[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)

[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]

P_Marlowe, on Aug 29 2008, 05:39 PM, said:

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.

[Elianna]

Another important thing to discuss with your partner is whether you bid up the line, or not, and raising on three-card suits. I forget if this is addressed in the SAYC handbook or not.

[bill1157]

i think the standard for sayc now is: sayc + capp and 1430

Bill

[ochinko]

Must have's:

• fourth suit forcing (esp. FG)
  
• Bergen raises
  
• splinter bids
  
• new minor forcing
  
• multi and Muiderberg

Also useful:

• inverted minors
  
• reverse Drury
  
• fit-showing jump shifts
  
• weak jump shifts
  
• Smolen

But the first thing I discuss (apart from leads and discards) is what is and what's not forcing from a non-passed hand after opps intervene in our opening with a suit or a double.

[gwnn]

ochinko, on Sep 1 2008, 11:50 AM, said:

Must have's:

(useful stuff)

• multi and Muiderberg

Disagree. I can hardly think of something that I could consider less of a 'must have' than Multi and Muiderberg. Loads of people do just fine without them on their CC, on any level of competition, so I think it's a big overbid to call that a must have.

[Gerben42]

The only "Must Haves" I can think of is New Minor Forcing and Inverted Minors.

"Nice to have" would be:

* Weak Jump Shifts played 5 - 8, so that a jump in a new suit after an unbalanced rebid by opener is GF
* 2♦ response by a passed hand = Drury. (Not 2♣, remember that you play a weak two in ♦, but not in ♣.

[brianshark]

Gerben42, on Sep 1 2008, 11:44 AM, said:

The only "Must Haves" I can think of is New Minor Forcing and Inverted Minors.

Agree with this.

I have a few others I'd like, such as 1430, and maybe some jacoby/bergen structure, even a simple one that has a forcing Major raise.

There is a long list of things that people say they must have that they really could do without. For example, there is nothing wrong with natural over NT, 3 weak 2s, etc.

[jvage]

ochinko, on Sep 1 2008, 04:50 AM, said:

Must have's:[LIST]
[*]fourth suit forcing (esp. FG)
[*]Bergen raises
[*]splinter bids
[*]new minor forcing
[*]multi and Muiderberg

You are of course welcome to have have your own preferences, personally I no longer play neither Bergen nor Muiderberg (Tartan) if partner does not insist. If you think Multi and Muiderberg is a "must" the following link may be of interest: Multi and Muiderberg

The author analyzed the results of Multi and Muiderberg compared to the stoneage alternative of weak 2's in European, World and Olympic championships in the period 1987-2004. With a weak 2 type of hand the Multi-openers lost on average 0,33 IMP's/board. More surprising was perhaps that they on average lost almost as much (0,31 IMP's/board) on their 2M Muiderberg/Tartan openings. If you think this is more because of class of players than system (few Italian, American or Norwegian top pairs play these methods), one may wonder why they prefer other methods (most play some form of weak 2, at least in the majors). Multi/Muiderberg may however be very effective against weaker opponents, that is not discussed in the article.

John

[helene_t]

Interesting.

But it could very well be that those players who use multi/muiderberg are simply weaker players. It would not be so difficult to correct for that. Instead of the raw mean scores obtained by multi/muiderberg, what should be reported is the residual relative to the per-board average for the match (or something like that).

[the hog]

Quote Jvage: "You are of course welcome to have have your own preferences, personally I no longer play neither Bergen nor Muiderberg (Tartan) if partner does not insist. If you think Multi and Muiderberg is a "must" the following link may be of interest: Multi and Muiderberg"

Just for the record, Muiderberg and Tartan 2 bids are not even remotely the same things. (Yes I have read Campanile's article btw.)
There are a few variations, but Muiderberg is not amongst them. here is one variation:

The 2-2 bids include strong balanced.
2C = A big hand or weak two in diamonds! (5+ card)
2D = Weak in hearts or Acol Two in diamonds or 19-20 2NT type
2H = Weak in spades or Acol Two in Hearts or 221-22 2NT type
2S = Acol two in spades or 5/5 - Spades and another - Strong or 4-92 NT = 5/5 hearts and another 4-9 points

[jvage]

You may be right or it may be another example of the name of a convention meaning different things to different people. I have never heard the name Muiderberg (or Lucas) used in Norway, but from what I have seen, including here Muiderberg, I believed it was a 2-suited 2♥/♠ opening, similar but maybe not identical to Lucas or Tartan. Tartan is the name used in the article (the writer is from Israel) and the most common name in Norway for a 2-suited 2M opening (very common in combination with Multi among tournamentplayers). In the article it seems 2M-openings that may include both majors are lumped together with systems that promise 4+ or 5+ in a minor (promising a minor is probably the most common, but both versions are called Tartan here in Norway).

[PedroG]

Hi All,

This was the reason why I made this question:

http://pedrobridge.a...ntorMentee.html

Thank you all that contributed...

Pedro Gil