[hrothgar]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-03, 19:45, said:

Who wrote the 'booklet'? What's wrong? The cat got your tongue?

Don't know. Don't care.

Perhaps you might explain why this particular factoid matters?

[the hog]

Beatrix, the rubbish people put on their profiles is in no way indicative of their level of play or their knowledge of the game. I know some experts, real ones, internationals, who play as private, novice or advanced. I see many world class players who are no better than rank beginners.
Read the content of the posts that people make. To answer your question about the SAYC booklet, it was written by the American Contract Bridge League.

[beatrix45]

hrothgar, on 2014-July-03, 20:48, said:

Don't know. Don't care.

Perhaps you might explain why this particular factoid matters?

It matters because bad players should never presume to teach potentially good players beyond a certain minimal level of endeavor in any sort of affairs. God loves you if you spot talent, but he hates it when and if you ruin it by your own ego.

[the hog]

I may be obtuse, but I do not understand your comment above.
As an aside, I think it is good bridge that 1S 2H 3H is forcing in any system. The bid does take up so much room.

[helene_t]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-03, 21:12, said:

It matters because bad players should never presume to teach potentially good players beyond a certain minimal level of endeavor in any sort of affairs. God loves you if you spot talent, but he hates it when and if you ruin it by your own ego.

Nobody is teaching anyone bridge in this dispute. It is only about reading comprehension. You don't need to be able to take a finesse or to ruff a loser in dummy in order to find out which bids are forcing in SAYC.

I am not a good piano player but I would be able to find the birth year of Chopin, by using Google, just as reliably as a good piano player would.

Besides, you don't know who are good bridge players here. Zel said I had a Q ranking, I am flattered, but I am probably gaming the system by playing with overseas experts without a ranking, and by dragging random club partners that score 35% in weak fields with other partners up to 50% by hogging a lot of hands. I know that Fluffy, MikeH, PhantomSac, FrancesHinden and a few others must be good players because they have played in Bermuda Bowl or Camrose, but other than that I have no clue about the posters' abilities, and neither have you.

[hrothgar]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-03, 21:12, said:

It matters because bad players should never presume to teach potentially good players beyond a certain minimal level of endeavor in any sort of affairs. God loves you if you spot talent, but he hates it when and if you ruin it by your own ego.

In a similar vein, if your reading comprehension skills haven't progressed beyond that of a 6th grader, you might not want to participate in internet forums.
It only leads to embarrassment.

Regardless, if you have problems with the way SAYC is defined, take it up with the ACBL.

Most of the folks on this thread aren't arguing about what the various bids should show, rather they are pointing out that you are startling ignorant regarding:

1. What SAYC is (At the start of this thread, you had no idea how/when the system was defined)
2. What the agreements in SAYC actually show

From the looks of things, you've decided that belligerence, insult, and egotism are appropriate way to compensate for stupidity.

Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in belligerence and insult and I'm as egotistical as any.
But honey, trust me when I say that you can't pull this off...

[beatrix45]

the hog, on 2014-July-03, 21:06, said:

Beatrix, the rubbish people put on their profiles is in no way indicative of their level of play or their knowledge of the game. I know some experts, real ones, internationals, who play as private, novice or advanced. I see many world class players who are no better than rank beginners.
Read the content of the posts that people make. To answer your question about the SAYC booklet, it was written by the American Contract Bridge League.

The ACBL published the dreaded 'booklet'. My question is who wrote it? Somebody ought to know.

As far as ranking players is concerned, I have been using a now apparently defunct website called BBO Skill 2.0. I have no idea how it works, but it seems to rank me and other players I know about right.

Sorry if I jangled a few egos, but over the past few years BBO forums have been hijacked by hacks and fake experts. They still serve a social purpose, but they are no longer of much help to me. I live in a remote area and rely more on the internet than most. No matter. The real players must have gone somewhere. All I have to do is find them.

One sure truth is that you very likely cannot improve your game taking lessons from your peers and certainly not by taking lessons from weaker players.

[gordontd]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 05:33, said:

The ACBL published the dreaded 'booklet'. My question is who wrote it? Somebody ought to know.

It has all the hallmarks of something that was written by a committee.

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 05:33, said:

As far as ranking players is concerned, I have been using a now apparently defunct website called BBO Skill 2.0. I have no idea how it works, but it seems to rank me and other players I know about right.

I don't think many others share your confidence in its accuracy. It does still seem to be functioning, although I couldn't find you there.

[masse24]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 05:33, said:

The ACBL published the dreaded 'booklet'. My question is who wrote it? Somebody ought to know.

The “dreaded booklet” is SAYC and SAYC is the “dreaded booklet.” They are one and the same.

Who wrote the “dreaded booklet?”

Who cares? It matters not. The FACT that the “ACBL SAYC System Booklet” on the ACBL website is what defines SAYC is incontrovertible.

Acknowledging this FACT is easy. All you need to do is type it. One more post. Short. Simple. That’s all.

Admitting you are wrong does not make you a bad person. It does not make you ignorant or stupid. We all have our own areas of ignorance. Hopefully, by having an open mind, a willingness to learn, and the innate intelligence to assimilate new information, we eliminate them. This area, what is and is not SAYC, is your area of ignorance. What is especially disconcerting, and painfully apparent is, you have willfully chosen to continue your ignorance. You refuse to acknowledge the evidence before you. And you continue, through your cantankerous diatribe, to insist in your infallibility. That reeks of a closed mind and displays a level of belligerence generally found in children.

You have been exposed.

[hrothgar]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 05:33, said:

The ACBL published the dreaded 'booklet'. My question is who wrote it? Somebody ought to know.

The booklet was written close to 30 years by an organization that has absolutely no relationship to this mailing list.

Crowdsourcing is a wonderful thing. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that someone on this forum happened to know the answer.
Looks like it isn't the case this time around. Learn to accept this.

Question for you: You've posted your question half a dozen times or so...
What makes you think that asking the same question again is going to generate a different response?
If you really care about the answer, wouldn't it make sense to ask the ACBL?
Someone there might be able to give you the close that you apparently crave...

Quote

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

[Trinidad]

This thread reminds me of a true story, long time ago. My wife and I were representing our local bridge club in the national league teams competition in the 3rd division. This division consisted of three groups. Our team was captained by an eternal palooka who wanted to have a nice game of bridge. We wanted to play in the second division the next year (and the first the year after). We had easily won our group with the national mixed pairs champions as our team mates most of the time and the captain and palooka partner playing only the required amount of matches.

At the end of the season, the winners of the groups needed to play a three way match for two places in the 2nd division. Despite the fact that everybody was available to play, the captain decided to field himself and his partner for these decision matches. His reasoning was very simple: "We will win these matches easily, since I have never played against these guys before, so they can't be of the same level as we."

Apart from the first clause, he was entirely correct. The other two teams consisted of players that had represented the country internationally combined with some junior internationalists, but since they had formed new teams they needed to start in the third division and fight there way up again. With our other team mates, my wife and I felt that we would have had something like a fighting chance. Now, we lost both matches something like 22-8 and the last match did not need to be played.

You can decide among yourselves who represents my palooka friend in this story.

Rik

[beatrix45]

gordontd, on 2014-July-04, 05:46, said:

I don't think many others share your confidence in its accuracy. It does still seem to be functioning, although I couldn't find you there.

Nearly always when I played on BBO, I used a male alias. It has helped a lot in finding partners for the ACBL Speedball games. Believe it or not, sexism is alive and well even in the bridge world. We both share an Expert- rating on BBO Skill 2.0. I like to think that excluding games where I was not drunk or one toke over the line, my rating might have been a little better, but there is no proof of that.

At one time I did do a fairly intensive investigation of my actual and prospective partners for the ACBL Speedball. All I had to go on was a couple of months of recent BBO results for each player. All of the players who turned out to be any good averaged plus IMPs per board in pay for play BBO tournaments. Mostly it was between +0.25 to 0.50 IMPs per board. Averaging more than 0.50 IMPs per board was rare. You have to be really good to do that over any length of time. Such players do exist, just not me except for short intervals.

In any event, processing BBO hand records to determine a player's skill level ain't that hard.

Again. My main moan is the takeover of BBO Forums by the same fake experts, blowhards and self-important morons who inhabit small-time bridge clubs all over North America and Europe. I guess it is like the man said: "Everybody has to be somewhere."

[ArtK78]

Is anyone else as tired of this thread as I am?

[aguahombre]

1eyedjack, on 2014-June-14, 09:29, said:

A problem is that when 1N is the right spot, the partnership seldom has enough information so to be able to conclude on an informed basis at the point when the decision is required. It is certainly unreliable for opener to make a unilateral decision on that front purely because he has (say) a balanced hand in context. When evaluating the price to be paid in having 1N forcing, you need to consider not just the frequency of 1N being the right contract, but also the frequency of accurately so assessing when a non-forcing 1N response is made.

This is an excellent description of the can of worms involved. We have found that a truly forcing 1NT in our version of 2/1 allows so many holes to be filled (even as a passed hand) that we are willing to never look back with concern about how often 1NT might have played better than a 5-2 2M or somesuch. The list of possible hand patterns and different strengths for responder which can be sorted out by the mere existence of a forcing NT goes on and on.

But, still, it is a choice contingent on all of a pair's other agreements and should neither be recommended to nor criticized by anyone out of context. The case for NF or SF NT is valid for many pairs.

[gwnn]

ArtK78, on 2014-July-04, 08:59, said:

Is anyone else as tired of this thread as I am?

Actually we got quite a few memorable one-liners out of it, even you remarked that!

[1eyedjack]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 08:54, said:

Again. My main moan is the takeover of BBO Forums by the same fake experts, blowhards and self-important morons who inhabit small-time bridge clubs all over North America and Europe.

I see very little evidence of this. Of course it could be me to whom you refer, in which case my observation would hardly be surprising.

These forums, as with any public forums, are not bad at self regulation when it comes to weeding out the cr*p. Post an ill considered comment and in no short order you will find out about it. It is hard to post consistent drivel here without being stomped on by all and sundry. As you have discovered.

[Zelandakh]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 08:54, said:

Averaging more than 0.50 IMPs per board was rare. You have to be really good to do that over any length of time.

No you don't, really. I was averaging over an imp per board for over a year. According to you that would make me really good, whereas in fact it just represented the level of my opponents and the fact that I played a detailed system with a regular partner.

Besides, putting

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 05:33, said:

As far as ranking players is concerned, I have been using a now apparently defunct website called BBO Skill 2.0. I have no idea how it works, but it seems to rank me and other players I know about right.

and

beatrix45, on 2014-July-04, 08:54, said:

We both share an Expert- rating on BBO Skill 2.0. I like to think that excluding games where I was not drunk or one toke over the line, my rating might have been a little better, but there is no proof of that.

together seem to speak volumes.

There are indeed fake experts here but the only posters who tend to announce themselves as experts are those that have played for their countries and those who use BBO Skill as their guideline. As a general rule the former are not fakes.

[rhm]

beatrix45, on 2014-July-03, 05:28, said:

I am still at a loss. Who wrote the 'booklet'? Names please, if at all possible. Why, for heaven's sake, did the author(s) incorporate a non-standard, non-intuitive, hard to remember, decidedly oddball (imo) treatment for the specific auction 1♠ - P - 2♥ - P - 3♥?

At a normal bridge club, I can settle 95+% of 2/1 issues in a ten minute discussion with a new partner I have never met before. On BBO you don't get those 10 minutes. SAYC is the preferred fallback position. Less to go wrong. Now this miserable 'booklet' is trying to throw a monkey wrench even into that.

In my opinion people do not create or teach bidding system, which are easy to grasp and where players will bid reasonably well quickly. Note I said reasonably, because bidding really well is not primarily a system issue.
Systems are taught, which are common and which the teacher likes to play himself and feels himself familiar with.
For beginners and weak players a simple version of Precision is in my opinion much easier for them to grasp than any so called "natural" system.
SAYC was created out of standard American.
It is much more complex to play for novices and intermediate players than 2/1 whatever the merits are.
It is in my opinion not a good default agreement for pickup partnerships and prone to misunderstandings.
But that is how it works.

In the US they will teach SAYC
In Germany Forum D /similar to SEF)
In France SEF (similar to Forum D)
In Poland Polish Club
In the UK they used to teach ACOL. I guess they still do.

Experts can argue over systems forever. But they will usually agree that it does not matter that much what you play as long as you are comfortable with your agreements.
They are capable and can judge tradeoffs, even if they disagree with each other.

For weak players it does matter. They have no judgement yet and need clear directions.

Rainer Herrmann

[Vampyr]

rhm, on 2014-July-05, 12:13, said:

For beginners and weak players a simple version of Precision is in my opinion much easier for them to grasp than any so called "natural" system.

Beginners who first learn such a system will never learn to think.

[helene_t]

rhm, on 2014-July-05, 12:13, said:

SAYC was created out of standard American.
It is much more complex to play for novices and intermediate players than 2/1 whatever the merits are.

I don't think 2/1 is any better for beginners than SAYC. In 2/1 it is clear which bids are forcing after a 2/1 or 1NT response by an unpassed hand, but the 2/1 principle doesn't help you with passed hand bidding and doesn't help you in contested auctions.

I think a case can be made for just about any system being best for beginners. Precision has the simplest opening scheme and the simplest rules for captaincy. WJ has the best symmetry between offensive and defensive bidding (Edit: Phantom Club even better). Acol has the best symmetry between contested and uncontested auctions. Goren has the smallest need for artificial bids (Edit: EHAA even less). My personal ranking fwiw would be
Goren > Precision > Acol > SAYC/SEF > 2/1 > WJ but it's probably close enough that one should just chose whichever system would be useful for the students to learn and is supported by good books in the students' language.

This post has been edited by helene_t: 2014-July-06, 03:47