Responding to 1NT is a very different situation to responding to 1 of a suit. This is because your partner has said something very specific with an opening bid of 1NT (a balanced hand with 12-14 points).
We are taught to look for major fits after our partner opens NTs, as we prefer to play in a major suit over NTs, but it is agreed that bidding a suit after an opening bid of NTs promises at least 5 cards. This works perfectly fine to find 5-3 major fits as you bid your 5 card major (or use transfers – coming soon!) and your partner supports (with 3+ cards) or denies support (with exactly 2 cards). Of course with 6+ cards in a major you know of a fit there as your partner has promised at least 2 cards in every suit by opening NTs.
The result of this is that we are currently equipped to find 5-3 major fits, and 6-2 major fits find themselves. The fit we have not dealt with is a 4-4 major fit, but we cannot bid a 4 card major after a NT opening as this promises a 5 card major – this is a problem!
Consider this hand below:
Declarer –
♠ QJ9x
♥ xx
♦ AQx
♣ Axxx
Dummy –
♠ K10xx
♥ Ax
♦ KJxx
♣ QJx
The bidding will go 1NT – 3NT as neither of the hands has a 5 card major, so whoever opens 1NT the responder cannot bid spades and therefore bidding game in NTs is the correct bid (until I explain what Stayman is, that is!). Notice that we have an 8 card fit in spades, but we have not found this fit and instead we are going to be playing game in NTs instead.
On a heart lead (which is most likely given the opponents’ length there) 3NT is doomed. We have 6 top tricks with a potential for extras to come from either black suit. The problem is that as soon as we relinquish the lead, the opponents will lead a torrent of hearts and defeat our contract.
Note the difference if we play in 4♠ instead. We will lose 1 spade, 1 heart and 1 club (most likely) but we will still be able to make our game because the opponents’ heart suit is not a threat. If only we had a way to find 4-4 major fits after our side opens NTs… Well this is exactly what Sam Stayman, a brilliant American bridge player from a long time ago, was thinking when he invented a solution to this problem.
The ‘Stayman’ convention is an agreement between you and your partner that if your side opens 1NT a response of 2♣* asks your partner ‘do you have a 4 card major?’
This is purely an artificial bid as it suggests nothing about the club suit, it is just a coded bid. What this means is that you lose the ability to bid 2♣ as a natural bid, so you cannot bid a weakness takeout in clubs any longer. This is a worthwhile sacrifice as the likelihood and importance of a 4-4 major fit means that we are happy to lose this natural 2♣ bid.
The responses to Stayman are fairly straight-forward, with a few inferences that can be drawn. They are:
2♦ – No, I do not have a 4 card major
2♥ – Yes, I have 4+ hearts
2♠ – Yes, I have 4+ spades, but not 4 hearts
Essentially, you bid diamonds if you don’t have a major and you bid the major you have if you do. Notice that the response of 2♠ denies having 4+ hearts. This is because if you have both 4 card majors, you should bid hearts first as it is more efficient with regards to bidding space.
As a responder you can bid Stayman with only one 4 card major, in the hope that the opener has this 4 card major. There is of course, the chance that Stayman fails to find a fit because the opener does not possess a 4 card major, or because they reply with the ‘wrong major’. This means that the responder needs to be able to return to a sensible contract after using Stayman, assuming it failed to find a fit.
If you do not have a major fit, then the next contract you should look to play in is NTs, and the minimum number of NTs you can return to after using Stayman is 2NT. Normally to bid 2NT after a 1NT opener you would need 11/12 points, ie an invitational hand. Stayman has no guarantees that it will find a fit, so by using Stayman you are potentially forcing your side to at least 2NT, therefore you must be able to tolerate that. So:
To bid Stayman after a 1NT opener, you need 11+ points so you can return to at least 2NT should Stayman fail to find a fit
So, taking the hands from above again, how does the bidding differ now?
Declarer –
♠ QJ9x
♥ xx
♦ AQx
♣ Axxx
Dummy –
♠ K10xx
♥ Ax
♦ KJxx
♣ QJx
The bidding now should go:
1NT – 2♣*
2♠ – 4♠
Stayman discovers the 4-4 spade fit, so the responder bids game there rather than the failed 3NT.
You can (and should!) also use Stayman after a 2NT opener, and it functions in almost exactly the same manner, with the only difference being that you are a level higher when you bid Stayman, and similarly the responses are a level higher too. Therefore you are forcing your side to at least 3NT when you bid 3♣* after a 2NT opener. Fortunately your partner has promised 20-22 points when opening 2NT, so you only need 5+ points in this case in order to use Stayman (as 25+ points should be enough for 3NT).
Stayman does not affect the way you bid when you are responding to NT openers and have 5+ card majors, you simply ignore Stayman and bid ‘as normal’. Put more clearly:
After your partner opens with NTs, if you do not possess exactly a 4 card major, then it is not correct to use Stayman
There is however, the possibility that you are dealt a 5+ card major and a 4 card major. Then should we be using Stayman or not? The answer is yes. Stayman should be used on all 5:4 major hands, after NT openers. The idea here is that if there is a 4-4 or 5-4 major fit then it will be found by using Stayman. If there is a denial response (of 2♦ or 3♦) then you can simply bid your 5+ card major after this anyway, and resort to ‘normal’ bidding, confident that there is no fit for your 4 card major so the only chance now is with your 5+ card major.
Imagine you were dealt this hand:
♠ KJxxx
♥ AJxx
♦ Ax
♣ xx
Your partner opens 1NT, so because you have exactly a 4 card major you should use Stayman. If your partner responds with 2♥ or 2♠, then your problems are solved, you can just bid game in whichever major they have. If, however, they respond with the dreaded 2♦ response, then we still have a problem. In that scenario we now know that there is no heart fit, but there may still be a spade fit. Here, you return to your normal bidding arrangements, as if Stayman didn’t exist. That means that with this hand you should jump bid to 3♠ (not 2♠ as that would be a weakness takeout) and this still shows a 5 card major and a game going hand. Your partner will then either bid game in spades with 3 spades or bid 3NT with only 2 cards there.
