[caibirdcnb]

I am new in bridge world. I am studying bidding system, the SAYC, and I have a question:

In the link below from ACBL, it says:
1H-2H: 6-10 dummy points, 3+ support
1H-3H: 10-11 dummy points, 3+ support
1H-2NT: 13+ dummy points

So, what should I bid if I have 12 dummy points? Thanks.

ACBL SAYC link

[Stephen Tu]

2nt, the Jacoby 2nt raise, should be reserved for hands with 4 cd support. Usually balanced; with an unbalanced hand there are other options depending if you play conventions like splinter raises which aren't a part of sayc, but which tend to be tacked on to it as you and your partners get more advanced.

With 12 points, this is basically on the border between a game invite and a game force, and most of the time it won't matter since partner will accept most invitations. With some you should go high, treat it as 13, force to game, while others you go low and just invite. Hands with a lot of queens and jacks outside of trumps should go low vs hands with aces and kings; q/j are a bit overrated by the 4321 point system. 4+ trumps should be more aggressive than 3 trumps with similar high cards and side shape. Hands with a good 5cd side suit should be aggressive. 4333 hands should be conservative. Some of this should already be accounted for in counting dummy points which should add points for positive shape features.

So generally you either jump to 3h if you just want to invite. If you want to gf you bid 2nt (or splinter if playing that and appropriate), or bid a side suit followed by usually 4h with 3 cd support only.

Btw you should know that sayc isn't really a coherently designed system. It was a system made by committee, a hodgepodge of various once somewhat common treatments, thrown together with not much consideration of how things fit together. It was intended for these special games where everyone was forced to play the same system, which died out quickly. Unfortunately its availability in a relatively compact summary led to its adoption as a de facto std for online pickup bridge. As you learn it you will find holes and illogical treatments.

If you can find partners to play/learn "2/1 game force" with you, you might want to learn that sooner rather than later. It is slightly more complex, but is more coherent.

[FelicityR]

3♥ an invitation would be my bid with 12 'dummy' points. Most limit raises to the three level, showing 3+ trump support for opener's suit, are based around a 10-12 range or thereabouts.

If you are new to bridge, this might help. Remember that game in a major suit needs a trump fit (8 or more cards) and a combined 25-26 high card points minimum. Opener may have opened on a minimum 11-12 possibly, and you have 10-12, so if opener is slightly stronger you should be in game. But if opener has opened on a minimum hand, you only have a combined count of anywhere between 21-24, slightly short of game values. That is why 3♥ is an invitation to game.

As you get more experienced you will be able to evaluate differently, recognising that length and shortness in suits can also contribute to the total overall point count in your hand, and that high card points are not the only factor taken into consideration.

[P_Marlowe]

caibirdcnb, on 2018-July-13, 02:45, said:

<snip>
1H-3H: 10-11 dummy points, 3+ support
<snip>

modify this to
1H-3H: 11-12 dummy points, 3+ support
and you are ready to go.
I would assume, this is a typo.

A similar question would be, what to bid with 10 dummy points and 3+ support,
they say respond 2H, they say respond 3H.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Vampyr]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-July-13, 05:24, said:

If you can find partners to play/learn "2/1 game force" with you, you might want to learn that sooner rather than later. It is slightly more complex, but is more coherent.

Is 2/1 GF a “system”? There are many versions, and the books on the subject are not all the same. I would venture to say that it is any system where 2/1 is forcing to game, and that’s it.

In any case, I wonder whether it is more complicated than SA or SAYC? There is of course the weak point of the system, the forcing 1NT, but on the other hand in SA the 2/1 auctions are more complicated, because you have to work out which ones are forcing to game and which aren’t. And you can add any conventions or treatments you like meet your own desired level of complexity.

The forcing 1NT falls down worst when opener has a weak NT. this problem can be eliminated when a weak NT is opened in the first place. It is something to consider.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2018-July-13, 09:20, said:

Is 2/1 GF a “system”? There are many versions, and the books on the subject are not all the same. I would venture to say that it is any system where 2/1 is forcing to game, and that’s it.

In any case, I wonder whether it is more complicated than SA or SAYC?

2/1 GF is more a set of mechanisms than a system, but there are valid systems designed around 2/1 GF and they can be less complicated than SA.

Vampyr, on 2018-July-13, 09:20, said:

There is of course the weak point of the system, the forcing 1NT, but on the other hand in SA the 2/1 auctions are more complicated, because you have to work out which ones are forcing to game and which aren’t.

One could equally well argue that the non-forcing 1NT is the weak point of SA Forcing 1NT works just fine, although some of us agree that it can still be passed when holding a truly miserable 5322. 2/1 auctions are less complicated because once the GF is in place you have space and freedom to describe your hands without fear of repeating a suit or mis-stating your strength. It's the 1/1 auctions that require a substantial dose of conventions to reach a similar level of efficiency.

[Stephen Tu]

Vampyr, on 2018-July-13, 09:20, said:

Is 2/1 GF a "system"? There are many versions, and the books on the subject are not all the same. I would venture to say that it is any system where 2/1 is forcing to game, and that's it.

There are variations on certain sequences due to treatments and gadget choice. But the overall variations IMO are smaller than between flavors of SA in general, or Acol, or Precision. At least with 2/1 playing with a new adv/expert partner I only have to ask around < 10 questions before the game and have good hope of having no serious misunderstandings in a session.

Quote

In any case, I wonder whether it is more complicated than SA or SAYC? There is of course the weak point of the system, the forcing 1NT, but on the other hand in SA the 2/1 auctions are more complicated, because you have to work out which ones are forcing to game and which aren't. And you can add any conventions or treatments you like meet your own desired level of complexity.

In theory the only difference is 1nt forcing (or "semi-forcing") respone and the 2/1 sequences. I'd also argue that a checkback sequence after opener's 1nt rebid, and a forcing minor raise structure are essential to a system and glaring omissions from SAYC. Also RKC variants tend to be assumed rather than blackwood. If you say you play 2/1 there basically maybe 8 or so gadgets on top of SAYC that aren't really 100% required to play 2/1, but are considered "adv/expert std" that better players would expect to be available.

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The forcing 1NT falls down worst when opener has a weak NT. this problem can be eliminated when a weak NT is opened in the first place. It is something to consider.

I don't quite understand this claim. When opener has a min balanced hand you usually have decent auctions with the weak NT. Opener bids a minor, responder passes/bids new suit/preference to 2M/2nt/raises the minor, usually it's pretty straightforward and you land in a reasonable spot. You tend to play 2M in a 5-2 instead of 1nt on a lot of hands, but this actually works out well on average, plus you get to responder's long suit when responder is unbalanced but weak, which is usually a better contract than 1nt. The difficult auctions are when opener has a distributional hand because the rebid range is wide in strength and in distribution, and responder's range is also wide.

[ahydra]

Bid something else (1S/2C/2D) then jump to 4H on the next round, which shows a GF with 3-card support. Note it should have an upper limit - if you've got slam interest, perhaps 17+ "dummy points" (whatever those are), then you need to find an alternative route, normally via 4SF.

FWIW I don't like raising direct to 3 on only three cards. I prefer the jump to 3 to be about 9-11 with 4-card support, and with INV and 3 cards I bid as above (2x then 3H). Knowing if there's an extra trump or not can make a big difference to opener's valuation when he is borderline-game or borderline-slam.

ahydra

[Vampyr]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-July-13, 10:24, said:

I don't quite understand this claim. When opener has a min balanced hand you usually have decent auctions with the weak NT. Opener bids a minor, responder passes/bids new suit/preference to 2M/2nt/raises the minor, usually it's pretty straightforward and you land in a reasonable spot. You tend to play 2M in a 5-2 instead of 1nt on a lot of hands, but this actually works out well on average, plus you get to responder's long suit when responder is unbalanced but weak, which is usually a better contract than 1nt.

You can do all of those things, but what you can’t do is play in 1NT. Also I am not sure that responder’s suit at the 3-level is “usually” a better contract than 1NT. And you might be able to,get there anyway, because with a 1NT opener and a weak responder opponents will probably not be silent.

Quote

The difficult auctions are when opener has a distributional hand because the rebid range is wide in strength and in distribution, and responder's range is also wide.

This is not too much different to other systems. Probably it is a bit better, since some hands that would otherwise bid 2/1 now bid 1NT, which limits the hand and established the lack of a game force immediately.

ahydra, on 2018-July-13, 18:57, said:

FWIW I don't like raising direct to 3 on only three cards. I prefer the jump to 3 to be about 9-11 with 4-card support, and with INV and 3 cards I bid as above (2x then 3H). Knowing if there's an extra trump or not can make a big difference to opener's valuation when he is borderline-game or borderline-slam.

Yes, actually I was surprised by the number of people advocating a 3-card limit raise, but I assumed that it was explicitly a feature of SAYC. The auction you mention is what I use in my Acol approach, but this is one of those situations I alluded to above: there may be no firm agreement on whether 3M is forcing. Logically it is not, but this system is recommended to beginners who will not have the experience to work out what is “logical” and what is not.

[Stephen Tu]

Vampyr, on 2018-July-13, 20:26, said:

You can do all of those things, but what you can't do is play in 1NT. Also I am not sure that responder's suit at the 3-level is "usually" a better contract than 1NT.

It's typically 5-2 in 2M or responder's suit at *2 level" when pass 2c or bid 2d/2h.
Playing in 1nt is not a big win on these hands. Actually it is probably a bit of a loss. Many years ago a poster on r.g.b studied this in detail, he set out on a simulation study assuming that playing 1nt was going to be a win and was trying to quantify how big it was. To his surprise,when opener is balanced, playing the forcing NT and forcing your side to a suit partial was better in terms of making by ~9% or so. Certainly there are hands where 1nt fared better but they were canceled out, and the FNT was actually net positive.
After all we are all familiar with playing 5-2 M fit when responder bids a major over 1nt; here we just play opener's major instead. Some of these will be better than 1nt, some worse.

The win in playing NF NT is more on the unbalanced hands where opener rebids a minor, then responder can make a better decision about whether to take a preference or not knowing the suit is real. But if you do play forcing NT for various reasons you aren't actually losing out in the long run on the subset of hands where opener actually holds a weak NT from not being able to play in 1nt.

The problem with opening wk nt with all the 5cM hands is that reasonably often you have 8/9 cd fit in the major, but responder is too weak to stayman and has to pass. These hands tend to be losses vs playing in the major.

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Yes, actually I was surprised by the number of people advocating a 3-card limit raise, but I assumed that it was explicitly a feature of SAYC. The auction you mention is what I use in my Acol approach, but this is one of those situations I alluded to above: there may be no firm agreement on whether 3M is forcing. Logically it is not, but this system is recommended to beginners who will not have the experience to work out what is "logical" and what is not.

In modern SA without obscure gadgets:

• 1M-3M is definitely inv NF. This migrated over from Acol I think; in ancient SA 1M-3M was GF raise. It shows 4 cds if one plays forcing 1NT to show 3 cd LR. SAYC doesn't have forcing 1nt so 3M shows 3 or more. This is probably fine, just be slightly stronger for the hands with 3cd support than the ones with 4 cd support and you should get to mostly the right set of games. This also makes things harder for the defense since they don't know how many trumps and haven't heard a rebid from opener.
• 1M-2x-2y-3M jump preference raise has always been GF in SA unlike in Acol. Americans aren't likely to play this as NF. This makes slam bidding easier when you can set trumps below game.
• 1M-2x-2y-2M, 1M-2x-2M-3M -- in traditional SA, these cheapest pref/raise were always NF inv. Which can be a pain with the latter sequence when you have a slammish hand and want to force, too strong to just jump to game, unsuited to blackwood. You'd have to futz around bidding a new suit then raise and hope partner got the message. Now logically, if you force responder to always jump raise immediately with all LR, 3 or 4 cds, you can play at least the 2nd sequence as forcing (1st sequence maybe 2 cd preference), and make things easier when you are slamming. But without discussion of this wrinkle, I would not be surprised to see partner pass these sequences since in SA these were NF for so long, as opposed to 2/1 / Eastern scientific. SAYC pamphlet doesn't explicitly discuss this so without partnership agreement I would assume the traditional NF meaning applies.

These ambiguities are why I think it's better just to learn 2/1 from the start, if you are based in US or online. At least you know solidly when you can get dropped short of game or not, even though some ranges might be unclear! Bridge world standard is now a 2/1 GF system, Larry Cohen advocates teaching beginners 2/1 from the start.

[Tharinda97]

I use this method:
When raising partner's suit I add 1 for a doubleton, 3 for a singleton and 5 for a void. These are called short suit points.

Total Points (TP) = HCP + Short Suit Points

6-9 TP :- 1♥-2♥ (Simple raise)
10-11 TP :- 1♥-3♥ (Limit raise)
12+ TP :- Respond in a new suit & show your support later

This is the method used in Fred Gitelman's "Learn to Play Bridge" programme. You can download it FREE on BBO homepage.

[maartenxq]

ahydra, on 2018-July-13, 18:57, said:

FWIW I don't like raising direct to 3 on only three cards. I prefer the jump to 3 to be about 9-11 with 4-card support, and with INV and 3 cards I bid as above (2x then 3H). Knowing if there's an extra trump or not can make a big difference to opener's valuation when he is borderline-game or borderline-slam.
ahydra

10-12 points with 3crd support is a most awkard holding, certainly when partner is apt to open weak 11/12 holdings. You want to tell him you have a decent hand and reasonable support, knowing that any bid on the 3 level can be too high. Which makes matters worse, on such holdings opponents cannot score plus, except by our going down. With 4 card support this is a lot easier. If we go down in 3 ♥/♠ opponents generally have a plus of their own.\
One solution is to agree that 1st and 2cd hand openings are not garbage ie decent suit and/or about 13 + HCP. Now you invite with balanced 12 count or bid game with some distribution and/or more aces and kings than jack and queens in your 12 points.
In my opinion it is nopt only a matter of system but also or even more of judgement and partnership understanding.

A similar question arises after
1 ♣ - 1♥
1 NT - ?
You having a balanced 10-12. Sayc advises you to invite for 3 nt, I tend to pass quasi-automatically. In my experience inviting results in going down in 2 or 3 NT as partner has a weak nt opener himself. Passing can also result in competing opponents. Now we can double.

Maarten Baltussen

[PhilG007]

If I have an alternate suit to show,I bid it first to find out partner's strength. Remember opener has a range of 12-19 hcps This change of suit is a one round force
and opener's rebid will determine my next move. Lacking an alternate suit,with12 points and 3 card heart support,I would respond 3♥ which is not forcing to game but highly invitational.

[Vampyr]

Tharinda97, on 2018-July-14, 00:44, said:

I use this method:
When raising partner's suit I add 1 for a doubleton, 3 for a singleton and 5 for a void. These are called short suit points.

This is a bit excessive. Perhaps 1for a doubleton, 2 for a singleton and the void worth the number of trumps you have is a bit more sensible.

[pes_6]

With 6-9 and fit 2♥, with 10-12 and fit 3♥, with 13+ and 4 or more ♥ 2nt, with 13+ and exactly 3♥ new suit on lowest level in the best suit so 1♠/2♣/2♦.

[msjennifer]

Dummy points ,I assume ,includes a guaranteed 3plus card support.One can deal with this situation in a number of ways depending upon the rest of the distribution.If there is a decent five card suit then we bid that suit at 2 level and show the support later.If not then we use the LTC and show the support immediately.With 8 losers we bid 3H and with 7 losers we bid the game immediately.Of course I do not suggest that others may use it as it all depends upon the partnership style.

[Winstonm]

caibirdcnb, on 2018-July-13, 02:45, said:

I am new in bridge world. I am studying bidding system, the SAYC, and I have a question:

In the link below from ACBL, it says:
1H-2H: 6-10 dummy points, 3+ support
1H-3H: 10-11 dummy points, 3+ support
1H-2NT: 13+ dummy points

So, what should I bid if I have 12 dummy points? Thanks.

ACBL SAYC link

As a new player, this can all be a bit confusing. It might help to keep in mind that these are guidelines rather than rigid rules - there is no referee to penalize you for raising 1H to 2H with slighly less or slightly more strength than the system notes say.

There is also the consideration of opening bid strength. As you progress at bridge, you will find that some players tend to open with solid hands and others with slighly weaker hands. How you and your partner open the bidding makes a difference in how strong your invitational and game-forcing responses should be.

As a extremely generalized example, if you and partner routinely open 11-point hands, then a game forcing raise (like Jacoby 2N) would need to be in the 14-point range. Limit raises more in the 11-13 range.

To me, the main consideration is to ask yourself: why am I learning to play bridge? If your goal is to play for pleasure and pastime, I urge keeping it simple and enjoyable; however, if you would like to play tournament and competitive club bridge, I would also urge you to move past SAYC as soon as possible, but without sacrificing basics.

It is hard to know where you are on the learning curve. Personally, I think it is proper for a rank beginner to learn the rudimentaries of the game with a bidding system of 4-card majors, like basic Goren or perhaps Acol. The reason to do this is to learn the whys behind the modifications of more advanced systems - and it gets you to playing hands much faster than worrying all day long about the bidding. Bidding is critical, of course, but that can be learned in time. The first step is to play and become fascinated with this fascinating game - even if that means using a basic Goren cheat sheet in a non-competitive game with friends.

[gszes]

Temporizing Bid this term means making up another natural and forcing bid in order to reveal your true intentions later.
After a 1H opening bid YOU HOLD:

KJx Qxx xxx AQxx Your balanced distribution and minimal heart support means treating your 12 pts more like 11 bid 3h
xx Kxxx xx AKxxx Only ten hcp but good 4 card support and a decent club suit make this hand closer to game forcing I would start with 2c and later raise to 4h over any simple rebid by opener
KQ xxxx KQ xxxxx BY contrast this aceless ten count with no HCP inside your side's 2 known long suits is worth only a 2h raise
KQx xxx Qxx Kxxx Ten count balanced hand minimal support raise to 2h
AKxx Axx JTx xxx Even though you have 12 count and 3 hearts it is best to bid 1s (shows 4+ spades) just in case you can find the generally superior 44 spade fit vs a 53 heart fit


The concept of ALL bidding systems is to try to tell the least lie when you do not have a clear cut systemic bid.

[schongau]

Drury ?