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The Stayman Convention
What is it? Stayman is probably the most widely used convention of
all. A bid of 2C in response to your partner's 1NT is conventional i.e. It doesn't promise clubs. It requests your
partner to bid a four card major. Without one partner responds 2D. With four hearts, partner responds 2H (may still have
four spades also). A response of 2S from partner denies four hearts.
You may ask why you want to do it? Well when the combined hands have enough for game very often the major contract provides an extra trick, very useful at duplicate pairs. Also the responding hand may look unsuitable for no trumps and have a severe weakness in a particular suit. It can also provide a mechanism with a very weak hand to escape into a better contract.
Let's have a look at some examples
| Example 1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | A1095 |  |
| KQ85 | |
| K1084 | QJ2 | ||||
| 54 | 76 | ||||
| AQ3 | K1094 | ||||
| Auction 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| West | North | East | South |
| 1NT | - | 2♣ | - |
| 2♥ | - | 2NT | - |
| 3♠ | - | 4♠ | End |
East can see chances of game and bids 2C to see if partner has four
spades. Partner responds 2H, not what partner wanted to hear but there may still be chances in NT if partner has a diamond
stop. West KNOWS that East has a 4 card major, so now bids 3S inviting game in spades. With the known heart fit and a reasonable
hand East bids the game. A NT game would have had no chance on a diamond lead.
| Example 2 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1095 | |
| J764 | |
| K1084 | J952 | ||||
| 54 | J10976 | ||||
| AQ3 | - | ||||
| Auction 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| West | North | East | South |
| 1NT | - | 2♣ | - |
| 2♥ | - | - | - |
It is a common misconception that you can only use stayman with adequate
values in high cards. This is not true at all. East can see that whatever West replies to his stayman request must improve the contract.