[zasanya]

aguahombre, on May 30 2010, 10:35 AM, said:

zasanya, on May 30 2010, 09:06 AM, said:

A good criterion for opening 11 hcp hands is open if 6 losers or less.Do not open if 7 losers or more.More adventurous souls can open with 7 losers but opening a 8 loser 11 hcp hand cannot be recommended.

Then your conclusion would be that #2 is a much better 9-loser hand. I assume that means you would not open it even if the club jack were the queen, making it a good 8-loser hand.

LTC has always given me problems, but I think AJT9 K9X QT9X QT9X would lure me into opening. (Yes, I am clowning about the two minor suit x's- in case that needed to be said).

My resident authority on LTC tells me that it is much better used AFTER a fit has been found, than when deciding whether to open a particular balanced hand.

I was not commenting on the hands given by the opening poster.My comment was about opening hands with 11 hcp and the comment was based on the book The Modern Losing Trick Count (page 128 line 21) by Ron Klinger who I consider THE authority on all aspects of bidding. The hand given by you AJ109 K9x Q109x Q109x has 12 hcp (not 11) fortified by excellent intermediates and is definitely an opening hand.

[vuroth]

nige1, on May 31 2010, 08:54 PM, said:

hsheng, on May 30 2010, 03:12 AM, said:

An expert was mad at me because I opened with an 11-point hand and warned me don't do it anymore.  It may be hard to say which leads to a better result in practice, opening with 11 pts or not, but there is bad 11 pts and good 11 pts, as shown in the following:
♠AJ53 ♥K32 ♦Q653 ♣J742

7N is a reasoable gamble. If partner has a little something
eg ♠ K ♥ AQ ♦ KJxxx ♣ KQxxx
You can concede a couple of tricks and claim the remaining 13

[Apollo81]

Since you've got 15 cards, that means each opponent holds only 12. If you can win trick 12, no one will be able to follow to the last three tricks. Thus these hands are worth at least a 2NT opener.

[hsheng]

Hi, folks, thank you all for valuable remarks