[jerdonald]

BBO forum,

Just learning Puppet Stayman and it looks like you use it any time
your partner opens 1NT and you have at least 8 points and at least
one 4 card major. What about hands that have no 4 card major such
as 3,3,5,2 and you have 9 points all in the minors?
We do open 1NT with a 5 card major so we could miss an
8 card major fit with the above hand if responder just
bids 2NT.

Any other suggestions about this convention?


jerryd

[Antrax]

It sounds like you're new to stayman, and not puppet stayman. Puppet stayman can be used to find five-card (and four-card) majors in the NT opener's hand. In puppet, opener bids a major when he holds five cards in the major, , ♦ if he has a four-card major and NT if he has no more than three cards in each major. There are many variations, of course, but I think "puppet" refers only to what I wrote above.
May I also suggest using this forum: http://www.bridgebas...beginner-forum/ which is meant for complete answers to relatively simple questions.

[awm]

Usually a 5-3 fit with both hands balanced is no better than notrump (and sometimes worse). Also, bidding puppet on these hands gives information to the defense (often) and finds a 5-3 major fit only rarely (usually opener will not have). Assuming that you have a natural 2NT available (and many people don't, since they will use 2NT as transfer to diamonds or something), I would recommend bidding that and not 2♣ on these hands.

Of course, if you have a singleton (say 3154) you bid puppet.

[pigpenz]

yes its amazing how many times you open 1NT with a five card major and they lead your suit
probably more beneficial over 2NT opening or 2♣/2NT rebid

[barmar]

I don't use Puppet Stayman over 1NT, but I know some people do.

Some people use 2♣ for regular Stayman and 3♣ for Puppet Stayman. I think the idea there is that you only use Puppet Stayman if you have a singleton or void and a 3-card major -- in that case, finding the 8-card fit can mean the difference between making and going down.

[mgoetze]

barmar, on 2013-January-12, 22:24, said:

Some people use 2♣ for regular Stayman and 3♣ for Puppet Stayman. I think the idea there is that you only use Puppet Stayman if you have a singleton or void and a 3-card major

There are more advantages, for instance if you have a GF hand with exactly one 4-card major, you can use puppet to avoid information leakage.

[Zelandakh]

You can use Puppet when you have reason to believe that your major suit fit will play better than NT and that the information leakage will not be too damaging. That boils down to something similar to what Adam said in practise. There are also different forms of Puppet Stayman after a 1NT opening. The traditional form is for Opener to bid 2 of their 5 card major if one is held and 2♦ otherwise. This is the version I use, even though it has largely gone out of fashion. You can also use the form, designed for a 2NT opening, described by Antrax but this seems to me to be strictly worse since you lose Exit Stayman and do not really get anything back in return. The modern (American) way is to use a direct 3♣ (or sometimes 2NT) response as Puppet Stayman. This is (arguably) less efficient in terms of bidding space than traditional but makes up for that by allowing a great deal of flexibility in which information gets given to the defence.

[akhare]

If you do have 2N available, you can try using the low information version that we use.