[3392627]

I was directing a vacb game a while back. Player opened 2nt (no alert) with void, KQxx KQJ109xx AK. Was this a legal opener? under open chart

[mike777]

3392627, on 2026-October-08, 12:42, said:

I was directing a vacb game a while back. Player opened 2nt (no alert) with void, KQxx KQJ109xx AK. Was this a legal opener? under open chart

nO

Must have at least a stiff that is an Ace, King or queen, no voids ever

[mikeh]

mike777, on 2026-October-08, 12:44, said:

nO

Must have at least a stiff that is an Ace, King or queen, no voids ever

Also. Something I didn’t know, one cannot have 10+ cards in two suits….now, this arose after a player opened 1N with KQxxxxx Jx AKx K. I assume the rule applies to 2N as well

[kerkido]

mike777, on 2026-October-08, 12:44, said:

nO

Must have at least a stiff that is an Ace, King or queen, no voids ever

Are you sure? According to the ACBL charts, the following is disallowed:

Quote

A non-Forcing 1NT opening that does not meet the definition of Natural.

(where natural is based on your definition)

There is nothing similar about non-forcing 2NT openers, so it is perfectly legal. Of course, if you have an agreement that you can make such bids, you must alert it.

[pescetom]

kerkido, on 2026-October-08, 14:12, said:

Are you sure? According to the ACBL charts, the following is disallowed:


(where natural is based on your definition)

There is nothing similar about non-forcing 2NT openers, so it is perfectly legal. Of course, if you have an agreement that you can make such bids, you must alert it.

Seems correct according to my reading of those charts.

2NT is the opening most ignored by any zealous regulator and it looks as if it gets away scot free in ACBL, except that under Basic and Basic+ it must be "natural" (as defined by ACBL).

Here in Italy you can do what you want at any level so long as the agreement is correctly disclosed and promises 10+ HCP and is alerted if not "natural" (not defined).
Nevertheless many opponents and even some Directors will get uptight if the agreement or even the hand does not meet the rules for 1NT distribution and exceed them in HCP.

[steve2005]

mike777, on 2026-October-08, 12:44, said:

nO

Must have at least a stiff that is an Ace, King or queen, no voids ever

If this is ACBL, the rule applies to 1NT opening.
ACBL does not have a rule for 2NT openings.

[mike777]

I would think if you do this more than once it would require an alert or adjustment
Opening 2NT with voids

[mycroft]

The Open convention chart is much more open than most people realize.

The 2 level is almost free, except:

• Gotta have 10 high (or Ro19) if not Natural;
  
• Range of 9 for weak 2s;
  
• and can't show "two suits, neither known";
  
• (and "can't be Purely Destructive" and "if it's Artificial, you can't psych it", but those aren't limited to 2 bids).

So is an agreement that this hand is a 2NT opener legal? Sure.

Is it Natural? No (the "not 10 cards in 2 suits, not low singleton, not void" bit discussed above).

So, is it Alertable? If their *agreement* is that this hand is a 2NT opener, then yes, 100%, and failure to Alert it is prima facie misinformation.

Is that their agreement? Interesting if so. Let's see how much their score goes down when they alert and explain as "18-19 any shape" (or whatever it is).

But is it their agreement?

• If they play 2NT as Natural, then deliberately opening 2NT on this is a psych (clearly "gross distortion" of shape). Psychs are legal, but this one will *definitely* be remembered, and another instance of it should be ruled "implicit agreement, Alert or agree to stop screwing around - or eat the penalty next time".
  
• If it's a newbie that doesn't understand the "balanced" in "18-19 balanced", now's a really good teaching moment. But it's a misbid, which is also legal.
  
• If this wasn't VACB, I'd check and see if the hand opened was ♦KJ9x ♥KQxx ♣AK ♦Q10x (I'd be much more suspicious of this if the minors were switched, of course(*)). People have mis-sorted before (the not-so-joke when I was learning was "the 5-suited NT", it happened so often). That's also legal.

One of my favourite VACB director questions was "[mycroft], what was that 1♥ bid?" Didn't even have to tell me which hand, she didn't. It's frequently a very useful question, and can often resolve which of the many cases happened (depending on, of course, how much you think they're "massaging the truth to put them in the best possible light"(**).

(*) Also old joke: what's 1NT-2♣; 4♠? "I'm guessing partner just realized his clubs are *also* spades."
(**) I think I read this line from GordonTD, but I think it may have originated from Probst, speaking of - "If you ask the players a direct question, they rarely ever lie. They may massage the truth to put themselves in the best possible light, but they don't lie." In my experience, it's correct; and after that experience, I'm pretty confident in my ability to read "what actually happened" from "best possible light" - and I'm also pretty confident that neurotypical TDs won't need 20 years of practise to get to my level.

[bluenikki]

3392627, on 2026-October-08, 12:42, said:

I was directing a vacb game a while back. Player opened 2nt (no alert) with void, KQxx KQJ109xx AK. Was this a legal opener? under open chart

To be clear: You are not asking whether it is legal to have the 2NT opening *show* a very strong minor-suited hand, are you?

[jillybean]

mycroft, on 2026-October-08, 18:50, said:

But is it their agreement?[list=1][*]If they play 2NT as Natural, then deliberately opening 2NT on this is a psych (clearly "gross distortion" of shape). Psychs are legal, but this one will *definitely* be remembered, and another instance of it should be ruled "implicit agreement, Alert or agree to stop screwing around - or eat the penalty next time".

Aside from Directors sharing information, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. Psyches aren't formally recorded, so the chances of having the same Director called to the table after the next exposed psyche are about as slim as the USA enacting the 25th Amendment.

So, for those who care, we do the best we can until the game is played and monitored electronically.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-08, 20:38, said:

Aside from Directors sharing information, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. Psyches aren't formally recorded, so the chances of having the same Director called to the table after the next exposed psyche are about as slim as the USA enacting the 25th Amendment.

So, for those who care, we do the best we can until the game is played and monitored electronically.

EBU has a national colour coded registration scheme, I don't know how it works technically or how practical it is for the TD.


The FIGB scoring program has a neat capacity to associate a Penalty to a pair and a board, it would be simple to reuse the same code to associate a Psyche to a pair and a board (just check the seat positions are not inverted and allow TD to click the auction from the hand diagram then associate a colour code) and then register this at national level (a new line on a csv file would be enough). Then the file could be interrogated in excel (or via AI these days) to check for player/pair history.

But so far they are deaf in that ear. In the meantime I have my own excel file of strange actions at club level (which contains very few psyches, one by me).

[jillybean]

Actually, in my admittedly limited experience, I think psychs are very rare. If we remove misbids and imaginative bidding*, I would say true psychs are extremely rare.
Sure, some players may know their bid is a psych and repeat it, which would be cheating, but I wouldn't call that a major concern.

Far more concerning are players who have undisclosed agreements and partnership knowledge.

*Imaginative as in, for example, creating or continuing a forcing sequence when we don't have the cards, although this is probably rare given modern systems. That's "just bridge" rather than a psych.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-09, 07:15, said:

Sure, some players may know their bid is a psych and repeat it, which would be cheating, but I wouldn't call that a major concern.

Far more concerning are players who have undisclosed agreements and partnership knowledge.

Surely the major concern is when it looks possible that their partner may have fielded the psyche, or that it has been protected by their agreements.
But I agree, not a significant problem here.

[mycroft]

"Aside from Directors sharing information" - uh, yeah? I've been saying this for years? What makes you think they don't?

But players do, too. We all know (locally, at least) about F- and about B-, and back when they were a local, about S-. We also know about M- and his "operating" (and more so back in the day. You can see my their history on this very website about the cost of psyching versus the benefits of having a reputation for psyching. Don't do it as much any more, for "reasons"). And said players are *very willing* to educate directors when it's not an "isolated case".

But the other way, *especially* with VABC events? "Hey ACBL, I saw this in my game. He claims it's never happened before, but I have heard that this isn't the first time. I don't have the records, though. Could you run this nick's history, please?" I don't know if they would do it, never needed to try. But they certainly *have* all the data for any player in any ACBL BBO event, so, you know,...

If that doesn't work, ISTR about a year ago reading in a BoD member report "the last batch of ethics runs were about 2/3 'next people on the list' and 1/3 'people reported to the Recorder', and..." So that looks like an option - it's the whole reason for the Recorder system after all, to notice patterns of behaviour that a single source doesn't have the visibility to do anything but suspect.

- mycroft, who feels he must emphasize that he is *not* wearing his nametag...

[jillybean]

mycroft, on 2026-October-09, 09:20, said:

"Aside from Directors sharing information" - uh, yeah? I've been saying this for years? What makes you think they don't?

Club Directors included?
What makes me think they don't? We've heard all my gripes before.

[mycroft]

Well, I am going to say that I am not going to say anything. And that's absolutely not because of anything that happened locally this year. Nope, never.

But people talk. Bridge players, in general, frankly gossip. Even in the clubs (well, okay, usually away from the clubs, dinner/bar after, or coffee before, or trips to tournaments, or...)

[jillybean]

Can we trust anything bridge players say in the bar after the game?
Trust their passion but verify their math.

[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-09, 15:35, said:

Can we trust anything bridge players say in the bar after the game?
Trust their passion but verify their math.

It is very nice Canadians still go to the bar after the game, definitely miss that part. Don't stop, smile

Probably one main reason so many of you dominate the game in so numerous, wonderful ways