Sunday, July 15, 2007

sayc "secrets"

SAYC, or 'Standard American Yellow Card' is a bridge bidding system used in North America. Due to increasing popularity of online bridge, it has become the de-facto standard for bidding. Unfortunatelly, many people seems to play their own variant.

I'll try to cover here some of the common misunderstandings. My reference is a recent book by Ned Downey and Ellen (Caitlin) Pomer, Standard bidding with SAYC, highly recommended if you are serious about bridge. Even if you are an expert you should buy this book, for reference.

Weak two openings, simple Stayman and transfers to majors after 1/2 NT are standard. There is no need to put in your BBO profile "sayc, weak 2, transfers", "sayc" would be enough. If you refuse to play weak twos or transfers, maybe it's time to step into 21 century ;-)

It is perfectly okay to open 1NT with a 5 card major (5332 distribution). The french school players hate this, the americans love it. Same goes for 2NT opening, of course when you have the required point range (15-17 for 1NT opening, 20-21 for 2NT).

A direct 2NT answer after 1 minor opening is Game Forcing (for example 1D - 2NT), 13-15 balanced hand (usually without four card major). This is highly unusual for european players, who play it as invitational, 11-12 HCP. I don't know which variant is better, I only say what SAYC is.

With 18-19 balanced hand you don't open 1NT or 2NT. Opening 1NT with 15-18 and 2NT with 19-22 is agricultural bridge. The way to show this is with a jump rebid in NT after opening 1 suit, for example: 1C - 1S - 2NT.

Enough "secrets" for one day, have fun with your game!

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