During our exploration of the reactivity of NHCs in conjugate additions, we observed that reaction outcomes from a common substrate could vary depending on the type of NHC employed (Scheme 1). When aldehyde 1 was treated with triazolium salt A and KOt Bu, the formation of 2 (a Stetter adduct) was observed. However, when imidazolium salt E was employed for the same reaction, to our surprise, 3 (a Michael adduct) was exclusively produced. We attributed these results to the Brønsted basicity of the NHC catalysts used and set out to explore the utility of imidazolium carbenes in the direct generation of aldehyde enolates for intramolecular Michael reactions.