5-Card Major Stayman
by Ron Klinger

Cassell / Peter Crawley, £9.99, ISBN 0 304 36808 3

Books have come along before about the merits (or otherwise) of opening 1NT when holding a five-card major. This is the first that has put a sufficiently convincing case for me to consider changing my methods. Klinger starts with a chapter packed with examples from top-level play of (favourable) swings resulting from a 1NT opening with a five-card major. He also quotes ten arguments in favour of the practice. So, even if he had mentioned that opening 1NT (instead of a five-card major) can put you at a disadvantage on competitive part-score auctions, his argument would still be strong.

The version of five-card Stayman Klinger proposes meshes well with four-suit transfers. If you want to invite game but neither look for a 4-4 fit nor give away too much information about opener's hand, you bid 2 and then 2NT. This means you have 2NT (and 2) available for minor-suit transfers. He covers finding a 5-3 fit in either suit when responder is 5-3 in the majors particularly well - a subject that other authors tend to gloss over. What he suggests is that you use the 2 inquiry and transfer on the next round if you have 5-3 in the majors (and enough strength for game). Klinger correctly suggests a slightly different version of five-card Stayman after a 2NT opening, when there is less room to explore and having the opener declare is more important than ever.

Some authors introduce you to a convention but then leave you in the dark how to continue. Klinger does not do that to you; instead, he covers developments in a methodical and consistent way. Some of the chapters on slam bidding you might wish to leave until you are familiar with the basics of the methods. My one criticism of the book is that within its ninety-six pages the opponents consistently and meekly pass throughout. I would have happily given up a couple of pages of either the example hands and auctions (Klinger gives sixty-four examples), or of the less common slam sequences, to create space for advice on handling simple intervention.

Here is an example of the system in action:

A 9 6 5   Q 5 4   A Q 3   J 5 2   K Q 7 2   A K 7   K 9 5 2   9 3

West	North	East	South
1NT	Pass	2 1	Pass
2 2	Pass	3 3	Pass
3 4	Pass	3 5	Pass
4	End

1 Asking for five-card majors.
2 No five-card major.
3 Asking for 4-card majors, game forcing.
4 Any 4-3-3-3 shape (enables you to avoid the suit game with mirror-image distribution).
5 Shows exactly four spades (responder would have bid 3, transfer, on the previous round if holding five spades and three hearts).

Julian Pottage

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