The History of SAYC
First published as the introduction to my and Ned Downey’s book Standard Bidding with SAYC, the following outlines the origins of this useful system.
SAYC was developed during the mid-1980s to attract more players to duplicate bridge by providing some simple bidding and basic conventions. Its creators felt the need for an easy-to-use system because the trends in Standards American towards five-card majors, limit bids, non-forcing jumps and weak twos had evolved into an array of other systems that the average player could not easily access. Among many, these systems included:
- Precision and other forcing club systems.
- Kaplan-Sheinwold with weak notrumps and other gadgets.
- Roth-Stone from the early fifties with the forcing notrump – a cornerstone of the Eastern and Western Scientific systems, which were both precursors to the Two Over One system.
- Some disruptive methods of bidding such as forcing passes. These were fondly called “Ferts”, the short form of ‘fertilizer’, and utilized weak openings of 0-7 HCP while passing with what we would consider a normal opening bid.
According to Charles McCracken, Manager of the ACBL Tournament Department during the 1980s and now a National Tournament Director, SAYC came out of the World Bridge Federation (WBF) Championships in Miami in 1986. At the time, the Board of Directors had been wrestling with conflicts between the convention experimenters and those who wanted to maintain the status quo. “The problem of too many conventions,” he said “has been around since the 60s, and is probably still with us.”
In March 1987 the St. Louis North American Bridge Championships (NABC), the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), in keeping with the European ‘No Fear’ games, where nothing much beyond Stayman and Blackwood were used, introduced a standardized convention card printed on yellow stock. Thus, the Standard American Yellow Card. This meant that if you entered a SAYC tournament you had to confine yourself to its strict bids and relatively small number of conventions.
But SAYC never really took hold as bridge players generally love to load up their convention cards with all sort of bids, conventions and carding in vogue. It was approaching an early death by the 1990s. Then came the explosion of personal computers and with it, online bridge. SAYC was born again! For online proprietors, SAYC was a natural choice of systems for the very reason that in its pure form, SAYC could be agreed upon with little discussion between partners. However, even The Bridge Pro Tour, a series of competitions with monetary prizes held at various locations in the United States, uses the Standard American Yellow Card exclusively. In this way, the organizers have brought the most widely used system online to a ‘live event’.
Today SAYC is the most widely used system online, whether by novices, or world class players. The book, ‘Standard Bidding with SAYC’ provides the system as outlined by the ACBL in 1987 with the additions of Roman Keycard Blackwood and Cappelletti, although the latter two were not in the original system. So what is SAYC today? I am asked if SAYC includes Bergen Raises, support doubles and the likes. My response is always the same. Although these conventions are not part of the original SAYC, you can add whatever conventions you choose which you find useful. As well you can modernize the bidding outlined in SAYC, specifically one club or one diamond with the response by partner of 2NT. Originally 2NT showed an opening hand and forcing to game. In the book we recommend you treat 2NT as invitational (good 10-11) and one of a major and 3NT by partner as game forcing (13-15 HCP). So my advice is that you make a commitment to thoroughly know what the original SAYC entailed and over time with proficiency established, you add those bids and conventions which you and partner find most useful.
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