[jillybean]

Wow, all this from a simple question? We clearly have too much testosterone in this small space.

[helene_t]

I think what Sceptic and Trumpace say is sensible.

In an ideal World people would say "5cM strong notrump" if that is all they agreed to. But wait ... that could also be Power Precision or WJ. Or they would say "SA" .... but wait, that could easily be something with a forcing 1NT and tons of gadgets.

When people say "hi opps, we play SAYC" I translate it to "we play some simple variant of SA, lots of bids are undiscussed". It would be better if they said just that instead of the misleading "SAYC" but as Trumpace says, they aren't deliberately lying. Maybe "we try to play SAYC" would be better disclosure.

JoAnneM said:

I think you all need something important to worry about - like did anyone actually lose their phone in Las Vegas?

ROFL, very well put.

[bill1157]

blackshoe, on Aug 3 2008, 04:38 PM, said:

World class players don't, I think, play SAYC. Not by choice, anyway.

Some years ago, I was introduced to a new player at the local club. She said, quite proudly, "I play SAYC." "Good," I said, "then you play Jacoby 2NT." "What's that?" she asked. She never did learn it.

part of the problem might be that sayc has gone through several "incarnations". the original, if i remember correctly, did not have jacoby 2nt, that was added later. I find for the most part, sayc works ok, after all, the bids that seem to be so important to the experts here rarely come up anyway. So, if you just play transfers and 2s->3c over 1nt you are most of the way there anyway.

Bill

[vuroth]

Trumpace, on Aug 3 2008, 01:28 PM, said:

Better yet, find a regular partner and play with them.

0.02

Definitely the ideal solution, if you can find one.

[jtfanclub]

helene_t, on Aug 5 2008, 06:08 AM, said:

When people say "hi opps, we play SAYC" I translate it to "we play some simple variant of SA, lots of bids are undiscussed".

I translate it as "we don't alert anything". The actual system used is irrelevant.

One of the most frequent calls I get in Addicts actually related to bridge is somebody playing "SAYC" opening 1♣ with 4342 or 4441. No alert, of course.

[zasanya]

kvkmak, on Aug 2 2008, 04:50 PM, said:

I see many people have "SAYC" in their profile.  Do they really mean SAYC?  Seems not.  Seems they mean SA as in Standard American but not SAYC.  If you play SAYC, you should know you play Xfers and NegX -> 2S and stuff like that.

Anyone else notice this?

-ken

If I play a 5card Major 15-17 NT ; Stayman; Blackwood; all jumps strong, '2/1' not a game Force std raises and no other gadgets what system am I playing?
The term Standard American aka SAYC suggests itself .YC ? I dont know what it means.Who cares? I dont play with experts anyway;rather they dont play with me.

[TylerE]

But that's kinda the point. If it isn't exactly SAYC, it's just SA. If I sat down with anyone (esp. under the age of 70), and the extent of our agreements to be be 'Standard American', I would expect 1♦-2♥ to be weak, 1m-2N to be 10+ - 12, not 13-15, as two examples.

[Trinidad]

zasanya, on Aug 5 2008, 10:45 AM, said:

kvkmak, on Aug 2 2008, 04:50 PM, said:

I see many people have "SAYC" in their profile.  Do they really mean SAYC?  Seems not.  Seems they mean SA as in Standard American but not SAYC.  If you play SAYC, you should know you play Xfers and NegX -> 2S and stuff like that.

Anyone else notice this?

-ken

If I play a 5card Major 15-17 NT ; Stayman; Blackwood; all jumps strong, '2/1' not a game Force std raises and no other gadgets what system am I playing?
The term Standard American aka SAYC suggests itself .YC ? I dont know what it means.Who cares? I dont play with experts anyway;rather they dont play with me.

YC stands for 'Yellow Card'. It is called like that because eons ago ACBL printed convention cards with a standard system on yellow paper. This standard system was one of the many variations of Standard American. Because of the yellow convention card, the system became known as 'Standard American Yellow Card' or SAYC.

The SAYC variations that you can find on the internet are somewhat different from the original SAYC. Does it matter? Yes and no. It doesn't matter in the sense that when I meet someone and agree to play SAYC, we at least have some minimal agreements and we can play. It does matter since the original SAYC is more or less lost and from a bridge historic point of view that is somewhat sad. (Maybe we could call the 'modern' version I(nternet)-SAYC to separate it from the original, but I think it is too late for that already.)

Rik

[kvkmak]

One reason I asked this question is I played back on OKBridge back when it was very new (circa 1990) and most people didn't even know what an internet was. Back then, people said "SA" if they meant more-or-less Standard American as opposed to "Prec" or "ACOL", I sure wish people did that there now-a-days.

Wikipedia very incorrectly states that Standard American and SAYC are more or less the same thing. Someone should go in and fix that.

http://en.wikipedia....andard_American

[bill1157]

I read an interesting article in the bulletin for the youth NABC. The writer was talking about teaching children to play bridge but what he said could serve most of the people like me and those i play with: play strong NT, all 2 bids weak (including 2 clubs and with side 4 card majors and voids ok). Overcall 11+ weaker at 1 level, jump if weaker and you feel you must bid. 3 bids 7 card suit max 11 pts. End of system discussion.
This would serve most players fine. Then concentrate on card play which is the real difficult and interesting part of bridge anyway.

Bill