Saturday, April 15, 2006 12:06 AM
 
 Stayman - Smolen Exceptions

 

PITBULLS:

 

          Smolen at the two level is a nice unambiguous structure to show the 5-4 in the major hands of any strength . Sorry , that is not the case. Since Smolen is a nice starting point in your Stayman sequences ,  we take advantage of this fact to describe infamous problem hands for bidding theorists. Invitational 5-5 hands are impossible to describe with normal methods after a 1NT opener. The forcing to game variety of 5-5’s are traditionally handled by the transfer structure.

 

          What do you do with invitational 5-5’s Axxxx K10xxx xx x  , Axxxx xx K10xxx x , Axxxx xx x K10xxx after your partner opens 1NT ? Present methods is to transfer and hope for a super accept. If no fit , you miss out on a possible game in the 2nd suit. You either single handedly make the decision to under bid or over bid . A Smolen add on ( exception)  allows you to bring partner in on the picture with these hand types. With spades as the anchor suit , you start these invitational 5-5’s with Stayman and you get a discouraging response of 2♦ or 2♥ . You now bid 2♥ over the 2♦ response which is the Smolen relay to 2♠. You now just bid your 2nd suit and the Smolen interpretation disappears and you have shown a 5-5 with just invitational values.  Axxxx xx x K10xxx   opp Kx AKx xxxx AQxx you are cold for +1370 in clubs and you may miss game and play the hand in a spade partial with normal methods.

 

1NT-P-2♣-P             At the other table , the auction gets dropped in 2♠ or an overbid in clubs follows.

2♦-P-2♥-P

2♠-P-3♣-P

5♣-P-P-P

 

          With invitational 5-5’s with hearts as the anchor suit you just make a slight tweak to your transfer system . You introduce 2♠ as a relay to 2NT after a heart transfer. Now when you bid a 2nd suit ( other than spades ) this sequence shows invitational 5-5’s with hearts as the anchor suit.

 

          Another difficult class of hands that bidding theorists have trouble describing after a strong NT is 4 of a major and 6 or 5 of a minor with game or slam going values. We take advantage of the Smolen starting point for these type of hands. As the Smolen 2♠ bid forces a relay to 2NT , this is handy to make the Smolen understandings disappear and just use the bid as a relay. Since 3♣ & 3♦ are undefined for the Smolen sequences ,  we use these to describe the 6-4’s with that minor and any 4 card major. BJ Trelford & I had a hand where getting to 5♣ was worth 12 IMPS as the field was in 3NT off the heart suit. KQ10x xx x AKxxxx   Partner opens 1NT and you bid 2♣ with partner responding 2♦ . 3♣ in your system is Re-Stayman but it is better that you describe this hand to partner rather than vice versa. So you bid the Smolen relay of 2♠ which forces partner to bid 2NT. You now bid 3♣ which shows a 6-4 . Partner bids 3♦ which asks for your 4 card major . You bid 3♠ and partner now has Axx xx AKJxx QJx and gets to 5♣ instead of the 3NT trap ( maybe a 4-3 spade fit in matchpoints) . There are many hands where 6♣ could be bid because partner knows your 6-4.

 

          Yes there is an effort required to learn this structure. However ,  if you have aspirations to be the best in your field , this comes with the territory. Time and practice and eventually these understandings will become standard.