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mikeh, on 2015-July-22, 11:29, said:
You say that, as you understand them, there is little reason why one should focus on suit quality...even Hxxxx should be enough since opener is almost as likely to hold AQx when responder has Kxxxx as he is to hold Axx when responder holds KQxxx. I disagree with you on that, just on frequency grounds, but that is not the main reason for arguing that the 2♥ response, when one has a legitimate choice between various options (here, splinter, 2H, and J2N) should be based on a good suit (which I would define for these purposes as a 2/3 top honours or better, 5 cards or longer...the OP suit is absolute minimum...see a more recent thread where I advocated a 2♦ response with a 5530 with Kxxxx in spades and KQJxx in diamonds).
While we would like to find partner with the Ace, on many layouts Jx or Jxx will suffice, and even xx is ok if he has good controls in the minors.
Another flaw in your understanding is your apparent belief that those who bid 2♥ do so because they intend to splinter later, and that an inconvenient rebid by opener (basically anything other than 2♠) renders that impossible.
I would cheerfully splinter over 2♠, and would consider that to be a near-perfect description of my hand, but I am not choosing 2♥ simply because I hope to be able to splinter. I hope, and expect, to be able to convey a lot of useful information over most of the more probable bids by partner.
Sure. This is kinda my point, that if you have a lot of system and fairly careful agreements it will be right to bid 2H a lot of the time. In fact, the way that I play I am almost guaranteed to be able to show both 5 hearts and the diamond singleton, so I would do that. My point is that this is a fairly marginal decision that depends a lot on your other system. I have played system in the past that made it necessary to splinter on this hand, because 1S-2H in 2/1 is quite a difficult and overloaded auction and I looked to gain definition on some of those other hands. I didn't find it a problem.
As others have pointed out I am not PhilG. I used to be quite active here a few years ago but then I got busy. the TLDR of my bridge is that I play open team bridge for Scotland, which is pretty bad at bridge really as nations go. So its good that I get lots of top tier exposure, but gets a bit tiring losing all the time. I am also not that good at expressing myself in post, and often come across as more critical and confrontational than I intend. We used to argue a lot on these boards a few years ago. I am sure that we will again.
