[jillybean]

I’ve never played Smolen. To me, it always seemed like a lot of memory strain for very little practical benefit, not to mention forgets.
I would much rather use my memory cells for conventions like XYZ, Multi

It makes me wonder: for your average club player, why bother? Is it really that much of a benefit to keep the 15-17 NT hand concealed?
For more serious partnerships, is it a standard tool. How often does it actually swing a board compared to just playing a simpler, standard alternative?

[DavidKok]

Over here Smolen is standard, even in less serious partnerships.

I think in practice it has a very minor impact on your score. It almost never comes up, and when it does, regularly you will retreat to 3NT, and even if you do end up in 4M frequently the siding will not matter. In fact, I think this is true for a lot of conventions - their impact individually is very marginal, and it only starts mattering if you have multiple similar agreements that you are interested in.

[mike777]

JB Multi??????


Multi is still banned in 99.99% of ACBL games we will ever play in.

I even asked our local club if with permission of the table I could experiment with Multi....before I got the sentence out of my mouth, it was a firm NO!

I suppose in friendly BBO online games it is allowed.


-----------------


Agree with everything DAVIDK said

[P_Marlowe]

We play Smolen, after 1NT and 2NT ... we keep our agreement in sync.
As DaveKok said Smolen after 1NT is standard, but most players would play a version of
Puppet Stayman after a 2NT opening, 5 card majors are more often in a 2NT opening,
and Smolen does not work with Puppet, ...,
3D as an answer to 3C puppet usually showes a 4 card major, Standard Stayman ... 3D denies.

Does it come up often: No. Would it matter, if we dropped it: No. But it is ok.

[dave251164]

AI Overview
Playing the Smolen convention in bridge is generally considered worth it for partnerships that regularly play standard Stayman and want to find hidden 5-3 major suit fits.

Benefits of Smolen
Correct Declarer: It keeps the stronger 1NT hand as the declarer, protecting the strength from the opening lead.Clarifies Distribution: It solves the problem of having 5 cards in one major and 4 in the other after a Stayman sequence (1NT - 2♣ - 2♦).Easy Memory: Bidding the 3-level in the 4-card major actually promises a 5-card suit in the other major (e.g., bidding 3♥ shows 5 spades and 4 hearts).

Drawbacks to Consider
Memory Load: Both partners must remember that the bid is artificial and inverted.Forcing Nature: It is a game-forcing convention at the 3-level, meaning you cannot use it with weak or minor invitational hand types without prior agreement.

[P_Marlowe]

jillybean, on 2026-August-20, 08:32, said:

I’ve never played Smolen. To me, it always seemed like a lot of memory strain for very little practical benefit, not to mention forgets.
<snip>

Even if you forget it, ..., you may end up in a playable contract.
In a League Match, partner forgot it, I played in a 4-3 ... the normal contract was 3NT, but due to layout
both contracts went down, so no big loss.
The next board Smolen showed up again, on my side of the screen I told my opp., great that we clarified it
not too long ago, that we played it.

[mw64ahw]

No Smolen for me.

There are other ways to achieve the same result without using these specific bids. For example:

1N-2♦
2♥-2/3N 45xx GI/GF
with right-siding benefits.

[barmar]

Another benefit of Smolen is that it allows you to refine the meaning of other sequences. If all game-forcing 5-4 hands use Smolen, then you can give another meaning to the sequence 1NT - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♥. It could be invitational 5-4, or game-forcing 5-5.

[mikeh]

I play smolen. Over our 2N we play a form of muppet, which allows us to, in essence, use puppet stayman and smolen. That is somewhat memory intensive. But regular smolen is only memory intensive if you think it is. Iow, it’s less memory work than a coherent xyz treatment. If your brain can handle xyz, you should have no problem with smolen once you stop telling yourself that it’s too hard.


Does it arise often? No.

But you could play a full session of bridge and not have a jacoby transfer auction. On another day you won’t have a weak two. On yet another, you won’t have a drury auction. There are far more conventions in play than there are hands in a session.

Frequency of use is definitely a factor to consider when weighing the adoption of a new convention (new to your partnership). Ease of memory is another but is one that many advancing players over think. Familiarity makes earlier fears of forgets seem overblown in hindsight. Btw, I’ve probably played more artificial agreements than anybody here, partly because I’ve played duplicate for more than 50 years but mostly because I an very much a fan of complex methods and I have a good memory. But…and I think this is important to appreciate…I have had an enormous number of forgets….roughly one for every artificial agreement I’ve ever played. Nothing makes me remember a gadget better than forgetting it…that may sound paradoxical but I suspect I’m not alone when I say I remember my mistakes better than I remember anything good that I manage to do.

As for why I play smolen: it’s not that much about right-siding. In my main partnership we do consider right siding more than most, and that principle underlies a lot of our relay sequences, where we try to maximize having the undescribed hand as declarer. But even though we spend a lot of time developing such methods, in reality right siding is a low frequency issue. But smolen makes trivial an otherwise difficult problem…how to show 5=4 majors with gf values after either 1N or 2N. Stayman doesn’t really work well for the 5=3 fit. And often 3N is inferior…responder is often 5431 and opener needn’t have his stiff suit well stopped. Plus when opener is 3=2 majors, with a 5=3 fit, he may be able to take a ruff in his hand. Finally, smolen helps on the infrequent slam bidding.

In summary…I think the memory demands are more imaginary than real (compared to other methods people play),and while the frequency is low, that’s true of many conventions that are popular, and there are virtually no theoretical downsides. Put another way: when I play with someone who doesn’t know muppet, I’ll ask them to play smolen over 2N rather than puppet, since I think smolen is more useful.

[paulg]

I play Smolen over 1NT and 2NT, including with my wife who plays few conventions, and she's had no problems remembering it.

[P_Marlowe]

I also think, that the complexity of Smolen is low, the idea to bid the other major
showes up in certain Multi response structures as well.