Psyche on BBO with self-alert of ostensibly natural bid
In an imps game on BBO, a player psyched an overcall of 1NT after their RHO had opened the bidding with one of a suit.
The psyche was not fielded, so apparently no problem.
However, the player self-alerted the bid as showing a balanced 15-17 HCP. Assume this was the partnership agreement. Questions:
1. Should the overcall be self-alerted?
2. The opponents were aggrieved as they considered that by self-alerting, the player intended to lead them to believe that the hand they actually held corresponded with the ostensible meaning of the bid - or the player ought to have been aware the opponents would be misled. Do the opponents have any redress?
3. No-one would have been concerned about an unnecessary self-alert if the player’s hand had corresponded with the ostensible meaning of the call. However, assuming the self-alert was unnecessary, would it be appropriate in the circumstances described above to award a procedural penalty against the psycher? The grounds for the penalty being that they ought to have known that the 1NT overall did not require a self-alert, and ought to have been aware that the opponents would be misled, so aggravating the ‘offence’ of failure to comply with proper procedure?
Comments
I think the player should be asked why they self-alerted and explained that a 1NT overcall should not be self-alerted in this way. If it was done because the player always does this through misundersanding the announcing rules, then I would just clarify it for them and ask them not to do this in future.
If it transpires (unlikely) that the player really was trying to mislead their opponents and does not usually do this, then there is no reason why they could not be given a procedural penalty.
But the important point to note is that the opponents are only entitled to your agreements, not to what you hold in your hand, and so you should alert/announce as required even if you have departed from your agreeements.
When playing online, I always self-explain my agreed range for the 1NT overcall even though it wouldn't be announced when playing in person. When playing online with self-alerting, there are lots of good reasons to explain things and few reasons not to. (A direct seat 1NT overcall has a fairly consistent range between partnerships, apart from those partnerships who play it as artificial. A protective set 1NT overcall, though, is less consistent.)
So far, I've never psyched that overcall, but I would have to continue explaining it the same way for consistency if I ever chose to (and the explanation would have to match partner's expectation of the hand). I'm not convinced that it makes sense to stop explaining your calls as a matter of course just in case you might want to psyche them someday, and it definitely doesn't make sense to explain your calls consistently except when psyching them…
Should I stop explaining my 1NT overcalls, based on the opinion above that it should not be self-alerted? (Note that one big advantage of self-explaining most of your calls is that it reduces the amount of UI that gets transmitted between the opponents if one of them is unsure what the call means – this phenomenon hurts unscrupulous opponents, and benefits honest opponents because they don't have to try to play around the UI, and thus seems good for the game either way.)
One reason that a 1NT overcall is not announced is that it is universally played as showing a hand of about strong NT strength, though perhaps less precise in point count and shape than would be an opening 1NT.
That's probably true in direct seat, but I'd expect rather more variation in protective seat (many players play it as fairly weak there, but I imagine some play it as strong to keep their system simple).
My main partnership is robot-style 5 card majors (better minor) and strong NT. We both always self-announce 1 club or diamond as showing three-plus because it's a helpful, friendly clarification. If we stuck to the rules then we should keep quiet and oppos should assume it's not short because we didn't announce. However oppos are likely to ask anyway because of the notable minority of players who fail to self-alert/announce.
We also self-announce NT rebids to be friendly and transparent - beneficial for expert and inexperienced oppos alike. Hopefully it might even remind other players to self-alert/announce.
It would be better to encourage this kind of announcing as it improves the game - perhaps it should be considered Best Behaviour At Bridge when self-alerting applies?