Psychs not unusual

MJK43

I have just been sent the opponents' card for tomorrow's Nicko match. I see that at the foot of the card it states in upper case font:
"We might open on less than traditional values & psychs not unusual"

I am curious about that as I don't see how that can be ok. The White Book states:
"A psychic bid is a legitimate ploy as long as it contains the same element of surprise for the psycher’s partner as it does for the opponents. Systemic psyching of any kind is not permitted."

At the very least, how can any psychs contain the same element of surprise for the psycher's partner ?
If psychs are "not unusual", there will almost certainly be historical knowledge of the situations in which the pair psych and do not psych. That puts the opposing pair at a severe disadvantage.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts

gordonrainsford

You seem to assume that they will psych repeatedly in the same situations. If they do not, then telling you that it is not unusual for them to psych should ensure that the element of surprise is the same for both sides. I acknowledge that it might be difficult to establish this.

MJK43

I do think that it is inevitable that there will be patterns to the psyching. If you wanted a BBO Robot to psych randomly, the robot would do it, if so programmed. But the human brain cannot do that.

JamesC

It depends on how you interpret "not unusual", that's probably a well meaning but suboptimal choice of words. Would you be less uneasy with "we sometimes psych?".

In most of my partnerships, and I think an increasing number these days, psyching simply isn't an option. If psychic bids are a possiblity for a partnership I think acknowledging this on the card is a sensible bit of complete disclosure.

You do end up with a bit of a "how big is a heap" problem as regards to the frequency of the psychs. There will always be elements of general bridge logic that limits when a partnership might be psyching. As Gordon says, the big problem is if they look at a sequence and think that their partner is psyching.

Senior_Kibitzer

The Mad Dog once said that it's great to have a reputation for psyching because it meant that he never needed to psyche again, while everyone else remained worried that he might be.

It may be useful that opponents have stated as they have on their card, but it's worth your side having the possibility at the back and not the front of your minds. In the event that an opponent does psyche, I might suggest getting a classification and ruling on it whatever.