[dbsboy]

Not too difficult.

Pass for the first one. First, I think sometimes you end up in a misfit after garbage stayman. Second, that hand had some strength. 1NT is often a good contract even if we have a 4-4 Major Fit. If finding a partscore fit is your major concern why open 1NT with 5 card Major?

Second Hand: 2C then 2NT. Best describes my hand. Interesting.

[cherdano]

I did a simulation for the first one. Assuming both 5-card majors and 2=4=5=2 shape is allowed, and 6322 with a 6-card minor, the chance for a fit is about 55%. This is less than I thought. In practice, it might be a bit higher, since some 6322 hands will rather open 1m, but still enough to convince me that garbage stayman is probably a bad idea. (I think garbage stayman is a much better idea at matchpoints than at IMPs, anyway.)

In practice, though, garbage stayman gave us a very good score. Partner had Ax J9x Qxx AQJT9. Despite the good 5-card suit opposite my doubleton, the fact that opponents have to pull trumps in 2♥ gave me the time to take 3 club tricks aside from 1 spade, 2 hearts and 2 diamonds for +110.
(1N would get a spade lead and thus no time to enjoy the good clubs.)

[gnasher]

Jlall, on Jul 23 2008, 09:44 AM, said:

It is a much bigger disaster to play 1N with a 4-4 major suit fit than to play 2M without one when you have this many HCP.

So you favour bidding Stayman with this hand then?

[gnasher]

I think this is affected by how good a card player your partner is, and how standard your notrump range is.

If you're playing the same notrump range as the rest of the field, and you rate your partner's card play, you should leave him to score average plus in 1NT; if you don't think much of his card play you should bid Stayman, attempting to win the board in the bidding because otherwise you expect to lose it in the play.

By similar logic, if you're playing a very different range from the rest of the field you should be more inclined to bid Stayman opposite a strong declarer than opposite a weak one.

[brianshark]

Pass on the first hand.

On the second hand, if my methods allow me to bid stayman and then bid 3♣ which is either weak, to play or invite then I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll transfer to clubs and pass.

[pclayton]

1. Pass. Let em balance.

2. This is a lot tougher but I don't think NT is going to play well with a likely spade lead. I'll transfer to clubs and try to get a good board with pard's fine dummy play.