Ken Casey

The Flaws in Standard American Bridge Ken Casey

This book is designed to highlight the flaws in Standard American bidding, i.e. the SAYC system. The book discusses the major failures of SAYC, namely the failure of the ACBL to adopt the Bergen point-count system, the failure to simplify reverses, the failure to find an 18-19p bid for unbalanced hands, and the failure to adopt New Minor Forcing.

In addition, the book points out numerous minor failures such as the failure to find a means of bidding a direct game, the failure of SAYC to require takeout doubles to have a four-card major, and the failure to adopt the six-keycard Roman Keycard system. The book also points out the ACBL's failure to clarify certain issues, such as the failure to clarify Os reply to Rs two-level response, the failure to clarify cuebids, and the failure to clarify Stopper-Ask bids. The book provides a solution for all these problems in a new system called Precision Diamond.