could argue, at a stretch, that such a rule is not "unfair" provided that it is consistently applied whenever anyone mis-clicks. That may be so, but it certainly does not pay anything close to lipservice to the principle of attempting to restore equity, which is the term that perhaps I should have used.

You could live in a society in which the penalty for over-running a parking meter is death by electrocution. That would arguably be a "fair" law provided that everyone who over-runs a meter is sent to the chair. But a level playing field, while a prerequisite for a fair law, may not be the only criteria. There is also the issue of the punishment fitting the crime.

[barmar]

There are two ways that the word "unfair" is used by people. One is that it means that people aren't treated equally, e.g. women only earning 70% of what men earn in equivalent jobs. But the other is that something seems unjust or inappropriate, even if it's the same for everyone. This is the one that comes up in something like "the punishment should fit the crime"; it's considered unfair if the punishment for something is too harsh or too lenient, even if it's applied equivalently to everyone.

It's this latter sense that leads people to say that they don't want to get an unfair advantage by taking advantage of a technicality in the Laws.

[LghtnngRod]

 paulg, on 2015-May-11, 12:26, said:

Law 40B2(d) "The Regulating Authority may restrict the use of psychic artificial calls."

Laws 40B1 and 40B2 can extend this restriction to certain natural, but unfamiliar, calls.

Thanks for these references. I have had a good read of these sections, and I agree with what you say about 40B2(d). However I cannot find anything in these sections to support your second statement, ie the extension beyond the limited conditions of 40B2(d). If you have a spare moment could you elaborate?

[Oof Arted]

 helene_t, on 2015-May-11, 03:02, said:

In those tournament where you have to inform the opponents about the misclick you obviously can't.

I must say I don't see the point, though. A disclosed misclick becomes a bit similar to an accept IB which is also a bit messy. Much better just to allow undos.

mmmm Does not you clicking on the 'Alert' button give boths opps chance to ask and thus you can say you have misbid ! but your partner will not be aware ??