[gurgistan]

I am currently learning Precision and I am told various bids are made if balanced and others if unbalanced. I want to know how the hand shape 5422 is thought of amongst precision players. Is it balanced or not?

[Free]

5422 can be considered balanced, even 6322. It depends on the suits and honour location.

[Stephen Tu]

Hands with multiple doubletons are usually called "semi-balanced".

How you treat them depends if the long suits are majors or minors. Holding major suit(s), treat as unbalanced, because getting to major suit partials and games are attractive. With minors, you would treat as balanced more often, as this preempts the opps majors (if opening 1nt), and getting to minor partials doesn't score quite as well and is difficult in precision anyway since your diamond opener is only 2+.

Suit quality also plays a role, with strength mainly in the long suits you'd tend to treat as unbalanced

[chasetb]

'Balanced' hands are any 4432, 4333, or 5332. 'Semi-balanced hands' are any 5422, 6322, or even 7222, as the semi refers to the fact that there is no suit with 0-1 cards. Ultimately, it depends on where the honor cards are for how you treat the semi-balanced hands. I have treated 5422 many times as a balanced hand when I have had Ax or Kx in both short suits. I have also opened a few 6322 hands (6-card minor) 2NT, and even a 7222 (7-card minor) 2NT. The 7222 gained, because while I went down 1, 4♥ was made in the other direction.

[gurgistan]

Many thanks all for the excellent responses.

[hrothgar]

gurgistan, on 2011-March-28, 00:30, said:

I am currently learning Precision and I am told various bids are made if balanced and others if unbalanced. I want to know how the hand shape 5422 is thought of amongst precision players. Is it balanced or not?

If you're stretching things

♠ K
♥ AKxx
♦ KTxx
♣ KTxx

and

K
AKxx
KT982
KJx

can be considered balanced...

[whereagles]

I consider 4441s as

- balanced if singleton is AKQ
- unbalanced if singleton J or worse. The best of 4-card suits upgrades to a 5-carder and the hand bids accordingly.

One might want to stretch this definition to 6331s and/or 5431s.

[Free]

chasetb, on 2011-March-28, 10:56, said:

'Balanced' hands are any 4432, 4333, or 5332. 'Semi-balanced hands' are any 5422, 6322, or even 7222, as the semi refers to the fact that there is no suit with 0-1 cards. Ultimately, it depends on where the honor cards are for how you treat the semi-balanced hands. I have treated 5422 many times as a balanced hand when I have had Ax or Kx in both short suits. I have also opened a few 6322 hands (6-card minor) 2NT, and even a 7222 (7-card minor) 2NT. The 7222 gained, because while I went down 1, 4♥ was made in the other direction.

Weird, I've always considered 4441 as semi balanced because there's only 1 card different from a 4432 (=balanced) distribution. Seems like our definitions of semibalanced are a little different.

[1eyedjack]

Finer points of semantics do not particularly interest me. Of what consequence is it to me that 5422 is "semi-balanced" rather than "balanced" if I am going to bid them the same way in any case?

Anyway, in answer to the OP, I think that in a precision system there is some pressure to shoehorn some hand-shapes into a 1N opener that you might not do in a standard natural system, to take some pressure off the 1D and 2C openers, and with the 1C opener not being available. So I would routinely open 1N with some borderline hands in precision that I might not otherwise.

[dake50]

I think y'all are confusing balanced-by-definition with
"I'm going to bid as if balanced - get into NT"
5422 is not unbalanced: has no single, void.
Treat it as bal if doubletons look to be stops
(or need little from partner to stops).
The "I have tenaces, so I should declare" even if slight deviation.
Conversely, AQxxx +AKxx always shows each suit -let partner decide if NT.