[johnblu]

Partner and I play SAYC and our opening 1NT range is 15-17.
Partner says that regardless of ACBL saying that players can now open 1NT with a singleton ace, he says that is not in the SAYC standard, and he says we should not do this. Until ACBL changed its position, no convention could open 1NT with a singleton, but now they can.

I say that since ACBL now allows it, it is allowable in SAYC and is sometimes the best available bid.
I realize we need to reach a partnership agreement on this question, but he says that SAYC does not allow a 1NT opening with a singleton ace, and I say it now does, now that ACBL made the change/
Who is right?
Thanks.

[hrothgar]

johnblu, on 2019-February-14, 13:12, said:

Partner and I play SAYC and our opening 1NT range is 15-17.
Partner says that regardless of ACBL saying that players can now open 1NT with a singleton ace, he says that is not in the SAYC standard, and he says we should not do this. Until ACBL changed its position, no convention could open 1NT with a singleton, but now they can.

I say that since ACBL now allows it, it is allowable in SAYC and is sometimes the best available bid.
I realize we need to reach a partnership agreement on this question, but he says that SAYC does not allow a 1NT opening with a singleton ace, and I say it now does, now that ACBL made the change/
Who is right?
Thanks.

Standard American Yellow Card is a specific set of bidding agreements that the ACBL specifically defined 30+ years ago.
Said system is a piece of crap and had been throw on the dustbin of history until Matt Clegg decided to copy one of the few remaining ACBL documents and release this as part of OKBridge.

Since then, legions of players have claimed to play SAYC without any of them having more than the slightest idea what the system actually defines.

At this point in time, the only thing that SAYC means is

1. We're not playing precision
2. We're probably playing 5 card majors
3. 16 HCP balanced hands are probably opened 1NT

So, do whatever you bloody well please, but do so because you and your partner agree that this is the way that you want to bid, not because some inane "Bidding System" that you are supposedly playing is forcing you to do so.

[Stephen Tu]

Before the ACBL's latest change, most good players who understood the concept of rebid problems and sometimes needing to prefer "least lie" would open 1nt with singleton honors occasionally. Whether allegedly playing SAYC or not. (Very few good players stick with SAYC for long, only agreeing to play it with pickup partners online).

The ACBL's previous position was that one could do this as a sufficiently rare "judgment call", but it could not be done by "partnership agreement". Which IMO was some total BS logic because anyone with consistent judgment is going to always do it on some class of hands which partner will eventually pick up on, thus beccoming automatically an implied partnership agreement. Even though partner has no way to really cater for this anyway, with no gadget to query for singleton. This position being stupid, good players just went about their business and continued to open 1nt on stiffs when they felt it was the best call. The ACBL finally caved and rewrote the regulation to reflect std expert behavior.

[steve2005]

The actual SAYC pamphlet just says balanced hand.
sayc
In any case the rules 30 years ago didnt allow singleton I dont see why you would be constrained by rules which dont exist now