From the facts given I don't see any evidence of a concealed agreement

North's "irrational" pass gives everyone at the table authorised information the 1NT bid is not genuine

Hi Nick, 

I  agree based on known facts for this deal alone there is no evidence either way. Therein lies the paradox.

However, whilst I also agree EW may freely take this information from the apparently systemically ‘irrational’ pass into account, it seems the NZB manual indicates that unless NS had a prior agreement of the meaning of the pass of the transfer that North’s partner can’t as they must base their subsequent bidding and play on their original explanation of the psyche bid, their own cards, and opponent’s bidding. However, if they had had a previous agreement about the meaning of the pass of the transfer then this would have been a systemic protection and so be a Yellow system. A catch 22.

Indeed if South had been asked about the meaning of the pass of the transfer they would have responded “undiscussed”. If they didn’t then they would admit having an agreement of the systemic protection.

A problem is that once a transfer bid is passed ‘irrationally’ in this manner to reveal the psyche of the 1 NT opening bid, even if only once, it is instantly recognisable by both partners if ever repeated and becomes an implicit systemic protection even if never further discussed. It also then implicitly agrees a strong 1 NT opening in third position non-vulnerable vs vulnerable may have an option to be sometimes opened weak.

Therein lies the dilemma for a director if hypothetically there had been a complaint that opener’s partner hadn’t bid or played as per their original explanation of the opening bid. To find evidence of an undisclosed systemic protection agreement may require not only considering the bidding and play for the individual deal but also the review of previous similar psyche bids by the same pair. 

At club level this may require keeping a club psyche register and at tournament level this may require maintaining a national searchable online psyche register that could be referred to.

Could you reach the same conclusion if you knew the pair had previously used the pass of partner’s response to a psyche bid opening of a 1 NT opening in third position non vulnerable vs vulnerable?

Hence, why the psyche of a strong 1NT in third position non vulnerable versus vulnerable with an immediate rebid pass of any response from partner is theoretically interesting as it appears to offer plausible deniability of any systemic protection agreement existing, if it’s use on any individual board is only considered in isolation as if this was the first time it had ever been used by the partnership, whilst also appearing to offer a useful systemic protection. Hence, theoretically, making concealment of any such implicit agreement potentially worthwhile.

I believe a pass of a forcing bid (or any similarly irrational call) indicating a likely psyche is among the "matters generally known to bridge players" which need not be disclosed (Law 40B5(a))

Some bunnies might not know that but it is bad tactics to psyche against them. Normal bridge against bunnies  should yield a good result so the risk vs gain equation for a psyche is unfavourable

Hi Nick,

I'm not sure the psyching rules and Law 40B5(a) are mutually exclusive. The potential issue is not whether the opponents realize an irrational bid indicates a pysche bid or not but whether the psyche bidder's partnership have an illegal systemic protection, possibly implicitly from previous usage, and whether their partner must legally continue to bid as per their original explanation of the original bid.

Another example: North has 6 spades and a weak hand non vul vs vul in third position. NS play that their weak 2 major openings deny 4 of the other major. North decides to psyche and opens 2H. This bid is doubled by East and passed around to North who then bids 2S. East doubles this bid and South must decide their bid. With 2 spades and 3 hearts may South legally pass 2SX or must they correct to 3H?

As both suits have been doubled there is no information from their opponent's bidding or their own hand (i.e a 5+ card spade suit) to allow them to not rely on the validity of their partner's original bid at this stage of the bidding.  It would seem systemically irrational for them to elect to play in 2SX with a 2-3 fit when they have at least a 9 card fit in hearts. 

It would therefore seem that if South passed, EW would have a valid argument at the conclusion of the hand when they called the director that South has relied on a systemic protection of the original psyche bid when deciding to pass that denied them the opportunity to double 3H,  even if they later bid on to game in hearts rather than left the 2SX in.

If South had bid 3H then they would have risked greater penalties if the psyche bidder then bid 3S trying to escape the ensuing double, and then having to continue to bid hearts until North gave up trying to escape.

Whilst appearing to be illegal it would appear South's better option would be to unethically pass 2SX and hope that they are not called on their bidding by their opponents.  So for this example, it could be more beneficial to make this systemically protected psyche bid against "bunnies".

Hey Sean, 

You might find the following links of interest:
WBF Psyche Guidelines

an EBU psyche discussion

Even page 4 of this casebook has an appeal on what constitutes a "fielded" psyche.

Psyche controls and concealed partnership agreements are to stop the game from getting too hard for people to solve. If the psycher has 100% captaincy then they can do so with impunity. (The best "classic" example is bidding 2NT forcing inquiry over a weak 2 from partner with a weak hand and good trump support [i.e. trying to show strength so they don't act after you raise to 4M]). 

Some such psyches are allowed, as they're effectively "terminal" actions. One such example would be raising partner's weak NT opening to 3NT holding a 1 count. The opps definitely have the balance of power, and each will likely assume their partner is broke. Also a lot of pairs either don't have a specific agreement about 1N p 3N x, or it'd have a particular meaning which might not be product for the generic "strong" hand that the advancer holds.

As for your example where North opens a weak 2 in hearts holding 6 spades -- bridge logic itself dictates that the psycher can't really be "systemically" offering spades on this auction. Therefore any suited runout from them would be met with suspicion. Especially a suit they'd explicitly denied.

This is different to if they (say) redoubled in pass-out as a generic "SOS" bid. 

As for this point:

As both suits have been doubled there is no information from their opponent's bidding or their own hand (i.e a 5+ card spade suit) to allow them to not rely on the validity of their partner's original bid at this stage of the bidding.

Wouldn't it be "systemically valid" for partner to be bidding a fragment here still? The opponents have shown that they're ok in penalising 2H (and it's the person sitting under the preemptor who has passed for penalties), the fact that the penaliser is sitting under shows that they have a serious desire to penalise (as it's defensively worse to be sitting under a long trump suit). So it'd be valid for North to want to get out to anywhere.

It's AI for South to know that:
a) West is thirsty to defend 2Hx
b) North is expressing grave doubt as to playing in 2Hx
c) Their partner is offering their 5-card suit.

The action that would show a concealed partnership agreement would be if South raised 2S to 4S on the assumption that this 2H -> 2S sequence showed 6S and 1/2 H.

As an addendum to this thread I noted at the recent world championships that partnerships were allowed to have pre-understandings based on previous experience that psyche bids or under bids were more likely to occur tactically in certain situations provided that, and only if, the higher probability of them occurring was prealerted.  The most common disclosure was that in third opening position non vulnerable that openings could be very light. 

Coming back to the Weak 2H opening psyche example with opener having 6S it occurs to me that in fact when opener bids 2S after 2H is doubled that the 2S bid could have been the psyche bid and the opener actually could have had the 6H to begin with that they initially promised. Their partner couldn't therefore know for sure from the bidding which bid is the psyche so they should have bid 3H after 2S was doubled.  passing 2S x would indicate a prior partnership understanding that the 2S bid after 2H x always showed 5+ S with short H.