| Aylesbury Aces Home Venue |
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Aylesbury Aces Bridge Club now play at the Buckingham Park Community Centre
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| Psyche Bidding and Misbids |
I've been asked to say something about psyche bids. What is a PSYCHE? A psyche is a deliberate attempt to throw the opponents off the scent by making a bluff bid. The intention is for your opponents to think you have more points than you've actually got or that you have a suit you don't have. A psyche is defined to be a 'gross mistatement of suit length or honour strength' so an opening bid that is one or two points below normal expected values isn't a psyche.
It's not without risk! Partner should take your bid at face value and bid accordingly, so if you do it at the wrong time you could find yourself catapulted into a silly slam or the wrong game.
People get very upset when they see that they have been 'had', but it is a legitimate part of the game.
I don't want to give people ideas but a typical psyche is to open third in hand after two passes with a very poor hand, say 1 but with only two spades. The idea being that the fourth hand must have some points and it could well be spades. So your bid might put them off. Partner, of course, must treat your bid correctly so should be raising spades with at least 6 points and 4 spades.
People often make mistakes in their bidding and bid the wrong thing. Perhaps you only raise 1 to 2 with 10 points - well, that's just a counting error. But suppose you forget you are playing transfers - partner opens 1NT, you bid 2 weakness take out and, unfortunately, partner says 'transfer to spades'. If you have agreed to play transfers, then your 2 is a MISBID. The effect on the opponents can be the same as for a psyche - you have 'told' your opponents you have spades, when the reality is rather different. You also know your bid has been misinterpreted by partner - but you are not supposed to know you have got it wrong, so life can now get quite awkward for you. (More details another day).
John - Chairman
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| General Information about the club |
| This club was formed on April 1st 2009 |
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