[nige1]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-February-14, 22:18, said:

.If one bids 1nt followed by diamonds, I think it's ludicrous for opener to bid heart fragment over this as some posters suggest. You don't want to be in game, you want to play in diamonds, partner has diamond 1 suiter a bazillion times more frequently than they are 5-6 in the reds. This kind of bidding requires some sort of cheating mechanism.

After 1♠-1N-2♣-2♦ responder is likely to have 4+ ♥s or ♠ tolerance. If all he has is 7 ♦s, then you could finish a level higher. This does not assume a cheating mechanism -- just that the 2♥ fragment doesn't promise extra values.

[Stephen Tu]

nige1, on 2019-February-15, 03:00, said:

After 1♠-1N-2♣-2♦ responder is likely to have 4+ ♥s or ♠ tolerance. If all he has is 7 ♦s, then you could finish a level higher. This does not assume a cheating mechanism -- just that the 2♥ fragment doesn't promise extra values.

Spade tolerance is supposed to bid 2s unless 6+ diamonds. 2d is going to be 6+ most of the time IMO. I'm not pulling a 6-1 fit on very rare chance to improve the partial, especially holding a diamond honor.

[blackshoe]

billyjef, on 2019-February-13, 22:19, said:

My memory is that there are a lot of agreements that are in/on the "official" ACBL Card or booklet, that most don't play. i.e. convention wise: 4th Suit Forcing, Jordan 2NT, even Jacoby 2nt..also agreements like new suits at the 1 level are forcing after an opponents TOX, but not at the two level...etc. Last I played it, almost 2 decades now, I felt I had to be specific as to what manner of SAYC I was playing and I'm sure I would often ask if someone played "full" SAYC; meaning have you read the booklet and play everything it recommends.

By definition, SAYC includes everything on the official card. If you're not playing some of those things, or you are playing something in addition to those things (there are, iirc, two or three exceptions having to do with card play) then you are not playing SAYC and should not call your system any kind of SAYC. In short, there is only one SAYC, and it's what's defined on the card and in the booklet.

[miamijd]

The BART convention handles this hand very well. It is probably more of a plus than a minus overall, but you will end up in some 3/3 club fits when responder has something like 1453.

Mike

[miamijd]

nige1, on 2019-February-15, 03:00, said:

After 1♠-1N-2♣-2♦ responder is likely to have 4+ ♥s or ♠ tolerance. If all he has is 7 ♦s, then you could finish a level higher. This does not assume a cheating mechanism -- just that the 2♥ fragment doesn't promise extra values.

If you want a mechanism to uncover responder's heart suit at a low level, then play BART over 1S-1NT(f). Much better than your fragment bid suggestion, which will get you too high on the more common hands where partner isn't 5/6 in the reds but just has a diamond suit and which makes it more difficult to show hands with 5314 or the like that do have extra values.

Cheers,
Mike

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2019-February-15, 10:14, said:

By definition, SAYC includes everything on the official card. If you're not playing some of those things, or you are playing something in addition to those things (there are, iirc, two or three exceptions having to do with card play) then you are not playing SAYC and should not call your system any kind of SAYC. In short, there is only one SAYC, and it's what's defined on the card and in the booklet.

Who made you the language ruler of the bridge world? Words mean what people use them to mean, not what some arbitrary piece of paper says.

The simple fact is that many people claim to play SAYC, even though they haven't studied the booklet. When I used to play with randoms on OKbrige, I had something like "SAYC -- remember, this includes Jacoby 2NT" in my profile, because I'd run into many people who had SAYC in their profile but didn't play this.

I think many of them simply think that SAYC is another name for SA; it's basically just 5-card majors, strong NT with simple Jacoby transfers, and regular Blackwood.

The SAYC booklet also leaves quite a bit unsaid, and you have to infer a number of treatments from the gaps. These inferences are not always completely obvious.

[billyjef]

blackshoe, on 2019-February-15, 10:14, said:

By definition, SAYC includes everything on the official card. If you're not playing some of those things, or you are playing something in addition to those things (there are, iirc, two or three exceptions having to do with card play) then you are not playing SAYC and should not call your system any kind of SAYC. In short, there is only one SAYC, and it's what's defined on the card and in the booklet.

LOL, I agree, sadly, irl, this leads to disastrous results.

[billyjef]

crasshackr, on 2019-February-14, 17:28, said:

I'm not really sure that there's an "official" SAYC standard, but the book "Standard Bidding with SAYC" tries to pull together from various sources to give a fairly good definition of what's included and what's not. It's a book I definitely recommend highly in any case.

ACBL Official SAYC System Booklet

Pomer's book good too.

[Vampyr]

A friend of mine, who is a very fine player, plays that 2/1 is GF except 1♦-2♣ and 1♠-2♥.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2019-February-20, 14:26, said:

A friend of mine, who is a very fine player, plays that 2/1 is GF except 1♦-2♣ and 1♠-2♥.

I play that 1♦-2♣ and 1♠-2♥ and even 1♣-2♣ are also GF, should I give up hope?

[rmnka447]

pescetom, on 2019-February-20, 15:45, said:

I play that 1♦-2♣ and 1♠-2♥ and even 1♣-2♣ are also GF, should I give up hope?

Nope, it's a choice you make and should work OK provided you gear your system to playing that way. Here in the US, 2/1 is played a number of ways by various players including experts. So there is no one specific official way to play.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2019-February-15, 17:51, said:

Who made you the language ruler of the bridge world? Words mean what people use them to mean, not what some arbitrary piece of paper says.

The simple fact is that many people claim to play SAYC, even though they haven't studied the booklet. When I used to play with randoms on OKbrige, I had something like "SAYC -- remember, this includes Jacoby 2NT" in my profile, because I'd run into many people who had SAYC in their profile but didn't play this.

I think many of them simply think that SAYC is another name for SA; it's basically just 5-card majors, strong NT with simple Jacoby transfers, and regular Blackwood.

The SAYC booklet also leaves quite a bit unsaid, and you have to infer a number of treatments from the gaps. These inferences are not always completely obvious.

Nobody made me any kind of ruler of anything. I simply report what the ACBL itself says in the SAYC booklet. If you don't like that, take it up with them.