[Lesh18]

Hey all

1) I have been contemplating the usefulness of the 5-suit major opening rule in Standard American.
Would not it be easier and more convenient to open with 4-suit major also, hoping for a partner to hold his 4-suit major? Is the reason behind this SAYC rule that the cards tend to devide 5-3 more often than 4-4?

2) SAYC suggests opening with 13+ pts. I have seen a couple of videos by Andrew Robson (who is British) and he opens with 12+ pts (assumingly using ACOL). I am also not too sure if he uses long-suit points or not. Do you use long suit points or only high card points? With how many points to you open? 12 or 13?

Thanks

[32519]

SAYC says 5-card majors which isn't going to change. If you want to open 4-card majors, switch to ACOL.

[the hog]

There are some systems that use 4 card major openings - Acol for example. Some players don't like them because they think they are harder to cope with in competition. 13HCP is a guide, not a rule

[Charlie Yu]

1. You don't lose your 4-4 fit while playing 5 card majors. Sequence like 1♣ P 1♦ P 1♥ shall show exactly 4 hearts. On the other hand, trying to locate a 5-3 fit when you opened a 4-card major is much harder.

2. Most intermediate/advanced players don't use long suit points anymore, instead they use their own judgement. I would open almost all 12, as well as 'good' 11. ('good' means either a good suit, hands with good shape, or good values like 2 aces.)

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

The following should actually be part of a lecture, given in a course / lesson, you regular
attend.

#1 Playing Acol, there are various styles, and depending on the style, you will see, that
even playing Acol a major suit opening will be based on 5 cards most of the times.
I dont have the numbers, but the percentage was high, lets say 75-80%, maybe the number
is even in the high 80s or in the 90s.
Going to a pure 5 card major suit style, eliminates just those uncertainties, that you have,
playing 4 card majors.
You pay with the uncertainty about the suit length of minor, when a minor gets opened.

For some, the price is ok, for some it is not.

Another point - Opening with a 4 card majors simplifies the fit finding process,
IF the opponents should bother to interfere, which happens sometimes.
The reason is simple - you did bid your 4 card major, partner does not need to search for
it, if you happened to open with a (short) minor.

A last point, areas have a leading system, and depening on your area 4 or 5 card major is
dominant, choose the one played next door, this simplifies the search for partners.

#2 Opening on the 1 level says, I have a hand, that is better than average.
Now you need to answer for yourself, what does it mean ... an average hand.
40HCP are in the deck, you are entiteled to have 10, if you have 10, than is what is to be
expected.
But you may well say to a hand with a long nice suit and only 10HCP, you look better than
some hands with 13HCP, sometimes Sex Appeal is hard to quantify.
In general - you need to find your comfort zone, you need to agree with your partner on
the comfort zone of the partnership.
And after that, you decide on the specific system you play, some systems dont play well
together with some comfort zones, ..., dont start to worry unless you deviate too strong
from whatever is recommended.

My suggestion stick with the 13.
My reason: Currently your main source for learning recommends 13. If you switch to Robson,
stick with 12.
But keep in mind - At the beginning, you need one source of truth, ONE and ONLY ONE.
This is your bible.
Anything, that differs from the Bible, should be take with suspicion, and you should cross
check with your teacher, hopefully he can explain the reason behind the differences, and is
able to tell you, if the differences work ok with the rest of the stuff, that is written in
your Bible ... this assumes, your teacher knowes your Bible in and out, I dont.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

It is obviously an advantage that responder knows that your 5-card major suit is a 5-card suit. For example:
- Especially for slam purposes there is a big difference between a 5-4 fit and a 4-4 fit. Playing 4-card majors, if partner makes a strong raise of your opening suit, are you going to tell him whether you actually have 5?
- Even playing 4-card majors it is advisable sometimes to raise on 3. But it is sometimes problematic. For example, if you have 4-3 in the majors and partner opens 1♥, 5-card majorites (especially those playing flannery) may have the agreement to raise directly. 4-card majorites can't do that but that means that they can't show a constructive 3-card raise in that case. And for 4-card majorites it is more complicated to judge when to raise on 3. And even when they do have a 4-card raise, the auction becomes a little awkward because the raise does not establish a fit so you are still in principle looking for 3NT. You may know that you have a fit but partner may not know ...
- You can raise on 3 even to the 3-level when the opponents make a jump overcall.

It is hard to say if those advantages weigh stronger than the disadvantages. For me, the main reason for playing 5-card majors is that most experts play it so most advanced books, magazine articles and BBF posts are based on 5-card major systems. If I were to play 4-card majors I would basically have to invent a system myself and try to teach it to my partners.

[the hog]

"It is obviously an advantage that responder knows that your 5-card major suit is a 5-card suit."

Helene, I think you better edit this. This is a very amusing comment as it stands.

[Fluffy]

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

1) I have been contemplating the usefulness of the 5-suit major opening rule in Standard American.
Would not it be easier and more convenient to open with 4-suit major also, hoping for a partner to hold his 4-suit major? Is the reason behind this SAYC rule that the cards tend to devide 5-3 more often than 4-4?

You´ve got a lot of unuseful responses sadly.

The explanation is very simple, if you open 5 card major you locate 5-3 fits inmediately,but what if you have 4-4 fit?, you have the 1 level responses for that:

1x-pass-1M

shows 4 cards, so if you have 4-4 fit you have allocated it in 1 round when opener raises. If you have 4-4 Major fit elsewhere you will find it next:

1x-pass-1♥-pass
1♠-pass-2♠

[Vampyr]

P_Marlowe, on 2012-April-12, 05:17, said:

#1 Playing Acol, there are various styles, and depending on the style, you will see, that
even playing Acol a major suit opening will be based on 5 cards most of the times.
I dont have the numbers, but the percentage was high, lets say 75-80%, maybe the number
is even in the high 80s or in the 90s.

The style played around here is majors first, so the percentage of times the major is 5 cards is not nearly that high.

[Statto]

P_Marlowe, on 2012-April-12, 05:17, said:

#1 Playing Acol, there are various styles, and depending on the style, you will see, that
even playing Acol a major suit opening will be based on 5 cards most of the times.
I dont have the numbers, but the percentage was high, lets say 75-80%, maybe the number
is even in the high 80s or in the 90s.

It does depend a bit on style, but playing 4 card majors I've heard it quoted that a 1♠ opener will be 5+ cards somewhat over 90% of the time, while a 1♥ opener will be 5+ cards somewhere around 70% of the time. For that reason you might, with a regular partner, want to consider a system where 1♠ promises 5+, and 1♥ promises only 4+, which is quite popular.

However, bear in mind that if you change one aspect of your system, you may also need to change other aspects to compensate. But by all means if you have a regular partner who is willing, and you do a bit of post-mortem analysis, a little bit of experimentation may be beneficial to your overall understanding of how bidding systems work. Otherwise, you are probably better to stick to the proscribed system you've learnt until you feel confident about branching out.

[the hog]

You could always have a look at "The science", a system popular in England, highly aggressive and played by the Hacketts. It is a huge amount of fun.

[Vampyr]

Statto, on 2012-April-16, 19:48, said:

stick to the proscribed system

Oh Lord, not this again!

[Cthulhu D]

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

Hey all

1) I have been contemplating the usefulness of the 5-suit major opening rule in Standard American.
Would not it be easier and more convenient to open with 4-suit major also, hoping for a partner to hold his 4-suit major? Is the reason behind this SAYC rule that the cards tend to devide 5-3 more often than 4-4?

2) SAYC suggests opening with 13+ pts. I have seen a couple of videos by Andrew Robson (who is British) and he opens with 12+ pts (assumingly using ACOL). I am also not too sure if he uses long-suit points or not. Do you use long suit points or only high card points? With how many points to you open? 12 or 13?

Thanks

2) People open much lighter. You will find many proponents of opening 4-4-3-2 hands with 11 HCP. I think Meckwell will regularly open 10 HCP hands in similar circumstances. However, a note of caution - the thing to remember is that it is quite likely that partner will have such an 11 count if you agree to open them (it's the most probable hand type in a 1C or 1D opening in SAYC), so you need to be judicious when responding for fear of getting too high.

Lots of people play special methods here (Meckwell's 1D, 1H and 1S opening are limited to 15 for example) to ensure they don't get to high opposite a light opening from partner, but these are probably out of scope for a beginning partnership.

At the end of the day, and opening hand is whatever your partnership agrees it is, and frankly opening lighter is more fun IMHO, but you need to remember you agreed that partner can open those hands, and if he's opened an absolute piece of cheese don't hang him for it.

1) The general objective is to find all your eight card major fits, whether they are 4-4, 5-3 or 6-2.

Different styles here have different trade offs. 5 card majors are probably better in competition for example (partner can safely raise on 3).

Overall it doesn't really matter, expert consensus is probably that 5 card majors are better (take that with a grain of salt), but ultimately I am not sure it matters. The biggest issue with switching away from 'standard' is that you are without support locally for bidding questions, but as the English have a love affair their 4 card majors and 12-14 no trump, there is plenty of support on the internet

For example: http://bridge.soc.uc..._cambridge.html is a fairly standard 4 card majors system ready to go. There is no reason not to swap that for a strong NT if you prefer that.

[Zelandakh]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-April-16, 22:12, said:

For example: http://bridge.soc.uc..._cambridge.html is a fairly standard 4 card majors system ready to go. There is no reason not to swap that for a strong NT if you prefer that.

There is a very good reason not to play a strong NT in this system. The main point is that a 1 of a major opening promises either 5+ cards in the suit or extra strength (15+ hcp). That makes it much safer to raise with 3 card support than methods with 4 card majors and a strong NT.

To the OP: there are some teachers around who think that a 4 card major system is better for beginners to learn because it is so natural. However, even if you learned such a system to begin with, you would probably need to switch to a 5 card major system later, not only because practically everyone in your area plays 5 card majors but also because the vast majority of experts think they are simply better. The main point of 5 card majors are that 4-4 fits are easier to locate than 5-3 fits and that they are much simpler to respond to when the opponents bid, something that tends to happen quite a lot in modern bridge.

As far as points for opening go, my understanding is that the 13 points suggested for SA(YC) includes some additional points for distribution whereas the 12 points suggested by Andrew Robson almost certainly does not. As a beginner my rule was to open any 12 point hand plus an 11 point hand with a 6 card suit. This is a very conservative strategy and I would never suggest opening fewer hands than this; most would open considerably more. A more modern (and good) rule for beginners is the Rule of 20, that is you sum up your hcp and the number of cards in your 2 longest suits - if this figure is 20 or more then you should normally open, if less than normally not open (at the one level). As with any rule you will find yourself adjusting it with a little experience, for example you might decide not to open any hands at the one level with less than 10 hcp even if they have 6-5 shape and to count a singleton king, queen or jack as worth 1 hcp less than usual, but it represents a pretty good starting point.

[S2000magic]

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

Hey all

Howdy!

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

1) I have been contemplating the usefulness of the 5-suit major opening rule in Standard American.
Would not it be easier and more convenient to open with 4-suit major also, hoping for a partner to hold his 4-suit major? Is the reason behind this SAYC rule that the cards tend to devide 5-3 more often than 4-4?

I suspect that the SAYC rule stems from the popularity of 5-card majors, not from some a priori estimate of the probabilities of the suit division. Five-card majors were introduced (in American bidding) in the '50s in the Roth-Stone system (and later in the Kaplan-Sheinwold system). Five-card majors have some distinct advantages, but also cause some difficulties of their own. Most partners you find (in America, at least) will be playing 5-card majors, so you're better off using that approach.

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

2) SAYC suggests opening with 13+ pts. I have seen a couple of videos by Andrew Robson (who is British) and he opens with 12+ pts (assumingly using ACOL). I am also not too sure if he uses long-suit points or not. Do you use long suit points or only high card points? With how many points to you open? 12 or 13?

I tend to use some form of long-suit points, and open on 13 or a good 12. What matters most is that you and your partner agree what constitutes a minimum opening bid and that if you choose a weaker lower limit you strengthen your responses a bit (at least, those that are game-invitational and game-forcing).

Lesh18, on 2012-April-12, 03:23, said:

Thanks

As always, my pleasure.