SAYC what add-ons would you use

[PedroG]

Hi all,

 

Let assume that you have a constraint to use SAYC but that you agree with your partner do add few (not really a big list) of gadgets...

 

What do you think would be the ones that you will benefit more...

 

What areas of the SAYC paper

http://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/...gle%20pages.pdf

 

Are not fully explicit and you would like to sit down with your partner and clarify.

 

Ty all

Pedro

[TylerE]

<BEGINRANT>

If you change anything YOU ARE NOT PLAYING SAYC. Please do not refer to it as SAYC. Please refer to it as "Standard American" or some such.

<ENDRANT>

[hrothgar]

Agree with Tyler's rant

 

With this said and done, I think that some kind of forcing minor suit raise is useful.

[sceptic]

<hahahahah>

 

A decent guy looking for answers asks a question and you answer like that. what a jerk you are Tyler

 

</hahahahah>

[sceptic]

WOW! looks like you are not alone

[SoTired]

inverted minors

agree after a 2/1, what bids are forcing and which are not

agree if reverse after a 2/1 shows reverse strength or not

support dbls & redbls

[vuroth]

Off the top of my head.

 

1. Specify what 2NT means over a weak 2. (I know SAYC specifies this, but many play something different.)

2. Specify what exactly game tries mean (i.e. 1H - 2H - 3C).

3. Do we really want 1X - 2NT to be 13-15 (GF) and 1X - 3NT to be 16-18?

4. What flavour of Stayman will we play?

5. Negative double through 2S (as per SAYC), or higher?

6. Takeout double through 4D (as per SAYC), or something else?

 

As for additions?

7. Will we play cue bid as limit raise or better?

8. Is 1NT (2C) X stayman?

9. Inverted minors? How will we bid a forcing raise in a minor?

10. Splinters?

 

That's all I can think of.

 

V

[vuroth]

<BEGINRANT>

If you change anything YOU ARE NOT PLAYING SAYC. Please do not refer to it as SAYC. Please refer to it as "Standard American" or some such.

<ENDRANT>

Way back when I played in clubs, the convention card asked for a "general approach" at the top.

 

If my profile on BBO says "SAYC + inv. minor + cue = limit raise + odd/even discards", am I a sinner?

 

V

[matmat]

<hahahahah>

 

A decent guy looking for answers asks a question and you answer like that. what a jerk you are Tyler

 

</hahahahah>

wayne, you're an idiot.

[PedroG]

<BEGINRANT>

If you change anything YOU ARE NOT PLAYING SAYC. Please do not refer to it as SAYC. Please refer to it as "Standard American" or some such.

<ENDRANT>

Well trolls apart...

 

I think SAYC is a good way for you to seat at a table with a pickup partner and have a bunch of agreements out-of-the-box...

 

So if you have a more steady partnership but have some "constraint" to use SAYC and add a few gadgets, I think it's fair to announce that you are playing SAYC and will alert any deviation from the system you will do...

 

That it's much better than saying nothing at all or saying I'm playing "PGPR system", will that be beneficial to my opp's ?

 

If I recall well you have in the top of your CC that basic fact what flavor is you bidding system and the color schemas also help identify that, it doesn't mean that all the Green cards will be equal, but gives the opp's a general feeling of what they are against.

 

Offcourse that you will have full notes of your deviations from SAYC in you CC or in a note pages...

 

Pedro

[PedroG]

2. Specify what exactly game tries mean (i.e. 1H - 2H - 3C).

Ty :) all

 

Very interresting the Game tries, since it's not referred in the paper published by the ACBL...

 

What I decide to put on my notes on this situation is the wording like ([NO agreement in SAYC ]) and we play it this way...

 

So it would be something like

1M-2M-3x Help suit game try [NO agreement in SAYC]

 

From different wording

 

Slam Bidding:

Roman Key Card Blackwood (RKCB 1430) [NON-SAYC agreement]

 

In one I'm deviating from SAYC in the other I'm making a agreement that doesn't exist on SAYC, perhaps if playing sayc all we can do is PASS after 1M-2M :) ...

 

Pedro

[RichMor]

To answer the original question; I would add these treatments/conventions to SAYC with a frequent partner:

 

1. New Minor Forcing - a vanilla version

2. Smolen Transfers after 1NT - 2♣ / 2♦

3. Unusual versus Unusual / major Michaels - also a vanilla version

4. Some kind of forcing minor raise - probably a jump in the other minor.

 

All of there are fairly high frequency and effective.

[helene_t]

Discuss the meaning of doubles in all kind of convoluted auctions.

 

Landy.

 

New Minor Forcing or something similar (2-way checkback is simpler and better IMHO)

 

If you have time to discuss more than that, next priority is Lebensohl and (non)leaping Michaels.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

The rule: if they have shown one suit, all direct raises

of partners suit are preemptive, LOTT based, all good

(inv. or better) raises go via bidding their suit.

 

Scanning through list of conventions mentioned above,

nothing comes remotely close with regards to the

usefulness of this agreement.

 

There are more sophisticated methods out there, but

the above works reasonable well.

 

The only thing is, which comes too my mind as serious

challlenger is, that you have the agreement, that most,

if not all doubles occurring on a low level are for takeout.

 

In general focuse on methods designed for competive

situations at the part score level, e.g. Michaels / Unsual NT,

defence against a NT opening.

Additionnal have a understanding how to fight back, if they

use your agreements against you, i.e. if they bid Michaels

(my first suggestion), if they intervene against your NT

opener (my 2nd suggestion).

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[sceptic]

<hahahahah>

 

A decent guy looking for answers asks a question and you answer like that. what a jerk you are Tyler

 

</hahahahah>

wayne, you're an idiot.

coming from you matmat, I take that as a compliment :)

[pclayton]

Add in some Jacoby-variant (3N is too bulky) for major raises.

 

Add in inverted as the others have mentioned.

 

Tyler - WTF?

[cherdano]

Inverted minors. New minor forcing.

[Mbodell]

I add, in rough order of importance:

 

Leads and carding tendencies, how often we signal attitude or count honestly, how often we make passive or aggressive leads or switches, etc.

 

Some defense to opponents NT (weak and strong and if it is different to either), opponents strong bids (1♣ or 2♣ and/or 2NT), and opponents weak bids.

 

Some form of new minor force (prefer 2-way).

 

Lehbensol/Smolen/texas transfers and discuss what is on and what isn't over opponents bids over our NT.

 

1430 RKCB.

 

Ogust over weak 2's and agreements about the right discipline level of our preempts.

 

Transfer advances.

[jtfanclub]

Gotta discuss jump bids, as defined they're pretty old-fashioned.

 

Other than that, what they said.

[awm]

Elianna and I actually play methods derived from SAYC in high-level competitive events. Of course, we have added/modified these methods a lot and what we play now has only a loose resemblance to SAYC (although it is certainly much closer to SAYC than to 2/1 GF). Here's what we've changed:

 

(1) Two-way New Minor Force over opener's 1NT rebid. This is a really great convention, both simpler and more effective than regular "new minor forcing" and a huge improvement over SAYC. We also play "one-way" new minor force over opener's natural 2NT rebid.

 

(2) Inverted Minor Raises. It is very important to have some kind of forcing minor raise, and SAYC does not. There are many options here, some of which use various jump shifts to show raises. Inverted Minors are fairly simple and fairly commonly played. It is not obvious that they are "best" but they are certainly a huge improvement over not having any forcing minor raise.

 

(3) Lebensohl. This is the use of an artificial 2NT bid, typically to show a worse hand than bidding directly at the three-level. We use this in three different situations: when we have opened 1NT and opponents make a bid of 2♦ through 2♠, when we have made a reverse bid in an uncontested auction (i.e. 1♦-1♠-2♥), and when we have doubled a weak two bid by the opponents for takeout. Lebensohl is a popular artificial method which, while not without downside, helps a lot in various sequences.

 

(4) Structured Continuations after a 2/1 Call. In our style, after a 2/1 bid in an uncontested auction, any rebid by opener above two of the original major shows extra values and establishes a game force. This includes rebidding 2NT or raising responder's suit to the three level. This is sort of implicit in SAYC also because of the statement that "a two-over-one bid promises a rebid by responder unless opener's rebid is at the game level." Thus rebidding two of opener's major can be just a "stall" bid with a minimum opening and no descriptive cheaper bid.

 

(5) Ogust over weak twos. We like to bid, so finding out suit quality is important. If you play very sound weak twos (in terms of suit quality) then feature is better.

 

(6) Non-SAYC 1NT methods. We play what I think is called "Walsh over 1NT" which includes 2♠ minor suit stayman and 2NT puppet to 3♣. I don't know that this is "best" (actually there are zillions of reasonable methods over our own 1NT openings) but it is much better than the simplistic methods given in the SAYC notes and Elianna and I both knew this one quite well before we started playing together.

 

(7) Fourth suit forcing to game. SAYC actually includes fourth suit forcing, but it's just "forcing one round." We prefer to play the fourth suit as game forcing. We also use the fourth suit as an artificial "punt" in many auctions that are already game-forcing.

 

(8) Splinter Raises. These are mentioned in the "options" for SAYC. We play splinters over majors and minors (double jump shift) and also play a jump reverse as a splinter (1♦-1♠-3♥). Splinters are very helpful in slam bidding (and staying out of bad slams).

 

(9) 1430 Keycard. This is another popular slam convention. It is probably slightly better on technical merit than 0314, but I don't see a huge difference.

 

(10) Modified responses to 2♣ strong. We play the fairly popular method where 2♦ is game force and 2♥ shows a terrible hand. Other responses are normal except 2NT shows a positive response in hearts. We also have agreed that if opponents bid over our 2♣, pass is positive and double shows a bad hand.

 

(11) Unusual vs. Unusual. It's important to have some defense when opponents bust out one of these bids that shows a two-suiter (like Michaels cuebid or unusual 2NT). We play that if their bid shows two known suits, our cheaper "cuebid" shows a good hand with the lower of the suits they don't hold, our more expensive "cuebid" shows a good hand with the higher of the suits they don't hold, and bidding a suit opponents didn't promise is non-forcing. Double shows interest in penalizing one or both of their suits. Over bids that show only one known suit (1♠-2♠), double is desire to penalize and the "cuebid" is a strong raise.

 

(12) Defense to their 1NT. We play Meyerson over strong notrumps, and Stayman over weak notrumps. This situation (opponents open 1NT) is one of the most popular times to have some conventional defense, and many such defenses are available (and many people argue about which is best).

 

(13) Carding Agreements. Obviously you need carding agreements, and SAYC doesn't say much about these. Elianna and I play upside-down count and attitude, lavinthal discards, coded nine and ten leads (but mostly just against notrump), reverse smith, and trump suit preference.

 

(14) Fit-showing jumps in competition and by passed hands. These were made popular by the Robson/Segal book. There is an exhaustive treatment of them there.

 

(15) Artificial 2♦ Rebids after 1X-2♣. We use opener's 2♦ rebid as a catch-all in these auctions, either natural with diamonds or any minimum hand. Thus for example 1♥-2♣-2♦ could be artificial with a minimum, and 1♥-2♣-2♥ shows six cards and guarantees enough extras for game. Perhaps more essential, we use 1♦-2♣-2♦ to show a minimum (even with 4432 shape) so that our 2NT rebid promises extra values. We do make an exception for 1♠-2♣-2♥ (natural not necessarily extras) because it is important to find the heart fit.

 

(16) 1M-2NT as limit-plus. This gives us two ways to raise a major to the three-level (1M-3M and 1M-2NT); our direct raise shows a "good limit raise" (usually four cards) whereas the raise through 2NT is either game-forcing (jacoby) or a "bad limit raise" (usually three cards). This gets us the same advantage 2/1 players have in gauging games or slams. We play slightly different followups to 1M-2NT than you'd find in Jacoby because of this.

 

(17) Gazilli after major suit openings. We play many conventional followups after 1♥-1♠ and 1M-1NT. Basically we use 2♣ as a two-way bid that covers all strong (17+ hcp) openings, allowing us to use jump-shifts to show nice (but non-forcing) distributional hands as in a strong club method. Our actual methods are complex and different after opening 1♥ or 1♠; explaining them (and the reason behind them) would require a really long post that I won't make here.

 

(18) Fourth suit forcing by opener. This specifically applies to auctions like 1♣-1♥-1♠-1NT-2♦, where three suits are bid at the one-level followed by 1NT, and opener then bids the fourth suit. We give this an artificial meaning (when is the last time you had the auction above naturally?) -- it is a puppet to the cheapest call after which opener will either pass or make any bid, which shows a worse hand than making that bid directly. So for example in the auction given, 2♦ forces 2♥ which opener can pass with some 4324 or bad 4315 hand. If opener bids 2♥ in that auction instead of 2♦, it shows extras. If opener bids 2NT directly over 1NT, it shows 18/19 balanced, whereas bidding 2♦ first and then 2NT shows 16/17 with short hearts.

 

(19) Funky 3NT opening. We play a 3NT opening showing a weak hand with 6+♥ and a 5+ minor. Probably it's "better" to play this as a "good major suit preempt" but there are questions about ACBL legality of that treatment. We aren't fans of 3NT 25-27 (I think that's what is in the SAYC notes) or of "gambling 3NT" or "namyats 3NT" which inevitably wrong-sides the contract.

 

(20) Psycho-Suction NV vs. strong artificial. Just what it says. Not for the faint of heart. :(

 

We also have some specific agreements about which doubles are takeout versus penalty versus cards, and about which cuebids are natural. One thing a lot of people don't know from SAYC is that 1♣-P-1♥-2♥ is natural!

 

I'm sure there are a few minor things I've missed (maybe Elianna will post and remind me), but I think these are the highlights. I've tried to list the more "standard" ones that you really have to add first, and the more esoteric ones that some people have never heard of closer to the end.

[peachy]

Considering that so many *say* they play SAYC while *not* playing SAYC, you are way ahead of the crowd, also by the fact that you actually read what the SAYC booklet says.

 

To have a little improvement on SAYC with a regular partner (who for some reason does not want to play or does not know 2/1...), I would add:

- RKC

- inverted minors

- jumpshifts and jumpraises in competition are weak

- Unusual vs. Unusual

- Splinter

- and define what 1m-2NT and 1m-3NT mean (in the booklet SAYC 2NT is 13-15 and 3NT 16-18, I don't like that)

[Guest Jlall]

<hahahahah>

 

A decent guy looking for answers asks a question and you answer like that. what a jerk you are Tyler

 

</hahahahah>

Do you even play bridge anymore?

[sceptic]

Hi Justin, what do I owe the honour of this question?

 

just to let you know, yes I do, not to your standard, but then I just play for a bit of fun, nothing to serious

[gnasher]

The rule: if they have shown one suit, all direct raises

of partners suit are preemptive, LOTT based, all good

(inv. or better) raises go via bidding their suit.

 

Scanning through list of conventions mentioned above,

nothing comes remotely close with regards to the

usefulness of this agreement.

Me too (except for the bit about the "L"OTT).

[han]

Ditto awm.