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The Improved Stayman Convention
The following is a direct quote from the publication by Mr. Easley Blackwood from his publication Blackwood On Bidding, in association with Mr. Stanley Mc Comas, published 1956 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, and New York, New York, Chapter 17, pages 123 - 127, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-13044.
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CHAPTER 17
THE IMPROVED STAYMAN CONVENTION
THE 2 C RESPONSE
This improved version of the Stayman convention is recommended.
A 2 C response to an opening bid of 1 NT is artificial. It may
or may not show a club suit. It asks the opening bidder to make
his response according to the following schedule:If the opening no trump bidder has a biddable spade suit, he
must bid 2 S. A biddable suit is 4 to the jack or better.Even should the opening bidder have a biddable heart suit in
addition to a biddable spade suit, he still responds 2 S, bidding the
higher-ranking suit.If the opening no trump bidder has a biddable heart suit but
does not have a biddable spade suit, he bids 2 H.Lacking either a biddable spade or heart suit, the opening bidder
must bid 2 D.The opening no trump bidder has only three possible bids when
FURTHER ACTION BY THE RESPONDER
his partner responds with 2 C. They are: 2 S, 2 H or 2 D.When you have used the Stayman Convention as responder to
your partner's opening bid of 1 NT, your second bid must show the
strength of your hand. You either raise your partner's suit, you bid
no trump or, in some instances, you can bid a 5-card suit of your
own:If you hold:
KQ74
86
A964
875
you would respond 2 C to your partner's opening 1 NT. If your
partner has a biddable spade suit, the hand will probably play one
trick better at Spades than it will at no trump.If your partner's rebid is 2 S, you will raise him to 3 S. You know
that he has 5 tricks for a spade bi, or possibly more. You can offer
4 tricks for a spade bid. You raise to 3 S, telling him to stop bidding
if his hand is only 5 tricks. Your partner should pass if he has only
15 or 16 points. If he has a shaded 6-trick hand of better at spades,
he will carry on to 4 S.If your partner's response is 2 H. you must bid 2 NT. You can-
not bid 2 S because you know that your partner does not have a
4-card spade suit. A rebid of 2 S by you would show a 5-card spade
suit. You bid 2 NT, a bid you were willing to make after your part-
ner's opening bid of 1 NT. Unless he has a shaded 6 tricks - 17
points or more, counting all his rebid values - he will pass and play
at 2 NT. If he does have a shade 6 tricks, he will carry on to
3 NT.If your partner's rebid is 2 D, you will bid 2 NT, telling him to
pass unless he has a shaded 6 tricks, or to bid 3 NT if he has 17
points or more.You would also bid 2 C over your partner's opening bid of 1 NT
with:
If your partner's rebid is 2 S, you must jump to 4 S.
If your partner's rebid is 2 H or 2 D, you must jump to 3 NT.
WHEN THE RESPONDER HAS A MAJOR SUIT HAND OF 4 TRICKSWhen you as responder have less than 4 tricks but have from 6 to
11 points in a major suit, you may make a weakness takeout in your
major suit. If you have a shade 5 tricks (14 point or more), you
will make a jump bid in your major suit. With a hand of just 4
tricks, or 4 plus tricks, you will always use the Stayman convention.Most of these major suit hands of 12 or 13 points will have suf-
ficient values in high cards to justify a bid of 2 NT, but you will
use the Stayman Convention instead to see whether the hand should
be played in no trump or in the major suit. Occasionally, you will
have a hand in which the value are largely distributional. With
such a hand you are going to insist on playing in a major suit, but
you might as well tell your partner that you do have 4 or 4 plus
tricks for this suit by using the Stayman Convention.When your partner opens 1 NT you might have:
You can count 2 promotion points in the trump suit, which makes
this a 4-trick hand. You bid 2 C. If your partner's response is 2 S,
you will know that there are actually 4 promotion points in the
trump suit available. This brings your hand up to a shaded 5 tricks.
As a suit bid in response to a no trump bid is an independent bid,
you can jump straight to 4 S.If your partner's response is 2 D or 2 H, you must bid 2 S. Your
partner will now know that you have 5 or more spades, and that
your hand comes to exactly 12 or 13 points for spades.Unless in rebid values your partner has a shaded 6 tricks, he will
pass. If he holds:
he can figure his hand for a spade raise and jump to 4 S.
Should he have:
he will pass.
GETTING THE FULL COUNTWhen the responder has a shaded 6 tricks or better, he may be
in the slam zone as the opener in rebid values may himself have
6 tricks. The responder can ask the opening bidder to give him the
exact count of his hand by repeating the club bid. The responder
first bids 2 C, and whatever the opener rebids, the responder then
bids 3 C. The no trump bidder must then tell the exact count of his
hand, counting all rebid values, according to the following schedule:With 15 points, he rebids 3 D. He does not count an extra half
point, and would rebid 3 D with either 15 or 15.5 points.With 16 points, he rebids 3 H.
With 17 points, he rebids 3 S.
Of course the opener could have 18 or 19 points for his rebid
values. If so, he continues up one notch for each point.With 18 points, he rebids 3 NT.
On those unusual hands where he has 19 points in rebid values
he would rebid 4 C.The responder now knows the exact limit of the hand, and can
EXAMPLES
bid accordingly.
1. Partner You
K74 Q94 AQ6 AQ76
Q102 AK1085 K7 KJ5
2. Partner You
AQ103 K106 KJ74 A6
K74 AQ42 A85 KJ74
With Hand 1, when you hear your partner open with 1 NT, you
find that you have better than 6 tricks. You have 16 points in high
cards, plus 1 point for length, plus 1 promotional point, plus an addi-
tional ten spot which adds an additional half point.. By use of the
improved Stayman Convention you find that your partner has ex-
actly 17 points. When your combined hands come to 35 points or
better, you are so near the 12-trick zone that it is profitable to go
ahead and bid the slam.In Hand 2, you have a bare shaded 6 tricks with only 17 points.
HIGHER OPENING BIDS IN NT
By use of the improved Stayman Convention, you find that your
partner in rebid values has a full 6 tricks. You bid 4 NT to check
on aces, and when you find that you have all of them you bid 6 NT.
Note that the two tens in your partner's hand which he showed in
his rebid values make the difference between a good slam bid and
a bad slam bid. They add to your hand the chances that the jack
of hearts will fall doubleton, and the chance that you can trap the
jac of spades 4 long in one of the opposing hands - plus the fact
that if the opening lead is in either spades or hearts this automati-
cally gives you an additional trick.The improved Stayman Convention should be used after an open-
ing bid of 2 NT. A response of 3 C asks the opening bidder to de-
scribe his distribution precisely as a 2 C response would after an
opening bid of 1 NT, except that the bidding is one level higher.If the responder first bids 3 C and then bids 4 C, he is asking
the opening bidder to describe his precise strength in rebid values.
The opening bidder will now bid 4 D with a minimum of only 21
points, 4 H with 22 points, etc.
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