[mgoetze]

wickedbid1, on 2011-June-19, 20:27, said:

Sorry, by "Standard", i mean "most common statistically if one has to guess", which i suppose is a very idiosyncratic usage.

Not where I play, fortunately.

Quote

SAYC was once a fairly stable system, but no longer. Playing on-line pick-up I can't respond Two NT to a one level opening anymore, for example, because 30-40% think it is 10-12, 30-40% think it is 13-15, 5-10% treat it as forcing unlimited, and quite a few assume Jacoby without Jacoby being on either of our profiles!

Ahem... if your profile says "SAYC" then it means you are playing Jacoby 2NT. There are not many different versions of SAYC, there is only one. It is defined by the ACBL, and includes Jacoby 2NT.
http://web2.acbl.org.../play/SP3%20(bk)%20single%20pages.pdf

If your profile simply said "Standard American" or "Better Minor" or whatever, that would be a different matter.

[blackshoe]

There is a specific and narrow definition of SAYC. There are people who use the term to mean something else. Humpty Dumpty lives!

True story: years ago, at a local club, the director introduced me to a new player, suggesting that we play together. Fine with me. New partner said, very proudly, "I play SAYC!" "Good," sez I, "then you play Jacoby 2NT". "What's that?" she asks. Played with her for two and a half years, and she never did learn Jacoby 2NT.

[wickedbid1]

mgoetze, on 2011-June-24, 02:38, said:

Not where I play, fortunately.



Ahem... if your profile says "SAYC" then it means you are playing Jacoby 2NT. There are not many different versions of SAYC, there is only one. It is defined by the ACBL, and includes Jacoby 2NT.
http://web2.acbl.org.../play/SP3%20(bk)%20single%20pages.pdf

If your profile simply said "Standard American" or "Better Minor" or whatever, that would be a different matter.

Yes, u r correct about what the ACBL Sayc says. My post was a good example of hasty, emotional posting because i was conflating opening one of a major & one of a minor.

1 cl/di -- 2nt was always, I believe, and still is, 13-15 on the Standard American Yellow Card, the Standard American Green Card and the Standard American Orange Card.

Yet it is true that i have had people respond "jacoby?" at this site to my one of a minor openings, and they pass 1cl-2nt sequences quite often, even when only Sayc is on their profile.

A large percentage of the people who play in the Relaxed Room in particular put "Sayc" on their profile, but respond to 1 of a Major with 2nt 13-15, bal., or 11-12 bal.

The 13-15ers can be somewhat excused because the ACBL does not teach Jacoby Two NT as part of its lessons. If u go to the "Bidding in the 21st Century Teacher Manual" at the same ACBL site (sounds promising doesn't it?) u can find examples on p. 80 of auctions 1 M - 2nt, with bal. 13-15.

This is how it was done on the Standard American Green Card and the Standard American Yellow Card back in the 80s. But if memory serves me correctly, the Standard American Orange Card had Jacoby 2NT and a few other of the common at that time conventions, so it could be perceived as a "step up" from the Standard American Yellow Card.

The SAGC evolved into Audrey Grant's Club Series (which improved it through simplification).

I am not sure exactly when the SAYC was revised to include Texas & Jacoby 2NT (there was still a bit of a war going on between supporters of Texas & South African Transfers) -- the Orange Card was never used by anybody really, because once people thought they had mastered the Green & the Yellow, they felt it was time to individualize their systems. Orange cards only came out at our club for individual events, where u could flip from the one standard profile to the other.... the green & yellow cards were always dog-eared, but the Orange ones pristine....

The REAL reason these cards came out, in my opinion, is that alerting was driving players crazy at the time -- every three months the Board of Directors was changing around what had to be alerted and what didn't (and what was being allowed to be played, and then they added ANNOUNCEMENTS too!). It was just a side benefit that the pre-filled-out cards could be used by the students too lazy to fill out a regular Convention Card at our ACBL sanctioned university club. (I was playing Polish Club at the time -- SHHH, don't report me to the Downvote Police!)

Sayc has been revised, and I guess the point I was trying to get to in my sadly confused way was that the SAYC genie is out of the bottle with on-line play... 1 cl/1 di -- 2nt (inv.) is destined to become "Standard" some day soon. Right now it is a coin flip, unless pard's profile is laid out so logically that one feels confident about it.

[blackshoe]

Every three months? Pull the other one.

Never heard of an Orange card. Haven't seen a Green card in ages. As for the Yellow card, a while back I pointed out to somebody at ACBL HQ that the then conditions of contest required a pair w/o a substantially completed convention card to play only "class A conventions", a term the convention charts no longer used. So they changed it to require they play SAYC. This, of course, sort of obligates clubs to have at least a few on hand, in case the situation comes up. One club around here has some, because when I was directing there, I bought them. I should say "had". It's been several months since I last directed at that club; I wouldn't be surprised if they've disappeared by now. At the other clubs in this area, the regulation is never enforced. <shrug> I don't know whether TDs at Sectionals or Regionals in this area keep a few on hand. I've not played in a tournament in a while. Can't speak at all to other areas, of course.

[Lurpoa]

han, on 2011-June-17, 07:20, said:

Following JLOGIC my partner and I agreed last weekend to play that double is 4-5 spades (or 6+ with slam interest) and 3S shows a balanced hand without a spade stopper. To quote my partner: it is very unnatural to me to play that 3S shows spades in this auction.

Deleted rude post that's just a personal attack - Rain

[helene_t]

wickedbid1, on 2011-June-19, 20:27, said:

Classic Sayc, of course you know, is 13-15, like BBO Standard. Classic Sayc has no bid for 11-12 very flat hands that can't respond one over one in a four card suit, rather embarrassing for such a venerable system, but there is a price to pay for simplicity.

With 11 points you respond at the 2-level and bid 2NT next time (or raise partner's suit if he repeats it). With 12 points you can probably force to game, I would assume sound openings if all we have agreed on is "SAYC". With 10 points I respond 1NT as opener, if he passes 1NT, has 12-14 balanced most of the time, but if a decent 10 count is worth a 2-level response in our style then that is fine, too.

So there is no problem here. Except that if opener has a (43)42 12-count and responder a 3334 11-count it looks as if we should bid
1♦-2♣
2NT-3NT
which can't be right. I think most forum people subscribe to AWM's interpretation, namely that opener must rebid 2♦ as 2NT shows a little extras, say 14 or a good 13. But I also think it is something you will have to check with your partner, even if you are confident that he has read the SAYC documentation.

[gwnn]

You are slightly confused Lurpoa. "han" and "hanp" are not the same letters.

also,

Wikipedia said:

Schizophrenia is not the same thing as Dissociative identity disorder, namely split or multiple personalities.[261][262][263][264][265][266][267] Etymologically, the term "schizophrenia" comes from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; "mind") and is a juxtaposition proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, which may have given rise to this common misconception.

[JLOGIC]

Lurpoa, on 2011-June-30, 00:52, said:

Deleted rude post that's just a personal attack - Rain

lol.

Yeah han and hanp are seperate btw, as my title says "aka hanp" but I am not han

[han]

I never saw the deleted post but if lurpoa thought that Justin and I are the same then I am deeply insulted. Hey, this might be the first time I agree with a decision by Rain!

[FrancesHinden]

han, on 2011-June-17, 07:20, said:

Following JLOGIC my partner and I agreed last weekend to play that double is 4-5 spades (or 6+ with slam interest) and 3S shows a balanced hand without a spade stopper. To quote my partner: it is very unnatural to me to play that 3S shows spades in this auction.

Maybe we should try this. We play 1NT (3D) 3H as spades and 3S as hearts, but we haven't got to this treatment yet.
I'm usually a bit unconvinced about 'right-siding' issues because it's often a guess as to who should be declarer, but his is an auction where you definitely want the opener to be declarer.

[wickedbid1]

helene_t, on 2011-June-30, 02:36, said:

With 11 points you respond at the 2-level and bid 2NT next time (or raise partner's suit if he repeats it). With 12 points you can probably force to game, I would assume sound openings if all we have agreed on is "SAYC". With 10 points I respond 1NT as opener, if he passes 1NT, has 12-14 balanced most of the time, but if a decent 10 count is worth a 2-level response in our style then that is fine, too.

So there is no problem here. Except that if opener has a (43)42 12-count and responder a 3334 11-count it looks as if we should bid
1♦-2♣
2NT-3NT
which can't be right. I think most forum people subscribe to AWM's interpretation, namely that opener must rebid 2♦ as 2NT shows a little extras, say 14 or a good 13. But I also think it is something you will have to check with your partner, even if you are confident that he has read the SAYC documentation.

You are quite right in pointing out that compensating for the 3-3-3-4 fudge leads almost inevitably to one of two more coinflip guesses. I also prefer to play the "neutral" 2 di rebid, but many pards just won't let the di's go when u try to "cancel" the di rebid by pulling back to NT. And many pards will assume extras if one bids 2nt (without discussion i usually just bid 2nt on anything with a few tenaces, but i like to have extras...and would make this a firm agreement with a regular pard).

The premise of my discussion of SAYC is that one has not worked out these trickier agreements with one's partner -- the whole point of SAYC online & its f2f incarnation was to try to build a system where there would be minimal problems playing with minimal system discussion.

Since this particular sequence is annoying, I noted it in passing, as an example of the elegance of system simplicity resulting in sometimes embarrassing guesses.

If people want to put forward other candidates for a universal system, I am fine with that. But I think that SAYC has proven itself to be functional, overall, for this purpose. Little tinkers with it, like 1m --2nt (11-12), without changing the name, is exactly what will kill it, possibly leaving us with a tower of babble.

Let's not let SAYC go the way of "Goren" until we are fairly sure we know what is going to be the next BIG THING (Is there a "Classic 2/1" yet? Not quite.) We need to be firm about the distinction between "Classic SAYC" and private partnership preferences or geographically local tendencies.

[JLOGIC]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-July-02, 11:53, said:

Maybe we should try this. We play 1NT (3D) 3H as spades and 3S as hearts, but we haven't got to this treatment yet.
I'm usually a bit unconvinced about 'right-siding' issues because it's often a guess as to who should be declarer, but his is an auction where you definitely want the opener to be declarer.

You also get to have an invite in spades this way which is nice.