CONVENTIONS YOU SHOULD KNOW

LESSON ONE

STAYMAN

THE BRIDGE FORUM INTERNATIONAL

Your partner opens the bidding with 1NT showing 15-17 HCP (high card points) and a balanced hand. Your hand is:

Adding your 12 HCP to partner's 15-17 it is clear that you have enough strength for game. So, you raise to 3NT. This is partner's hand:

Partner has a maximum, so you have 29 points between you. The defenders lead a heart and partner has to win the first or second round. He can cash four spade tricks and three club tricks, but then he must surrender the lead. The opponents grab their ¨A and cash hearts -- one down. Unlucky, yes, but if you had bid to four spades you would have made an easy 10 tricks.

The Stayman Convention was invented to solve exactly this problem. A bid of 2§ in response to partner's opening 1NT bid is used as a conventional bid. This is called an "artificial bid" since it says nothing about the suit bid -- clubs. The Stayman convention asks opener one question -- "Do you have a four card major?"

After partner opens 1NT, you know approximately how many points you have between you. You can therefore judge whether to play a partial, a game or to look for a slam. What you may not be able to tell immediately, is whether you should be playing in notrump or a suit. Stayman is used to discover a 4-4 fit in a major.

Without the Stayman convention, hands such as the one above become impossible to bid accurately.

Okay, so you agree to play Stayman.

You open 1NT and partner bids 2§. Now what? You really like partner's clubs. Perhaps you should pass, or maybe raise to 3§.

No, believe it or not, you must bid 2¨. "But that's my worst suit," you are thinking. "I don’t think I like Stayman."

Remember, partner is not saying anything about clubs. He could have anything from a worthless hand with no clubs to a hand that is interested in a slam -- he is simply asking if you have a four card major. For this reason, you can NEVER pass Stayman.

The responses to Stayman are easy enough to remember. They are:

NO OTHER RESPONSES ARE ALLOWED

We mentioned above that responder might have any one of a number of hand types when he uses Stayman. However, he will usually have enough high card points to at least invite game. (We will cover the exceptions to this later.)

Let's start with those hands on which you can only invite game. Facing a 15-17 1NT opening, this means 8-9 HCP. If partner has a maximum you want to play in game, but if s/he is minimum you are happy to settle for a partial.

This is a typical hand. You want to raise to 2NT, inviting partner to go on with a maximum, but you would also like to investigate a 4-4 heart fit. The answer of course is to bid 2§ (Stayman). If partner bids either 2¨ or 2ª (both of which deny four hearts) you can bid 2NT. Partner will pass with a minimum and raise to 3NT with a maximum.

If he responds 2©, you can agree hearts as trumps. Again, though, you are only strong enough to invite game, so raise to 3©. Once more, he will pass with a minimum and go on to game with a maximum.

Did you notice that if partner has a maximum, he goes on to game?

Partner opens 1NT. Wouldn't it be nice to find out if he has a 4 card major? So, you bid 2§. Unfortunately, partner responds two diamonds. Are you getting an uneasy feeling yet? What are you going to do? Suppose you bid 2NT -- perhaps partner will play it well and make eight tricks. Oops -- partner raises to 3NT. The opponents rudely double and partner goes three down. -800.

This is exactly why you must have at least enough to invite game when you use Stayman. In each of the exceptional cases where this is not true, which we will discuss right at the end of this lesson, you will see that you have a safety net if partner makes an inconvenient response.

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