Psychological
Tactics by Walt Sturm
Psychological
tactics in bridge generally fall into one of two categories, i.e., card play
and bidding. The card-play
category is commonly referred to as false carding. The objective of false carding is to deceive the opponents
about your actual card holding. It
may be employed by both declarer and defenders.
False
carding is badly overused by many players. It has become such an ingrained part of their play that they
overlook the fact that a false card should have a very specific goal in
mind. They adopt a shotgun
approach, false carding all the time without anything other in mind than to
exercise it. The result is that
opponents who recognize this will ignore your false cards which then become
useless.
Tactical
bids are commonly referred to as psychs or psychic bids, which are technically
defined as initial actions, i.e., opening bids, but in common usage describe
any deliberately misleading call both with respect to strength or
distribution. Psychs are seriously
underused by the vast majority of players, just a false carding is
overused. Correctly applied,
psychic bids can be deadly effective.
In my experience, they seem to cause victimized opponents a great deal
of emotional stress and upset, whereas a false card does not and may even be
applauded if successful.
Why
is carding thievery so widely practiced and bidding thievery so ignored and
rejected? My guess is that false
carding is widely taught and used, hence opponents are aware of its probably
usage, whereas psychs are not taught or encountered very frequently, hence
opponents are neither alert to their possible usage nor are they knowledgeable
about how to counter them.
Therefore, a successful psych leaves opponents feeling fixed, robbed, or
even cheated, even though the use of psychic bids is completely legal in
duplicate bridge.
I
strongly advise everyone to read Part I of Fred Karpinšs primer called
``Psychological Strategy in Contract Bridge`` which is in our library. Whether or not you are interested in
using psychic bidding, you owe it to yourself to recognize a psych and know how
to deal with it. Moreover, many of
the examples of good psychs which worked and bad psychs which blew up in the
perpetrator`s face are quite amusing.
Enjoy!
Ed Note: The following external links are
provided by the web developer.
References in Kona Bridge
Library:
``Psychological Strategy in
Contract Bridge``; by Fred L. Karpen